Order of the Solar Temple


The Order of the Solar Temple, or simply the Solar Temple, was a new religious movement and secret society, often described as a cult, notorious for the mass deaths of many of its members in several mass murders and suicides throughout the 1990s. The OTS was a neo-Templar order, claiming to be a continuation of the Knights Templar, and incorporated an eclectic range of beliefs with aspects of Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and New Age ideas. It was led by Joseph Di Mambro, with Luc Jouret as a spokesman and second in command. It was founded in 1984, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Di Mambro, a French jeweler and esotericist with a history of fraud, co-led the group with Jouret, a Belgian homeopath known for lecturing on alternative medicine and spirituality. Di Mambro had founded several past esoteric groups, and had previous affiliation with a number of other organizations. This included The Pyramid and the Golden Way Foundation, a New Age group founded by Di Mambro that the OTS replaced. The OTS was founded by Jouret and Di Mambro out of a schism from the separate neo-Templar group the Renewed Order of the Temple, which Jouret had taken over and then been kicked out of. The group was active throughout several French-speaking countries. Its practices focused largely on ritualistic elements, with beliefs in the ascended master figures of Theosophy, who they believed resided on the star Sirius. Its members were largely affluent former Catholics.
Following increasing legal and media scandal, including investigations over arms trafficking and pressure from an ex-member, as well as conflict within the group, the founders began to prepare for what they described as "transit" to Sirius. In 1994, Di Mambro first ordered the murder of a family of ex-members in Quebec, before orchestrating mass suicide and mass murder on two communes in Switzerland. In the following years, there were two other mass suicides of former OTS members in France in 1995 and in Quebec in 1997. In total, 74 people died in the course of these events; it is not known how many of the specific deaths were murder and how many were suicides.
The OTS was a major factor that led to the strengthening of the anti-cult movement in Europe, particularly in Francophone Europe. Due to the death of all high ranking members of the organization, the only one alive to be held responsible was Swiss composer Michel Tabachnik, who had involvement with Di Mambro and was the president of the Golden Way Foundation. Tabachnik was tried in France after the second mass suicide, but was acquitted twice in two trials, found to be innocent on all counts. In the aftermath, many conspiracy theories revolving around the events resulted, some alleging government and organized crime involvement.

Classification

The precise definition or classification as to what kind of movement the Solar Temple was by academics is inconsistent; scholars have labeled it variously as an esoteric new religious movement, a neo-Templar group, a Rosicrucian organization, a doomsday or suicide cult, a new magical movement, a magical-esoteric religion, or a secret society, among others. Stephen A. Kent and Melodie Campbell classified the group as a UFO religion. According to Henrik Bogdan, how the OTS is classified depends on "how these labels are defined and what aspects of the OTS are emphasized."
Shannon Clusel and Susan J. Palmer described the OTS as a neo-Templar movement influenced by the philosophies of Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and the New Age. Bogdan emphasized their status as a masonic initiatory society. Massimo Introvigne has classified them as one of many neo-Templar movements, organizations that claim, through adherence to a set of myths about the secret survival of the Knights Templar, to be a continuation of that movement. Such groups were often affiliated with masonic rites and freemasonry.
The organization was described by the Quebec coroner investigating the case as incorporating a variety of traditions but as primarily inspired by occultism due to its belief in pseudoscientific practices and practices unrecognized by other religions, which required special initiation. Palmer viewed the Solar Temple as fitting within anthropologist Mary Douglas's conception of a "strong group, weak grid" society, due to the immense pressure it placed on individual members in combination with its "vague and confusing classification system". These societies, according to Douglas, often exhibit a dualistic cosmology, in which the group does not view justice as winning over evil forces.

Organization

The group used many names during its existence, sometimes multiple at once. Following the deaths, "Solar Temple" has been used as the overall common term. The "Order of the Solar Temple" formally was only a part of the larger organization; many members of the "core" of the organization were never actual members of the OTS proper. Many aspects of the group's organizational structure were in flux, as is the case in many NRMs; the organization had several layers, compared to a Chinese box by scholars. The most public face of the organization was the Amenta Club, which had Luc Jouret lecture on New Age-related issues, including ecology, homeopathy, and naturopathy; it was the Amenta Club from which recruitment was done to the more secretive and ritualistic Archedia Clubs. The third, and apparently most secretive layer, was the International Order of Chivalry Solar Tradition, or the Order of the Solar Temple.
The OTS had a strict hierarchy with three degrees, in the structure of an initiatory Masonic society: the Frères du Parvis, Chevaliers de l’Alliance, and Frères des Temps Anciens. The three levels of membership corresponded to the three degrees of initiation: initiates, awakened souls, and immortals. For each degree, a rite of initiation was undergone by the member; specifics of each ceremony varied, but in one ritual the officiants were mentioned as: Priest, Deacon, Ritual Master, Matre, Chaplain, Sentinel, Master of Ceremonies, Guardian, and Escorts. The precise relation of these hierarchies to the organization at large is unclear, with the degrees possibly constituting an even more selective group, which some sources call the Synarchy of the Temple. Outside of this framework was the fourth organization, the Golden Way Foundation, which was the parent structure of both the Archedia and Amenta clubs. Members of the OTS paid a monthly membership fee and lived communally.

Beliefs and practices

The beliefs of the OTS were extremely eclectic, with members mixing elements from several different traditions, among them Egyptian mythology, East Asian folk medicine, Rosicrucianism, some gnostic ideas, and ecological apocalypticism. Its members explored a variety of occult subjects, with occultists of varying systems of beliefs being invited to do workshops for the OTS. The Order did not have one coherent method of syncretizing its system of eclectic beliefs; they did not have a "normative theology", instead utilizing allegory and symbolism to clarify their own beliefs in this context. The more distinct beliefs of the OTS were hidden.
As an esoteric movement, the teachings of the OTS were elaborated upon only to those deemed advanced enough in the organization. Members progressed through several related movements: the Amenta Club, the Archedia Club, and the OICST. Most of the dead were the high ranking members, with those left surviving being the lower ranking who had less access to the ideas of the group; this has caused difficulties in investigating their beliefs by scholars. Many members of the OTS were wealthy and socially successful, in contrast to many other cults; members were often middle-aged professionals who were highly cultured. This drew from its approach, elitist and interested in aesthetics, with a religious view that was non-fundamentalist. Its members were almost exclusively cultural Catholics, to whom it offered a type of religious mysticism and ritual that had been minimized by the Catholic Church in the previous decades.
Commentators have suggested influences from Eastern religions; Emmanuelle was referred to as an avatar, though this term was not used in any philosophical sense, and Jouret believed the world to be in the Kali Yuga, as in Hinduism. Jouret's usage of the term was not in line with Hindu usage, being a much shorter period, more similar to Western astrological ideas. These and related concepts are widespread within New Age and Theosophical movements, and any further inspiration is contested. According to Chyrissides, Di Mambro's contrasting of Emmanuelle as the avatar with the Antichrist showed that he still thought in a quasi-Christian manner. In one of their letters, they displayed a belief in the New World Order conspiracy theory.
The OTS took a large portion of its ideology from the French alchemist Jacques Breyer, inheriting his work's occult-apocalyptic themes. His books were circulated within the organization; It also asserted the arrival of the end of time; one chart calculates the "End of Incarnation" as "1999.8". Other years it gave were 2147, 2156, or 2666, though it also said that others were possible, as they were based on simple calculations. The precise date was viewed as less important than the preparation for the end itself. In another chart, Breyer relates that, based on the year Jesus is estimated to have been born, that the "Grand Monarchy" of the world "ought to Leave this world around 1995–96." The OTS was heavily influenced by the theosophist Alice Bailey. In particular, the preoccupation with the star Sirius and her emphasis on the theosophical concept of the Ascended Masters had influenced the Rosicrucian revival; Di Mambro also utilized her Great Invocation to begin Temple ceremonies. Jacques Breyer, and the New Age movement generally, had drawn heavily from Bailey's ideas. Bailey also introduced the "reappearance of the Christ" concept, where Jesus had been a medium for the "Christ", who, towards the end of the 20th century, as long as a certain set of conditions were fulfilled, would reappear to herald a new age, which would coincide with the drawing of the Masters close to humanity.
Jouret defined seven principles of the Order of the Solar Temple, which were taken basically unaltered from Breyer's Sovereign Order of the Solar Temple. The OSTS wrote their seven principles as follows:
  1. Re-establishing the correct notions of authority and power in the world.
  2. Affirming the primacy of the spiritual over the temporal.
  3. Giving back to man the conscience of his dignity.
  4. Helping humanity through its transition.
  5. Participating in the Assumption of the Earth in its three frameworks: body, soul, and spirit.
  6. Contributing to the union of the Churches and working towards the meeting of Christianity and Islam.
  7. Preparing for the return of Christ in solar glory.