A Billion Years: My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology

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remini/), with plenty of citation to detail. What Billion Years made clear is that Mike is not an amnesiac after all. Instead, he is an inveterate liar. Memory loss is merely his justification for his continually making it up as he goes along. Victimhood and hero status both thoroughly rely

apparently persuaded him to let his hair down and let his consciousness flow to reveal the real Rinder. For example: Please allow me one more gush before I quit, okay? Just knowing Mike Rinder exists: that someone brought up in Scientology, which is hellbent on beating the human warmth out of people, can come out the other side twice as tender and emotionally adept as the average person … At the outset, I was enthusiastic and determined to get the truth out to counteract what I believed were lies about Hubbard perpetuated by those who sought to take him down. Ultimately, however, the task of writing a church-authorized biography of L. Ron Hubbard was a fool's errand. There were too many things that could not be ignored or explained in the man's life. If everything that was a lie, embellishment, or embarrassment was omitted, the biography would be so full of holes that even scientologists wouldn't buy it. Furthermore, if we published a book that full of lies, we opened ourselves up to being dissected by reviewers and critics...So instead of publishing a biography that risked opening scientology up to criticism, we followed the example of the LRH Life Exhibition and published issues of Ron magazine that covered carefully selected stories about Hubbard's life, such as 'Master Mariner' and 'The Humanitarian.' Each included convenient facts but left huge gaps." (p. 136-37) Our most basic instinct to belong and to be accepted is our biggest weakness in the end. Our desire to connect convinces us that we will improve or enlighten ourselves. Or at least receive support and acceptance. There's nostalgia and remorse in Mike Rinder's case. And heartbreak. I have read a LOT of Scientology books and watched basically every documentary, include Aftermath - Mike’s show he hosted with Leah Remini. Despite all of that previous exposure to this cult, my jaw still dropped more than once at the absolute madness that is Scientology.It is always so sad to read about other people's negative experiences with religion. The truth is that there are terrible people with terrible power in this world, and religion can give some of these people the platform they crave to wreak as much havoc as possible on the lives of others. Mike Rinder's experience with scientology (I would call it a cult before I call it an actual religion) was terribly abusive, manipulative, and terror inducing, and reading his story made me so appreciative of the life I have led so far. I have freedom. Mike did not. Just reading about how he started sleeping 8 hours a night for the first time, and how he was able to visit a park and be able to take time to enjoy it for the first time after leaving scientology, was illuminating. I wish Mike Rinder and all other victims of abuse in scientology peace and comfort. and 1992 - let alone involved in the IRS, Scientology struggle - it could not have escaped him that the IRS was having its head handed to it on a daily basis in that trial. As each day progressed it became more clear to even Scientology-suspicious observers (e.g., editors of Tax Notes) that a) Scientology parishioner donations would be recognized as exempt and b) the IRS would likely be nailed to the cross for discriminatory practices in a fashion no federal agency had been since the

As the saying goes: 'Silence is violence', right, when you choose to remain silent while there's suffering and ignorance? Mike chose to speak up and share his experiences. So did a multitude of others. One such a book is My Billion Year Contract by Nancy Many(2009). The rest is available on Youtube. I watched and then read Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief and saw "Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath." That might be the problem with this book. Most of the things in it are covered by those already. Mike Ridner's early life in scientology was interesting and mostly new, but most of this was handled in the series and in the previous book. negotiations and historically in-depth IRS audits that culminated in tax exemption. Even with my detailed descriptions over the past several years publicly available, Rinder's new fiction betrays a remarkable degree of ignorance about Scientology's history vis a vis the IRS.The first obstacle was that the Supreme Court had ruled Scientology donations were not tax-deductible. The second was a Federal Court ruling on Church of Spiritual Technology's (CST) tax exemption application. The latter was so critical that he quotes an entire paragraph from the

I was not thrilled that I was missing out on the excitement of being front and center in the crowd..." I didn't actually consider the dirty work itself to be degrading...It was the humiliation of being sent to do the lowest grunt duties in front of all the Freewinds crew." From billion year contracts, to mysteriously missing people, to surveillance cameras, to Xenu the alien leader and his hydrogen bombs, Scientology is even more wild, and it’s leaders (past and present) even more unhinged than you ever thought possible.However, nowadays it is also true of families and friends who are 'cancelled', even 'doxxed' if they reject/escape the teachings of a particular political eco chamber. How accurate was '1984' , or 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell? History teaches us that escapees of ideologies often are brutally prosecuted and killed; religions 'shun' people'. Jim Carrey's movie 'The Truman Show' gives me the heebie-jeebies too. Yikes! Both horns of his impossible dilemma are invented. The CST federal court ruling he cites occurred almost a year after the IRS negotiations and audits had begun. Had Rinder actually participated in either the litigation or the negotiations he would have known that the IRS was certain that the lower court judge's opinion was so biased and baseless that the pending appeal would certainly be won by Scientology. In the year since the record review had begun the IRS already conceded that their basis for denying CST exemption was discredited. They were almost embarrassed by the CST federal court ruling when it came out; realizing they could not support the findings with facts. For that reason, the CST decision was more of a problem for the IRS than for the Church.

There are even more religious mantras based on the writings of Madame Blavatsky, who was a Russian mystic and author, a co-founder of the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy. Her theories were plagiarized big time and even taken over and adjusted by Eugenics. At what point, if ever, did she influence Hubbard in establishing his non-Christian Church? There are rumors to the effect though. If (like me) you've watched Scientology and the Aftermath and Going Clear, listened to the first season of the Fair Game podcast, and further researched the organization, you might be wondering if this book offers anything you haven't already learned about Mike Rinder's life. Well, it does. Many events were familiar to me, but new details emerge as well.Next, fifteen years after leaving Scientology Rinder suddenly emerges now as the cause of Scientology's tax exemption. He was mum on the subject for fifteen years - rightly deferring to me on that subject - precisely because he had little to nothing to do with the dozens of court struggles