scientologists

There are Scientologists in Oslo. It's disappointing. I walked by a group of them this weekend. They had set up a booth in one of the public squares and were offering free "stress tests" to passersby. They had exactly the same look and setup at the 'tologists who hassled passersby on 4th and Market in San Francisco -- same card table, same pile of "Dianetics" books, some sign proclaiming free stress tests.

In the stress tests, the hapless passerby is instructed to hold two metal cylinders in each hand, and then the Scientologist guides the person through some memory or other. From what I can piece together, the cylinder apparatus is a primitive measure of galvanic skin response, which is often used in psych experiments. The basic idea is to pass a small electric current through two electrodes attached to a person, and then present that person with something that will stress them out. Under even minor stress, the skin sweats a little bit, reducing the resistance between the two electrodes. As a result, you have a somewhat objective measure of how stressful some task or thought or other activity is to someone.

I think the cylinders try to do the same thing by passing a current between them, but I have no idea. Either way, while the Scientologist is guiding the passerby own Memory Lane, he or she notes points at which the device seems to register stress on the passerby's part. What happens next, I think, is that the 'tologist returns to whatever the passerby/victim as talking about whenever the machine indicated stress, and they talk more about it. The dialogue is probably peppered with the same kind of generic statements you might get from a psychic -- statements that could apply to anyone but sound like they're specific to you. The Scientologist will also likely play upon fears common to most people, providing some generic but useless platitudes to indicate that the passerby is not alone and that help and a better life is possible.

With that, the Scientologist will invite the suitably impressed passerby to the local Scientology "church", after which the passerby will turn over all of his or her money and will never be seen again.

For some reason, I hadn't expected Scandinavians to fall prey to the same kinds of insecurities that make Americans vulnerable to such cults.