I was in the city and had nothing better to do, so I decided to do the OCA and IQ tests.
Walking up to the Co$, I struggled to keep a straight face as I noticed the "Keep Clear" notice on the road. Subliminal message? Or perhaps not-so-subliminal!
Walking into the building, I was expecting to see SO personnel walking around in their fake navy uniforms and people giving me perfect blank TR0 stares. Boy, was I wrong.
I walk straight up to an Indian guy sitting at a desk and said "I'd like to do the Personality and IQ tests thanks" which I think surprised him for a second or two, before he led me to my seat and gave me the OCA to begin with. I sat down right next to the computer, so I could see him keying in my results later on.
I finished the OCA in record time - something like 10 minutes. I had to suppress laughter at certain questions... "Do you often sing or whistle just for fun?", "Does emotional music have quite an effect on you?" and "Do you feel sometimes that age is against you?" - all lines from Faith No More's "Land Of Sunshine", which as I understand it is an Anti-$cn song.
I then proceeded to do the IQ test in 22 minutes - once again, suppressing laughter at certain things such as the LOBOTOMY question etc. As I did this IQ test, the guy was entering my OCA results into the computer - he got his password wrong and it flashed up some ethics code about unauthorized access to the system, and some HCO quote, but I didn't catch any details before he reset the computer.
He quickly marked my IQ test and we got to talking. I did incredibly poorly on the OCA, with most of my results in the -80s or -90s. Only... "Aggressive" is in the acceptable state. However, on the IQ test, I scored 141, in 22 minutes of the 30 minute period allowed. Gotta love their accuracy, hey? I then revealed my ruin, and he gave me a quick runthrough of what Dianetics is about. You know, the reactive mind, clear, all that basic $cn stuff. He then asked if I would like to watch the Dianetics DVD, which I did, and then I collected as many different leaflets as I could. The guy then ran upstairs to grab me some magazines - a couple of copies of "Communication", the Co$ Melbourne magazine, and a copy of Source. While he was upstairs, I planted a copy of the Xenu leaflet underneath the "What Is Scientology?" book on the table - so the next person wanting to know the answer to that question will be finding out more than they bargained for.
I learned that this guy is one of the body routers - he gave me one of the personality test tickets and asked me to pass it on to somebody else. I then asked if $cn believes in God, so he ran me through the 8 dynamics... and then I said "Hey, isn't LRH the guy who wrote 'Battlefield Earth', that dud movie with John Travolta?" so he said "well I don't know who John Travolta is, but I have heard that LRH was a science fiction writer, yes..." and he then showed me JT's quote inside the front cover of Dianetics (and tried to sell me a copy for $70... a fair bit more than the 20 cents or whatever I paid for my copy) and then he ran out the back to see if he could get any articles on Tom Cruise for me... at which point I followed him to the back of the room and when he came out I asked him about the Sea Org poster.
He kinda "explained" the Sea Org without actually mentioning boats, water, uniforms, or billion year contracts... I was rather disappointed with his explanation but I decided not to push it, because he had told me he had only been in Australia for 6 months.
I kinda felt sorry for the guy, his English wasn't 100%, and he was suckered into believing all the LRH propaganda. Seemed like a nice guy. What really broke my heart, though, was the number of little kids running around... hopefully they grow up into little Astra's, and not into little Rondroids. Some woman got sold the purif while I was watching the Dianetics DVD, and some guy got sold the Dianetics DVD while I was doing the OCA. I saw quite a few different staffers there though - maybe 10?
I left a copy of the Xenu leaflet on the train on the way in too, and at the bus stop and on the bus on the way back home.
So that's my story. The visit was... enlightening, to say the least. I now realise that yes, there are real people in $cn. I now realise that not all of Co$ is quite as evil as I first thought. The belief system isn't all that harmful, when you think about it. It's the actions of the "church".