Gold Base
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The Gold Base is a 500 acre parcel and the headquarters of Golden Era Productions, the media division of the Church of Scientology, located at 19625 Highway 79, Gilman Hot Springs, California 92583, near Hemet. Part of the Base borders U.S. Department of Defense property.
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[edit] About the Base
Gold Base produces the E-Meters the Church of Scientology uses and sells to practitioners.[1] It has film and sound facilities and produces the films used in and sold by the Church. It is staffed by members of the Sea Organization from the Religious Technology Center, the Commodore's Messenger Organization International and Golden Era Productions. David Miscavige and other top leaders of the church live on the Base.[2][3][4]
The Gold Base is also referred to as the "Int Base".[4]
In an article published in the LA Weekly, Gale Holland wrote that there are critics of the Church of Scientology who say that Gold Base, "houses the church's highly secretive security apparatus"[1]. The walls around this base have an inwardly directed "ultra-barrier" made up of sheetmetal knife-like projections[citation needed]. There has been much speculation about this[citation needed], since the function of inwardly-directed barriers is to keep people in, rather than keeping people out. There are also motion sensors every several feet and mounted video surveillance cameras.[4] Former Scientology security officer Andre Tabayoyon has testified in court that the Gold Base is illegally stockpiling weapons and ammunition. [2] His wife also swore in her affidavit that Sea Org women were forced to have abortions against their will [3].
Currently, most base personnel live in Hemet at the Vista Gardens Apartments or the Kirby Apartments and commute by base-owned bus.[5][6]
Arnaldo Lerma has published lists of names of all Gold Base staff, and it has been the subject of speculation why 70 percent of them are women. [4]
Scientology also maintains the Trementina Base in New Mexico, with similar bases located in Petrolia, California, Crestline, California. [5],
[edit] Features
Notable buildings and features in Gold Base include:
- Upper Villas - where David Miscavige and other high level Scientologists and celebrities stay.
- BonnieView - the home for L. Ron Hubbard when he returns in his next life.
- Staff berthing - four buildings where staff live.
- CMO Int - Commodore's Messengers Organization International. CMO Int has the function of establishing and running all management units under Church of Scientology International (CSI)'s control.
- OGH buildings - Old Gilman House. Probably used for auditing or solo auditing.
- RTC building - where Religious Technology Center is headquartered.
- Del Sol - auditing rooms for staff.
- Qual Gold - Headquarters for Qual Sec, in charge of "quality control".
Gold Base also has recreational facilities, including a running track, basketball, volleyball, and soccer facilities, an exercise building, a waterslide, a small lake with a training ship (the Laissez-Faire), two beaches, and a golf course. [6]
[edit] Picketing at Gold Base
There is a prohibition on picketing Gold Base stemming from activist Keith Henson's picketing in 2000.[citation needed] Although critics hold the provision is unconstitutional, it has not been challenged in recent years. Henson picketed the secretive and heavily-armed [7] Gold Base compound over the unusual deaths of a Scientologist, Stacy Moxon Meyer, and a non-Scientologist, Ashlee Shaner.
Meyer, the daughter of Scientology attorney Kendrick Moxon, adverse counsel in many lawsuits involving Henson, died in a bizarre and gruesome accident in an underground electrical vault at the Gold Base. In a horrific coincidence, when Stacy Moxon Meyer was dying underground in the electrical vault, picketers above ground were protesting the previous death of Ashlee Shaner in a ghastly decapitation which occurred at the Gold Base when Scientology personel were moving construction equipment on the highway at night without lights and in the wrong lane.[8]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Tobin, Thomas C. "A place called 'Gold'", St. Petersburg Times, 1998-10-25. Retrieved on March 18, 2007.
- ^ "Scientology from inside out" by Robert Vaughn Young, Quill magazine, Volume 81, Number 9, Nov/Dec 1993.
- ^ "Tom Cruise and Scientology", Los Angeles Times, December 18, 2005: "voter registration records list the Gilman Hot Springs complex as Miscavige's residence since the early 1990s and as recently as the 2004 general election"
- ^ a b c "Inside Scientology" by Janet Reitman. Rolling Stone, Issue 995. March 9, 2006. Pages 55 - 67.
- ^ Rebecca Perry (December 17, 2005). "Scientology's inland empire" (PDF). Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Staff (August 16, 2005). "After spending half of her life in Scientology, she found truth & freedom in Jesus Christ". Baptist Press.
[edit] External links
- ScientologyToday: Golden Era Productions
- Satellite photograph of "Gold base", Gilman Hot Springs, California
- Similar Satellite photograph with key to features
- L.A. Times article discussing the Gold Base
