this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Measuring galvanic skin resistance isn't bullshit. But it's certainly not telling them what they claim it does.
Devices of that type are usually advertised to consumers as biofeedback machines and used for detecting autonomic sympathetic arousal to train the user to control anxiety.
Because of the harsh consequences in Scientology of failing an auditing session, Scientologists also to learn to control their responses when they're on a meter. In effect, users can train themselves to lie to it. This is how they end up with those stares that are somehow both intense and vacant.
Taking it as an abstract, I could see how that would be an incredible tool for building a cohesive unit of people.
I've read the Dianetics book because when I was a kid I would see the ads and I was like oh that's interesting and then I found a copy out of thrift store.
Dianetics offers you you know your maximum human mental potential and freedom from all of your psychosomatic and psychological illnesses. No anxiety, no schizophrenia, no bipolar disorder, no lying to yourself about anything.
And on the surface that seems good but you know obviously if it were actually capable of unlocking human potential it would now be standard course in American education.
But you put all of that aside and think about it from a different angle, and what you have is a machine that measures anxiety and a person you're telling all of your deepest darkest secrets and fears to, and you repeat the Dianetics process until you have told every single thing that you can think of about your entire life to another person.
And at that point, you're no longer anxious around that person, so the e-meter says that you have reached "clear".
Now you're surrounded with people who know all of your deepest darkest secrets and fears and completely and totally accept you as long as you adhere to their society's rules.
It's very fascinating, I couldn't imagine a better way to build a cult than with a system like that.