Mike Rinder - A Billion Years : My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology

An inspiring story of resilience.

Leah Remini

A Billion Years

My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology

Mike Rinder

Dedicated to my wife, Christie.

Written for my children, Taryn, Benjamin, and Jack.

For what its worth: its never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. Theres 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 you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life youre proud of. If you find that youre not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.

SOMETIMES ATTRIBUTED TO F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

This is my recollection of my life.

With the passage of so many years, it is of course possible that I have some facts wrong. I may misremember some small detailsbeing in Paris in December 1982 when in fact it was February 1983, for examplebut this is of little consequence to my lifes story. Memories of events are distorted by time and perspective, and they become especially hazy when you suffer the dimmed perceptions of sleep deprivation. I, like many around me, experienced the dull fog of exhaustion on a daily basis in my many years in the Sea Org. What I dont have wrong are my impressions, feelings, and emotions about my experiences, and how they affected me.

It may be odd to offer a disclaimer at the outset, but it is made necessary by the fact that scientology is a unique and vengeful monster. Obsessed with keeping records, scientologists have maintained diligent files of my days in the Sea Org, as well as reports from private investigators and spies and surveillance video from my life after leaving. They will no doubt respond to this book by nitpicking facts that they deem false to try to color everything I have written as a lie. I know, because its a standard technique that I employed when dealing with people who said things scientology didnt like. What they will not do is respond to the substance of my experiences and observations. Such silence speaks volumes.

I use the term scientology throughout this book, rather than Scientology, which is the trademark registered name preferred by the organization. The capitalization puts it in the same category as Catholicism or Judaism. I prefer to invoke a broader concept of the general subject, more in keeping with the terms philosophy or sociopathy.

Though Ive tried to use scientology jargon only when necessary, it is often unavoidable. A glossary of those terms can be found at the back of this book.

Dear Taryn and Benjamin,

Let me start with this: I am truly sorry for placing you in a world where your future was preordained. It is difficult and painful to contemplate that I brought you into a life where, from your earliest years, you were denied any meaningful free will. If I had known then what I know now, I would never have let that happen.

A few days after you were born, you were turned over to the nannies in the nursery. Your mother and I rarely saw you as you grew up, but that was justified in our mindswe had a larger purpose that was far more important. We were saving mankind and didnt have a minute to spare. No distraction from that vital work could be tolerated, including time spent with you, our children.

Yet, to be honest, had I spent more time with you, had we spoken more, I would not have taught you any differently. I was as dedicated to the cause of scientology as anyone could ever be. At the time, I thought I was being the best parent I could be by being the best scientologist I could be.

I wrote this book for you. It may seem odd to write a book for an audience of two, but my hope is that at some point it will help you make that decision to find your own way out of the scientology bubble. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday. In the meantime, I believe there may be others who have had similar experiences and perhaps will find my story helpful.

If you are still in scientology as you are reading this, you are immersed in a carefully constructed cocoon that makes you believe, with all your heart, many things that are provably false. You will be certain this is a book of bigoted lies. I hope you come to see that scientology is a mind prison designed to be nearly impossible to escape.

Let me paint a picture that might be easier for you to understand. Imagine that from the first moment you could comprehend words being spoken, you were told that if you traveled outside the wall around the house in which you were born, a terrible fate would befall you. And that if anyone beyond that wall tried to tell you there was nothing to be afraid of on the other side, they were an agent of evil, simply trying to trick you into falling into their clutches, where you would die a horrible death and live in darkness for eternity. You were told how lucky and privileged you were to live in a beautiful house far from the cruelty and evil that run rampant outside that wall. Under those circumstances, it is unlikely you would risk walking out the door and jumping over that wall.

Like you, I grew up in that house and was afraid to venture beyond the wall. I didnt consider the possibility that there was anything of value in the non-scientology world. I had been taught that the wall was real and horrors outside the wall were waiting to engulf us all if we ventured beyond. Thats what L. Ron Hubbard told us and so it was true. I passed this same message along to you. I believed with all my heart you were fortunate to be brought into the safe, happy, and ethical bubble of scientology.

Only when life within that world had become intolerable did I finally make the leap over the wall. It took me a long time, and I endured more hardships and abuse than one should to reach that point. I will try to explain in this book how I became immersed in a way of thinking that made the unthinkable perfectly rational and inured me to things normal people would never have tolerated.

When I did finally leave, I was astonished to discover that life beyond that wallthe non-scientology worldis not full of bogeymen, death, and destruction. It is a large, exciting, and vibrant place far less dangerous than we had been warned. It is in fact much healthier and more enjoyable than life inside the scientology mind prison. Since I escaped, I have been shouting back over the wall, throwing notes tied around stones, and skywriting to anyone who may look upattempting to get the message through that there is a big, wide, beautiful world out here.

I hope you can discover the real world for yourselves, too. No matter what you may think, it is never too late to start over. I was fifty-two when I began afresh. An old dog can learn new tricks.

I owe it to you to try to tell you the truth, and I have to have faith that you, my own children, might eventually listen. Even the smallest crack in your conviction might lead to more questioning. And as soon as you begin questioning, the end of the nightmare is near.

I want you to know that I harbor no ill will toward you for the things you have said about me. In fact, the love I feel for you is greater today than at any previous time in our lives. Distance from the corrosive thought control of scientology has increased my capacity for compassion, empathy, and loveemotions not valued in scientology. That distance has also intensified my feelings of guilt for having put you in the circumstances you are in.