Cults can take so many things from a person— their money, their dignity, their ability to think critically— but the most powerful thing a cult can take is someone’s freedom. If you can take someone’s freedom, you can take anything else. Rinder learned this firsthand being involved in scientology, a cult that destroys families, degrades its staff, and swindles its members, and has dedicated his life to exposing scientology’s pernicious effect on the world. In rejecting the dogma of scientology, Mike Rinder embraced freedom, the most precious thing one can ever have.