Order of the Solar Temple

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 claimed to be based upon the ideals of the Knights Templar and incorporated a mix 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.

A variation on the Templar Cross used by the OTS

The logo of the Order of the Solar Temple

Quotes from OTS texts

• We leave this Earth to rediscover, with all clarity and in all freedom, a Dimension of Truth and the Absolute, far from the hypocrisies and the oppression of this world, to realize the seed of our future Generation
  • Transit to the Future, quoted in "Purification, Illumination, and Death: The Murder-Suicides of the Order of the Solar Temple" (2014) by Henrik Bogdan

• Men, cry not over our fate, but rather cry for your own. Ours is more enviable than yours. To you who are receptive to this last message, may our Love and our Peace accompany you during the terrible tests of the Apocalypse that await you. Know that from where we will be, we will always hold our arms open to receive those who are worthy of joining us
  • "To All Those Who can Still Understand the Voice of Wisdom … We Address this Last Message", quoted in Walliss 2006

• We have been hunted down like dogs because what we were telling, what we are relating, disturbs at a high level … we are relieved to know that we as well as our children will no more have to endure the craziness of this earthly world. Don’t believe anything that you read about us.
  • A member of the group in a note to his family; quoted in Walliss 2006, quoting Mayer 1998

• Death is the same for us all.
  It is how we leave Life that makes the difference.
  You must be able to die to the profane world
  In order to be born again to the Cosmic World.
  • Ritual for the Donning of the Talar and the Cross, quoted in Bogdan 2014

Quotes about the OTS

• The suicide was organised to save their secrets. The whole group was built on everyone having secrets—secrets within secrets. Every time the police came to Morin Heights, members trembled lest they stumble upon the crypt in the basement, or desecrate their sacred temples and brotherhood rooms in Geneva. One word to the wrong source, one traitor or indiscretion, and all their secrets might be revealed.
  • Unnamed source, quoted in Palmer 1996

• For two days and nights before the blast, the grownups had pursued a remarkable will to die. Over and over they fiddled with three tanks of propane that were hooked to an electric burner and a timing device. As many as four times, they swallowed sedatives, then arranged themselves in a cross around a queen-size bed, only to rise in bleary frustration when the detonator fizzled. Finally, they blew themselves to kingdom come. For them that would be the star Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major, nine light-years from Quebec. According to the doctrines of the Solar Temple, they will reign there forever, weightless and serene.
  • Richard Lacayo, The Lure of the Cult, TIME magazine, April 7 1997

• Le rite s'accomplit pour la dernière fois. Les chevaliers de l’Ordre, conduits par le délire de leurs maîtres, guidés par la voix de leurs prophètes, s'acheminent vers leur apocalypse personnelle.
  • The rite is performed for the last time. The knights of the Order, led by the delirium of their masters, guided by the voice of their prophets, move towards their personal apocalypse.
  • Jean-Marie Abgrall, Les sectes de l'apocalypse: Gourous de l'an 2000, 1999

• I was struck by their serenity... I found them strangely detached. 'What is death?', one of them asked with a strange glimmer in his eyes. These people were not crazy... they readied themselves for the end of the world the way others get ready for an exam.
  • Montreal Gazette, October 14. 1994, quoted in Palmer 1996

• I was the leader, anyone could be the leader. You know the planets? Some are close to the sun, Mercury is the closest, and some are further out... And yet each planet has their fixed course, and it was like that with us. Everyone has a role to play, we are all important.
  • Former member, quoted in Palmer 1996

• In front of the police station at Rukungiri in southwestern Uganda, not far from the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the police officer could not believe his ears as I told him the story of the Order of the Solar Temple in Europe and Canada. His face showed a mixture of both puzzlement and relief: "You have also had such a case? In Switzerland? In a rich country? Not among poor people?" He called the other police officers: "Come, listen to this story! They have had the same thing in Europe!"
  • Jean-François Mayer, "There Will Follow a New Generation and a New Earth": From Apocalyptic Hopes to Destruction in the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, Violence and New Religious Movements, 2011 - following the MRTC mass suicides of 2000

• Nous sommes aux antipodes de l'humilité propre aux saints et aux vrais maîtres spirituels. Le Temple Solaire sombre dans l'illusion et son orgueil ne le conduit qu’au néant: croyant devenir des dieux, les adeptes aveuglés suivent le joueur de flûte dans une danse macabre et se précipitent vers la mort.
  • This is a far cry from the humility of saints and true spiritual masters. The Solar Temple sinks into illusion, and its pride leads it to nothingness: believing themselves to be gods, its blinded followers follow the Pied Piper in a macabre dance and rush to their deaths.
  • Jean-François Mayer, Les Mythes du Temple Solaire, 1996

• Ne sachant que faire de ces cendres bien encombrantes, les autorités du canton du Valais décidèrent finalement de les enfouir en catimini dans le cimetière de Sion.
  C’est donc là, au cœur des Alpes suisses, sous une dalle anonyme, que Joseph Di Mambro (1924-1994) et Luc Jouret (1947-1994), les deux gourous de l’Ordre du Temple solaire, reposent aujourd’hui en paix. Et comme le dit la formule, pour l’Éternité.
  • Not knowing what to do with these cumbersome ashes, the authorities of the canton of Valais finally decided to bury them secretly in the cemetery of Sion.
    So it is here, in the heart of the Swiss Alps, under an anonymous slab, that Joseph Di Mambro (1924-1994) and Luc Jouret (1947-1994), the two gurus of the Order of the Solar Temple, now rest in peace. And as the saying goes, for eternity.
  • Bédat, Arnaud; Bouleau, Gilles; Nicolas, Bernard (1997) (in fr). L'Ordre du Temple Solaire: Enquête et révélations sur les chevaliers de l'apocalypse. Montréal: Libre Expression. ISBN 978-2-89111-707-4. 

• Vendredi 15 décembre 1995, tout le monde vit dans la fièvre des préparatifs de Noël. Sauf Christiane Bonet qui prépare le massacre.
  • On Friday, 15 December 1995, everyone is busy preparing for Christmas. Except Christiane Bonet, who is planning the massacre.
  • Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 2000, p. 229

• On a de la peine à imaginer la scène, tant elle semble effrayante : ces treize adultes, sains de corps, mais l'esprit malade, marchant lourdement dans la neige, par un froid glacial, en pleine nuit noire, à la seule lueur de quelques lampes de poche, des bidons d’essence à la main, entraînant dans leur sillage trois enfants innocents : Tania, 6 ans, Aldwin, 4 ans et Curval, 2 ans...
  • It's hard to imagine the scene, so frightening does it seem: these thirteen adults, healthy in body but sick in spirit, walking heavily through the snow, in the freezing cold, in the middle of the dark night, by the light of only a few flashlights, cans of gasoline in hand, dragging in their wake three innocent children: Tania, 6, Aldwin, 4 and Curval, 2...
  • Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 2000, p. 232