Mike Rinder Fully Invalidates the Subject of Scientology

Starting at exactly 47 min and 35 sec, you will hear Mike Rinder, the number 2 or 3 guy in the Church of Scientology since the 1980’s, who was “on the ship” and worked with Hubbard since the 1970’s, completely invalidate the subject of Scientology and back it up with his own personal experience.

This conversation is the first I’ve seen in which Mike Rinder reveals what he really believes about Scientology. As the years rolled on since his departure from the Church, Mike Rinder has said more and more about his own thoughts on Scientology on his blog. From reading his blog, it is pretty clear that he is no longer a Scientologist.

This video is a clear and complete statement of Mike Rinder’s views on the subject. After seeing this, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind what he thinks about Scientology.

It’s very clear to me now, and has been since years ago when he blew the Indie movement and started his own blog, that Mike Rinder is a very good person who was born into Scientology and literally knew nothing else.

That observation alone, knowing that Mike Rinder ran the OPs as head of OSA for decades, has profound implications for the understanding of human beings for me.

Any person is not just himself – he is also the environment he has to deal with every day.

Sometimes the Internet has too much information. A person like Rinder can make a clear statement like this and it gets lost among all his other writings and videos and the other content he has produced. It is very possible for someone to never see this.

Because of his position in the Church, and all that he has seen and done, this 20 minutes from Mike Rinder is all that is necessary to shut down Scientology forever, and have everyone go home.

I’d like to thank Mike and Aaron for doing these interviews.

To see more, go to Aaron Smith-Levin’s Youtube channel called “Growing Up In Scientology”

35 thoughts on “Mike Rinder Fully Invalidates the Subject of Scientology”

  1. Hi Alonzo.

    I remember you from ESMB and other groups in time period of 8-10 years….

    deleted

    was trying to ask you question about Queen of Indie OSA, but I will wait for one of your posts ,about subject….

    Big hello from LRHs Bulgravia.

  2. I’m supposed to be an OTV. I’m also a trained auditor, FEBC, ORC, SSIII, SHSBC Supervisor, yada, yada yada …

    Meh.

    I have no claims to any powers or gains that I got from much more than the comm course and even that is suspect. I get and got more gains by simply living life.

    None. None. None of my life’s best experiences were in or due to scientology. It is unfortunate that the promises made about scientology do not exist. A utopian world would be wonderful, but there still has not been a discovery that creates that for someone.

    The most unfortunate side effect of all this is that all these years later people continue to attack others in the name of scientology, whether they are in or out.

    • I agree Valerie,

      but what if we substituted the word attack with debate, discuss, or have a conversation about scientology. Just my thoughts.

  3. Of course one of the subjects they discussed in this video is how DM must keep coming up with new “orders of magnitude” and “releases” and projects to keep members invigorated and not become tempted to leave. I know that over the past few years quite a few members have left. Both short term and long term members. But I can say that most of the ones who are left in right now are still fired up and “on purpose”. It’s quite amazing. The handful of still-ins I interact with on a fairly regular basis seem to have no idea what the outside world is thinking and has been saying about the cult. I have to hand it to them for their devotion in avoiding “entheta” in the form of “Black PR”.

    What really amazes me is how the majority of the still-ins keep buying in to the Ideal Org farce. It’s pretty evident that whenever an Ideal Org has a grand opening there is not an influx of new members. The stats remain down. Waaaaay down. Yet they keep believing in this farce. In Austin they’ve been raising money for about twelve years now for their Ideal Org. A few weeks ago they raised 2 million dollars in one fund raising reg event. I know they still have millions to go.

    In Austin’s case they do not have to buy another building because the building they have is large enough and in a great location being right across the street from the University of Texas. (Although these days college student’s ain’t buyin’ what their selling anymore, but it still has the much coveted heavy foot traffic). So all they have to do is renovate the building they have. Twelve years and counting they still probably have years to go. But when they talk about the Ideal Org their eyes light up and their whole countenance brightens. If you put them on the meter at that moment I’m sure it would be “floating”. They have bought into the notion that all other cities with Ideal Orgs are booming. What a grand con DM has pulled off with this Ideal Org scam. Gotta hand it to the little shrimpy creep. Hubbard would be proud. (Or he’d be pissed because after all the Ideal Org is against written policy. But then again, Hubbard was not one to ignore his own policy if it made him an extra buck).

    Oh, and the other big thing that excites still-ins is the believe that “Scientology saved the nation of Columbia”. LOL….. They really and truly believe it.

    Hip hip hooray!!

    • Thanks for stopping by, Eileen!

      I trust you are doing well this beautiful summer solstice weekend. 🙂

      The reason this particular excerpt from Mike Rinder is so significant to me lies within the context of his “decompression” from Scientology, and how much his views have changed since he first left the Church and became an Independent Scientologist. I have no idea what Mike’s personal views were during that time, but his public views seemed to be as hard core “Indie” as you could get.

      Now he’s definitely Ex. And I don’t think even Alanzo could have stated the Ex-Scientologist viewpoint as well as Mike Rinder did here.

      I’d be interested to know what you think about that idea I wrote about from social psychology where a person is not just himself, but he is also the environment that he has to deal with every day.

      What do you think about this?

      Alanzo

      • I know that the environment powerfully shapes a person’s views and behaviors. That is part of the reason that Scientology should be dismantled. Whatever “gains” a person had in Scientology is not worth the price of the enormous toxicity of the multilevel scam. And those gains could be had for a fraction of the cost elsewhere. I believe Scientology changes people, hardens them, and that they suffer from residual trauma for many years.
        I wonder how many “still-ins” are there because they are deriving income directly or indirectly from the money machine?

        • Very few people make any money at all on Scientology staff.

          Registrars and bookstore officers, and IAS and Ideal Org registrars, get commissions. And there is an Field Staff Member program where one Scientologist can make a 15% commission on the purchases of another Scientologist’s “Bridge Progress”.

          But in my experience, the overwhelming majority of Scientologists are engaged in Scientology, especially scientology staff at a mission, org and lower echelon Sea Org level, because they truly believe in what they are doing.

          Alanzo

      • In this video Mike mentions Sarge’s story of how LRH requested that Sarge amp up an Emeter so that LRH could discharge a thetan and was willing to die in the process.

        This has always seemed (to me) like simply a request for a suicide machine, I’m always surprised that no one has raised this possibility.

        People use the story to say that LRH believed his own stories till the end of his life. I find it more likely that he gave Sarge a story to manipulate him into building the machine. To me It is an example of how ex scientologists still don’t really question the official line they are fed.

        • I know what you mean. There is also an “official line” in Ex-Scientology!

          That’s one of the things I very much respect about you, Eileen. You think for yourself and you even risk your “status” in your group to promote that viewpoint in others, as well.

          The explanation for Sarge’s story that LRH believed in Scientology till the day he died is only ONE POSSIBLE EXPLANATION for the story. There are other possible explanations, as well, such as yours.

          One possible purpose for the sea org, especially the Int Base Sea Org, was for L Ron Hubbard to have a group of absolutely brainwashed and fanatical members surrounding him at all times willing to defend him against all the people he had defrauded throughout his life. The longer he lived and ran Scientology, the more people he had ripped off. And since at the time of Sarge’s story LRH was on the run from the law, it is another scenario, with a certain degree of likelihood, that he stepped up his conning of the people around him to keep up their fanatical defense of him.

          But there is another story that Marty Rathbun relates in his subsequent interviews of Sarge – separate from Lawrence Wright’s. It’s about the Body Thetan on the outer gate of the property, and how LRH sent Sarge out to dispatch it in the middle of the night. This tends to invalidate Hubbard’s sanity, and his bravery, which would be something that he would not want to do under this scenario if he was conning everyone.

          So this story is possibly inconsistent with that explanation.

          You should also read Jesse Prince’s taped interviews with Lawrence Wollersheim to get other descriptions of LRH’s behavior at Int Base where he was visibly insane and freaking out the staff.

          • Geez Alonzo. 230 pages. Do you know specifically where the pages about LRH freaking out Int Base staff can be found?

            • LOL. I realize that it wasn’t very Course Supervisor-like of me! Unfortunately I don’t have time to do anything else than provide the reference from my memory. And the link to where you can find it.

              Jesse’s interviews were available to me when I first got out of Scientology in 1999-2000. And they were instrumental in helping me to understand the level of deceit routinely coming out of Int Base to all Scientologists – and to the rest of the world – regarding Scientology.

              These tapes are one of the reasons I criticized Marty and Mike so strongly when they first came out and began revising history in their Indie Scientology phase of “decompression” from the cult. It’s also one of the reasons I believe that the people from Int Base are the least credible people to be interviewed regarding Scientology by journalists. Sure, they were at the place where all the insanity happened, but they have also been brainwashed and thought-reformed so heavily and continually for decades to always lie about L Ron Hubbard and Scientology that you are not likely to find out where the bodies are actually buried from them.

              With a few exceptions, I think this has been borne out in fact. Right now, we are left with “disconnection” being the biggest crime that Scientology has committed. But I believe much bigger crimes have been executed by this cult, based on the stories of Non-Int Based Exes and other critics over the years. The Int Base Escapees of 2009 (Marty, Mike and Karen), while they CERTAINLY have not done nothing, have not coughed up evidence of any felonies that I can see. Certainly they have not come up with anything that can be prosecuted.

              I really do recommend reading the whole of Jesse Prince’s taped interviews. When you compare what he exposed when he first got out of Scientology to what Marty, Mike and Karen first exposed, you can see that for whatever reason, Jesse Prince is a very straight shooter, and has always been one.

              I can’t wait for Jesse Prince to finally publish his book. I think that book will be one of the most important of all the books written by exes.

              Jesse Prince is, truly, one of the heroes of Ex-Scientology to me.

              Alanzo

          • your conclusion as stated above, copied here:

            “One possible purpose for the sea org, especially the Int Base Sea Org, was for L Ron Hubbard to have a group of absolutely brainwashed and fanatical members surrounding him at all times willing to defend him against all the people he had defrauded throughout his life. The longer he lived and ran Scientology, the more people he had ripped off. And since at the time of Sarge’s story LRH was on the run from the law, it is another scenario, with a certain degree of likelihood, that he stepped up his conning of the people around him to keep up their fanatical defense of him.”

            I agree with your conclusion but it is the purpose of the sea org. I have a few premises to support your conclusion. If you like, I can delineate them for you?

        • I had the same thoughts as you, I did question it. But I now believe Hubbard believed his own shit. Hubbard also told Sarge he failed and was going to circle a star to rehabilitate himself and he wasn’t coming back.

          One has to figure the amount of writing Hubbard did, all his HCOB’s, HCOPL’s, advices, lectures, etc. He had to believe he found the truth, but he, at the end said he failed. That’s the important part.

          I think S.I. Hayakawa nails it to a tee in his evaluation of Dianetics back in 1951, here is what Hayakawa wrote:

          http://www.jstor.org/stable/42580983?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

          http://www.lisamcpherson.org/hayakawa.htm

          “I have long felt that there are dangers to the writer as well as to the reader in pulp fiction. It did not occur to me until I read Dianetics to try to analyze the special dangers entailed in the profession of science-fiction writing. The art consists in concealing from the reader, for novelistic purposes, the distinctions between established scientific facts, almost-established scientific hypotheses, scientific conjectures, and imaginative extrapolations far beyond what has even been conjectured. The danger of this technique lies in the fact that, if the writer of science-fiction writes too much of it too fast and too glibly and is not endowed from the beginning with a high degree of semantic self-insight (consciousness of abstracting), he may eventually succeed in concealing the distinction between his facts and his imaginings from himself. In other words, the space-ships and the men of Mars and the atomic disintegrator pistols acquire so vivid a verbal existence that they may begin to have, in the writer’s evaluations, ‘actual’ existence. Like Willy Loman in The Death of a Salesman, he may eventually fall for his own, pitch.”

      • I think it is a valid idea, that we are not only our separate personalities but also strongly influenced by the environment we live and work in.

        That different cultures form is evidence that the above has a good amount of truth to it.

        Indeed, I would argue that each of us are many different personalities depending on the environment we may happen to be in at any given moment.

        The fluidity that one is able to adopt or change these “masks” is a mark of a person who has learned how to operate in human cultures.

        The awareness that one is doing this, and has at least some time each day where they can unwind and just “be themselves” has a lot to do with that individual’s happiness, and feeling of being in balance.

  4. Hmmm Alanzo, a bit sensational to say that he totally invalidated the subject of scientology. I’ll agree what he says fairly completely damns the church, but the church has not practiced scientology to any significant extent since the late 90’s. (Nor does it seem that anyone else has either!)

    Your premise, that the lack of a further “bridge” and that the paucity of scientologists displaying the benefits of scientology totally invalidates the subject, makes leaps of “reasoning” unsupported by logic.

    Much of scientology works. Much hype obscures this by forcing a comparison between the hype and the actual results. Sure the results don’t match the hype, but beneficial results are possible. Not in the church of course, it has devolved into a purely belief driven cult.

    For me the label scientology can disappear for all I care. What is useful no longer needs a label, and the label is part of a mechanism of cult self validation.

    There is a richness of ideas in the works of Hubbard ( and those he was inspired and assisted by). Not at all invalidated by the failure of people to successfully implement them.

    Respectfully

    Alice Addertoungue

    (I will grant that the term scientology has pretty much been invalidated as a reference to its origins)

    • Thanks for your comment, Alice. And welcome to AlanzosBlog.

      Do we agree that L Ron Hubbard’s claims for the states of Clear, and for the states of OT, have never been achieved by anyone, not even by Hubbard himself?

      And isn’t this what Mike Rinder is saying here with eye-witness evidence?

      Alanzo

      • “Do we agree that L Ron Hubbard’s claims for the states of Clear, and for the states of OT, have never been achieved by anyone, not even by Hubbard himself?”

        No. I’ll agree they have not been achieved by me. But I can not state that no one ever did. Some people have some of the promised results, and others have a different set of some of the promised results. I have never met anyone who had all of them, all the time though!

        I’d be more supportive of an argument for OT claims than clear, I think the idea of clear was way over promised and, as described in early writings, is something way beyond what even the most “OT” person ever got to. I would think that a real “clear” state would come well after the kind of things promised as “OT”. Perhaps the final OT state would be a clear? IDK

        Scientology has been accused of being a black and white simple subject, when in fact it is incredibly nuanced. I don’t know of any instance of the subject being fully employed. There is just too much of it. But parts of it have been successfully used, and parts of it have been used in a spectacularly evil way.

        So this idea that since there are no clears as described in early writings, the subject as a whole has no validity, is a false conclusion. It has some validity and some invalidity.

        As to Mike Rinder being an eye witness, that does not mean what he witnessed is the whole of possibility, just what he saw related through his filters. His conclusions are not mine even with accepting what he relates as being accurate.

        You are the guy who had the physical universe “disappear” and seem to be just energy when you did FPRD. Doesn’t that suggest that there may be powerful mechanisms being manipulated?

        My theory is that there are a lot of very fundamental observations about human behavior and life encapsulated in the subject called scientology. Built on top of that were various techniques that used that knowledge to move a persons thinking around. And very flawed people were attracted to what should have been a much smaller exploration, and in their ignorance and sometimes insanity, they used it poorly.

        Hubbard’s ego got out of control, he pushed so hard it broke the application of the subject, and early on. He allowed people in who never had the stuff it takes. Too many people just trying to get their ruined life on track, too few who had the dynamism and wisdom to make it all work, and a few evil asshat geniuses.

        By your response to my original post I suspect you plan to take my trembling hand and lead me up a flowery path of logic away from any resonance with the subject. But I’ve been out and practicing other isms while you were still sipping church kool aid.

        I’m just here to quibble with your semantics. “Fully invalidates..” is hyperbole. Just like clear.

        🙂

        Alice

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r80HF68KM8g

        • You are the guy who had the physical universe “disappear” and seem to be just energy when you did FPRD. Doesn’t that suggest that there may be powerful mechanisms being manipulated?

          It might. But it might also suggest that Hubbard descriptions for why things happened the way they happened in auditing were not correct.

          Stuff happens when yo do scientology. But why that stuff happens, as described by Hubbard, can not be true.

          Why can’t they be true?

          Because things like the reactive mind, the analytical mind, the somatic mind, etc do not exist. They are not factual, material things. They are mental constructs only.

          Therefore, any explanation for why stuff happens in scientology – using scientology mental constructs – can not be true. They can only conform to Scientology’s complex mental construct apparatus and not to the factual world.

          If Hubbard said, “When you focus on one thing such as your answer to the auditing command, to the exclusion of all other things in your environment (the environment created by an auditor with good TRs and model session) then you may come to see things differently than you ever did before. A serotonin release will occur in your brain and you will feel like you had a big “win”. Whether that win will result in an actually changed life with improved conditions will be dependant on your own actions in your own life – ensuring that your circumstances are arranged in alignment with your new found realization.”

          Forget about “blowing charge” so the “bank” backs off and you enter a state of “release”. Those are all part of the scientology ideology which refers to mental constructs which do not exist.

          If you start getting rid of the mental constructs in Scientology, and you start explaining the things that happen as a result of auditing without those constructs, and with real concrete terms that are things that actually exist, then you’ll get much closer to what Scientology actually does, when it does something, for people.

          I think.

          Alanzo

          • Ah! So you are just arguing with Hubbard’s semantics then.

            Yes of course any sort of description or contextual concept is not the thing itself.

            “The map is not the territory”. Korzybski

            But “mental constructs that do not exist”? How many hours have you sat in meditation wishing mental constructs did not exist? They exist, and are useful mechanisms for interacting with the world at large, or can be. Maybe this is why Hubbard said in the end we will probably need to audit out scientology!

            Unexamined mental constructs can be a prison, and one with no “real” bars.

            Have you ever had your teacher in sangha or class say to stay in mindfulness after you leave? Be present in the moment and observe with no influence of your mental filters? Hard to do, keep that meditative focus and lack of thought in a more complex environment than the meditation hall!. We need mental constructs to avoid being overwhelmed by the load of perception and thinking that we live in. They are a workable solution, not embodiments of truth for its own sake.

            The mental constructs of scientology are pointers to, and conceptual shorthand for things that can actually be experienced. But without the experience they are pretty useless, leading to automatic actions and reactions not based on the present moment and situation.

            The mental constructs of scientology brought a lot of new thinking to the 1950’s and 60’s. They were a good way to contextualize human life. They laid the ground for workable techniques of helping others come to a better understanding of them selves, as you reworded in your “If Hubbard said” paragraph. Modern scientology holds them as rote dogma and acts on them in very literal ways.

            There are no “real concrete terms” for what goes on in our minds. There are either mental constructs being used to parse mental constructs, or direct experience (as in meditation).

            🙂

            Alice

            • It’s not just semantics.

              I’m trying to identify the logical fallacy, called reification, which is at work on Scientologists. They are operating on it.

              Until this fallacy is spotted and understood, no Scientologist is ever going to figure out what is working in the tech, exactly what the tech does, and why it works to do that.

              • “At work in scientologists”

                At work in the world at large. I know of no one who does not give excessive weight to their embedded ideas of how the world works.

                We all operate on it.

                More basic than the dogma of scientology, which is accepted as fact by scientologists beyond the circumstances it is appropriate in, people have concrete beliefs about how the world at large works that are unexamined mental constructs.

                Science has pretty much proven to the extent it is capable in its limited range that there is an interaction between consciousness and matter. Yet most everyone operates on the concrete idea that the material world is something happening to them independent of their perceptions, rather than something in part created by their own consciousness and its perceptions molding it. (And the other part/s by others consciousness and perception)

                This is more easy to see in the realm of “mental” activities, thinking, but also applies to the more concrete material world also.

                “The Quantum Mechanics Problem is a problem because it violates the common-sense doctrine of realism, which assumes that the world at large is independent of observation.”

                http://www.noetic.org/sites/default/files/uploads/files/PhysicsEssays-Radin-DoubleSlit-2012.pdf The implications of this simple, repeatable bit of science are profound.

                I have no argument with your accusation that scientologists are nasty reificators! (Isnt this covered in sodomy laws?). But how is this different than any other humans operating on the very concrete beliefs we do about the composition of life, the universe and everything?

                For fun sometime when you are meditating, and you’ve got the monkey mind tamed for a moment, focus tightly on the sensation of gravity, or the motion of the universe, or the mass and existence of the physical earth, or any such common rather than individually created sensations. Accessing and observing non local consciousness puts the reification we all participate in, in perspective. Mental constructs ARE what potentiate this illusory thing, life.

                I would say that you will not find your “item” in the subject of scientology, that thing that scientologists reify, but that Hubbard and scientology built on the elements of reification common to all humans. Sure there is cementitious dogma in scientology, but it is founded on broader fundamental human belief. That Alonzo is the secret. That and knowing the basis and mechanics of human’s embedded constructs.

                I dub thee Don Alonzo of La Mancha, crusader for the liberation of minds who do not care to be liberated. After you are done with the scientologists could you please take care of the muslims too?

                Yours in metta,

                🙂

                Alice

                • whatever, still no clears or OT’s.

                  dianetics and scientology. Lets do an experiment. Grab somebody off the street, start auditing then on book 1. Lets do the same for scientology, start auditing them ARC SW or Grade 0 on up to Grade IV.

                  The rules of this experiment are the person cannot be told it is dianetics or scientology auditing. No EP’s can be told or given. No Hubbards writings or anything can be given.

                  What will be the results?

                  My guess, the person will leave after a few sessions.

              • Here is some fun stuff working to break down the most fundamental human (reified) belief: That we are separate from causation in the material.

                http://www.noetic.org/research/projects/psychophysiological-correlates
                http://www.noetic.org/research/projects/effects-of-distant-intention-on
                http://www.noetic.org/research/projects/global-consciousness-project http://www.noetic.org/research/projects/mindatlarge
                http://www.noetic.org/research/transformation_model

                Nice to have you back Allen. My condolences on your loss.

                Alice

        • the whole purpose of dianetics and scientology is to produce a clear and OT. I have no idea what dianetics or scientology you are talking about. Anything within those so called states of existance you think are beneficial are actually avoiding the fact that the whole purpose of dianetics and scientology is to produce a clear and then OT.

          see my comment above, also.

          Have you ever looked at the chart called the Bridge To Total Freedom? That is what everybody who gets involved in this so called religion is supposed to do.

          It’s bullshit.

          • SingandDanceAll –

            I fully agree with you that the “State of Clear” and the “State of OT” are the Valuable Final Products that devoting one’s life to following L Ron Hubbard’s writings are supposed to deliver.

            And yet with all that writing, not one of his organizations, which he also wrote specifically how they were to be operated 100% standardly, have ever delivered these states.

            This is the most important fact in all of Scientology.

            With this fact, Scientology can be reformed into something that I can accept. But after it’s reformed by that fact, will anyone ever want it?

            • you are joking, right?

              What do you mean scientology can be reformed? into something you can accept?

              LOL

              Are you trying to forward the subject has some validity?

              Bullshit, it all is. I will not forward scientology or dianetics, it’s a failed experiment per hubbards own words that he told Sarge.

              “I failed and am not coming back”

              That statement by Hubbard or Sarge doesn’t matter to me since I experienced it all and know for sure he failed. It’s not like I need Hubbards or Sarges statement to know the truth or get agreement, LOL

              • It’s the idea that Scientology is mankind’s only hope because it’s the only route to clear and OT that creates all the fanaticism and extra-legal activities.

                If it became generally understood among Scientologists that Scientology does not create Clears and OTs as defined by Hubbard, then Scientologists would become less fanatical and dangerous. People would do it for the hypnotic rush they get from Hubbard’s hypnotherapy. And every once in a while, if delivered by people who are not fanatics but who only want to help people, then fewer people would be harmed by it, and maybe even a few more people would be helped by it, too.

                That’s what I mean.

              • I know people who, practicing it on their own, are doing just that. I won’t say it’s perfect or the be all and end all-it’s not. But some people seem rather happy with what they’re doing with that.

    • Rinder in that 20 minute segment did say “it’s all bullshit away” while he was explaining the lack of OT9/10 levels.

      I realized what Rinder said once I opened my eyes and became unglued from Hubbard’s rhetoric, and compared my observations & what Hubbard taught, to, to lots of people who had gone “clear” and some who have done various OT levels including OT8 and all the L’s. A wide spectum to view upon. It’s all bullshit.

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