We both spent a long time in Scientology, I was in for twenty five years (1989-2014). We both have rejected the organization itself, the doctrine and techniques and have come to see both Lafayette Ronald Hubbard and David Miscavige as less than worthy leaders.

We both have put significant effort into actions that include warning the public about Scientology and letting ex Scientologists know about the true history of Scientology and the many, many crimes of Scientology founder Ronald Hubbard and current leader David Miscavige.

I have spent hundreds of hours finding out about Scientology and written over six hundred posts on it and interacted with hundreds of ex Scientologists and family members of Scientology cult members, including surviving family members who lost their loved to Scientology in their own opinions.

Mike Rinder may have spent more time on his own efforts to expose Scientology and warn people.

I have had my own medical issues and a couple of times since leaving Scientology had surgery and there’s always a risk of not waking up when you’re put under anaesthesia.

I also at one point was not well and felt like I was getting worse and worse. It got to the point that I was getting more and more certain that I would go to sleep one day and simply not wake up and it was only a matter of when, not if.

The only person I shared this information with was my wife. I didn’t tell anyone else.

Then an odd thing happened, after several months of getting worse and worse very, very gradually I started to feel a little bit better and before I knew it I wasn’t sick anymore. I had tried to make peace with the fact that I was dying and had made some arrangements for the inevitable and it simply didn’t happen. I had spent months trying to get prepared and come to accept my fate, but fate didn’t cooperate.

I am no doctor and I don’t know the future or the mindset of Mike Rinder and I can’t diagnose him. I know what I went through but every person is different, every life is different.

But in my experience, getting used to the idea that you have weeks or months left and having it hanging over your head as a certainty (even if you are ultimately proven wrong) is a sobering and life changing experience, or at least it was for me.

Now, there are times that I have no interest in having conversations or arguments about things that ultimately really don’t matter.

I am a lot more selective about what topics I pursue, what activities I give my time and what people I interact with and how much I interact with them. I avoid the impulse to tell someone something if they are not interested or receptive or frankly it’s not my job, where in the past I would have offered information because I thought I knew the right way to do something. Now? They are free to do something however they like! I am not their boss or trainer.

My point was this kind of experience for some lets you see the futility of some things and the importance of others.

None of us are gonna get back the years lost to Scientology. None of us are gonna get back the opportunity to do better things that we didn’t do when we were in Scientology instead of the things that we did do.

I think Marc Headley said that everyone leaves Scientology years ago if I remember correctly. He said some people leave when they die.

I am grateful to be one of the lucky ones who got to leave before I died and further that I am lucky enough to have run into the work of people like Arnie Lerma and Jon Atack and Tony Ortega so that I could untangle from the web of lies Hubbard trapped us in and realize that I was subjected to a thought reform program (as described by Robert Jay Lifton in his eight criteria for thought reform) and be to a degree mentally free as well as physically before I die.

Lots of people who are not physically in Scientology, maybe thousands, never recover and decades after leaving or getting kicked out still wonder if they committed an overt if they have an accident or get sick and look for various things like engrams, missed witholds and so on for the rest of their lives and are haunted by the ghosts of their past until they die and trapped in Hubbard’s web of lies and prison of the mind.

I think that it’s worth recognizing that the work of Mike Rinder has helped people, helped people to leave Scientology, helped people to recover from Scientology, helped people to see that their experiences in Scientology are not unique or something they are making up because of their own overts and witholds, even if they were brainwashed into believing this on The Truth Rundown.

I think that there’s been a real benefit for many people from the work Mike Rinder has done.

I have never had the reach of Mike Rinder but think that some people have genuinely been helped by a lot of ex Scientologists and Scientology critics to various degrees. I am not so naive as to pretend that you erase bad things with good, the bad still happened and the damage done quite often simply can’t be undone.

You in my opinion have to accept that quite often a person has a life that has a combination of good and bad, but you have to accept that both are there, as messy as that is.

Some people treat ex Scientologists and ex cult members in general either too well, acting like we are practically saints and pure heroes when we are not. We should not be blindly trusted and made into gurus (cult leaders) by people and we also shouldn’t be treated like we are children of a lesser God, lower quality human beings who must be especially stupid, gullible, evil, and crazy to be in cults.

We are very real people who have flaws and make mistakes and sometimes do good things, like real human beings you know!

Regarding the abuse you and your friends and family have suffered from Aaron Smith Levin, I’m so sorry you’ve had to put up with that during this difficult time. You probably already know but there is a growing community online on Reddit committed to exposing Aaron’s abuse and exposing and repairing the damage he has done to the ex Scientology community. Currently 1400 strong. We’ll always fight for you, your family, and all the others Aaron has hurt. In the end, Aaron will not win, and all the toxicity he has put out in the world will blow away like a fart in the wind.

In the meantime, I sincerely wish you all the best. Thanks for everything 🙂

I have watched videos fully now, and there is a lot to unpack. So sad that things are where they are at on multiple fronts – and it pains me that it took until now for you to present your perspective on what happens – especially with the challenges you are facing at the moment!

If I was able to travel over from Northern Ireland and give support beyond a message I would, all I can do is send my support and best wishes to you and yours!

Please take care Mike and I hope the stress and drama will ease for you, and that letting this out helps you.

Oh well as long as they are not whack jobs….
‘MURICA!

I’ve watched you and Leah fight this fight for so many years and knew nothing could bring you guys down and I’m more certain of that than ever! You’ve left a mark on this world that reaches further than Hubbard and his minions combined. You’ve truly helped so many and in the words of T Swift, “haters gonna hate”.

The world is a better place because of you, Mike Rinder!

I’ve stayed away from the politics of the ex community since I watched the train wreck that ESMB descended into and it seems to have happened again to the Aftermath Foundation with ASL. I’ll still help peeps who are fighting the kult where I can but I’m more interested in my own retirement plans as 70yo is fast approaching.

Personal opinion is that one never really leaves the kult (and kult thinking) unless one really takes an honest look at their own contribution to the atrocities committed and actually does something to try to undo that. And that one also has to do it for the sake of others, not the narcissistic Hubbardian grandstanding (force-fed into all of us as “what would Ron do” etc. etc.) that sadly gets the headlines of the interwebs. Sounds like these damaged beings you’re speaking about need to get out in the real world and help others for the sake of helping.

I hope that your health does improve. I think venting like you have in your very reasonable affable manner has got to be therapeutic for you – I certainly hope it is. Do what you believe is best for you and yours and best of luck with all of it. You’re a hero in my book – one of the good guys.

All the best and keep up your good work, even if that means you leave fighting the kult to others.

I will always be most thankful to you for having my back and the support you gave to me in my darkest hour when there was no one else, no Aftermath Foundation, not anyone to help me navigate the horrors that were inflicted by the church of scientology. And you had no idea who I was. You are my personal hero. I am lucky to call you my good friend.

I hope you get out ALL of the toxicity weighing on you. I wish you the best of all worlds. I pray for your health and peace and happiness for you and yours, always.