The Tragedy Of The Solar Temple Cult

It was 884 years ago that nine knights met in Palestine under the noble purpose of protecting Christian pilgrims on route to the Holy Land. Assembling themselves around such knightly virtues, the order took as their role model the Temple of Solomon, which they mistakenly believed the Al Aqsa Mosque to be. Soon after these nine poor and noble knights would be a part of a much larger and richer order that would sweep through Christendom. Such would be the case of this glorious order until that fateful day in 1314, when Jacques de Molay, the order's last Grand Master was burned at the stake as a heretic. 680 years later another group of Templars called The Order of the Solar Temple would meet a fiery death, albeit with an entirely different set of circumstances. On October 5th, 1994 the bodies of 53 members of this apocalyptic cult were found in Chiery and Granges-sur-Salvan, Switzerland as well as in the Province of Quebec, Canada, thus ending a decade long rein of this tragic neo-Templar order.

The Order of the Solar Temple or "International Chivalric Organization of the Solar Tradition," as it was officially known, was founded in 1984 by Luc Jouret and Joseph Di Mambro. Di Mambro, a jeweler by trade, had a life long interest in matters esoteric and in 1956 became a member of the AMORC, better known as the Rosicrucians. He would remain a member of the AMORC until 1969. A year later in 1970, Di Mambro encountered some problems arising from a swindling charge and left the South of France, settling near the Swiss border. It seems his specialty was posing as a psychologist and he had made a good career of it until he was caught and charged. From the early to mid 1970's Di Mambro was involved in a variety of minor esoteric societies and in 1978 became the founder of the Golden Way Foundation in Geneva. The Golden Way, in Di Mambro's estimation, needed to expand and in order to do that he would need to find a charismatic leader; a prerequisite for any growing cult. He found such a leader in 30 year old Luc Jouret, whom he met via one of the members of his flock who would latterly be one of the victims of the 1994 murder / suicide. Some time after their initial meeting, Di Mambro introduced Jouret to one Julian Origas, who was the founder of the "Renewed Order of the Temple;" a group that combined Templar and Rosicrucian themes. Jouret soon joined both di Mambro's and Origas' groups. Following his mentor Origas' death in 1984, Jouret became the Grand Master of the ORT. Although the reason is not known, a year later, Jouret was forced out of the ORT and took with him, half of the order's membership. As he was already a member of Di Mambro's Golden Way Foundation, Jouret was clearly the charismatic leader Di Mambro had been looking for. Together the two leaders would form the Order of the Solar Temple in 1984.

The 1980's saw the charismatic Jouret, a doctor by trade, which added an air of credibility to his presentations, lead a very successful lecture tour that took him throughout Switzerland, France and Canada. The result of the recruiting drive lectures was that the order was divided into three distinct groups or levels of membership. The first, called "Amanta" consisted of those brought in by Jouret's lectures and seminars. The next level "The Archedia Clubs" consisted of those who wished to go a little further with the ideas and teachings of the order. Lastly was the initiative arm of the order, "The International Chivalric Organization of the Solar Tradition."

The Amanta, the organization that funded and promoted his lectures, was quite successful at setting up speaking engagements for Jouret. These lectures, according to Jean Francois Mayer of the University of Fribourg, were innocent enough in their advertisement, "Luc Jouret, Physician. Love and Biology." This innocent message of the lecture flyer soon turned to both a spiritual and apocalyptic tone, with Jouret speaking of environmental disasters such as the erupting of volcanoes and dying forests. While this seems innocent enough, the real impetus behind the group was to find a core of people that would be strong enough to survive the ecological apocalypse that Jouret and his group believed was forthcoming. At this early stage in the cult, there appeared to be no indication that the group wished to leave the planet, as would be revealed in the order's final days.

Jouret's more advanced members believed that he was a Knight Templar in a previous life and that he would lead his followers to a planet orbiting Sirius. The Solar Temple founder also believed that he was a third reincarnation of Jesus Christ, or at least that is the image he put forth to the rank and file member. The beliefs of the Solar Temple, which changed from time to time, seemed to be a blending of neo-Templarism, New Age philosophy, Christianity and survivalist paranoia. The cult taught that life was an illusion and that followers would be reborn on a planet revolving around the Dog Star Sirius. This is most evident in a quote of Jouret's own words; "Liberation is not where human beings think it is. Death can represent an essential stage of life." The group under Jouret's teachings believed that the end was neigh and that the world would end by fire; concepts that were an undercurrent in Jouret's earlier lecture circuit.

As leader of the cult, Jouret became increasingly eccentric. Prior to the order's ritual he would have sexual relations with one of the women in the flock in order to supposedly give him "Spiritual Strength" to enact the ceremony, which consisted of a "dog and pony show" where spiritual beings seemed to appear. These apparitions were nothing more than some expensive electronic projection devices operated by Di Mambro. Di Mambro, although a backstage member, was not behind the scenes when it came to his own share of authoritarian tendencies. He, like Jouret, was fond of engaging in sexual liaisons with the female members of the order, whether they were married or not. They complied willingly and unquestionably as members of a cult often do. There were many instances of couples being broken up by Di Mambro and Jouret if they were found not to be "cosmically compatible."