THE ORDER OF THE SOLAR TEMPLE

During the investigation that tied together the three mass death sites, it was found that some of the deceased members had written letters, or "testaments," while still alive to relatives, officials, scholars, and newspapers to explain what they had done. They admitted to murder, saying that they had executed traitors, but that most of the shootings had been merely a way to help weaker members to make the transition. Only the "awakened" had been able to take their own lives, because they were more spiritually advanced. They all sought a higher realm of spiritual consciousness, and that was no longer possible to achieve on earth. In fact, earth was devolving and would soon meet with a catastrophic end. Following the Masters, who had left the planet on March 31, 1993 and on January 6, 1994, taking with them the spiritual energy of the seven planets, the Solar Temple community was withdrawing. They had gone to another planet, burning their residences behind them to avoid contamination by the uninitiated. They wanted all the faithful to join them.

In other words, for those members who had not participated in the suicides, it was still possible to imitate the act and join the others.

"With a clear mind," said one of the "Testament" notes, "we leave this Earth for a Dimension of Truth and Perfection. There, away from obstruction, hypocrisy and hostility, we will give birth to the seed of our future Creation."

Wessinger points out that they had apparently fulfilled the prediction of Jacques Breyer, who had concluded that the Grand Monarchy would leave earth around 1995 (although he had offered other possible dates as well).

Cars belonging to cult members were found at the Chiery train station, abandoned, and a .22 that was linked to the Chiery ritual deaths was found in Granges-sur-Salvan. Someone who had done the shooting in one place had driven that same night to the other to carry out more killings. Also, the suicide notes, supposedly written before the deaths, had post dates that indicated they'd been mailed afterward. Someone who'd been involved in all this death was apparently still at large.

It turned out that one member who was spared, Patrick Vuarnet, son of a French ski champion, had mailed the letters.

Although it was first believed that Di Mambro and Jouret had orchestrated the suicide/slaughter and then gone to hide out until they could emerge and spend the money they had fleeced from their members, their bodies were soon identified as being among the Swiss dead. In other words, they'd bought into their spiritual philosophies.

Even so, there had been problems between them. Despite Jouret's charismatic motivational style, people in the commune resented his leadership style. His controlling manner got him voted out as Grand Master, which caused a rift in the European community and angered Di Mambro. He began to think less of his chosen protégé. Di Mambro, who died at Salvan, had left a letter deploring the manner of the deaths at Chiery, Wessinger said, saying they were nothing but carnage perpetrated by the incompetent Jouret. There should have been a more glorious exit, Di Mambro wrote.

As reporters uncovered Jouret's past, they learned that prior to his involvement with the Solar Temple, he had been part of a racist, neo-Nazi magical society, co-founded by former Gestapo officer Julien Origas. He'd tried to grab for power and lost, so he left. In the Solar Temple, he'd made the same lunge for power, and here, too, he had failed.

It wasn't long before the reasons for the order's grisly exit appeared to be a bit worldlier. Apparently during the elaborate rituals for communal enlightenment, Di Mambro liked to make the Holy Grail and the spiritual "Masters" appear to groups of believers, using laser tricks. One of his close associates who helped with this eventually grew disgusted. He let others in on the secret and tried to defect, demanding some of his investment back. That man was Tony Dutoit, one of the murder victims in Canada, who was stabbed 50 times.

Apparently, Di Mambro did not relish being exposed for a fraud.

Also, he had many other pressures closing in. First, according to Susan Palmer in "Purity and Danger in the Solar Temple," he was ill. He had diabetes, kidney failure and incontinence, and believed he had cancer. He was also about to be investigated for money-laundering, initiated by banks suspicious of the large amounts of money he'd been stashing into his accounts.

Worse were the spiritual affronts. Di Mambro had wanted to create an order of cosmic children, which included his daughter. But at the age of 12, Emmanuelle was rebelling. She no longer wanted the "purity" of forbidden contact; she wanted to be among kids her own age, doing what they were doing. In addition, Di Mambro's son, Elie, had discovered Di Mambro's trickery with the Cosmic Masters and had denounced his father to many members. Some of them demanded the return of their funds. In 1990, Elie went off on his own.

Thus, DiMambro's family was falling apart, along with his health and his organization. His power was diminishing on all fronts, and members were accusing him of mismanagement of finances and problems with women. One member's defiance even threatened his spiritual set-up.

Tony Dutoit's wife, Nicki, had been ordered not to have any children, and she got pregnant anyway. Tony and Nicki went to Quebec to get away, and they had their son, Christopher-Emmanuel. Di Mambro reportedly viewed this child as the anti-Christ, who threatened his daughter's status as the messiah. Along with Tony's determination to expose Di Mambro's deceptions, he was now in open defiance. He and Nicki were considered traitors who would continue to disrupt the spiritual progress of the other memberswhat was left of them. All of them had to be eliminated.

In addition to these significant internal rifts, the order was having problems with the culture at large. In 1991, a defecting member began to spread word in Quebec that the Solar Temple was dangerous. She demanded her money back and urged others to do the same, which sparked a number of angry demands and threats of lawsuits against the order.

Two years later, the Solar Temple came under police surveillance for possible connections with a political assassin organization, and then Jouret was pulled into a scandal involving illegal arms. Two Quebec members were arrested for purchasing handguns with silencers, and Jouret was charged as well. They were all sentenced to a year of probation and a fine, but Jouret's career as a lecturer was finished.

Branch Davidians compound on fire
(AP)

At the same time, the 54-day FBI siege had begun at Waco, Texas, which ended when David Koresh and the Branch Davidians committed mass suicide. Eighty-four people, including children of the cult members, died in a fiery blaze at their compound.

With all this negative press against cults, there were more defections and membership was quickly dwindling.

The only way to interpret all of this within the Solar Temple doctrines was to say that the stage of consciousness that had evolved on the planet Earth was at its end, and it was time to move on. They could use all the intense negative energy directed on them to assist in their exit. Preparations were made to do so. Members were urged to go to "arks of safety," from which they could move on together.