All hail the zombie. I for one welcome our new Zombie Overlords.
I had a friend in college who was a very bright, fun sociology major. She was in the process of converting to Judaism for the sake of her fiancé when she was offered a free “evaluation” by Scientologists. They assured her that it wasn’t really a religion, just a really fun self-help organization! I can remember staring at her in horror in our German class and asking, “Honey, then why do they call it the Church of Scientology?”
After that semester, I never saw her again. Nobody did. We assumed she dropped out, but nobody could get a hold of her by phone or email either.
Maybe she just had stuff come up in her life and dropped out of contact, or decided we were all jerks. Chances are good, though, that since she cut off contact and didn’t really like our warnings about Scientology that she got sucked in there. Frankly, I wouldn’t dare take one of those questionnaires and I’m relieved to see the OP has been warned. Even smart people can disappear into that cult. Judging by what they had my friend spouting off after her evaluation, they were very, very convincing.
Who better to revive a zombie Scientology Thread than an ex-member?
If it’s not there, it’s somewhere - I know, because I have read it. I had to stop after about 30 questions, though, because it started to make me feel crazy. I am dead serious. Freaked me right out.
I’ve taken the test online before. I just got really, really bored in the middle of it, because I don’t like questionnaires. After I filled it out, I got a few letters from them trying to get me to come in for auditing. I guess their recruitment centers here aren’t particularly aggressive, though, because they stopped after a while.
In my case, I was just trying to figure out what the hell they even were. At the time, I couldn’t figure out if it was a religion or what. I was never actually interested, mostly because of a lack of interest in any religion, but when I finally found xenu.net online, I became fascinated with studying cults in general. I wish I could find a print copy of Bare-Faced Messiah or that the writer would turn it into a POD book.
How did I miss this before? WOOKIN could be my neighbor! Wait … unless you’re in Russia? Anyway, I know you’ve been talked out of it but I’d like to throw in a belated don’t do it! They’re frickin’ scary.
I had a similar experience when I was young and naive and was a voracious Science Fiction reader and had no idea of who L. Ron was except a sci fi writer. I ordered a bunch of books from (I think it was) Bridge Publications. Then I kept getting all sorts of mail from the Scientologists. I moved and only notified companies that I wanted to hear from of my change in address. I lived with my parents for a while and started getting mail from Sciento’s again. I moved again and left no forwarding address and somehow they got it anyway. They also somehow found my email address and I am constantly blocking new email domains from them. It’s been over 20 freaking years and I have never once bought another thing from any Scientology related enterprise! Don’t go anywhere near them. Just don’t do it.
Common wisdom on this topic is that the “Church” part was devised to protect the “really fun self-help organization” from the scrutiny and billings of the taxing authorities.
I’ll close the zombie, and direct those interested to the currently active thread in GD.