Former Sea Org member Maureen Bolstad’s move from Flag
Base in Florida to the International Base at Hemet, California, was in some
ways a relief. But the work-rate remained relentless.
When Maureen
Bolstad first arrived at the International Base, in late 1983, it was a welcome
relief from the grind at the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida.
For one thing,
she was getting more sleep: six or seven hours a night – better than the four hours
or so that for a while was the best she could hope for in Florida.
But she was not
especially pleased with her sleeping arrangements: she was sharing a cramped
dormitory with 12 other girls.
And she could
still expect to pull in an all-nighter at least once a week.
Some nights,
for example, she found herself on laundry duty for Scientology’s founder, L.
Ron Hubbard.
Hubbard was
living at a secret location elsewhere in California and sent his dirty clothes
to the International Base.
“About seven
Messengers would gather together to hand wash each piece of clothing in special
fragrance free soap, and we'd rinse each article in these five-gallon bins that
we filled over and over again with filtered water,” Bolstad recalled.
“We'd stay up
sometimes 24 to 48 hours straight – depending on how much we had to wash and if
it ‘passed’ inspection or not – passed the smell test.”
As part of her
training for this task, she even had to read instructions written by Hubbard
about how perfumes were part of a plot by his enemies.
According to
LRH, perfumes had been “invented by evil psychiatrists … to confuse the senses
and confuse people,” wrote Bolstad in a posting to the Ex Scientologist Message Board.
“That's why we
had to use the special soaps and really rinse well. Those darn psychiatrists
were trying to distract LRH with perfumed detergents!”
Hubbard was
notoriously sensitive on this point. One former messenger, Doreen Gillham, has
described how he would throw a tantrum if he thought he detected the least
smell on a shirt.
“He would tear
them off the hangers and throw them down,” she told the LA Times in a 1990 interview. “We're talking 30 shirts on the
floor.”
Bolstad also
spent time on something called the Decks Project Force, which involved hard
physical labour such as construction work –all for $30 a week.
“I never got an
entire day off for anything: I never got to visit my own mother until later, in
1987. I'd been promised three weeks off a year to visit my family and I was
being denied that.”
This was 1983,
when Bolstad was just 16, going on 17: when she should have been at high
school.
While her
superiors had managed to talk her out of finishing high school, they were quite
happy to take advantage of the skills she had picked up while still in
full-time education.
“For example, I
learned basic carpentry and wood work in junior high school… I was really good
at it.” So they put her to work making cabinets as part of a renovation project
for what was meant to be Hubbard’s impending return.
But in the
early years, there was a good side to life at the Int. Base, she conceded.
“There were
horses and there were chickens and they would follow me around and it was just
adorable and there was a rooster that would make noises in the morning.”
For most of her
life, she had lived in small houses, so getting the run of “this big old creaky
house was really fun – plus I got to ride the horses!” she said.
“I had time to
go jogging in the morning, because there was no fence, so I could just go
running down Highway 79 at six in the morning or 11 o’clock at night... In fact
I would go jogging around the entire property and get a good three- or
four-mile run.”
By the time she
quit Scientology, security was so tight you could not even get off the base
without special permission.
But in the
beginning, she was young and strong and full of hope: she was working with Ron
to make the world a better place. And she was ready to make sacrifices,
confident that in time she would reap the benefits.
Looking back,
she feels differently.
“I was pretty
wide-eyed and excited about new experiences, but I had no real concept of the
fact that I was being taken advantage of.”
Film work
Eventually, when it became clear that Hubbard was not, after all, going
to be coming out of hiding – that she would not be needed as one of his
assistants – she was given other duties.
Here again, her
previous education helped: having picked up some experience making films at
high school they put her to work in the Cine-Messenger Unit.
At first, she
worked with the film crew, sending detailed notes to Hubbard about their
work. “If there was a problem, I had to propose a solution – and I would
stay up until three in the morning typing up my notes and my solutions to the
problem.”
Gradually, she won more responsibility, to the point where she spent
much of the next decade travelling the world doing film work for the movement.
It was a period of hectic activity.
“I was a superhuman – I stayed up all night and did videos and I was
actually having a lot of fun and I was in perfectly good health and didn’t
think I had any emotional issues.”
In Colorado, she did a video about an activist with the Citizens Commission
for Human Rights, the Scientology campaigning front against psychiatry; in
Rome, she shot footage to promote the Italian branch of Narconon, Scientology’s
anti-drugs programme; and in Venezuela, she profiled a leading member of the
Scientology community there.
For a couple of years, she even made regular visits to the Caribbean to
help the work of Scientology’s cruise ship Freewinds, where public members pay
thousands of dollars to receive the movement’s upper-level teachings.
“I did videos of all these different islands and then I took them back
to Gold (the International Base) and they were edited to music and given to the
island as a gift so they could use that video to promote tourism to the
island.”
She visited 22 different islands and ports in the Caribbean and Mexico
and still looks back on that period as one of the best in her life.
“I wasn’t getting much sleep and I wasn’t really getting paid that much
but I did get food, room and board and I got to go to all these different
islands.” And she liked the people with whom she was working.
Bolstad also did a lot of the camerawork at the annual gatherings of the
International Association of Scientologists.
These were prestigious black-tie occasions that brought together the
movement’s most prominent public members such as celebrities such as Tom Cruise
and John Travolta.
In the late 1980s the IAS events were so important in the Scientology
calendar that they were broadcast by satellite to the movement’s centres
worldwide.
David Miscavige assumed the role of master of ceremonies at such
gatherings, increasing his profile among the membership. By that time, he was
generally acknowledged as the movement’s undisputed leader.
And since at this point Bolstad played a key role at the IAS events, she
never had any problem with him.
“He would thank me for when I did a good job. He would make a point of
telling my superiors that I did a good job and so then I would get respect from
my co-workers.”
From a professional point of view at least, this was an extremely
satisfying time for her. “The 80s were more fun … and then it got heavier after
that.”
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