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

Product Information

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 … 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! 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 was not thrilled that I was missing out on the excitement of being front and center in the crowd..."

Rinder's book makes it clear that he thinks it is better than good to be the king. I imagine it must be simply "thrilling" and "intoxicating" being at the "pinnacle of achievement," "front and center in the crowd" (sandwiched between Toby McGuire and Alec Baldwin no less). It sounds as if he has even developed a sense of "invincibility." The victim is really a hero? Or is the hero a victim? 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.” 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 This was the pinnacle of achievement in the Sea Org-I had been selected to become one of the elite. I was thrilled. Since the day I arrived...I had been envious of peers who had been in the CMO and so it was as if I were finally being invited to sit at the cool kids' table."

Need Help?

His [LRH] demise also raised one of the most puzzling inconsistencies: though he'd had the time and foresight to clearly specify he did not want an autopsy done and wished to be cremated immediately, and though his elaborate estate planning had detailed precisely where his money was to go, he had not provided instructions or even a briefing for scientologists on what was to happen to the organization and who was to be his successor. This was the man who wrote millions of words and delivered thousands of lectures explaining everything from how to wash windows to how to cure yourself of cancer...Despite his supposed 'causative departure' from this earth as he 'discarded his body,' he neither spoke nor wrote anything that laid out his plans for the future or who would be in charge after he left or how long he was planning on being gone. To not have anything from Ron was an enormous omission that should have been a signal flare to every scientologist." (p. 117) 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.

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.

One of the highest-ranking defectors from Scientology exposes the secret inner workings of the powerful organization in this remarkable memoir. Rhodesia may seem a strange choice, but Hubbard had his reasons. First and foremost, he believed he had been British imperialist Cecil Rhodes (after whom the country was named) in a previous life, and he was going to return to claim his rightful kingdom. (Hubbard did not announce this past life to those outside his inner circle, likely because Rhodes was a racist and often seen as the father of apartheid.) He also believed that the new government there, which had recently broken ties with Britain, would be sympathetic to his own problems with the establishment.

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. But is it all true? You wonder why people would want to remain in scientology with everything that's told. For some people it clearly worked. Kirstie Alley (RIP) did stay until she 'left her body to move on' and always said Scientology safed her life. But the price seems extremely high.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. In fairness to Scientology, there are a gazillion books written by deserters/runagates/apostates of many religions, political believes, or ideologies. Mike Rinder is just one of many. He is telling his story. It's sad, but positive. An encouraging, albeit in-depth experience for the reader. 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. 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.

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]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. 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.