The cult name goes back to the International Chivalrous Organization of the Solar Tradition, also known to its friends as the Order of the Sun Temple, and there is a lot going on in this organization. It is one that revolves around apocalyptic principles that end in mass murder and suicide, and I hope you find it interesting. Before it gets too creepy, the order was founded in 1984, and there have been followers ever since.
The Order of the Temple of the Sun (complete international order of chivalry in the solar tradition) is a small new religious movement founded in 1984 in Geneva and known for the murder and suicide of 74 members in 1994 – 97. The Order was founded in 1984 by Luc Jouret, a homeopathic doctor and New Age lecturer in Switzerland, and Joseph di Mambro. The members of the Sun Temples came from the Amenta Archedia Club, an esoteric group founded by Jouret and the Golden Way Foundation. The story goes that Di Mambro arranged for Jouret to meet Julian Origas, an alleged former Gestapo agent who had created the Renewed Temple Order (ORT), a group that had united the ideas of the Templars and the Rosicrucians. In 1981 Jouret became a member of the ORT, and by the time of Origa’s death in 1983, he had become a Grand Master. In 1994 Di Mambro and Jouret, together with some members who had their confidence, began to think about alternative plans.
The Temple of the Sun has a strict structure with a thirty-three-member council and regional lodges around the world, such as in Canada, Switzerland, Australia, and France (Joseph di Mambro, 2014; Melton, 2015). The organization has homes in Morin Heights and Sainte-Anne-de-la-Perade in Quebec, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, and Martinique.
During the cult’s ceremony, members wore crusader robes and held in reverence Di Mambro’s sword, which was said to be an authentic Templar artifact that had been given to him thousands of years earlier in a previous life. Members were initiated in ascension phases, and the ceremony included the costly purchase of jewelry, costumes, and regalia as payment of an initiation fee.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, French Luc Jouret and Joseph Di Mambro founded the Temple of the Sun in Geneva cult. According to the Montreal Gazette, the cult planted roots in Quebec in the mid-1980s. The group threatened a number of MNAs in Quebec, was suspected of bombing transmission towers in Hydro-Quebec, and planned to wipe out indigenous reserves. In 1994-96, numerous groups of 20 members were found in burning buildings in anticipation of the end of the world. For police and residents, the most frightening aspect of the deaths found in Quebec was that most did not look like sect members. Ten had plastic bags over their heads and nine of the 23 victims were apparently shot.
The Temple of the Sun (Ordre du Temple Solaire, OTS) is an obscure French-speaking occult initiation order that made headlines after its leaders and 52 people were killed in three incidents in Switzerland and Quebec within 72 hours between 3 and 5 October 1994. It seems that they committed suicide in the hope of making the transition to the higher world. Sixteen other members of the Order died during the winter solstice of 1995 and another five died in Quebec on 22 March 1997.
Within days of the tragic events, police in Quebec and Switzerland realized that the baby killed was just the first salvo in a war for control of the Order of the Sun. A few days later, 13 sect members enjoyed a last supper in two quiet Swiss villages and killed themselves with poison. By the time the carnage was over, 53 sect members had died of poison, bullets, and suffocation. Of the 23 victims in Cheiry, 12 were women, 10 men, and a 10-year-old boy. In the afternoon, investigating judge Andre Piller said he considered the deaths a collective suicide. Among the dead were seven Swiss, five French, and four Canadians aged 18 to 72, he said.