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Chivalric Organization of the Solar Tradition) in 1984 after Di Mambro had recruited the charismatic Luc Jouret. Jouret was a Belgian doctor and obstetrician, and his entry into the group was a turning point for Di Mambro. He was a charming and compelling man and worked ceaselessly for Di Mambro in recruiting new members and acting as guide and prophet. A medical doctor by training, he had also embraced spiritual healing and homeopathic medicine while travelling in India, and many people came to the Order of the Solar Temple, attracted by him.
    Jouret believed himself to be both the third reincarnation of Christ, and also a former member of the Knight’s Templar, a secret, 14th century Christian order founded by French crusaders in Jerusalem. It was therefore rumoured that he was in possession of a deeper spiritual knowledge and guarded deep religious secrets. He preached that when death came and the spiritual body departed from the physical body, only the members of the Order of the Solar Temple would ascend and meet again on the star Sirius where a better life would continue for them. He warned though that they may have to make this transition before their physical body had died naturally. The earth was slowly being destroyed by war, pollution and human neglect, and the end was nigh. He told the members that they would have to leave before the world self-destructed, and the only way to make the journey to Sirius was through fire. Fire, although destructive, had the ability to transform and it was therefore the only medium through which to pass.
    This obsession with fire may have come from Jouret’s belief in his own reincarnation from a member of the Knight’s Templar. Members of this group were known to have been burned to death at the stake by the ruling monarchy who feared the power and secrecy of the order. The spirits of these persecuted and holy men lived on, he proclaimed, in the elders of the Order of the Solar Temple.
    By the end of the 1980s, membership was international and spread mainly across France, Switzerland and French Canada where Jouret had led lecture tours. There were also a few followers in the US, Spain and French Caribbean. The sect had amassed a fortune of 93 million dollars through donations and sales of property offered to it by its members.
     
    C ONCERN AND  S USPICION
     
    But Jouret’s radical prophecies of an ecological apocalypse caused concern and suspicion amongst the group and membership began to dwindle. Rumours also crept in that the Order was a hoax and that the members had been swindled out of their savings and possessions.
    Perhaps under pressure from these accusations and the creeping group discontent, Di Mambro was fast losing patience with his partner too. He was aware of the commune’s displeasure at the controlling way in which Jouret conducted his lessons and preachings. Despite his magnetism and inspirational style, Jouret had previously been voted out of another group, ‘The Renewed Order of the Temple’, as Grand Master by his followers. This displayed a severe lack of confidence, and Di Mambro feared that the same could happen within the Solar Temple.
    The disillusion spread amongst the group, when a couple of members left and began to denounce the group in Quebec. They claimed that the Order was dangerous, demanded their money back and encouraged others to do the same. They did, and Di Mambro was faced with numerous lawsuits and financial demands.
    Di Mambro was also coming under scrutiny from the banks and financial institutions who were beginning investigations, suspicious of money-laundering, into the vast sums of cash which he’d been investing in his accounts. His health was also suffering. He was diagnosed with diabetes and kidney failure, and believed that he had also developed cancer.
    Neither were his family supportive. His daughter, whom he had heralded as one of the ‘cosmic children’, no longer wanted to be involved in her father’s premonition of