Back in 2009, an emergency room physician in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada caused a ruckus when he posted on Wikipedia “all 10 of the original” Rorschach inkblots. (For those readers who aren’t Canadian, yes, there really is a Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Follow the relevant link above if you don’t believe me.)
Later, someone else came along and posted common responses for those 10 inkblots.
This caused a stir on two levels. First, a publisher that bought an earlier publisher of Hermann Rorschach’s book containing the original plates licensed other companies to sell those plates and interpretive material. I guess the publisher was a little nervous about losing its revenue stream. Who wants to buy the book when you can get the inkblots and common responses for free? The publisher wanted Wikipedia to remove the plates.
The other concern came from some psychologists. They worried that, with all of this information in the public domain, people might game the Rorschach Test. (Worried? Maybe they should see a psychologist about that neurosis.)
My take is that the Wikipedia post doesn’t go nearly far enough. Sure, it’s nice to know what the popular responses are. That way, you can trick a psychologist into thinking you’re “normal,” whatever the heck that is. (Although, looking at the current state of humanity, why would you want to be mistaken for what passes as normal?)
Inkblots Chicanery
But what if you want to trick a psychologist into thinking you’re something other than normal? What are the correct Rorschach responses to elicit the diagnosis you want?
For example, what if you are incredibly paranoid and you think that a lot of criminals are out to harm and/or kill you. Without any proof, you can’t convince the police to provide around-the-clock protection. They’ll just think, correctly, that you’re paranoid.
Here’s an idea: Convince a psychologist that you’re a very dangerous sexual deviant. The psychologist might, despite doctor-patient confidentiality, feel obliged to notify the police. The police will then keep a close eye on you.
However, because you haven’t committed a crime, they can’t arrest you.
But what are the correct Rorschach answers to convince a psychologist that you are a dangerous sexual deviant? As far as I can tell, this important information is not available in the public domain.
Alternatively, what if you’re guilty of a crime and you want to get off by reason of insanity? What are the correct Rorschach Test responses to indicate insanity?
Inkblots and Employability
And what if a prospective employer sends you for psychological testing before offering you a job? If you’re looking for a career in, say, advertising, you want to hoodwink the psychologist into believing that you possess a very creative mind. After all, ad agencies can’t rely on a purely methodical mind to generate an adequate flow of the asinine advertising twaddle that endlessly bombards us.
If, on the other hand, you want to be, for example, a coder, creativity is an asset but, even more so, you need to convince the psychologist that you have a very logical mind. If you can fool the psychologist contracted by your prospective employer into thinking you have a rational, coherent mind, it may be months, or possibly even a year or two, before your employer learns otherwise when the software you wrote blows up. By then, you’ll have switched jobs two or three times.
Spoilers
What answers should you throw at the psychologist to achieve these ends when he or she flashes the inkblots at you?
As a public service, I provide the answers below. But, because I don’t want any legal trouble with the publisher of Hermann Rorschach’s book, I didn’t use the 10 known original Rorschach inkblots. Instead, thanks to very extensive research, I uncovered four previously unknown Rorschach inkblots.
After Hermann Rorschach died, his moustache groomer found these inkblot plates in Rorschach’s home. They were at the bottom of an anatomically correct teddy bear-shaped cookie jar. The plates were under some stale cookies that historians believe are from the first mass-produced batch of Fig Netwons, which were made in 1891.
Interestingly, these newly discovered inkblots do not all use the mirrored symmetry of Rorschach’s “original ten.”
Interpretations
Inkblot 1
Sexual Deviant: A butterfly having group sex with two caterpillars just before being arrested for pedophilia.
Insane: A flying saucer from Saturn that picked up a giant space salamander on its hull when it flew past Mars.
Creative: A flying saucer from the planet Xirmaneth that picked up a giant Yauanau Monster on its hull when flying past the planet Goiaina.
Literal: A squiggly line drawn in Adobe Illustrator using an “art brush”?, then mirrored across a vertical axis. A straight line drawn with a different art brush was placed in front of it.
Normal: A salamander scurrying over a small Frisbee. Is this test going to take long? My favourite reality show is coming on soon. I don’t want to miss it.
Inkblot 2
Sexual Deviant: Two people from the Blue People Group (a sexually egalitarian offshoot of a more famous group) getting themselves ready to delight in wild sex in an acrobatic position in front of a large and appreciative audience.
Insane: A ghostly Elvis Presley in heaven surrounded by an adoring blue cloud.
Creative: A true star-power, white-ghosted Elvis Presley shaking his pelvis in the midst of a blue suede cloud.
Literal: A five-sided star drawn in Adobe Illustrator using an art brush.
Normal: Two people facing each other doing sit-ups. You promised to pay me $50 to participate in this psychology experiment, right?
Inkblot 3
Sexual Deviant: A dismembered penis penetrating the vagina of a quadriplegic woman.
Insane: The ghost of Mother Theresa swallowing a listing sailboat.
Creative: The heavenly ghost of a resurrected Mother Theresa righting a listing sailboat, symbolizing the restoring of rightness to the world.
Literal: A bunch of squiggly lines drawn using a couple of different art brushes in Adobe Illustrator.
Normal: A flower. Do you validate parking?
Inkblot 4
Sexual Deviant: A very well endowed man with an erection eagerly awaiting oral sex that is about to be bestowed upon him by an oversexed cobra.
Insane: The direct, single-step evolution of snakes to humans. The snake bit off the tail of the human immediately after the picture was taken. That’s why humans don’t have tails. Come on, everyone knows that. It’s in the good book. Or at least a half-decent book. Either that or a voice told me. I’m not sure.
Creative: A depiction of the wonder of evolution of all species, represented by the Garden of Eden’s serpent and a human. The serpent symbolically bites off the tail of the predecessor species of humans, representing, in a figurative sense, the evolution to the tailless Homo sapiens that we are today.
Literal: Once again, a bunch of squiggly lines drawn using a couple of different art brushes in Adobe Illustrator.
Normal: A snake about to bite the tail of a monkey running away from the snake. I’m bored. Are we almost finished?
