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I was a 'Queen of Scientology': President's ex-wife reveals the Church's innermost secrets and why she was cast into darkness when she finally fled after 35 years.

Karen de la Carriere, 70, was a member of Scientology for 35 years and attained a rank only shared by a handful of others
She rubbed shoulders with the church's elite including John Travolta 

But she questioned the leadership and says she was brutally punished for it

She claims she was made to run 12 hours a day for three months and was 'imprisoned' in 'The Hole' and had to chip paint off a metal pole day after day

She claims in Sea Org, the management branch, they banned children and forced couples

She left in 2010 and her own son turned on her and she blames Scientology for his ultimate death from pneumonia...

She was married to its President. She held a level of 'enlightenment' and a rank within its organization shared by only a handful of others. She was one of its 'rock stars'.

But when she left in 2010 she was branded a 'Suppressive Person', cast out, harassed and cut off from her son so completely that, when he died in 2012, she learned of his passing via a Facebook posting by a stranger.

Now, for the first time, she has given her full, personal and excoriating account and shared a treasure trove of previously unseen pictures from her years inside the notoriously secretive organization.

Karen never witnessed any acts of violence through the years, but there was talk and Miscavige was someone she feared.

By the time he took over she was working in LA as Heber's assistant. She was in the office when, one day she was summoned without warning by Miscavige.

She will never forget the look in his eyes that day. It was 'just cold, cold steel,' she said.

He didn't shout, he showed no emotion or empathy at all. Instead he calmly told how she was to 'hit the decks'.

With those three words he brought Karen down to the 'lowest of the low', she said, and condemned her to the most brutal treatment in the name of spiritual cleansing.

Her crime was to gossip about two senior members of the executive who had been removed from their posts. She had shared information she had no business sharing, she said, and was told that this was the reason behind the punishment that followed.