Scientology Church personality test

There has been a certain focus on the Church of Scientology this last month here in Norway, due to the daughter of a Norwegian MP committing suicide after having taken the free personality test that the Church offers - in Nice, where she was a student. What could be more natural then, for a bored 30-something at work, attending a course that clearly has no more to offer her, than to look this test up on the Internet, and take it. After all, I AM into Internet tests, especially the scientifically based ones, which this one clearly is, bearing a name that oozes of academia, namely Oxford Capacity Analysis. From thought to action: here we go!

First I had to fill in name, age, gender, occupation and contact info. Well Professor Cecilia van der Bilt in Utrecht, Netherlands (wow: Professor at the age of 24 - that IS impressive!): if you are out there somewhere and you get the Scientology Church on your neck, please forgive me. I couldn’t give my real name of course, that goes without saying.

And then, the test: No less than 200 questions, where you had three options; yes, no or something in between. This test is supposed to show you your weaknesses and strengths based on your answers to these questions. Of course; the analysis of your answers will only be given to you in full by a trained analyst at your nearest Scientology Church, so I knew that I wouldn’t fully comprehend my personality when not giving my real name and contact info. But since there was the promise of a graph which would give me an indication, that was a risk I was willing to take.

Well, let me tell you straight away: there was no such graph. Needless to say, I was devastated: I had (more or less) truthfully answered 200 questions about everything from my opinion about color bar and class distinction to whether or not I am a slow eater, and their response is to simply leave me in the dark regarding my personality? Of course, the girl who committed suicide had a score of minus 100 , so I guess the analysis could go both ways, but I’m telling you people: do you want to dig into your strengths and weaknesses - search somewhere else, because you will not find your answers simply doing the Internet test with a fake name!

Of course: the test itself is quite entertaining, and you might find out a couple of things about yourself by simply answering the questions. Then again, if you have a fairly good grip on what kind of person you are, you really don’t need this test to tell you. Take me, for example: I already knew that I’m not into meeting new people, even without answering a firm ”NO” to the question ”Do you “circulate around” at a social gathering?”. There should have been a follow-up question “Do you even like to attend social gatherings when there are people there you don’t know?”, and my answer would still be a firm “NO”.

Well, I’ve made a top 5 list of my favorite questions from the test. This part was really hard, since there are so many questions I would like to include. In fact, I could have divided the questions into a lot of different groups, my three favorites one being “Questions that might lead you to commit suicide, if you’re into that line of thought”, “Questions that, if answered positively, will lead to the conclusion that you’re mentally unstable” (also applicable to category 1) and “Questions that will reveal whether or not you’re a racist and/or a psychopath”. In the list below, however, I’ve not considered the category the questions belong to, I’ve just picked the ones I found the most amusing. Ok, here goes, in reverse order:

5. Would it take a definite effort on your part to consider the subject of suicide?
4. Do you often “sit and think” about death, sickness, pain or sorrow? (Here I have to say: the Scientology Church seems really fond of quotation marks: at least one fourth of the questions include some)
3.Do you often sing or whistle just for the fun of it?
2. Do you often give away articles which strictly speaking do not belong to you?
1. Do you browse through railway timetables, directories or dictionaries just for pleasure?

My very favorite question, though, is question number 200: “Do you sometimes feel that your age is against you (too young or too old)?”

Sweet mother: indeed I do, and I certainly dont need the Church of Scientology to point that out for me.