What apparently stresses me out

“There, right there, what was that thought?”

“Well, I guess I was thinking about finding a new apartment”

...

So I got to tour the Church of Scientology in San Francisco. The first time I walked past, I thought it was a private-like church, but as I looked more carefully I realized that it was actually a visitor center.

I have heard a lot of crazy things about Scientology and I wanted to check out if they were true.

When I got in, I learned that is was basically a self guided tour. There were a lot of places to sit and watch presentations on different aspects of Scientology.

The church of Scientology is a particularly litigious group and I will only share my experiences in the visitor center.  

The first station I stopped at was dianetics. It's basic the idea that you can control your mind's subconscious associations. I moved over to the next station on Scientology. After watching a video that was pretty reminiscent to an “I am a Mormon” video, I realized each station had more than one video, like 6 or so. There was also like 8 stations to go to. In essence, there was hours of material to watch.

It wasn't until maybe 4 videos in that I saw something that I was interested in. I got to see an e-meter, which is a device that measure electric resistance between the user's hands. An auditor (not the accounting type like me :P) looks at the changes in resistance when a question is asked, and a spike indicates an area of stress where more questions are needed.

I got to try the e-meter as a worker in the visitor center asked me questions. I felt like my thoughts didn't match up exactly with the spikes of the e-meter.

I also asked if Scientology had a system of levels that you need to pay to advance through. I was told no, there isn't anything like that. The closest thing was a rehab course they offer that is very affordable.