Morin Heights is a popular skiing destination in the mountains of Quebec, Canada. On October 4th, 1994, residents and tourists were readying their equipment and preparing to hit the slopes as ski season was soon beginning. At the same time, firefighters were responding to a call at a local ski chalet.
A fire had broken out that at the time was thought to be an accident. But as they searched the charred building, they found a chilling discovery that would prove to be only the beginning of a string of mass murder-suicides across the globe, all connected to one New Religious Movement called the Order of the Solar Temple. It all started in 1984 with two men by the name of Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret.
Joseph Di Mambro
Joseph was born in rural southern France in 1924 and had an interesting beginning. Instead of going to college, Joseph spent his time in the clockmaking and jewelry business. He was employed in this field ever since he was a young man. Besides this seemingly normal occupation, Joseph was also very interested in occultism. And by the age of 32, he joined and was an avid member of the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosae Crucis (AMORC). This was an American Rosicrucian (row·suh·kroo·shn) group that gained a lot of popularity and was quite successful after World War II.
He was so active in the group that he eventually became the head of a lodge in France in the 1960s and remained a significant figure in the group until 1969. This is when he decided he wanted to branch out of his career to become a New Age Movement lecturer and speaker.
Between 1970 and 1980, Joseph founded the Center for the Preparation of the New Age in France and later established the communal group La Pyramide in Switzerland. The latter was superseded by the Golden Way Foundation two years after it was established.
It was in Geneva, Switzerland that Joseph really blossomed in his career as a New Age teacher. He often claimed to be the incarnation of Moses, the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhnaton (aa·kuh·naa·tn), and other ancient figures. It wasn’t until the early 1980s that Joseph would get to know another man with similar beliefs by the name of Luc Jouret.
Luc Jouret
Luc was born in 1947 in Belgian Congo, Africa. In the 50s, his parents relocated to their homeland, where Luc received a medical degree at the Free University of Brussels. During his time in college, he involved himself in a lot of questionable groups, one of which - called the Walloon Communist Youth - put him under police surveillance.
After graduating in 1974 with his medical degree, Luc joined the Belgian Army as a paratrooper. His lifestyle drastically changed after his time in the army was over.
Luc started to study homeopathy and became a practitioner in France. He traveled all over the world and studied many different alternative and spiritual healing practices. As he studied, he also would give lectures about holistic health. People who believed in him could be recruited to join his club, which was named the Amenta Club.
It was in his travels that Luc had been requested by Joseph Di Mambro to give a lecture at the Golden Way Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland.
Two Minds Come Together
The two bonded over the course of Luc’s time in Geneva. They came to find that they had extremely similar belief systems and experiences. Joseph had been a Rosicrucian (row·suh·kroo·shn) and Luc had been affiliated with the Renewed Order of the Temple. They quickly became friends after exploring their shared interests and common goals, and decided to form their own religious group which they named the Order of the Solar Temple.
Although they were both avid speakers, they strategized by dividing their roles within the group. Luc would travel and give lectures that were meant to recruit followers. Joseph considered Luc to be a charismatic and knowledgeable guy, which made him the perfect person to be the face of their Order. On the other hand, Joseph appointed himself to be the one who would run the show from behind the scenes.
Foundation of Beliefs
The base of their belief systems was basically a marriage between the Templar's tradition to the New Age - a modern branch of the The Knights Templar. They combined these two and added a little bit of UFO religion sprinkled in.
So going back in history, the Knights Templar was one of the most wealthy and favored catholic military orders during the Crusades. Founded in 1119, the Templar was originally endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church. The militia wore distinctive white robes with a red cross on their chest. After existing for nearly two centuries and with the turn of the Crusades, the Templar became less important and therefore the support of the military slowly dissipated.
They also drew inspiration from other New Age religions and leaders such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley - who was the head of the Ordo Templi Orientis. Both religions were similar to that of the Solar Temple. Within the Order, a sort of hierarchy was created.
Structure
On the lowest structure or the first structure, they had the Amanta Club. This was a group that would give lectures about their teachings and drew large numbers of people to listen. Few of these people were recruited to join the club.
After individuals in the Amanta club proved themselves knowledgeable of their teachings and fit for a higher status, they were invited to join the second structure, called the Archedia Club. These members were provided with more advanced knowledge that would give them the opportunity to reach an even higher level of consciousness.
Only the elite from the Archedia Club was invited to join the third structure, called the International Knighthood Organization. This was extremely restricted, but members in this tier had access to special documents and also to future initiations to the structure itself.
Growth and Initiations
In 1989, there were 442 people who were members of the Solar Temple. To members of the Order, Joseph was a representative of higher beings. He was the head honcho. At its peak, the order had many different lodges in Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Martinique, and other countries. These lodges had altars, rituals, and costumes, which members of the lodge participated in.
Whenever an initiation ritual was held, the initiates were expected to make expensive purchases including jewelry, regalia, and initiation fees. During these rituals, members were required to wear official robes of the order and sometimes hold a special sword which Joseph claimed was a Templar artifact given to him a thousand years ago.
It was also during the group’s peak that Joseph fathered a child. He named her Emmanuelle and saw her as the future leader and guide of the New Age. According to Joseph, she was “the cosmic child”. In order to assist Emmanuelle in her task of bringing in the New Age, Joseph chose mates for some of the followers in hopes that they would have special children who could help her.
Skeptics
So at this point, you might be asking, did anyone ever question Joseph or Luc? Doesn’t this all sound a bit crazy? Of course. Some of the followers would question Joseph’s authority and supposed mystical powers. One member who left the group in 1991 filed a lawsuit against it, claiming that it was a cult.
Now, Joseph also happened to have a son named Élie (ily), who was also skeptical about his father’s teachings. He later found out that the spiritual visions and messages that Joseph claimed to have were staged by special effects and holograms. Élie shared his findings with the group, causing around 15 or so members to depart from the order.
More and more people grew skeptical of Joseph. Over the course of just two years, membership continued to drop, and with it went financials. Revenue dropped from over 483,000 in 1991 to just 89,000 in 1993.
Downfall
Then in 1993, Luc attempted to purchase illegal firearms and silencers. The publicity from his arrest destroyed his own reputation and put the group on authorities’ radar. At the same time, Joseph’s health was in decline. He developed cancer and had kidney troubles, which led to incontinence. His health decline is believed to be what caused a significant change in his plan for the coming of the New Age.
On February 28th, 1993 the tragic event at the Branch Davidians compound in Waco, Texas was reported.
Upon seeing the tragedy televised, Joseph felt that it stole the show from him. He told his most trusted partner Luc, “in my opinion, we should have gone six months before them … what we do will be even more spectacular.”
Joseph and Luc agreed that it was time to take action. It was almost as if making the news or making headlines was the only way they could carry out their ultimate goals. Together, they took some time to plan their next move, which would come in the form of one of their teachings.
What is a Transit?
Now let’s back up a bit.
So one of the main teachings in this group was that of transits. According to the Solar Temple, the specific goal of a transit is to begin the new world. At first, Joseph described to his followers that the transit is a sort of passing through a mirror or traveling in a spaceship. He believed that this is how they were meant to return to the father.
Over time, however, the word transit seemed to evolve and soon it took on a much deeper, somewhat darker meaning among some of the followers. To them, transit became understood as a change in consciousness. And of course, with the change in consciousness came preparation for the change itself.
Joseph would tell followers that in time they would be called to a meeting in which they would partake in their transit - their change in consciousness and return to the father. He told them to be on alert all hours of the day in case they received their call. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of the end.
The Call
Letters were written to several public figures, explaining that the Order of the Solar Temple would be making their change in consciousness soon. They described their preparations for their departure from this earthly plane. In the meantime, Joseph began destroying any documentation of his group in order to keep the mystery around the departure.
On October 3rd, 1994 300 envelopes were mailed by a member on behalf of Joseph. These contained some of the Order of the Solar Temple’s texts, a copy of a letter addressed to the French Minister of the Interior, and a videotape. The envelopes were mailed to many different locations around the world.
In the letter addressed to the French Minister, Joseph expresses that the minister is responsible for the deaths of many of the members of his order. One of the sources describes the letter also saying that because the minister is so set on destroying all the work that the order has done, the members must “leave this terrestrial plane ahead of time.” This implied something much more sinister.
We tried to search everywhere online for the contents of the videotape, but couldn’t find anything. So if anyone has any information about it, please, PLEASE let us know.
Tony Dutoit Background
So as the downfall of the order played out, members noticed that Luc’s behavior began to change dramatically. One source described him as “excessively erratic and sexually obsessed.”
There are also reports stating that a higher member of the group was tasked with the job of installing projectors in their sanctuaries that would create illusions to trick the rest of the followers. This obviously struck Tony as suspicious and he then went on to share this with other cult members. Once hearing about this fraud, members of the group felt betrayed for having been manipulated by their leader. This event caused a large number of followers to leave the Order of the Solar Temple.
Transit 1
After discovering that Tony had revealed these fraudulent activities with other followers, Joseph and Luc became enraged at him and his family. It was then out of pure anger and frustration that Joseph ordered two trusted members to kill Tony and his family. He managed to disguise the murder by declaring that Tony’s infant son, Emmanuel, was the Antichrist and this ritual had to take place in order to bring in the New Age.
Of course, the devoted members carried out this plan by sneaking into the Tony’s residence in Quebec at night and murdering Tony, his wife, and his child, Emmanuel. After autopsies were completed, it was found that Tony was stabbed 50 times, his wife Nicky 8 times, and Emmanuel 6 times, all with a wooden stake. The two members finished the job by lighting the home on fire and committing suicide themselves.
On the same night, Joseph and twelve of his most trusted followers came together to have a ritualistic ‘last supper’ meal in a smaller town called Cheiry in Switzerland. Just before midnight, a fire broke out in a chalet where the group had been staying. Just a few hours later, fires were reported in three different cottages in the Swiss town of Salvan. When firefighters and police responded to each of the reports, what they found was absolutely horrific.
Inside the Cheiry chalet, 22 people were found dead, their bodies and limbs arranged so that the group would form the shape of a sun. All of the bodies were wearing ceremonial robes, and some had plastic bags over their heads. Mirrors and red curtains covered the walls surrounding them. Among the bodies were 9 men, 12 women, and 1 young boy of age 12.
At the scene in Salvan, a total of 25 people were found dead throughout the three cottages. Officials stated that their cause of death was a drug overdose, though some of the source material says that the majority of the members took tranquilizers to die, while the remaining few were shot or shot themselves. Later in the investigation, it was found that the fires had been started by some sort of remote-control device.
One of the members who died in the incident left a farewell note which said that they believed they were leaving to escape the “hypocrisies and oppression of this world.”
Unfortunately for the prosecution, Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret were two of the bodies found in the incidents. So at this point, they had no one to charge for the murders. Joseph’s ‘cosmic child’ was also unfortunately among the dead.
Transit 2
14 months later, on December 15th and 16th of 1995, 13 adults and 3 children were found dead in a clearing on a plateau in Vercors, France. After autopsies were conducted, it was found that 14 of the 16 people had ingested sedatives and were shot twice. It was apparent that the other two victims were the ones assigned the job of killing the others. They were to sedate the others, shoot them, and then use an accelerant to light their bodies on fire. After this was done, they sprayed themselves with the accelerant, lit themselves on fire, and then shot themselves in the head.
After this incident, the remaining members of the order continued to meet. Some even wished they had been a part of it. Of course, there were members who were at first horrified at the news, but the majority of them ultimately accepted the idea that it was a part of their plan to reach a higher consciousness. Some genuinely thought the members who died did the right thing. It was almost as if they were brainwashed or desensitized to it.
Transit 3
On March 23rd, 1997, a small house in Saint-Casimir, Quebec suddenly burst into flames. After the fire was contained and put out, five charred bodies were found in the rubble. It was later determined that these five were members of the Order of the Solar Temple.
Behind the house that burnt down, authorities discovered three individuals who were heavily drugged. These people were ages 13, 14 and 16 were members of the group who had changed their minds about the transit and were able to escape the fire with their lives.
Conclusion
Overall, this story blows my mind in the fact that these sick individuals eventually succeeded in their mission and never had to face justice for their crimes.
Like we mentioned in the disclaimer, if you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis, call the suicide and crisis lifeline at 988. It’s never too late to get help. To find programs, toolkits, fact sheets, and other resources to help you take effective action, you can visit
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