Joseph Di Mambro as a
young man (CORBIS)
Joseph Di Mambro was born in southern France in 1924. While he trained as a clock maker and jeweler, he became interested in esoteric religions. He studied the doctrines of the Rosicrucians and became a member of one order for 13 years. When he left, he had followers for his own brand of religion. In 1973 he founded the Center for the Preparation of the New Age and developed a commune close to France's Swiss border. He said that he was the reincarnation of various religious and political leaders, from Osiris to Moses, and persuaded people to give their money and possessions to him so he could take care of the community's needs. He arranged "cosmic" marriages and identities to suit him, identifying those members who were the reincarnation of some famous person. He decided who would have children and who would not, hoping for the production of exceptional offspring who would play a part in shaping the fate of the world. His own son, Elie, was presented as one of them, while his daughter, Emmanuelle, was supposedly one of the nine "cosmic children" who would usher in a New Age. Emmanuelle herself was the new messiah. Wessinger says that toward this end, the girl wore a helmet and gloves, and was forbidden contact by anyone but the immediate family. That was to keep her pure.
Order of the Solar Temple
medallion (AP)
To provide a sense of cohesion and group uniformity, Di Mambro developed some simple rituals, which Mayer, the defense minister, says became more elaborate over time, "with capes, crosses, swords, and so on." Some of his followers came from affluent families, which enabled Di Mambro to purchase a mansion in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1978, he formed the core group, the Foundation of the Golden Way that by 1984 would eventually become known as the Order of the Solar Temple. His ideas drew many sympathizers who did not live in the community but who nevertheless gave donations and practiced the ceremonies. They were brought in through front organizations, known as clubs. The secret society apart from these clubs was reserved for the core elite.
Along the way, Di Mambro, the Cosmic Master, met a charismatic medical doctor and obstetrician from Belgium named Luc Journet. Born in 1947 in the Belgian Congo, he became a tireless worker on behalf of the order, multiplying its membership and taking on the job of guide and prophet. With charm, eloquence, and persuasion, he impressed people to get involved. He'd been to India, where he'd been impressed by spiritual ideas, and he practiced homeopathic medicine. By the late 1980s, membership reached as high as 422 in 1989 (some reports say 600), from Switzerland to France to French-speaking Canada, as well as the French Caribbean. There were a handful of devotees, respectively, in the U.S. and Spain. Time reporter Michael Seville wrote that Jouret and Di Mambro had collected as much as 93 million dollars from their followers' assets, selling them and profiting from the proceeds. The religion operated along a strict paternalistic hierarchy, as most secretive cults do, with its top 33 members known as the Elder Brothers of the Rosy Cross, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Beyond them was the core community, which operated as an elite fraternity, and then the clubs, or initiating outlets through which the new members entered and were evaluated. According to an organization called Religious Tolerance, Luc Jouret had convinced followers that in a previous life he had been a member of the 14th-century Christian order known as the Knights Templar, and that he was now the third incarnation of Christ. Thus, he had higher spiritual knowledge and access to esoteric secrets. According to him, after members left their physical bodies on earth, they would meet together again via "death voyages" that took them to another planet, or the star Sirius. In Jouret's doctrine, death was an illusion and life would continue in a higher form in these other places. While he taught homeopathic remedies and New Age philosophies, he preached that the world would end with an environmental catastrophe, due to human neglect and outright damage, and some members would be chosen to make the transition from Earth to Sirius before this incendiary final collapse. In fact, they would have to leave through fire. There was no other way. Little did they know, as they listened to Jouret, that this parting from their bodies was in the not-too-distant future. As membership declined and rumors of fraud and financial mismanagement plagued the order, preparations were made to finalize the plan. |
