Order of the Solar Temple: Encyclopedia II - Order of the Solar Temple - Founders of the Solar Temple

Order of the Solar Temple - Founders of the Solar Temple

It is stated that the OTS absorbed another neo-templar organization called Foundation Golden Way, which was led by Joseph Di Mambro (1926 - 1995), who was born at Pont Saint-Esprit in France. Before founding the OTS, Joseph Di Mambro was also part of a Rosicrucian organization called AMORC (Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis), from 1956 to 1970. Di Mambro, who had been trained as a clock maker and jeweler, became interested in esoteric religions at an early age. He was arrested on swindling charges which prompted his resettlement in Switzerland.

Luc Jouret was born in 1947 and died in 1994 in Granges-sur-Salvan, Switzerland, as part of the tragedy which ended the group's formal existence. He was the other publicly acknowledged founder of the OTS. Born in the Belgian Congo, he was educated in medicine at the Université Libre in Brussels, graduating in 1974. He specialized in homeopathy. Jouret, who had interests in freemasonry, the Albigenses and Cathars, as well as many new age theories, convinced his followers that he and Di Mambro were members of the 14th Century Christian Order of the Knights Templar during a previous life, and that Di Mambro's daughter Emanuelle was "the cosmic child". She would lead them after death to a planet which was said to revolve around the star Sirius. They claimed that Di Mambro's daughter was the result of a virgin birth.

There were Solar Temple Lodges in Morin Heights and St-Anne-de-la-Pérade in Quebec, Canada, as well as in Australia, Switzerland, Martinique and other countries. The Temple's activities were a mix of early Protestant christianity, mixed with a new age philosophy and homeopathic medicine, using variously adapted freemasonic rituals. Jouret was interested in attractive, wealthy and influential members, and it was reputed that several affluent Europeans were secret members of the group. There were press reports that executives of Quebec's Hydro-Quebec were building dams at the behest of Jouret, in order to provide electricity for a Quebecois colony that would exist after the group's prophesied doomsday event.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Founders of the Solar Temple", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki