Blown for Good - Marc Morgan Headley [46]
Each week a list of who had what cards was issued to the crew. You could see the guys in the hot seats were the ones with the least number of cards. Most people had three to five cards. There were a few crew members that had one, two or no cards at all.
The crew members with zero cards had to sleep wherever they could find a place. They had to scrape up leftovers to eat and they did not get paid at all. The system was arbitrary and if you were in any way threatening or nonconforming to what your seniors wanted, you could lose a card.
Between all of the new rules and rumored advices that had been written, there was no way that I was getting out of this place without a fight. Dave Miscavige was rumored to have said that the Int Base was like Disneyland! And I guess that if you took away all of the trains, rides, giant characters running around, food, happiness, kids, parents or anything else pleasant, and the ability to leave whenever you wanted, the Int Base could be compared to Disneyland.
Chapter Eight – Just Can’t Get Enough
On the Base Orientation Course, I had to learn the lingo for the different buildings around the Gilman Hot Springs property. There were hundreds of abbreviations and names for buildings that made no sense, but everybody was required to learn them all. It seemed impossible to learn the different buildings since the base was a huge, sprawling compound that took at least an hour to walk around. It was something like 500 acres.
In the course pack, there was a list of all the buildings on the base with descriptions of each (see map included after Author's Note and before Chapter 1):
BV: Bonnie View or Beautiful View – This is LRH’s house that sits at the highest elevation of the Int Base property and has a beautiful view of the property. The house was built from the ground up based on LRH advices. The entire house has different furnishings for each season that are routinely swapped out. Furniture, drapes, beds sheets etc. are all custom designed to match each season of the year.
Studio Two: This is the studio where all film mix downs are done by the Audio Division of Gold. There is also a Post Lip Sync studio located in this same building, as well as the film sound transfer facilities used by manufacturing.
Villas: This was where Religious Technology Center was located. There were three buildings, the upper, middle and lower villas. Not only was RTC located here, but top executives also lived here.
Star of California Clipper Ship: The Star of California is a giant clipper ship that was built into the property to be used as a local attraction for people from nearby Hemet and San Jacinto. Promoted as a movie set, local residents were given public tours on Sundays to see how a real movie set looks. The Star of California also has an Olympic size swimming pool, Jacuzzi, sauna and other facilities that could be used for entertaining and local events.
The Spa: The Spa is now the location of the Qualifications Division of Gold. The Spa used to be the main location on the property where the hot springs would surface and several large steam bath facilities were located here. After the United States Government drilled a large underground tunnel through the back side of the mountain, they hit the underground river that fed the hot springs and the springs dried up. Old Man Gilman, who had run the hot springs resort since 1913, had several boilers set up beneath the Spa, and continued to run the hot springs resort for several years