My Brush with Scientology

Results of the Standard Oxford Capacity Analysis [1]

which I completed on 9 November 1984

 

 

Watching an episode of Peep Show in which Jez and Super Hans join a religious cult [2], reminded me that I was once persuaded to take a free personality test administered by the Church of Scientology ...

Friday 9 November 1984 [3]

 

Assured that it wouldn't take more than twenty minutes to complete and that I'd have the results within the hour - and as it's always amusing to discover how others see one - I agreed. Of the 200 multiple choice questions, I answered 198 and left two blank; one that was too stupid to even consider and one concerning my voting habits (as an anarchist, that's not a political process I participate in).  

      Afterwards, I went to Dillons to look for a book on fairy tales by Jack Zipes, recommended to me by Malcolm. On the way back, I stopped to pick up my test and was given a brief explanation of the results (all conveniently plotted on a graph) by a friendly (though somewhat earnest) young woman who said, amongst other things, I was depressed, nervous, overly critical, and irresponsible. 

      All of these things may very well be true, but I begged to differ with her conclusion that I was in need of urgent attention - although everyone at Charisma seemed to think that was probably the case, particularly Jon, who found it all very amusing.     

 

      

Notes

 

[1] The Standard Oxford Capacity Analysis is a long list of questions (each of which can be answered yes, no, or maybe) purporting to be personality test and administered for free by the Church of Scientology as an important part of its global recruitment process. 

      However, it is not a scientifically recognised test and has been criticised by numerous professional bodies. The results of the test are invariably negative, as might be expected.

 

[2] Peep Show, episode six of series five; 'Mark's Women' (dir. Becky Martin, 2008).

      Jez and Hans are busking opposite The New Wellness Centre operated by a mysterious new religious movement (don't call it a cult). Deciding that it will be warmer in the Centre and that it might also be fun to laugh at the freaks, they go inside, only to then sign up as fervent new members. Click here and here for a couple of clips on Youtube.  

 

[3] This is (a slightly revised) entry from The Von Hell Diaries (1980-89). 

      Just to clarify: Dillons was a famous Bloomsbury bookshop (founded by Una Dillon in 1936); Jack Zipes is an American professor of German literature and cultural studies (the book I wanted was Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales (1979); the Malcolm that I mention is Malcolm McLaren; Charisma was a famous independent record label based in Soho; Jon is Jon Crawley, director of Charisma Music Publishing.  

 

Hoplophilia 2: Mark and Jez: For the Love of Gunny

Yeah, sure. You've got sarcasm, but I've got a big gun. 

Now pass me the Doritos ...

 

 

I. 

 

To reiterate: you don't have to own a gun or be a member of the shooting fraternity to acknowledge the fetishistic appeal of firearms; guns are stylish, guns are cool, and guns are deadly. In short, guns are sexy and they excite many different types of people. 

 

Some, like Melanie Blanchard, whose case we examined in part one [click here], have an erotico-philosophical fascination for guns along with other dangerous objects that might facilitate exiting this boring world. Such people are keen to investigate the profound complicity between love and death.   

 

Others, like the socially and sexually awkward loan manager Mark Corrigan and his best friend Jeremy (played by David Mitchell and Robert Webb in the Channel 4 series Peep Show), have a more comic - although, arguably, just as kinky - fascination for firearms ...

 

 

II. 

 

Following the death of Jeremy's great-aunt, he and Mark (with the assistance of Super Hans, played by Matt King) are clearing out her house. Quite unexpectedly, Jeremy comes across a gun - or an illegal firearm as Mark calls it - hidden in an old box. 

 

Excited by his new toy, Jeremy takes Gunny home and leaves it in a drawer in his bedside table. Although Mark pretends otherwise, he's also turned on by the thought of the weapon and so, later, when he thinks Jez isn't around, he sneaks into the latter's bedroom in order to admire and fondle Gunny.   

 

The following scene, written by Simon Blackwell, is much loved by hoplophiles everywhere:

 

 

Mark: (Right, everyone's out. Might sneak a little peek at the gun. It's fine to be fascinated by the gun. It's fascinating. Everything that can kill a man is fascinating. Guns, electric chairs, paracetamol, lead piping.)

 

Jeremy: Hello Mark. 

 

Mark: Oh, hi Jez. I was just, you know, making sure it was safe. Gunny, the gun. 

 

Jeremy: You like it Mark. That's fine, you like the gun. Guns are great. Design classics like the Routemaster bus or ... those chairs. 

 

Mark: It's fine to like it as an object, isn't it? I might carry it around the flat for a bit. Would that be OK? 

 

Jeremy: Sure, man. Enjoy. 

 

Mark: (Oh, this is good, this feels so good.) [1]

 

What's interesting is how - just like Melanie in Death and the Maiden - Mark also finds the thought of deadly weapons and potentially lethal objects fascinating and how, like Melanie, it (sexually) excites him to hold the beautiful-looking gun.     

 

The episode ends with Jeremy disappointed to discover that Gunny has been deactivated: "It's like he's told me my cock doesn't work." This understanding of the gun in phallic terms is, of course, a psycho-cultural cliché - and you don't have to be a Freudian (or a James Bond fan) to see it [2]. 

 

Melanie Blanchard, if I may refer to her case once more, is happily reminded of a former lover's sex organ - "which had given her so much pleasure for so many weeks" [3] - by the gun she steals. And, when, in 1975, looking for a term to describe the group of sexy young assassins he had assembled and agreed to manage, it's no coincidence that Malcolm McLaren decided upon the term Pistols.  

 

Notes 

 

[1] 'Jeremy's Mummy' is the fourth episode of the fifth series of the British sitcom Peep Show (and the twenty-eighth episode overall). Directed by Becky Martin, it first aired on 23 May, 2008. The full script of this and other episodes of Peep Show can be found online: click here. To watch this and related scenes featuring Gunny, click here.

 

[2] Readers interested in the topic of phallic weapons as a cultural trope can learn more on TV Tropes: click here.

 

[3] Michel Tournier, 'Death and the Maiden', in The Fetishist, trans. Barbara Wright, (Minerva, 1992), p. 122.  

 

 

Calimocho: On the Politics of Wine and Cola

 Andy Warhol: Coca-Cola (3), 1962

Probably the most powerful argument for choosing a cool can of Coke over a fine glass of wine remains that made by Andy Warhol and it's primarily a cultural-political argument tied to American consumerism, rather than one concerning taste (in either sense of the word) or sobriety:

"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."   

- The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, (Harcourt, 1975)

This is undeniably true and one senses something of this same patriotism and ironic egalitarianism of the market place - one might almost call it Coca-Cola communism - born of a New World dislike for Old World snobbery, in George Costanza's equally robust defence of Pepsi.

Reminded by Elaine that it's customary for guests to bring a bottle of wine to a dinner party, George informs her that he doesn't even drink wine - he drinks Pepsi. When Elaine scornfully tells him that he can't bring Pepsi to a gathering of grown-ups, George snorts: "You telling me that wine is better than Pepsi? Huh, no way wine is better than Pepsi."

Even Jerry's attempt to intervene by telling his outraged friend that the fabric of society is very complex and that one has to conform to all manner of customs and conventions, fails to placate George on this point. Later, in the car driving to the party, George asks: "What are we Europeans with the Beaujolais and the Chardonnay ...?" 

Still, none of this serves to explain Jeremy's discomfort at ordering a bottle of Barolo when on a date in an episode of Peep Show. He's obviously put off by the price (£45), but does he really think that wine is less delicious than hot chocolate or Coke? If so, this simply makes him juvenile rather than American does it not?    

Notes:

See Seinfeld, 'The Dinner Party', episode 13, season 5 (1994) and Peep Show, 'Burgling', episode 1, series 5 (2008).