Unless you’re particularly interested in cults – and French cults at that – there’s a strong possibility that you’ve yet to come across the Order of the Solar Temple. For the uninitiated, the OTS was a religious cult active from the mid-1980s to the mid-90s, basing its teachings on a grab bag that included new age fluff, Freemasonry and ideas pilfered from the Knights Templar. Its founders – jeweller turned spiritual guru Joseph Di Mambro and a charismatic homeopath named Luc Jouret – succeeded in recruiting several hundred members across Switzerland, France, Canada and even a handful on the French Caribbean island of Martinique.
In its promo videos, the OTS steered away from bells and smells to promote its ecological credentials, with members living off the land in its technicolour communes. But there was a catch. Like many cults before and since, the Order used its members for free labour and to gain access to their life savings, promising them eternal life if – and only if – they took their own lives in order to ascend to a planet called Sirius. More chilling still, the sect simply murdered many of those who didn’t kill themselves voluntarily. In total, 74 followers died between 1994 and 1997, including Jouret and Di Mambro themselves.
