The shocking truth about how Scientology really works, according to one former insider

The elite group of Scientology members, the Commodore’s Messenger Org, worked directly for Hubbard. They were like an army of personal assistants, Rinder said. Many of them later would move on to running the church.

"Fair game" was the idea that anybody who’s an enemy or critic of Scientology can have anything done to them because the means justify the ends, according to Rinder.

Basically, it allowed members to push the boundaries of legality when it came to shutting up and destroying the organization's detractors without fear of punishment from the church.

The church maintains that the "fair game" doctrine has been canceled, but Rinder, Remini, and other ex-Scientologists claim it's alive and well.

Rinder said actions could range from stalking, digging up dirt, checking out people's background, vilifying them in the media and on the internet, and hiring private investigators to surveil them.

Rinder and his current wife claim that Scientology bought the house across the street from them and paid a female investigator to live there. This went on for several months and unknowingly the couple had befriended her. They began to get suspicious when they moved and the woman also moved to the same neighborhood.

Rinder says he then received an anonymous note saying that he shouldn't trust the neighbor. Rinder said he would later discover that a birdhouse the woman had on her property actually held a camera pointed at his house.

Remini explained that the belief in reincarnation means Scientology places very little significance in family relationships and marriages. One's mother, she said, is just one's mother currently and the child has many, many mothers over the span of its lives.

Rinder said that when his children were born, he saw very little of them as Scientology kept them in a nursing room.

In the early 2000s, Scientology leader David Miscavige established "The Hole" at Scientology's headquarters in Hemet California, according to Rinder. It was a detention center for high-ranking members who displeased him.

“Honestly, the reasons for that could be anything from answering a question wrongly," Rinder said, "not answering a question, a facial expression that was inappropriate, falling asleep after being up for a couple of days, I mean anything, you’re in the hole.”

Rinder said he and as many as 100 people were held at "The Hole." He describes the poor conditions — having to eat "slop," security bars on the windows, guards to keep people from leaving. He also said that they beat each other up until they confessed their supposed crimes.

Rinder said that he was the object of at least 50 physical attacks from Miscavige over his time in Scientology.

“It’s like hearing the Pope slaps people around,” Remini commented.

Word of Miscavige's alleged violence had made its way to BBC, which began producing an investigation into the accusations. The BBC reporter was very dogged about the investigation and Miscavige feared that he would show up to John Travolta's London press junket for the 2007 movie "Wild Hogs."

Rinder said Miscavige pulled him out of the Hole and tasked him with making sure the BBC journalist didn't disrupt the junket. As Miscavige feared, the reporter showed up and Rinder faced the journalist. The former church spokesperson said that the beginning of the end for him was when the reporter said he'd heard Rinder himself was the victim of several beatings by Miscavige. Rinder denied it, but he realized that the whole situation was crazy.

In the end, BBC aired the program. Rinder said Miscavige unleashed his fury on him and told him that he was going to be sent away to a remote Scientology location and would never see his family again.

Without his family, Rinder decided he had nothing else to lose and escaped the church.