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

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For some it changed lives positively, and others had to plan escapes and were traumatized, terrorized, by the organisation's own highly weaponized private army. 'Never give up, never give in' is their driving force to save people from themselves. Mike has a unique perspective on Scientology. He not only grew up in the “church” but rose to its highest ranks, working directly with self-appointed leader David Miscavige, Tom Cruise, and in his early years as a teen, founder L Ron Hubbard himself. I hate bullies. That's not alleged, that is fact. I'm giving this book five stars because, again, I hate bullies! One of the punishments for those who messed up in the RPF [Rehabilitation Project Force] was assignment to the RPF's RPF. You slept and ate separately from and were not allowed to even talk to the other RPFers." (p. 106) [You know things are bad when there are punishments within punishments]

Remini Redux ( https://markrathbun.blog/2019/08/22/r...) and Bullshit Alert: Ortega, Rinder, Remini ( https://markrathbun.blog/2020/09/15/b...- Rinder’s] voice is crisp, urgent, and vividly impassioned, whether assessing his years as a compliant member, his breathless escape, or his promise to continue exposing Scientology as a ‘unique and vengeful monster.’ An intensely personal, cathartic memoir of blind allegiance, betrayal, and liberation.” The author was inspired by books such as Educated by Tara Westover, and influenced by Russell Miller's unauthorized biography of Hubbard, Bare-faced Messiah(2012). Another book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright(2013), remained a thorn in Scientology's side for many years. Penned with clarity, style, and immense vulnerability, this engaging memoir absolutely deserves a place at the top of the list of Scientology survival stories. I listened to many testimonials and experiences of people on Youtube, who were mentioned in the book. Too many people 'escaped'. Too many folks lost their families and friends in 'disconnection'.

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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. If you are curious about cults, have an inkling your own weird movement might actually be a cult, or are interested in taking citizen action against Scientology… you won’t find a better resource than this. Rinder is articulate, sensitive, funny, and he knows everything there is to know about L. Ron Hubbard and his Sci-Fi pulp turned quasi-religious movement. 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 … A Billion Years is an extraordinarily powerful book. It is an essential account from the inside, and while it’s a devastating exposé of the abuses of the church, the tone is measured and deeply humanistic. Rinder lets us feel what it’s like to fall into a state of blind faith, and how hard it is to break free and see the truth for what it is. Nothing could be more relevant to our current moment.”

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. As much as he attempts to paint himself the adorable victim, Rinder continually betrays his barn-sized ego throughout his book. Never, in my thirty plus years in and around Scientology have I encountered a person so admittedly in it to satisfy his own vanity. Fortunately, his editors have Few people understand Scientology like Mike Rinder does. In A Billion Years, he tells the gripping, harrowing account of growing up in Scientology, serving founder L. Ron Hubbard, and rising to the top of its ranks. Mike has found purpose in his pain and his book offers not only a cautionary tale but also an inspiring story of resilience.” Hubbard noted in one of his policy letters that the hardest thing to see is that which is omitted, and this sums up the official scientology 'biography' of Hubbard." (p. 138) Mike asserts that when he stepped into the arena there was no rational hope for Scientology exemption because it was hit with the two most impossible of obstacles.There’s something so unique about Mike Rinder: an empathy that doesn’t just “feel” for people, but that deftly pinpoints the source of another’s pain and swiftly responds with a skillful word or deed to kiss the hurt, and make it better. As for the content of the book itself, this was a massive undertaking by Mike Rinder to consolidate 42 years of Scientology plus the years of the aftermath after leaving into a single book, and do it well. I had brief feelings of disappointment in content that I know was omitted in this book, but I also understand that it would be an impossible task to include it all. His blog is an excellent source of extra information, especially the stories of other scientologists that are not really his to tell in his book anyways.

In the four years since most of that material has been publicly available, no one from ASC has attempted to refute a single word of it. Not Rinder, not Gibney, not Wright, not Ortega. None of them. Their response instead is clear in Rinder's book: if you cannot prove history, and you wish it were different, then just recreate it. Rinder, for the first time in 15 years since leaving Scientology, suddenly claims to have played an integral role in attaining Scientology's tax exemption. Mike Rinder wrote his experiences down in a thoughtful, informative, eloquent way. The good and bad of decades of his life. He mostly did it for his two children, who stayed behind in the organization, hoping that they will one day understand and appreciate his message. In that case it was heartbreaking to me as a reader. He writes: I hope you come to see that scientology is a mind prison designed to be nearly impossible to escape'. John Sweeney, investigative journalist and presenter of BBC Panorama’s Scientology and Me and The Secrets of Scientology 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 Quote from the book: There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again. ~SOMETIMES ATTRIBUTED TO F. SCOTT FITSGERALD.Rinder goes on to elaborate on “the wall” around Scientologists, his personal story of 45 years in the cult, and his eventual escape from crazy-town. I won’t spoil the book by telling all his stories, but things get more weird, and more overtly abusive, than you can probably imagine. Very, very Lord of the Flies. PIs to infiltrate IRS meetings" (he cites not a single one because he cannot), use of "front groups" (names not a single one - there was no IRS-related groups that Scientology was not overtly associated with), and "smear campaigns against individual revenue agents" (citing no particulars because I suppose he is just too lazy to create them). To me personally, this is the saddest of all. But it's a social tendency outside this organization as well.