Free Stress Test!

A funny thing happened to me on the way to Religulous last Saturday. Since the theater I was seeing the film was near Union Square in NYC, I walked down 42nd St. to the Time Square subway station, where $cientologists have recently set up shop. You used to sometimes see them outside on the sidewalk along 42nd St. but the last several times I’d been in the Time Square subway station they’d been there.

So I decided to observe them while they gave passersby “Free Stress Tests.” And a Hispanic man walked over next to me and asked if I actually believed this stuff? I told him, not at all. He pointed out his wife who was taking the stress test and we both talked about how bullshit it all was. I don’t know if his wife was really into it or if she was just messing around.

E-meter

But anyway, one of the $cientologists finished and was calling out if anyone wanted a free stress test. The Hispanic man egged me on, so I decided to take it. I’d actually never done that before. Of course I already know exactly how the trick is done. It involves holding 2 metal cans attached to an E-meter, a fancy-looking pressure detector (of course, according to them it measures stress, which after spending more money you learn are really particles in your body called engrams, which after spending much, much more money, you find out are the brainwashed aliens souls of the people from a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away called Thetans).

So I tried to hold the cans as lightly as I could to keep the dial left of the midpoint. But the trick is that the $cientologist is contantly tuning a knob on the E-meter to ensure that no matter what amount of pressure you apply to the cans, the dial will always slowly move to the right of the midpoint. So as he was doing his initial tuning, I had a little fun and started altering my grip on the cans, sometimes tightening it to make the dial shoot all the way to the right and sometimes lessoning it, causing the dial to rapidly drop back to zero. The guy then told me, unsurprisingly, to please not alter my grip on the cans. I followed his instructions.

E-meter

Then the test began. He asked me to think about something. I forget everything he asked me to think about and the order of the questions but they were basically things where one would likely have stress like, “Think about your job,” “Think about your family,” “Think about your health,” etc. Several seconds after asking the first question, the E-meter started moving to the right, past the midpoint. The confident $cientologist, called out:

“You see that? That’s stress. What were you just thinking about?”

I answered him honestly, “The tablecloth in front of me.” The $cientologist was confused: “You mean, you weren’t thinking about _____?” Me: “No.” Him: “Okay, let’s try this again. Think about, your family.”

“You see that? That’s stress. What were you just thinking about?”

I again answered him honestly, “Still the tablecloth.” This went on for a few more questions and he started getting frustrated, asking, “Do you want to do this?” After only a few questions, he asked me to think about “personal relationships in my life” and I think he got really frustrated when he learned that the personal relationship that was causing me stress was this one. I explained that I was thinking about the personal interaction between him and I that we were having right now. I think that was the final question he asked. Apparently the test was now over and he didn’t even bother to try and sell me anything, offer me a copy of Dianetics, or invite me to come down to the $cientology Center. I was done. As I got up, I don’t know if he heard me but I muttered that the tablecloth must have been full of a lot of Thetans. I guess I aced the test.

I then walked very quickly to my subway, which luckily had just arrived, looked behind me to see if I’d been followed or anything, and then hopped in before the doors closed because you can never be too careful or paranoid when messing with $cientologists. But I was all clear (no pun intended).

So there you go. That’s how you debunk the E-meter. Don’t just take my word for it. Try it yourself next time you see a $cientologist stand offering a Free Stress Test. Don’t think about what they tell you to think about. Instead, think about something benign like the tablecloth. If possible, don’t even listen to what they they tell you to think about. It doesn’t matter. The meter will always move to the right and they will always tell you that you’re stressed. It’s just a carnival trick used to bilk you out of your money. But then again, maybe I’m just “glib.”