Luc Jouret
Luc Jouret | |
---|---|
![]() Photo of Jouret, used to advertise a 1991 lecture | |
Born | Luc Georges Marc Jean Jouret 18 October 1947 |
Died | 5 October 1994 Salvan, Switzerland | (aged 46)
Cause of death | Suicide |
Occupation(s) | Founder, Order of the Solar Temple |
Luc Georges Marc Jean Jouret (French: [ʒuʁɛ]; 18 October 1947 – 5 October 1994) was a Belgian cult leader and homeopath. Jouret founded the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS) with Joseph Di Mambro in 1984. He committed suicide in the Swiss village of Salvan on 5 October 1994 as part of a mass murder–suicide.
Early life
[edit]Luc Georges Marc Jean Jouret was born on 18 October 1947 in Kikwit, in what was then the Belgian Congo.[1][2] He was the second son of Napoléon and Fernande Jouret (born 1923, née Jeanmott), both Belgian. His father Napoléon Jouret was known as an authoritarian parent, but was described by Jouret's older brother as "hard-working" and "a man of great honesty". He had studied in Germanic languages and was a local government official in Belgium, while Fernande was a housewife.[3]
After their first son had been born in Belgium in 1946, the couple moved to the Belgian Congo, where they settled in Kikwit; at the time, the colonial administration of the territory needed more civil servants, and Napoléon took up a job in territorial administration.[4] Luc Jouret was born a year later – a sickly child, suffering from rickets, pulmonary issues, whooping cough, as well as nutritional issues in his early life. Due to the lack of medical equipment (and the climate) available in the Congo, the family returned to Belgium when he was 18 months old. By the age of three he had recovered under his mother's care. Though he remained fragile in health, the family returned to the Congo and settled in Matadi where a third son was born in 1951.[5] Napoléon switched careers into teaching Germanic languages to Belgian children, both black and white, and the family moved to Luluabourg.[6] In 1954, when Jouret was six, he fractured his skull after being hit by a cyclist. His family, afraid for his life, returned to Dour, Belgium for good.[6][2] A fourth child, a daughter, was born two years later.[7]
As a teenager Jouret, now in better health, began to excel at sports, particularly judo and climbing. He aimed to become a teacher in physical education. In 1966, he enrolled in the prestigious Université libre de Bruxelles with a scholarship; his brother, also a student there, described him as a "serious idealist" at the time, not interested in money. Following May 68, communism was popular at the school, including with Jouret, noted to be more devoted to it than other students. One professor commented on an assessment that he "would be an even better student if he studied less female students".[8]
His father, now a school administrative manager, was an avid secularist and progressive critic of Belgian society. He created an organization opposing Catholic influence in Wallonia, of which he was president.[7] At home however he was disciplinarian and occasionally physically abusive; a teacher of Jouret's sister recalled she would arrive at school sobbing and confessed to her that their father made their family life difficult. Jouret's older brother said that while he was not abused, he believed Jouret "has bad memories of it". Jouret would leave home at about 21 years of age, under violent circumstances. A later patient of Jouret said that he had complained to him later in life of the lack of freedom and strictness of his upbringing.[9]
Homeopathy and esotericism
[edit]At the age of 20, Jouret began to experience severe pain, and was diagnosed with coxarthrosis (osteoarthritis of the hip joint),[10] a diagnosis unusual for someone his age. As a result of this he spent 14 months mostly immobilized in bed and subject to constant medical care, an event which he described as making him lose his faith in modern medicine. Faced with the reality that he would no longer be able to become an athlete as he had wanted, Jouret was distraught.[11]
Visiting students discussed with Jouret homeopathy and alternative medicine, and he set up an appointment with a homeopath. Jouret's condition seemed to improve after a year, but he was still unable to achieve his previous aims, instead choosing to focus on medicine. As he could not regularly attend the classes due to his illness, he had to repeat the course, wasting two years of effort. Gradually Jouret's condition began to improve, which he attributed to homeopathy, and he received his medical degree.[2][12] Jouret became interested in a variety of alternative medicine, including iridology, macrobiotics, and acupuncture in addition to homeopathy. Jouret also became interested in politics, particularly Maoism, and joined the Union of Communist Students. Interested in both China's history of traditional medicine and its communist politics, he decided to travel to China.[13]
During his college years he joined the Walloon Communist Youth, which resulted in the police placing him under surveillance. He graduated with a medical degree in 1974. Two years after graduation, in 1976, he joined the Belgian Army, saying it was "the best way to infiltrate the Army with Communist ideas", and became a paratrooper. While in the army he participated in the Battle of Kolwezi, a joint French and Belgian airborne operation which resulted in the liberation of hostages from the city of Kolwezi.[2]
Following his time in the army, he began a formal study of homeopathy and qualified as a homeopathic practitioner in France. He travelled widely studying various forms of alternative and spiritual healing; it is known that he visited the Philippines in 1977, and he later stated he had visited China, Peru, and India.[2] At the beginning of the 1980s he settled in Annemasse, France, not far from the Swiss border, and began to practice homeopathy there. He continued to lecture widely on holistic health and the paranormal and invited those who responded to him into Amenta Club (later renamed the Atlanta Club).[14]
Among the groups for which he lectured was the Golden Way Foundation, a New Age group in Geneva, Switzerland, and he became close friends with the foundation's leader, Joseph Di Mambro. Di Mambro had been a Rosicrucian and Jouret had in 1981 affiliated with the Renewed Order of the Temple, an occult order founded in the 1970s by Julian Origas (1920–1983).[15] They soon discovered their mutual interests and in 1984 together founded the Solar Temple. By this time Jouret was traveling widely through French-speaking Europe, Eastern Canada and Martinique as an inspirational speaker. While Di Mambro directed the group from behind the scenes, Jouret was its outward image and primary recruiter.[16][17]
The Solar Temple
[edit]The Solar Temple wedded the Templars tradition to the New Age, part of a Neo-Templar tradition that claimed to descend from a lineage of grand masters that claimed to go back to the medieval Order of the Temple that was suppressed at the beginning of the fourteenth century, an idea which French historian Régine Pernoud called "totally insane".[18] The temple offered a program of personal spiritual progress through the practice of occult disciplines and rituals that invoked the power of the Great White Brotherhood to bring forth the New Age.[19]
Jouret led a growing organization through the 1980s, but in the 1990s, troubles began to plague the temple. Members began to depart, Di Mambro fell ill, and authorities in several countries began to investigate its activities.[citation needed] Jouret and Di Mambro became increasingly pessimistic, especially after Jouret was arrested for asking two members of the OTS to purchase three semiautomatic guns with silencers in Quebec, illegal in Canada.[20][21] A warrant for Jouret's arrest was issued, which could not be carried out as he was in Europe, and the Canadian press's attention was drawn to the OTS.[22]
Mass suicide and death
[edit]In 1993 Jouret, Di Mambro, and several members travelled to Australia. By this time they were beginning to discuss the refusal of the public to evolve and bring in the New Age. They began to put together a set of documents that would be mailed out in October 1994 detailing their rationale for their final act, mass suicide, which they believed would let them escape the world to a higher dimension. On 3–5 October 1994, Jouret and some 12 other members of the temple died by suicide at two locations in Switzerland.[23] The night before he died, Jouret joined Di Mambro and a small group of members in a lavish last meal together at a local restaurant. Prior to their own death, the group assisted other members who had taken tranquilizers to die. These members were shot.[24] The Solar Temple disbanded after Jouret's death, though a year later another group would commit suicide and in 1997 five more died believing that they were following the first group to a higher dimension.[25]
References
[edit]- ^ Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997, p. 109.
- ^ a b c d e Introvigne 2006, p. 28.
- ^ Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997, p. 47.
- ^ Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997, pp. 47–48.
- ^ Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997, pp. 48–49.
- ^ a b Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997, p. 49.
- ^ a b Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997, p. 50.
- ^ Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997, p. 51.
- ^ Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997, pp. 50–51.
- ^ Bizot, Arnaud (7 August 2019). "Luc Jouret, le boucher des Templiers - Les gourous de l'Apocalypse" [Luc Jouret, le butcher of the Templars - Gurus of the Apocalypse]. Paris Match (in French). Retrieved 10 December 2023.
- ^ Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997, p. 52.
- ^ Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997, p. 53.
- ^ Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997, pp. 54–55.
- ^ Introvigne 2006, p. 29.
- ^ Palmer 1996, pp. 305–306.
- ^ Hall & Schuyler 2000, p. 126.
- ^ Palmer 1996, p. 305.
- ^ Introvigne 2006, pp. 19–20.
- ^ Chryssides 2006, p. 119.
- ^ Introvigne 2006, pp. 31–32.
- ^ Mayer 1999, pp. 179–180.
- ^ Introvigne 2006, p. 32.
- ^ "Swiss Police Identify Cult Leader's Body; Cause of Death Unknown". Los Angeles Times. 14 October 1994. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
- ^ Lewis 2006, p. 1.
- ^ Lewis 2005, p. 296.
- Bibliography
- Bédat, Arnaud; Bouleau, Gilles; Nicolas, Bernard (1997). L'Ordre du Temple Solaire: Enquête et révélations sur les chevaliers de l'apocalypse (in French). Montreal: Libre Expression. ISBN 978-2-89111-707-4.
- Hall, John R.; Schuyler, Philip D. (2000). "The Mystical Apocalypse of the Solar Temple". Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe, and Japan. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-97766-8.
- Lewis, James R. (2005). "The Solar Temple "Transits": Beyond the Millennialist Hypothesis". In Lewis, James R.; Petersen, Jesper Aagaard (eds.). Controversial New Religions (1st ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-515682-9.
- Lewis, James R., ed. (2006). The Order of the Solar Temple: The Temple of Death. Controversial New Religions. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7546-5285-4.
- Introvigne, Massimo. "Ordeal by Fire: The Tragedy of the Solar Temple". In Lewis (2006).
- Chryssides, George D. "Sources of Doctrine in the Solar Temple". In Lewis (2006).
- Mayer, Jean-François (April 1999). ""Our Terrestrial Journey is Coming to an End": The Last Voyage of the Solar Temple". Nova Religio. 2 (2). Translated by Siegler, Elijah: 172–196. doi:10.1525/nr.1999.2.2.172. ISSN 1092-6690. JSTOR 10.1525/nr.1999.2.2.172.
- Palmer, Susan J. (October 1996). "Purity and Danger in the Solar Temple". Journal of Contemporary Religion. 11 (3): 303–318. doi:10.1080/13537909608580777. ISSN 1353-7903.
External links
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- 1947 births
- 1994 deaths
- 1994 suicides
- Belgian expatriates in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Belgian expatriates in Switzerland
- Belgian homeopaths
- Belgian religious leaders
- Former Marxists
- Members of the clergy convicted of crimes
- Order of the Solar Temple
- People from Kikwit
- Suicides in Switzerland
- Cult leaders