| Order of the Solar Temple | |
| Abbreviation: | OTS |
| Formation: | 1984 |
| Native Name: | Ordre du Temple solaire |
| Native Name Lang: | fr |
| Dissolved: | 1997 |
| Key People: | Michel Tabachnik |
| Membership: | 300–400 |
| Leader Title: | Founder |
| Leader Name: | Joseph Di Mambro |
| Leader Title2: | Grand Master |
The Order of the Solar Temple (OTS), or simply the Solar Temple, was an esoteric new religious movement and secret society, often described as a cult, notorious for the mass deaths of many of its members in several incidents throughout the 1990s. The OTS was a neo-Templar movement, claiming to be a continuation of the Knights Templar, and incorporated a mix of Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and New Age ideas. It was lead by Joseph Di Mambro, with Luc Jouret as a spokesman and second in command. It was founded in 1984, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Di Mambro was a French jeweler, esotericist, and serial fraudster, while Jouret was a Belgian homeopath who lectured on alternative medicine and related spirituality. After meeting at one of these lectures they became close, and the OTS was formed. Di Mambro had founded several past esoteric groups, and had previous affiliation with a number of other organizations. The group was active throughout several French-speaking countries.
Following increasing legal and media scandal, including investigations over arms trafficking and money laundering in multiple countries, as well as conflict within the group, the founders began to prepare for what they described as "transit" to the star Sirius. In 1994, they 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 and Quebec; in total, 74 people died in the course of these events, the classification of which as either mass suicide or mass murder is disputed. The OTS was a major factor in the toughening of the fight against cults in France.
The OTS was one of numerous Neo-Templar organizations active in France and Switzerland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These organizations followed a tradition of claiming unbroken descent from a lineage of Grand Masters that claimed to go back to the original medieval Knights Templar; the original Knights Templar had been dissolved by Pope Clement V following accusations of witchcraft and heresy at the beginning of the fourteenth century. In 1310, fifty-four Templar knights were burned at the stake, and four years later the Grand Master and a local leader were as well. The idea of the Templars' continued existence has been criticized by scholars of Templar history, and was described by French historian Régine Pernoud as "totally insane."
In 1968, French esotericist and author Jacques Breyer and the former grandmaster of the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC) Raymond Bernard, established the Renewed Order of the Temple (ORT), viewed by some as a predecessor to the OTS. Breyer had previously initiated a resurgence of Templar groups in France in 1952. The ORT's main headquarters were located in Auty, where its grand master, Julien Origas, a former member of the Gestapo, was stationed. Origas led members of the far-right to join ORT.
See main article: Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret.
Joseph Di Mambro was a French jeweler with an interest in esotericism. After scamming a business partner in the late 1960s, Di Mambro fled France, before returning to Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1972, believing that his past actions had been forgotten, and acted as a psychologist. Soon after, he was sentenced to six months in prison for writing bad checks, breaching patient trust, and for impersonating a psychiatrist. In the 1950s, Di Mambro began practicing spiritualism and frequented a successor group to the Service d'Action Civique (SAC), founded by French politician Charles Pasqua. In the late 1960s, he became a member and lodge leader of the AMORC organization in Nîmes, France.
Luc Jouret began a formal study of homeopathy and qualified as a homeopathic practitioner in France. He travelled widely studying various forms of alternative and spiritual healing. At the beginning of the 1980s he settled in Annemasse, France, not far from the Swiss border, and began to practice homeopathy there. He continued to lecture widely on holistic health and the paranormal and invited those who responded to him into Amenta Club (later renamed the Atlanta Club).
Di Mambro founded in 1973 the Centre for the Preparation of the New Age (CPAN) in Collonges-sous-Salève. In 1975, a Geneva-based community known as the Brotherhood of the Pyramid, or alternatively La Pyramide, founded by Di Mambro, began meeting regularly in a house in the Geneva countryside, for community, discussion and mutual support on topics such as diet and spirituality.[1] In June 1977, Di Mambro met orchestral conductor Michel Tabachnik, who, having an interest in esotericism, attended and became a member. Di Mambro suggested he take over the community and structure it. The following year, the two men created the Golden Way Foundation.[2] [3]
In 1978 Di Mambro founded the Golden Way Foundation . Based in a villa in Saconnex-d'Arve, Switzerland, the foundation aimed to discuss issues of pollution, the environment and social ties. It aimed to develop knowledge about the evolution of future quality of life, such as healthy living, organic farming and alternative healthcare techniques. Through conferences (with guests such as Iannis Xenakis, Alexis Weissenberg, Nikita Magaloff, Hubert Reeves and Michel Jonasz), research and television interviews, the foundation opened up to public and political life.
In the early 1980s, Joseph Di Mambro and Michel Tabachnik, both interested in philosophy, esotericism and spirituality, decided to bring a mystical and religious vision to the foundation. A room called the "Sanctuary" was set aside for meditation and rituals designed to "connect with the world of the invisible". Members wore white capes with symbols such as the Rose cross and the Templar cross. Michel Tabachnik held several conferences on esotericism. Di Mambro also set up the Amenta society to spread the ideas of the Golden Way Foundation and to recruit new members. Joseph Di Mambro was perceived by Foundation members as a medium, a "walk-in" being (a being who takes on the body of another). Jouret gave a number of lectures in which he defended the existence of a link between a spiritual approach and homeopathy. Having noticed Luc Jouret's good elocution and communication skills, Di Mambro decided to meet him, and was charmed. He invited Jouret to join the Golden Way, where he quickly rose in the ranks. In 1981, Camille Pilet, later the treasurer of the OTS, suffered a heart attack and met Jouret. Following this he took an interest in the alternative medicines promoted by Jouret, and joined the group. The same year, Origas was invited by Di Mambro to visit the Golden Way commune; Origas, impressed with Jouret, invited him into ORT.
In June 1981, Di Mambro, then 57, began an affair with then 21-year-old Dominique Bellaton. He later claimed to receive a revelation from the "masters" that Bellaton would produce a "cosmic child" through theogamy. In 1982, Di Mambro announced that a "great mission" awaited the foundation. He also announced that a "child-king" was to be born into the community. Di Mambro soon had the idea that Bellaton, a young drug-addicted woman who had been hunted by pimps who joined the order at her parents' request, was the surrogate mother of the "cosmic child". A ceremony in the order's crypt, organized with special effects, helped to confirm to the members the supernatural powers of theogamy, when in fact Dominique was Di Mambro's mistress and had been pregnant for several weeks.[4] In January 1986 Di Mambro legally recognized the child as his biologically at the French Consulate in Quebec. Their child, initially named Anne Bellaton, was born on 22 March 1982. The child was viewed as "the Christ of the new generation", but was born female, something attributed by Di Mambro to human imperfection (believing the child's mother being human had led to an imperfect Christ). Di Mambro claimed the child was an Avatar, a male soul trapped in a female body. She was then given the female title Emmanuelle, but was referred to with male pronouns. The same year, Jouret founded Club Amenta (later renamed Atlanta).[5]
In 1983, after the death of Julien Origas, leader of ORT, Di Mambro urged Jouret to take over the order, and he became its new grand master the same year. Within the year Origas's daughter forced him out of the group over a dispute involving leadership and funds, resulting in a schism with half of ORT going with Jouret. Jouret then formed and lead a schismatic group of 30 ORT members, which opened branches in Martinique and Quebec. The same year, Michel Tabachnik was made president of the Golden Way Foundation.
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.[6] According to Henrik Bogdan, what the OTS is classified as 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, with influence from 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 actually 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.
Many members of the OTS were wealthy and socially successful, in contrast to many other cults. As an esoteric movement, teachings of the OTS were only elaborated upon to those advanced enough in the organization. Members progressed through several related movements – the Amenta Club, then the Archedia Club, then to 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.
In OTS theology, the star Sirius was a focal point, as the "Blue Star" that had appeared roughly 26,000 years ago; they believed it to be the home of the "Ascended Masters" (also called the Great White Brotherhood). The OTS conceived of the Ascended Masters as having arrived on earth, where they inhabited Agartha (an underground spiritual realm popular in esoteric thought). The Masters were, in the OTS's conception, effectively souls with the ability to manifest in physical form; both the Masters and human beings were perceived as souls who were merely temporarily occupying their bodies, and at the time of death would merely move on to another. The OTS believed that advanced members could, at will, "de-corporealize".
Both the Masters and human beings were believed to be capable of reincarnation, a key aspect of OTS theology. OTS members believed themselves to be reincarnated versions of the original Templars who had been burned at the stake with grandmaster Jacques de Molay, and even further, members of a class of people who had been reborn since ancient times, whose purpose in the world was to fulfill a "cosmic mission". Di Mambro personally claimed he was a reincarnation of, among others, an Egyptian pharaoh, one of the 12 Disciples, Longinus (the Roman soldier who pierced Jesus's side during the crucifixion) and an Ascended Master, Manatanus. Jouret claimed he was a reincarnation of Bernard of Clairvaux, founder of the original Knights Templar.
One OTS practice was "cosmic coupling" or "cosmic marriage". Following Di Mambro's reveal of a member's past lives, either Di Mambro or Jouret, (though Jouret himself was forced by Di Mambro to separate from his wife due to "cosmic incompatibility") would force apart married couples and put them with other members. Di Mambro claimed he did this as the will of the "Cosmic Masters". The goal of these cosmic couples was to birth 7 or 9 elite "cosmic children", one of whom was his daughter Emmanuelle (another included Tabachnik's son). According Di Mambro, these seven children would form "the conscience of the new humanity" and they were raised to fulfill this role. At the time of the mass suicides, there were only five cosmic children. In splitting up a couple, Di Mambro would explain to them that their "karmic cycle" had been fulfilled; they would be reassigned to a new partner, whereupon they would be sent off on a mission together. These pairings often had large age gaps: Dominique Bellaton (in her 30s) was paired with Patrick Vuarnet who was 14 years younger, Gerry Genoud was a decade younger than his cosmic wife, Thierry Huguenin's marriage was broken apart and his wife (in her 30s) was matched with Di Mambro's 14 year old son. Bruno Klaus, upon leaving his wife at Di Mambro's order, declared: "The Masters have decided. I am going to live with another woman". Ex-members often complained they were forced into these cosmic unions.
Ritual was an important aspect of the OTS's beliefs, described as its "core activity" by scholar Hendrik Bogdan. One of these rituals was where ranking members could witness the Masters manifest in the underground chambers of the group, in what were actually holographic shows by Antonio Dutoit. Underground sanctuaries were built by the group, hidden behind false walls and only accessible through secret passageways: to enter them, a member would have to take a ritual number of 22 steps.
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. Many aspects of the group's organizational structure were in flux, as is the case in many NRMs. 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. The most public face of the organization was the Amenta Club (later Atlanta), which had Luc Jouret lecture on New Age-related issues, including ecology, homeopathy, and naturopathy; from the Amenta Club recruitment was done to the more secretive Archedia Clubs, which involved the ritual elements. 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 Brothers of the Court, Knights of the Alliance, and Brothers of the Former Times). For each degree, a rite of initiation was undergone by the member; specifics of each ceremony varied, but in one ritual ("The Dubbing of a Knight") 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 (previously La Pyramide), which was the parent structure of both the Archedia and Amenta clubs. Members of the OTS paid a monthly membership fee and lived communally.
In 1984, Jouret and Di Mambro formed the International Chivalric Order of the Solar Tradition (OICTS) in Geneva, which would later become the Order of the Solar Temple. Jouret, a compelling speaker, was the "front man" for this organization, though Di Mambro was the actual leader. From then on, the group's most active locations were in French-speaking Europe and Quebec; from Quebec, the group intended to spread its influence to the United States, and began a translation project to make OTS ideas available to English speakers. This was mostly unsuccessful, as the OTS never had more than a few American members.
In 1985, Di Mambro decided to set up a survival center in Canada in the event of nuclear war. An estate, named Sacré-Coeur, was purchased in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, Quebec, to create an organic farm.[7] The organization set up several subsidiaries, both official and hidden, to finance these real estate purchases; Di Mambro made a profit by reselling his stakes in these purchases to members. Di Mambro, Jouret, Dominique Bellaton and Camille Pilet bought four semi-detached chalets on Chemin Belisle in Morin-Heights, Quebec and, with members' money, several other houses for OTS activities (including a farm in Cheiry, Canton of Fribourg) managed by member Albert Giacobino.
Di Mambro had asked Tabachnik to draw up a series of writings to inspire him to rise in ranks within the order, called the Archées. Many of the Order's concepts and principles were inspired by these writings, third degree initiatory texts.[8] Written between 1984 and 1989, they were made up of 21 articles, each ranging from 15 to 20 pages. They were considered difficult to understand even by members of the OTS.
At its peak, the OTS had 300–400 core members. The group reached its membership height in January 1989, with 442 members: 187 in Metropolitan France, 90 in Switzerland, 86 in Canada, 53 in Martinique, 16 in the US, and 10 in Spain, from which they gained more than $36000 in monthly revenue overall. Most members of the OTS had little contact with the leadership, and little or no idea of their violent plans. Some financially successful members individually donated amounts ranging from the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to the group, to finance the "life centers"; however, some of the money was instead used to fund the leader's own travel expenses, and cost of living expenses for OTS members who did not have other support. The group began to have financial problems.
In the 1990s, Luc Jouret, having given up his profession as a homeopath to devote himself fully to the OTS, began lecturing on personal development at various companies, universities and banks, mainly in Quebec but also in Switzerland, France and Belgium. Di Mambro, who had a dim view of these lectures as "disseminating the ideas and principles of the OTS to the public", began sabotaging Jouret's lectures, who eventually abandoned his activities and became totally dependent on Di Mambro. Jouret was removed from his position as Grand Master, which was handed over to Robert Falardeau. Back in Europe, Di Mambro, Camille Pilet and Alexandre Borgeaud bought land in Salvan (Valais) and built three chalets (Luc Jouret lived in Di Mambro's chalet). The group had a commune in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade.[9]
The OTS had largely escaped negative public attention from the anti-cult movement in the 1980s, other than two lines published in a French anti-cult booklet about Jouret in 1984. He and the group were left out of later 1980s editions. In 1991, a former member, Rose-Marie Klaus, contacted a Montreal cult-watching organization, Info-Secte, and following that the group produced a letter warning other organizations in Canada about the group. Klaus's husband had left her for a "cosmic marriage" to another woman, and she wanted money she had given to the organization returned; she sued the group, and attempted to get negative press coverage on the OTS. On 10 September 1991, the president of Martinique's branch of the Association for the Defense of Families and Individuals (the leading French anti-cult group), asked various Canadian associations for information on the group in a letter, following several Martinicans leaving the island to join them. In 1992, after an invitation from a French cult-watching organization, Klaus visited Martinique, where she denounced the group. Her statements were picked up on by the local media.
The next year the group encountered further trouble. The police of Canada, which was then investigating Q-37 (a mysterious group that threatened to assassinate Canadian public officials, which was eventually determined to have never existed), believed the OTS may have been involved. Soon after the group's locations in Quebec were raided and two members were arrested on grounds of possession of illegal weapons. Jouret had asked the men to buy three semi-automatic guns with silencers, illegal in Canada, resulting in the three being arrested. Jouret and the other two men were given only light sentences after the crime (one year of unsupervised probation and a $1000 fine intended to be paid to the Red Cross), but in the aftermath the media took interest in the group. The Canadian press began to report, using information gained from police wiretaps, conversations between members of the OTS, which they described as a "doomsday cult".
Though Jouret had encouraged some members of the OTS to learn to shoot, at the time, members of Info-Secte believed the group to be of a survivalist nature, and that they intended to use the weapons to defend themselves after an apocalypse; a representative of Info-Secte publicly expressed his confusion as to why they would need silencers for this purpose. Even tabloid newspapers that covered the OTS, which ran lurid stories about the organization, did not indicate they believed them capable of violence. In March 1993, some members of the group tried to convince the press that the OTS was harmless and mostly dedicated to moral improvement and gardening, and denied allegations of being a cult.
The OTS viewed itself as increasingly persecuted, though according to Jean-François Mayer, there was little actual opposition to the group, with Canadian Public Security Minister Claude Ryan explicitly stating the government would not surveil cult members in the wake of reports on the group, and denying information claiming the group had planned to commit terrorist attacks in Canada. The leadership believed the increasing legal and media attention to be both a conspiracy against the OTS and a sign of the Kali Yuga, and the group's ideas became increasingly focused on environmental destruction and ecological collapse.
Beginning in the late 1980s, several members began to doubt Di Mambro. In 1990, Di Mambro's son Elie discovered that the apparations that appeared during OTS ceremonies were faked, operated by Tony Dutoit, who confirmed this, before leaving the group. Elie, who also realized that the "masters" his father presented did not exist, then revealed this to other members. Some members explained the falsification away as necessary to keep "weaker souls" in the group, but numerous other members, whose faith in the group had been previously damaged by the silencer scandal, left the group and demanded a reimbursement of money they had donated.[10] Joseph Di Mambro promised to return the sums requested, but several OTS members resigned in quick succession in 1990, leaving only the core group of OTS members. The leaders began to monitor members who said they wanted to leave the OTS. Some were spied on, others had their phones tapped. Many members, including Di Mambro's own son and many high-ranking members, left.
Di Mambro also began having issues with Emmanuelle; though she had been raised from birth to be a messiah figure, by the age of 12 she had become uncooperative, rejecting her role in the group and taking an interest in typical teenage pop culture. He additionally believed her to be under threat from the Antichrist, who he believed was born to Tony and Nicky Dutoit in summer 1994. Di Mambro believed that the Antichrist was born into the order to prevent him from succeeding in his spiritual aim. Di Mambro had previously forbidden Nicky from giving birth, but after she left the group, they had a son, who they named Christopher Emmanuel. Di Mambro, deeply offended by the name similitarity, the disobeying of his instructions, and that he had not been consulted in the naming of the infant, ordered the family be murdered later in 1994.
In a tape likely dating to spring 1994, Jouret and Di Mambro discussed the Waco siege, saying that they had "beaten us to the punch", with Di Mambro saying "what we’ll do will be even more spectacular". Members of the group claimed a mass suicide had occurred in Sydney on 6 January 1994. According to the New South Wales Police, this did not occur.[11] [12] In another tape from spring 1994, Di Mambro stated:Given the scale of the issues facing the group leaders, it was decided they would "transit" to Sirius. To prepare for the transit, specific missions were given to the most faithful members. Included among these was the specific kinds of deaths, which were divided into three categories:
The OTS termed the acts a "transit", which they described as "in no way a suicide in the human sense of the term". In their view, traitors would be simply murdered, while "weaker" members would be "helped" to transit, and the remaining members considered strong enough would kill themselves. Members believed that, upon death, they would acquire "solar bodies" in a faraway location in space (typically given as the star Sirius, but alternatively Jupiter or Venus). The group's leaders wrote four letters expressing these views, known as, which contained messages of the order's beliefs. The four letters were titled "To All Those Who Can Still Understand the Voice of Wisdom … We Address This Last Message", "The Rose+Croix", "Transit to the Future", and finally "To Lovers of Justice".
In their belief, they would "transit" by the star Sirius. During the last meeting of the order, On 24 September 1994, the group was renamed as the Alliance Rose Croix (ARC), announced by Tabachnik. The group claimed the renaming was in order to reach "the irreversible stage of the return to the Father" and the "Vth Reign", which would lead to the abolition of hierarchies.
On 30 September 1994, Dominique Bellaton lured the Dutoits to Di Mambro's chalet in Morin-Heights; Di Mambro had ordered two group members, Jerry Genoud and Joël Egger, to eliminate the infant.[13] The baby was stabbed through the heart with a wooden stake, and the parents were then murdered. Each of the victims was stabbed multiple times; Tony was stabbed fifty times in the back. Bellaton and Egger left for Switzerland at 10:10 p.m. the same day, while Genoud and his wife Colette cleaned up and set fire to the chalet, killing themselves.[14] The bodies of the Dutoits were later found hidden in a storage closet.
On the night of October 4 to 5, 1994, two fires broke out in Switzerland: one at around 11:55 p.m. at the "La Rochette" farm in Cheiry, and another in three chalets at "Le Fond du Ban" in Salvan. When the fire department arrived, they found 23 people dead in Cheiry and 25 in Salvan. The victims were, in most cases, "dressed in a white, black or gold ritual cloak, depending on the degree of initiation reached".[15] In Switzerland, many of the victims were found in a secret underground chapel lined with mirrors.[16] Jouret was among the dead in Salvan. Many bodies were burned beyond recognition, and Jouret and Di Mambro's bodies had to be identified via dental records.[17] Di Mambro's wife and child were also among the dead.[18]
On the morning of 5 October, Di Mambro instructed member Patrick Vuarnet, Jean Vuarnet's son, to mail the Testament letters to roughly 300 people, including to the media, other followers and a number of political and public figures, including Charles Pasqua and Bill Clinton. These letters were sent out to 60 scholars (one of whom was Jean-François Mayer). They were postmarked from "D.Part" and "Tran Sit Corp", mailed from "33 Golden Strasse, 8011 ZURICH".
In Cheiry, twenty victims died from one or more bullets to the head, two suffocated with plastic bags around their heads, and another probably in the same way on 3 October. Twenty-two people had flunitrazepam in their blood, and one had theobromine. The building, closed from the inside, was then set on fire the following day by an automatic ignition system.[19] The bodies were dressed in the order's ceremonial robes and were in a circle, feet together, heads outward, most with plastic bags tied over their heads; they had each been shot in the head. The dead were divided into three categories. The inner circle members who were close to Jouret and Di Mambro, called the "Awakened", ingested poison. An additional 30, "Immortals", were shot or smothered; 8 others, declared as "traitors", were murdered.
The plastic bags may have been a symbol of the ecological disaster that would befall the human race after the OTS members moved on to Sirius; it is also possible that these bags were used as part of the OTS rituals, and that members would have voluntarily worn them without being placed under duress. There was also evidence that many of the victims in Switzerland were drugged before they were shot. Other victims were found in three ski chalets; several dead children were lying together. The tragedy was discovered when officers rushed to the sites to fight the fires that had been ignited by remote-control devices. Farewell letters left by the believers stated that they believed they were leaving to escape the "hypocrisies and oppression of this world." At least five of the dead were children.[20]
In Salvan, it transpired that the victims had been injected (or had injected themselves) with a curare, opioid and benzodiazepine-based poison. The cottages were then locked from the inside and set on fire using an automatic ignition system. Bodies were found in only two of the three cottages. A mayor, a journalist, a civil servant, and a sales manager were found among the dead in Switzerland. Records seized by the Quebec police showed that some members had personally donated over C$1 million to Di Mambro. It was concluded by police investigators that most of the dead had died on the 3rd.
The leadership of the OTS cared deeply about the group's legacy, and spent a large amount of time preemptively creating a "legend" through both the manifestos they mailed to various media and scholarly sources, and by destroying all evidence that would have conflicted with their own story. This plan was disrupted, as some of the ignition devices had failed. This failure left behind a large number of the Temple's written documents, some of which were found on the group's surviving computers, as well as audio and video cassettes, able to be looked through by investigators. Several months after the deaths, two journalists from France 2 visited the ruins of the Salvan chalet and found, in the kitchen garbage can, audio cassettes in excellent condition, recording telephone conversations between followers who had been spied on by Di Mambro. Extracts from the tapes were broadcast and deemed to be in line with the order's beliefs and theses.
Thanks to the documents found, the police were able to understand the workings of the community and recognize some of its members, including Michel Tabachnik (in concert in Denmark at the time of the massacres). He was questioned for three days by the investigating judge André Piller, and was cleared of having been the perpetrator of the massacre. Other former OTS members were also questioned, such as Thierry Huguenin, who testified that he had been called to Salvan on 4 October on the promise that money owed to him would be returned that day. However, sensing danger, he left the scene. He went on to explain that he believed the plan was to assassinate him and the others in order to reach the number of 54 victims, in connection with the 54 knights of the Order of the Temple executed at the stake on 18 March during the reign of Philip IV of France. After the event, some other members declared their continued support for the group's ideas, and even regretted not having been chosen for the "transit". A Swiss magistrate concluded that of the fifty two deaths, only fifteen were suicides.
On the night of 15 to 16 December 1995, sixteen people - thirteen adults and three children aged 2, 4 and 6 - were immolated in a circular star-formation[21] at a place called "Le Trou de l'Enfer", in an isolated clearing on the Vercors massif, near Saint-Pierre-de-Chérennes (Isère) in France.[22] Two other bodies were found alongside them. On 23 December 1995, the 16 bodies were discovered by a gamekeeper.[23] [24] Writings from the group found by Swiss police had warned that the next mass suicide would occur on a solstice; the 1995 winter solstice occurred on 22 December.[25]
The investigation conducted by the Grenoble Gendarmerie Nationale Research Section, which entrusted technical expertise to the Institut de recherche criminelle de la gendarmerie nationale (IRCGN), indicated that 14 people, including three children, took sedative pills, put plastic bags on their heads and lay in a circle, feet in the middle of the circle. Then Jean-Pierre Lardanchet and André Friedli shot each member in the head one by one with two .22 caliber rifles.[26] After that, they put firewood on the bodies, poured gasoline and set it on fire. Then they both shot themselves in the head with two .357 Magnum revolvers and jumped into the fire.[27] Two women who were mothers of children had broken skulls.[28] The Grenoble Public Prosecutor opened an investigation into murder and criminal conspiracy, with the possibility of external complicity.[29]
Some of those who died left behind notes where they discussed that they would "see another world". Investigators concluded that of the sixteen dead, at least four had not died willingly. One of the dead was Olympian Edith Bonlieu, who had competed in the women's downhill at the 1956 Winter Olympics.[30]
On 22 March 1997, an old farmhouse in Saint-Casimir, Quebec abruptly caught fire.[31] After a call from a neighbor, firefighters soon arrived, and after the fires diminished an hour later they were able to enter the home. At 7:35 p.m., they discovered four of the burnt bodies – two couples – found in the master bedroom on the second floor, arranged in a crucifix formation. Red rose petals were scattered throughout the room, and while searching the house police found a sword engraved with a woman's name ("Pauline Riou") and medieval-style clothing. Once the smoke cleared, another woman's body was found on the first floor at 8:05. After officers arrived, three teenagers, the children of one of the couples, came out of the shed in the garden, and were found by the chief fire officer who believed them to be possibly drugged. The teenagers were taken to be medically examined, and were found to have traces of benzodiazepine in their blood.
The fire had been set deliberately; three propane tanks had been detached from the detonation mechanism and were unaltered by the fire. In the debris, metal grills were discovered containing cloth drenched in flammable substances. The timers used in the detonation mechanism resembled those used for the fire set at Morin Heights. The attempt to burn the house down initially failed due to mechanical error. The teenagers had successfully convinced their parents that they wanted to live, and were then allowed to leave. As explained in a note that was found, the members had taken their own lives believing that their deaths would let them "transit" to another planet to continue living.
In 1995, the OTS was listed as a cult in the report of the Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France.[32] The group's actions were a major factor in the toughening of the fight against cults in France.[33] In the wake of the deaths, fear of cults took hold of the French and Swiss populations. The acts of the Solar Temple prompted European governments to begin to monitor new and nontraditional religious movements, and also influenced the American anti-cult movement.
In the aftermath, many anti-cult activists compared Jouret — viewed then as the charismatic leader of the OTS — to David Koresh, though Di Mambro was later described as the group's main leader, with Jouret its recruiter.
There were initially debates over whether it was mass suicide or mass murder.[34] The investigation finally concluded that Di Mambro and Luc Jouret had orchestrated mass suicide. The investigators ordered the destruction of the site "so as not to shock believers or attract the curious", a decision that was controversial.
After the deaths, Swiss cantonal authorities founded the Centre intercantonal d'information sur les croyances, an organization meant to provide information on cults.[35]
On 23 December 1995, during the journal de 13 heures program on the French channel TF1, journalist Gilles Bouleau mentioned that the group had survived and united behind Michel Tabachnik, thus indirectly declaring that Tabachnik was the mastermind behind the Vercors massacre. Later, Arnaud Bédat acquired photos claimed to directly implicate Tabachnik in the OTS's actions.[36] [37] This information was picked up by the media, leading Tabachnik to give a public denial. It was revealed that in September 1994, Tabachnik gave two lectures in Avignon at Di Mambro's request. These lectures were preparatory sessions for the massacres that were to take place in October of the same year. It was later said that Tabachnik had indeed taken part in these conferences, but without knowing the outcome of the massacres, and that it had been a set-up by Di Mambro.[38] Tabachnik later sued Bouleau, unsuccessfully, for defamation.[39]
At the time of the investigation, due to the death of the two leaders in Salvan in 1994, Tabachnik was the only defendant in the case. The examining magistrate considered that Tabachnik, through his writings and his conferences, could have incited followers to commit suicide. He was therefore charged with participation in a criminal conspiracy to commit a crime. In his defense, Tabachnik published Bouc émissaire. Dans le piège du Temple Solaire, with a preface by Pierre Boulez.[40] Claude Giron, a member of the group and a pharmacist, was indicted for criminal conspiracy in February 1997, as he was suspected of supplying the drugs used in the killings to the group. The case against him was dismissed in July of that year.[41] [42] On 17 November 1998, investigating judge Luc Fontaine presented the conclusions of his inquiry into the second Vercors massacre.[43]
In the run-up to the criminal court trial against Michel Tabachnik, the families of the victims, all of whom believed it to be a mass suicide, filed a civil action. Having consulted the experts' files, the civil party identified a number of inconsistencies in the investigation, such as the fact that the organic environment around the bodies of the immolated victims was completely intact and showed no trace of fire. The civil party then asked for counter-expertise and questioned the theory of collective suicide. According to Alain Vuarnet, son and brother of two of the victims, who had been conducting a parallel private investigation since 1995,[44] the "collective suicides" of members of the Order of the Solar Temple in December 1995 in the Vercors region have still not been fully explained. He complained about the lack of cooperation from the justice system, which has always refused to investigate the possibility of murder. According to the expert, Professor Gilbert Lavoué, commissioned by Mr. Vuarnet, phosphorus was found at the scene, indicating the use of a flamethrower, which would imply that there had been no suicide, but a staged event.[45] Vuarnet stated, "My father and I remain convinced that it wasn't with a few damp branches that these sixteen bodies were charred to such an extent". The results of the expert analyses revealed "an excess of phosphorus of between 21% and 40%".[46]
On 13 April 2001, at the Grenoble Museum-Library, which had been transformed for the occasion, the criminal court trial of Michel Tabachnik (defended by Francis Szpiner) for "criminal conspiracy" began. However, the plaintiffs' side split into two camps: one camp, led by Alain Vuarnet, who felt that the trial should not focus on Tabachnik's responsibility but on the investigation itself, which they feel did not go all the way in their research; and another, led by the Union nationale des associations de défense des familles et de l'individu victimes de sectes (UNADFI), who believed that Tabachnik and his writings were the cause of the mass suicides, and that cults must be eradicated.
On the seventh day of the trial, several former OTS members took the stand and testified. Among the testimonies given, some were shocked and angry at the sect and the acts committed, while others remained faithful to Di Mambro and to the transit to Sirius. On the eighth day, Tabachnik was finally interviewed and told of having been manipulated and fooled by Di Mambro. On the tenth day, the prosecutor demanded 5 years' imprisonment for Tabachnik's alleged role in the conditioning of the Temple's followers. On 25 June 2001, the court acquitted Tabachnik, on the basis that there had been no significant proof uncovered "beyond hypotheses" that Tabachnik had orchestrated the killings.[47]
The public prosecutor, still accusing him of having, through his writings, pushed followers into a mass suicide, appealed the criminal court's decision, and Tabachnik was tried again in a second trial beginning 24 October 2006.[48] [49] With this appeal, the plaintiffs, led by Alain Virante, hoped to prove that the investigation by examining magistrate Luc Fontaine had been mistaken, and that the followers had indeed been murdered. At their request, Professor Gilbert Lavoué was asked to extract traces of phosphorus from the victims' exhumed remains. The bodies were found to contain excess phosphorus. In the end, the forensic experts considered that this analysis added nothing new to the case and did not call into question Judge Fontaine's decision. The public prosecutor, considering that Tabachnik was not an active member of the order and that "his responsibility for the deaths had not been established", did not request any sentence against him. He was acquitted a second time in December 2006.[50]
Several books have been published about the case.[51] The first book on the OTS, Vie et mort de l'Ordre du Temple Solaire, written by journalist Raphaël Aubert and theologian, was published only two months after the deaths.[52] Several former members of the OTS wrote memoirs, including Thierry Huguenin (Le 54e, 1995), René de Vailly (La Vérité sur l’Ordre du Temple Solaire, 1995), Tabachnik (Bouc emissaire: le piege du temple solaire, 1997), Hermann Delorme (Crois et meurs dans l’Ordre du Temple Solaire, 1996) and Charles Dauvergne (Vingt Ans au Soleil du Temple, 2008). Many journalists authored books on the OTS, including Arnaud Bédat, Gilles Bouleau and Bernard Nicolas, who authored Les Chevaliers de la mort; the journalist also wrote a book on the case. It has also been the subject of works from academics, including and Les Mythes du Temple Solaire.
In 1998, a group called the Atman Foundation was suspected of plotting ritual suicide in the Teide National Park. Both Spanish and German police initially linked the group to the Order of the Solar Temple,[53] [54] though it was later clarified that they were unrelated.
In addition to Alain Vuarnet, other members of the victims' families, René and Muguette Rostan and Willy and Giséla Schleimer, requested in 2001 and again in 2004 that the case be reopened to contest the theory of collective suicide. Jean-Pierre Brard also requested reopening the case in 2006.[55]
Some sources, including psychiatrist Jean-Marie Abgrall, supported the idea that the affair had a political mafia tie, citing possible links between Luc Jouret and members of Gladio. In 2006, the filmmaker Yves Boisset also denounced the "political mafia" trail, which he claimed the investigators had overlooked.[56] Boisset made a documentary film, Les Mystères sanglants de l'OTS, to set out his point of view, which aired on the network France 2 in 2006.[57]