While most cults recruit their members similarly, how exactly did The Order of the Solar Temple (OTS) build its following? What were the members promised that made them leave behind their previous lives and accept the leadership of Luc Jurot and Joseph Di Mambro?
Keep reading below as we delve into those questions and answer how OTS deceived hundreds of people for the financial gain and egos of two liars.
Trigger Warning: Mentions of suicide and religious manipulation
Charisma Deceives the Masses Once Again
When we learn about cult leaders, the members often talk about how charismatic the leaders were but looking from the outside; they seem to be some of the worst speakers. Take, for instance, Marshall Applewhite, leader of Heaven’s Gate. He was not very charismatic, at least not in his older age, especially when you look back and listen to his teachings, and yet his followers committed suicide simply because he told them to.
We see it repeatedly, and it was no different with OTS, but were their leaders actually charismatic? Well, yes and no. To start with, Joseph Di Mambro was essentially a con man, pretending to be a psychologist before being charged for check bouncing, fraud, and breach of confidence. However, this did not stop him, as he was back on his feet in no time and remade himself as a New Age Practitioner.
Founding the Centre for the Preparation of the New Age, he began gathering followers. He encouraged them to give up material goods, i.e., give him all their money in return for a “higher meditation stage.” Sometime between 1979 and 1981, Di Mambro hooked up with Luc Jurot, who had a legitimate degree in the medical field, and they founded the International Chivalric Organization Solar Tradition in Geneva, Switzerland.
And what did Jurot use his degree for? Did he use it to help people, heal them, and guide them toward healthier lifestyles? Nope, instead, he used it to make OTS appear more legit by becoming the face of the cult and spreading its teachings, all while using his medical background to make people believe. After all, as a society, we are trained to obey authority figures, including medical professionals, which can lead to scenarios like OTS.
So, while neither leader was especially charismatic, they preyed upon our society’s built-in obedience to authority figures to steal, sexually assault, and murder the unfortunate souls who fell victim to their lies.
The Solar Temple Recruits With Secret Knowledge
Using a medical degree to acquire recruits is not the only way that OTS recruited their members and kept them locked within the cult. When someone tells you, “Don’t touch that.” what do you do? Well, there is a good chance you may touch it. Curiosity about the unknown drives us forward as a species, and OTS made use of that by creating three “levels,” each of which promised newer and more secret knowledge.
After all, who doesn’t want to know the secret knowledge? We want to know about hidden secrets, bits of lore that are hidden away from the eyes of the masses. That is why so many secret orders exist, why we create conspiracy theories, and why we love movies and books about the Knight Templars (yes, OTS is based on them) and aliens.
So, within OTS, three levels or clubs existed, as the group called them. The first was the Amanta Club, to which most members belonged. It was at the bottom of the pyramid and offered various lectures on different topics to share the group’s philosophy. While these lectures brought in large groups of people, not many joined the cult.
After a while, some of those from the Amanta Club was chosen to join the Arcadia club, the second group level, which promised even great secret knowledge. That secret knowledge would help them achieve a higher consciousness, which, if they paid enough money and gave enough of themselves to the cult, they may be chosen to be one of the lucky few to join the third and final level.
This final level was known as the International Knighthood Organization, and they were granted the most secret of knowledge, initiations, and publications unique to the level. And how did you get chosen to join this most secret of levels? Well, by giving everything you had and your entire being to the cult. After all, in the end, OTS was little more than a pyramid scheme that used religion to bring in its members.
The End of the World
In 1986, Jourat founded a new chapter of the order in Quebec, which he called “the promised land.” Over the next several years, Jourat began teaching that the world would become engulfed in famine and war, and only Quebec would be spared from the horrors to come. It should go without saying that only those who were part of the cult would be saved in this supposed end of the world.
Before too long, the cult built a massive air-raid shelter made entirely from concrete that was meant to protect them from the war to come. By 1990 though, the cult began to unravel as members began to question some of the behaviors of Jouret and Di Mambro, which would eventually culminate in the suicides of 74 people over the next ten years as members of the cult left behind this world to go onto the next.
To learn more about the Order of the Solar Temple, their teachings, how the cult was run, and the murders of a family that dared to speak out against Di Mambro, check out some of our other OTS articles.