Cults that Kill by Wendy Joan Biddlecombe Agsar

Author:Wendy Joan Biddlecombe Agsar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ulysses Press
Published: 2018-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

From the Knights Templar to the Order of the Solar Temple

Joseph Di Mambro, the Order of the Solar Temple’s “dictator,” was born in Pont-Saint-Esprit, France, in 1924. Other than his professional training as a jeweler and watchmaker, not much else is known about Di Mambro’s life before the 1950s. During that decade, Di Mambro joined the Rosicrucian Order, a mystical secret society influenced by a German doctor named Christian Rosenkrauz (though many scholars believe he never actually existed) that was heavily recruiting in France to combat dwindling membership numbers. Di Mambro remained a member of the neo-Templar group until 1969, which also taught ideas from New Age, Catholic, and theosophy (a mix of Buddhism, Hinduism, and scientific inquiry) traditions.

The original Knights Templar was started as a Catholic monastic organization by Hugues de Payens around the year 1118. The knights dressed in long white robes embellished with red crosses and were initially tasked with protecting Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land from highway robbers. This scrappy startup played up their impoverished status and selfless motivations, calling themselves the “Poor Knights of Christ” in the early years. About 20 years after forming, the Knights Templar received official endorsement from the Catholic Church and quickly started amassing wealth from donors who admired their front-line bravery (even though only about 10 percent of members who took the top-secret oath were actually soldiers). Beyond the battlefield, the Knights Templar started lending money, establishing early forms of banking in Europe (while enjoying a tax-free status). With the ability to bypass local laws, they were incredibly powerful, answering only to the pope.

By the early 1300s, Jerusalem and other Holy Land strongholds had fallen under Ottoman control, and dueling monastic orders were making things difficult for both Philip IV of France (who also owed quite a bit of money to the Knights Templar banks) and Pope Clement V. The beginning of the end for the original order came on Friday, October 13, 1307, when Philip ordered a group of knights arrested and charged with several offenses, including heresy, fraud, and sodomy. Three years later, 54 knights were burned at the stake, effectively wiping out the order. Although rumors were passed down through French and German groups that the knights had secretly survived, most modern scholars have found this notion to be nothing more than romanticized rumors. The neo-Templar movement emerged in France following the French Revolution, and many modern groups trace their lineage back to l’Ordre du Temple, which was started in the early 1800s by Bernard-Raymond Fabré-Palaprat.

Like many cult leaders, Di Mambro dabbled in different religious orders before gaining the clout and confidence necessary for him to branch out on his own. Perhaps the greatest influence on the Order of the Solar Temple was Jacques Breyer, a French author who is credited with a modern resurgence of the Templar order in the 1950s, and in particular his idea of the doctrine of soul travel between life on Earth and eternal existence.

After a short stint in a

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