Debbie Cook, a former executive in Scientology's "Sea Organisation" – its clergy – wrote a New Year's email to 12,000 Church members detailing her concerns.
Ms Cook, 50, accused David Miscavige, the chairman, of turning the religion into a fund-raising machine and dismantling the mechanisms in place to prevent too much individual control. She also accused Mr Miscavige, 51, of straying away from the principles of L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction author who founded the Church in the 1950s.
