Marc Labelle
In many contemporary religious movements, the nuclear menace—including an understanding of its impact and eschatological ramifications—is a recurrent preoccupation. This paper analyzes the compensatory thrust towards sacredness, and examines its modes inside the Ordre du Temple solaire (Order of the Solar Temple, or OTS), whose ideology was firmly rooted in its will to escape nuclear and ecological disaster. The focus will be on the function of the Absolute in the transformation of the human species as viewed by the order.
The hermeneutics of the Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade (1907–86) are helpful in establishing a pertinent line of analysis. His general approach is phenomenological, and he used the term hierophany to define the manifestation of the sacred through different modes, such as locations, plants, objects, forms, rites, myths, symbols, animals, human beings. The hierophanic process is constituted by three elements: a) the object or physical being; b) the invisible force and c) the mediator, or the sacred object or being. For example, the tree Yggdrasill, Jacob’s ladder, the Golgotha mount, and the consumption of the Vedic beverage soma transforming the officiant into a cosmic giant all have in common the function of elevating one to heaven. In the case of the OTS, the “transit” of the chosen members towards Sirius via Jupiter by the pseudo-alchemical method of “calcination,” whose power of representation is evaluated in this paper, plays this role. The mediator is separated from the profane world, with its spatial and temporal limits, in order to rejoin the source, the “divine.”
On the collective level, the dialectic of sacred/profane is translated into the Cosmos/Chaos duality. Space is not homogenous: it is discontinuous and oriented around a fixed point or central axis, the Axis Mundi or World Center. Likewise, primordial time (ab origine, ab initio, in principio, or in illo tempore) is reactualized by rites in temples (templum-tempus) or other sacred places representing the cosmic pillar (universalis columna). Sacred time is reversible or circular because the perfection of its beginnings is linked in a complementary manner to the eschatological dissolution of the profane world. Thus, rebirth in the eternal present can be accomplished in any sacred time or place. This is the reason why the 33 Sages of the Rosicrucians (33 Sages or Frères aînés de la Rose+Croix)—“these carriers of the original fire”1 from the astral dimension, venerated by the followers of the order—were dwelling in an underground city in Zurich (Switzerland). This reference group’s mission was to regenerate humanity by alchemical means.
Since Eliade’s ultimate perspective is theological, Régis Debray’s “atheological” perspective offers a compensatory solution. However, in order to avoid the excessive materiality of Debray’s mediology (médiologie), which gives primacy to the instruments of transmission, Freud’s psychoanalysis and the philosophy of Manuel de Diéguez, who presents himself as a “mystical atheist,” will be resorted to, along with other thinkers.
As we have already learned, the Solar Temple was led by a trio of very different personalities: Joseph Di Mambro,2 Luc Jouret,3 and Michel Tabachnik (1942–).4 The eclecticism of the order is obvious: it proclaimed that it belonged to the Templar tradition, but also to gnosticism and esotericism, while picking up on the most popular themes of the New Age. However, the primordial theme of fire or light led the order’s destiny. The fiery ritual massacres performed by the order were rooted in the medieval tradition of the stake,5 the “purification” altar of the human soul.
The order owned a great deal of real estate—some 80 houses or estates—throughout the world: in Switzerland, metropolitan France, Martinique, Canada, Monaco, and Australia. Of particular importance was the organic Sacré-Cœur farm in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade (Quebec), which was considered a refuge of the elect for when the Apocalypse came as it was equipped with a nuclear bunker. A villa in Vaucluse (France) also hid an atomic fallout shelter. In addition, the order’s houses were provided with a sanctuary, usually underground.
The following is the entry formula of the initiatic ceremony pertaining to the first degree in the order’s hierarchy, called the Frères du Parvis:
I swear to respect the absolute secret because of its sacredness for myself and our revered Order. Aware that an immortal and cosmic order governs all life in the universe, I commit myself to respect the hierarchy of the Temple. This oath is binding towards humanity, but first and foremost towards myself and the divine.6
Di Mambro magically opened the doors of the holy rooms where rituals were conducted with a remote control hidden under his cape. During nightly group performances, special effects such as electrified swords producing flashes were used to create an impressive son et lumière, and not only objects such as the Holy Grail, but also personages such as Christ, materialized.7 A voice was heard giving orders. The assembly would witness Di Mambro’s communications with beings from the beyond. Such performances were repeated whenever the leader perceived a decline in the group’s fervor.
An elaborate array of communication instruments—material or virtual—was put in place to disseminate the order’s views and actions. According to Di Mambro, the invisible Masters from the Superior Lodge of Zurich (Loge mère de Zurich) had the most advanced spectrographs, which had the capacity to register a person’s energy waves at long distance, to assess the state of their aura or current vibratory field. For over $60,000 apiece, Di Mambro purchased sophisticated machines in the United States that produced holograms: great figures or uncommon ones, such as patriarchs dressed in white. Contact with the underground Masters (in Zurich) and cosmic Masters (on the planet Proxima) energized the organization’s operational axis.
As we know, the 1994 murder-suicides of OTS members took place at three locations: Morin Heights in Quebec on 30 September and 4 October (5 deceased), Cheiry (23 victims) and Granges-sur-Salvan (25 deaths) in Switzerland from 3 to 5 October.8 These 53 deaths were interpreted as follows by their authors: “Fully conscious and without fanaticism, we have planned our transit, which is not a suicide in the human meaning of the word.”9 The mass media, and also the law and the government, were nonetheless accused of having “forced [them] to leave this earth prematurely.”10
The next episode had been announced in 1994: “From the Levels where we are now operating and by a sound law of magnetization, we will be able to recall the last Servants capable of hearing this final message.”11 A new massacre effectively occurred during the night of 15–16 December 1995, near Saint-Pierre-de-Chérennes in Isère, France.12 In a doline, the constabulary discovered a star; each of the 14 branches was a corpse (16 deaths in all). A cocktail of drugs had softened the passage to the star Sirius and its planet Proxima, supposedly inhabited by the Supreme Masters. The leader of the rite of passage, psychotherapist Christiane Bonet, a medium since October 1994, wrote: “On the other side of the veil, death is an illusion.”13
Here follows a brief description of some of the major esoteric symbols of the Order of the Solar Temple.
The Templar forked cross, the instrument of Christ’s torture, became the spark of the Christlike light. The horizontal branch represents the material dimension and the vertical branch the spiritual dimension.
As a symbol of total purification, fire was used to burn down the centers of the order and burn the followers to a cinder. Les Cahiers de Sarah present fire as an eschatological savior:14 “In the Hindu Tradition we learn that the primeval avatar of the Adamic Cycle is AGNI, the FIRE, and He will return at the end of the Cycle to purify and revive the terrestrial realm.”
The bicephalous eagle, surmounted by a crown with the letters T and S interlaced inside the letter O, symbolizes the mastery of the dual human mind’s operation, or the superior vision, since legend claims that the eagle is the only animal capable of staring at the sun.
According to the oral traditions of Kabbala, the Ark of the Covenant (Arche de l’Alliance) cannot be shown to the profane—the sacredness of the eagle is needed! Michel Tabachnik announced that the actual order was replaced by the Alliance Rose Croix (ARC), created in 1991.15 The new name was officially approved by Di Mambro on 24 September 1994: it meant the gradual abolition of all hierarchy—by the transit bringing the elect into the company of the Immortals on Proxima, that hypothetical planet of Sirius?
Sirius, located 8.6 light years away in the Canis Major constellation in the southern hemisphere and accompanied by a small star revolving around it, is the brightest star in the sky. This respresents the philosophical formula “Sirius’s point of view,” to designate the global view of the transcendant One, in opposition to the fragmentary view of the multiple profane. The Solar Temple interpreted this formula literally.
Here follows a brief description of some of the major concepts of the Order of the Solar Temple.
The elite of the secret order visited Ayers Rock (Uluru), the sacred place of the Aborigines located in the center of Australia. Called “the realm of the First Born,” it was identified with the Mountain of the Prophets, “holder of the Secret of Secrets.”16 According to Di Mambro, “humanity must rediscover the original knowledge lost with the advent of free will.”17
Messianism took many forms inside the order. Revealing a complex of self-deification, Jouret declared he was none other than the Lamb of God, that is the Savior. By comparison, one could say that Di Mambro reserved for himself the role of God the Father, or rather the role of Zeus-Pater (Jupiter), and that the “ethereal” Tabachnik evokes the Holy Ghost. Élisabeth Huneau, a young girl suffering from personality disorders, was left by her parents in Di Mambro’s care. He took her to Deir el-Bahari in Egypt to meditate together in the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, of whom Di Mambro said she was the reincarnation. He announced a revelation: Hatshepsut would give birth to a being as powerful as Christ. Hatshepsut was made pregnant by the god Manatanus … of whom Di Mambro was—guess what?—the reincarnation. After this “divine” episode, all had to respect “a purity zone” of many meters around Hatshepsut, who was adorned with luxurious dresses and jewels.
Joseph Di Mambro also claimed that his daughter Anne, nicknamed Nanou, was born18 by the power of his mind and the grace of Immaculate Conception:19 an invisible Master lowered a sword fitted with a secret bulb producing a beam of light on the throat of Dominique Bellaton, a lady friend of Di Mambro, in order to attest to the “cosmic procreation.” The cosmic child Nanou was in reality the natural daughter of Di Mambro and Bellaton. Other children were forbidden to approach the Immaculately Conceived. (Even the vegetables on her plate came from an off-limits garden patch.) All Solar Temple members were under her orders. She was renamed Emmanuelle in order to reaffirm her messianic role.20
“Facing the general degradation of the human race, incapable of halting its destructive impulses, facing the increasing rise of environmental, climatic, chemical, nuclear,21 military perils … and especially in the face of police intimidation … everywhere we have strived to reveal the Mysteries of the Great Tradition, we have decided to withdraw from this world, in full lucidity and in the plenitude of our conscience.”22
The punishment is collective: “We, the Lords of the Flame, Guardians of the sacred SHEKINAH,23 we proclaim that a Power and Will superior to ours have seen that an irreversible disorder and chaos ruled over the Earth. Facing this acknowledgment, facing the persistent refusal of mankind, we have no other solution than a restart by GENERAL ANNIHILATION.”24 Another Sodom and Gomorrah was forecast.25 Was Jouret looking for the “lightning instant”? These Old Testament cities were destroyed by divine fire because their inhabitants “lived in sin”; only Lot and his daughters survived. The function of fire is to sacrifice, purify, regenerate, immortalize.26
The fiery sacrifice: “An alchemical cooking, that of the great human work moving forward by degree, requires its holocausts.”27 Was the esotericist Jacques Breyer, the spiritual father of the order, pointing out what victims by using the term holocaust, that is, “entirely consumed by the flames” in accordance with the Jewish tradition. If his words were metaphorical, many of the elect chose a literal interpretation.
The fundamental goal is to grant one’s “Interior Being to take the place which was assigned to him since Eternity.”28 Closely related to this goal, the order aspired to arouse in its members “the Spirit of an Eternal Knighthood.”29 The Rosicrucians promised to those joining their ranks “the greatest of all gifts: IMMORTALITY.”30
“The individual progressively discovers himself to be part of the Unique (= cosmic conscience).”31 “The human being is multiple in the form but remains ONE in Spirit, ONE in Essence.”32 The transit “was accomplished … with the real-life knowledge of an exact science and in accordance with Matter’s and Spirit’s natural rules which are truly ONE.”33 The container (the form) is multiple whilst the content (the meaning) is unique: unity is believed to be shrouded by appearances.
It’s a question of discovering the genuine supreme reality of “a Universal Order whose parameters do not belong to this world.”34 “We are leaving this Earth to rediscover, in full lucidity and liberty, a Dimension of Truth and Absolute.”35
These are the chivalrous qualities required to become part of the order: “an absolute discretion, loyalty and faithfulness” (my italics). The goal of the order included an “ecumenical” aspect: each follower had to commit themself to create “an authentic Fraternity amongst all members of the order and those of Fraternal Organizations to build the Celestial Jerusalem.”36 However, the order met obstacles that would have prevented it from accomplishing its mission. The Testament37 accuses a mixture of unofficial powers of having tried to “disorganize a structure of which some members, faithful servants of the Rosicrucians, had access to the Mysteries of the Grail in the sanctuaries of the last Secret Houses of the Rosicrucians, during the last cycle of awakening of the Temple.”38
The Celestial Jerusalem being a long time coming on this overly corrupt earth, the Solar Temple’s elect apparently chose to beam up to the utopic planet Proxima to reach the center of the universe without further delay. The order’s elite aspired to escape from matter’s density but, being too heavy, they needed to shed their bodies in order to transit by the “relay-star” Sirius and join the Masters, these “entities of light, in the image of the risen Christ.”39
As mentioned above, during the last meeting on 24 September 1994, before the mass deaths, the order was renamed the Alliance Rose Croix (ARC) so as to reach “the irreversible stage of the return to the Father”40 and the Vth Reign, that of the Spirit, where hierarchies would be abolished.41 The herald completely dressed in black who announced that the ARC had succeeded the Ordre du Temple solaire was none other than Michel Tabachnik. He later claimed that this was only a metaphor. Nevertheless, the corpses at Cheiry formed an arc. Also, it should be noted that Tabachnik was the author of the Archées, alchemical texts used at the third degree of initiation.42 The Archées—a collection of 21 articles of 15–20 pages each, written between 1984 and 1989—are considered abstruse even by the followers of the order. These texts were part of the order’s teaching, and French judge Luc Fontaine concluded that it “had a dimension of absolute since it was supposed to be officially issued from the supreme initiated beings.”43 Psychiatrist Jean-Marie Abgrall had testified in court as follows:
It was not possible [for the follower] to escape from a logic of dependence since all the teaching integrated and expounded an homogeneous theoretical corpus which had the effect of stripping the psychodynamic of suicides or murders of all critical connnotations, integrating these crimes in a form of sacrificial acts, the notion of death being progressively divested of its agonizing dimension to become the objective sign of the success of the initiatory voyage.44
Despite everything, the magistrate’s court of Grenoble decided that Tabachnik could not be sentenced on assumptions, and he was acquitted on 25 June 2001.
Whatever Tabachnik’s degree of responsibility, the followers of the order were seeking the metamorphosis of the vulgar or profane man into an initiate to achieve a divine state, such as that of lead being transformed into gold—a base metal into a noble metal. At first they had envisaged what one could call a “sublimation,” that is, a transport by flying saucer to Proxima. Later, an energetic transit by the alchemical test of calcination to reintegrate the primordial cosmic energy was favored. Jacques Breyer’s doctrine of “carbonization of bodies,” which claims that the power of fire is sufficient to prompt the energetic leap, was adopted literally by the order.45 The fusion of the image and the concept took place in the overexcited minds of the cosmic elect. By burning their bodies, the pyromaniac superego has consumed its own support. Thus, contrary to expectations, the protection of the order’s sacred places against nuclear fire turned out to be ineffective.
Why has the fate of the Ordre du Temple solaire been so tragic? The swindles are only a small part of the explanation. The spiritual adventure of the order—of Joseph Di Mambro, Luc Jouret, and Michel Tabachnik in particular—was rich in resources (especially in the communication department) but poor in critical thought. The sharing of an inauthentic knowledge was arbitrarily reserved for a few members, especially those who were rich and submissive. In correlation, the knowledge that remained secret acted as a magnet on the minds of other members. The liberty of the followers, and above all that of their children, was wolfed down by the “sociospriritual” ambition of the order’s leaders. They liked to think of themselves as the privileged spokespersons of an authority from the beyond. To top it all, two members wanted to fight death by death: Jo Di Mambro had developed cancer the previous year and his wife Jocelyne had been weakened by breast cancer for many years. However, the fall was a shared responsibility. Here is the cut-and-dried testimony of former Solar Temple member Hermann Delorme:
No one had pointed a gun at my head to make me join the Order …. I could easily cry out that the people of the order had manipulated me, enslaved me, brainwashed me, indoctrinated me. There is some truth in that assertion. The rest of the truth, the biggest part, is my responsibility.46
Another OTS ex-follower (and survivor of the murder-suicides), Thierry Huguenin, was convinced that “the Masters [moved] in mysterious ways.”47 The pursuit of superior goals justified resorting to special effects or illusions; even when their secret was discovered, the belief of many followers remained intact. Automanipulation is one side of mental manipulation. This is the syndrome of the shepherd:48 the crossing of immoderate aspirations between leaders and their followers produces an osmosis of megalomaniac willpowers.
The naïve dilatation of the New Age eclecticism, on the horizontal, was centered on the superficial appropriation of the Templar tradition, on the vertical. The expansion of an ego with a narcissistic immanence toward total reality found its stake in the class of the supreme Masters: “The absolute on the ordinate creates fullness on the abscissa.”49 Reiterated pan-psychic communication between the two swelled to deadly paranoia because the average ego of the follower trapped itself in the infinite mutual reflection of the mirrors of a captive message.
If Freudian psychoanalysis defines secondary narcissism as the investment of the psychic drive targeting the ego as “a system of linking representations between themselves,”50 in my opinion, tertiary narcissism consists in a systemic closure absorbing any phenomenon by making it serve as a foil to the ego bewitched by itself: that is, imprisoned in the infinite lock of a knowledge transformed in an incantatory solipsism. This apparently perfect linking becomes an unquestionable certainty: the expansive ego identifies itself with the external reality, reflecting astrophysical or cosmological knowledge. Finally, obsessed by the omnipotence and omniscience attributed to the divine superego, the blind id suggests to the hallucinated ego their own definitive sacrifice, aiming for the fusion of the three levels of the psyche into a single one, but turning out to be a deluding superegoic effigy since it is totalitarian.
The global context would have justified the imitation of the Supreme Masters.51 Allegedly, if the Rosicrucian Superiors “have maintained a fair balance between Darkness and Light, what the alchemists call Solve and Coagula,” their experience “has been rejected by all races on the Earth” during the passage from the Pisces era to the Aquarius era.52 Contrary to the positive New Age discourse concerning the Aquarian age, the decadence of the human condition has been assessed as serious enough to provoke the abandonment of humanity by the Superiors, followed by that of their agents in the Order of the Solar Temple.
One can say that by following these imaginary entities into their ethereal world, the alchemical “reiteration of the dissolutions and coagulations” allowing us to refine our species: that is, the fecund alternation between the concrete known and the regenerative abstract unknown, was put to an end—in the order’s own logic. Mimetism (unconscious imitation) turns out to be an incomplete explanation: we need to understand why these luminous superior entities have suddenly appeared from nothingness.
In the life of our species, each body is animated by an idea or a system of ideas, and any idea occupies, or has occupied, a body. The capacity of unfolding the body/spirit pair has been suppressed in the Solar Temple’s approach by an idolatrous fixation on a metaphor or concept. Because the stellar light of Sirius was immortality in the mind of the followers of the order, reaching this much desired absolute meant the outcome of the quest for a perfect life. By this icono-stasis (etymologically, the fixation of the image) of Sirius, the followers of the order hoped to seal the existential gap which opens up in these vulnerable beings: the “developing humans.” It was thus believed that this gap could be closed by the turgidity of the tautological loop: ego = universe = Ego. The quest of so many followers, directed on an absolutist imaginary model—or “Sirius’s point of view”—led to the fatal outcome, absolutist whatever the mode, full or empty:
The actual man feels abandoned, dreadfully lonely. His interior emptiness is necessary to the investment by the conscience. When completely stripped of everything, plenitude will happen. Thus, by his own divinity, the mere mortal will give way to the Man-God: the Future Solar Race.53
To avoid this deadly trap, the philosopher Manuel de Diéguez exhorts learning to “live in nothingness.” It is a question of mastering recurrent existential anguish, or what the sociologist Peter Beyer considers as a “perceived insecurity” linked to a new situation of rupture.
The anxiety inherent in the unfinished process of globalization gives rise to debates on its unbridled expansion, contradictions, crises or conflicts.54 Because of the mutual links between the state or political power and international new religious movements—for example, the infiltration at the top of the public company Hydro-Québec by the OTS55—the increase in the searing dangerousness of new religions rather than in their numbers requires the sharpest vigilance.56 With the growth of new religions, “residual matters” dramatically re-emerge, such as “personal or group identity …, ecological threats [and] increasing disparities in wealth, power, and life chances both within and between regions,” which are of religious affinity.57 The feeling of existential “non-fulfilment” stated by philosopher Régis Debray then ensues; this can, however, be assumed and transformed in the creative will to surpass oneself. Taking up this challenge is prevented by the trap of idolatry: “Since the most ancient times, our disabled encephalon exteriorizes fantastic effigies, elevating them to the rank of cosmic persons and giving them an existence outside the conscience.”58
Sacred—or even profane—stories enhance the fiction of entities holding an extrahuman omniscience or omnipotence, divinities for example. The interstices of the discourse from which they emerge are as many blind spots before any examination—necessarily blasphemous. The intelligence remains iconoclastic if it refuses to cling to the new illusory versions of the idols, these being sclerotic by definition. This requires becoming aware that any transcendency is immanent in the human spirit, albeit apparently paradoxical. Physical and psychic evolution recreates an absence from which a desire emerges or a quest unfolds, revealing a novel presence. The searcher of the unknown, both observer and intervener—potentially unfolded in the infinite—is first and foremost a lookout of the fecund nothingness. This kenosis59 is simultaneously modest and ambitious since it is the sovereign holder of cognitive reappraisal. Liberating, the intelligence transforms the existential vertigo into an invigorating spirit, to overcome material or virtual obstacles and continue the exploration of the terra incognita. Thus, the psychic descents and ascents alternate on the spiral of the human conscience in gestation.
1 Videocassette Joseph d’Arimathie—message, internal OTS document watched by its most faithful followers just prior to the 1994 slaughters; cited in Jean-Marie Abgrall, Les sectes de l’Apocalypse, p. 207. All passages from the French documents cited here are my translation.
2 Originally a jeweler, Di Mambro participated in the Rosicrucian movement for a long time before creating his own organizations, including La Pyramide and the Golden Way Foundation. Notwithstanding, many exoteric organizations (Archedia Clubs, for example) centered on health issues and personal development, which served as a cover for the recruitment of future members of the Solar Temple. Although physically unattractive, Di Mambro was nonetheless an outstanding organizer.
3 Holder of a PhD diploma, the homeopathic doctor was moreover cultured, brilliant, a socialite, a smooth talker, flattering, attractive, and charismatic. In short, he had all the qualities of the perfect recruiting agent.
4 Tabachnik was a well-known orchestral conductor, and created a musical language called Sirius. He was president of the Golden Way Foundation from 1981 to its dissolution in 1990.
5 In France, the original Order of the Knights Templar was abolished by King Philip IV. In 1314, Grand Master Jacques de Molay was condemned to the stake along with, according to tradition, 53 Templars.
6 Arnaud Bédat, Gilles Bouleau and Bernard Nicolas, L’Ordre du Temple solaire. Les secrets d’une manipulation. Paris: 2000, p. 132 (my italics).
7 The symbol of the Grail, stemming from the Celtic tradition, has been taken over by Christian mythology, which has made it the sacred vessel used by Joseph of Arimathea to collect Jesus Christ’s blood at the crucifixion. In one of the order’s dwellings in Quebec, apparitions of Grand Master Jacques de Molay were preceded by many days of fasting and meditation. Some figures that materialized were 3 m tall.
8 In Cheiry, most bodies were found in the sanctuary, wearing ceremonial capes. It is noteworthy that the total number of deaths is 53; Thierry Huguenin, who was supposed to be the 54th victim, narrowly escaped death because of his intuition.
9 Testament—Ultime message, in Renaud Marhic, L’Ordre du Temple solaire. Enquête sur les extrémistes de l’occulte—II. Bordeaux: 1996, p. 232. Marhic’s book contains the “Testament” and the secret statutes of the OTS.
10 Testament—Aux épris de Justice, ibid., p. 223.
11 Testament—Ultime message, ibid., p. 233.
12 The last five deaths took place on 22 March 1997, in Saint-Casimir in Quebec.
13 Bédat et al., p. 225.
14 Published by the OTS (Toronto: Éditions Atlanta, 1986); cited in Jean-Marie Abgrall, Les sectes de l’Apocalypse. Gourous de l’an 2000. Paris: 1999, pp. 171–207 at p. 194.
15 Its exoteric name was Association de Recherches Culturelles, to be compared with the Académie de Recherche et de Connaissance des Hautes Sciences (ARCHS). Led by Luc Jouret and his devoted associates Hermann Delorme and Jean-Pierre Vinet, the ARC’s social goal was the training of managers on the spiritual level.
16 Testament—La Rose+Croix, Marhic, p. 224.
17 Jacques Guillon, “Tabachnik se présente comme un candide envoûté par Di Mambro,” AFP, 24 April 2001, accessed on the Tussier website: www.multimania.com/tussier/ots.htm (Sectes > Ordre du Temple solaire). This site contained articles from Le Monde, the AFP, and other sources, but has been superseded by www.prevensectes.com.
18 On 22 March 1982, at Hopstetten (Soleure canton) in Switzerland.
19 Catholic dogma proclaiming that the Virgin Mary was conceived and born free from original sin. It should be understood that this sin is sexual in the Christian unconscious.
20 The masculine form Emmanuel, meaning “God with us” in Hebrew, was Christ’s messianic name (Mt 1, 23). Di Mambro also declared that Nanou’s polarity was male, despite her female body.
21 My italics. Doses of iodine to be swallowed in the event of a nuclear explosion were added teo the survival kits of the order, prepared according to Dr Jouret’s instructions. It was believed that the body could be purified, energized to face coming cataclysms, or transformed.
22 Testament—Aux épris de Justice, Marhic, pp. 222–3.
23 According to rabbinic literature, the Divine Presence or the Glory of God has disappeared with the destruction of the Temple, but will return with the Messiah.
24 Excerpt from an OTS text, “L’Homme de la Troisième Force” (November 1993), cited in Jean-François Mayer, “Les chevaliers de l’Apocalypse : l’Ordre du Temple Solaire et ses adeptes,” Sectes et démocratie, p. 222, note 25.
25 Cf. Testament—Transit pour le futur, Marhic, p. 230.
26 There is a reference to the myth of the Phœnix reborn from ashes in a text found at Salvan, “Le Retour du Feu”; excerpts cited in Mayer, “Les chevaliers de l’Apocalypse : l’Ordre du Temple Solaire et ses adeptes,” pp. 222–3.
27 Jacques Breyer, Vaincre la seconde mort (Paris: Éditions Ergonia, 1984), cited in Abgrall, p. 199.
28 Testament—Aux épris de Justice, Marhic, p. 223.
29 Ibid., p. 217.
30 Testament—La Rose+Croix, Marhic, p. 224. The typographical recourse to terms all in capitals to make concepts appear monumental is noteworthy. Also, the abuse of initial capitals in the original French aims to increase the prestige of the names.
31 Luc Jouret, Évolution de la conscience, duplicated lecture notes by Éditions Atlanta, cited in Mayer, “Les chevaliers de l’Apocalypse,” p. 212, note 15.
32 Testament—Transit pour le futur, Marhic, p. 229.
33 Ibid., p. 230.
34 Testament—Aux épris de Justice, Marhic, p. 223.
35 Testament—Transit pour le futur, Marhic, p. 230.
36 Article 33 of the order’s statutes for the citations in this paragraph, Marhic, p. 298.
37 Probably created by Jo Di Mambro, but with his wife’s help (like other major documents). The tone is extreme, rigid, Manichean, paranoiac, self-congratulatory, megalomaniac.
38 Testament—Aux épris de Justice, Marhic, p. 221.
39 Acaccio Pereira, “L’OTS, une secte qui avait fait de la mort ‘le cœur de sa doctrine’,” Le Monde, 17 August 2000, www.multimania.com/tussier/ots.htm (see note 17).
40 Acaccio Pereira, “La nébuleuse de l’Ordre du Temple solaire,” Le Monde, 16 August 2000, and “Le procureur a requis cinq ans de prison contre Michel Tabachnik dans l’affaire de l’OTS,” Le Monde, 28 April 2001, ibid. This theme was not only included in the speech delivered by Michel Tabachnik during the meeting, but earlier in his writing was titled “Épiphanie 91”.
41 Les Cahiers de Sarah assert that “humanity can be classified into five categories: the mineral man, the vegetal man, the animal man, the human man and the divine man.” The Vth Reign is supposed to be “the logical outcome of the cosmic and human evolution.” Cited in Abgrall, p. 192, note 1, and p. 193.
42 It seems that the arc was a mascot symbol in Tabachnik’s life: in 1982 the conductor composed a work called the Arch (for soprano and orchestra) for the city of Geneva. The same year, the property management company ARCH, jointly run by his wife Sabine Reutter, bought a building at Le Barroux in the Vaucluse, where Di Mambro and other members of the order were often seen. It came to be known at the end of 1996 that the Alliance Rose Croix (ARC) was installed at 41 Ramey Street, in the 18th district in Paris; Tabachnik’s Parisian pied-à-terre was located in the same building. Tabachnik’s fundamental values appear to be creativity and intellectual influence.
43 Acaccio Pereira, “La nébuleuse de l’Ordre du Temple solaire,” Le Monde, 16 August 2000, Tussier website (see note 17).
44 Ibid.
45 Towards 1976–77, in La Pyramide community gathered around Di Mambro, there was already talk of “the mutation of the Adamic man into a Cosmic man by way of the alchemical fire” (Marc Pivois, “‘Tabachnik a donné le signal’ du grand départ,” Libération, 28 April 2001, Tussier website [see note 17]).
46 Monique Giguère, “L’admiration demeure malgré tout,” Le Droit (from Québec’s Le Soleil), 12 October 1996, p. 18.
47 Thierry Huguenin, Le 54e. Paris: 1996 (1995), pp. 188 and 199.
48 Jean-Yves Roy has produced a psychological description of the shepherd relation: Le syndrome du berger. Essai sur les dogmatismes contemporains. N.p.: 1998.
49 Régis Debray, Cours de médiologie générale. Paris: 2001 (1991), p. 147.
50 Encyclopædia universalis (CD-ROM version 6, Paris): “Narcissisme.” Primary narcissism concerns the body as an unlimited object.
51 Or the imitatio dei – that is the imitation of the epic of the gods to accomplish the salvation project.
52 Testament—Transit pour le futur, Marhic, p. 227.
53 Les Cahiers de Sarah, cited in Abgrall, p. 196.
54 Cf. Peter Beyer, Religion and Globalization. Thousand Oaks, CA: 1994, p. 7.
55 Or inversely, the infiltration of official religious organizations or marginal ones, such as secret societies or cults, by secret services.
56 The 11 September 2001 events representing the collapse of the twin totems of the capitalist worldview by a diffuse and elusive Islamist international sect (Al-Qaida), followed by war in Afghanistan and Iraq—which could extend to all of Central Asia and beyond—have exacerbated the general anguish. The security—or the insecurity—of globalization has not only absorbed all its other aspects but also globalization itself. Under this pretext, governments have reacted with thoughtlessness, violent hurry and blind pursuit.
57 Beyer, p. 7. For a fuller discussion on the nature of these residual matters, see ibid., p. 105 ff.
58 Manuel de Diéguez, “Mondialisation, intégrisme : le retour de flammes ; pour une nouvelle rationalité,” 1994, on Manuel de Diéguez—a website with over 150 articles: www.dieguez-philosophe.com.
59 I define kenosis (from the Greek kenos) as the knowledge procured by nothingness’ intermittent divesting, rather than the theological humiliation of Christ’s Incarnation.