Interview with Solar Temple Cult insider

  

In the 90s a Swiss swindler named Joseph Di Mambro cultivated a charismatic young star to carry the torch for his faith-based scams.

Di Mambro's flashy recruit Luc Jouret talked a good game and the duo was soon defrauding people - many in Montreal - of their entire life savings before the whole thing ended in a disastrous and heartbreaking bloodbath that claimed 74 lives here and in Europe.

Luc Jouret's patter revolved around ancient scriptures purportedly revealing secrets of the Knights Templar. It was yet another wookie templar cult. Adherents of other mutations of this silliness had included Princess Grace of Monaco, whose death is sometimes linked to Di Mambro. But Jouret was special. He was a formally trained doctor born in Africa, seemingly truly believing in his ability to create a psychic link to the keepers of much repressed spiritual tradition.

The Order of the Solar Temple spread from Europe to Quebec where their influence infiltrated the corridors of power at Hydro Quebec, where Luc Jouret gave speeches luring people into his goblin universe of medieval apocalyptic nonsense. Hydro Quebec was said to be planning to give electricity to the Solar Temple Cult followers after the rest of us suckers were wiped out by pestilence and plague and all other doomsday things that happen, according to the culties predictions. (So next time Hydro Quebec announces a fee hike, you know what it's really for).

But two things happened. Three actually. Culties started wondering why Di Mambro was buying mansions with their money. They also started wondering why the world didn't seem to be ending, as predicted. Doubts arose. And the third lay in the fact that their esoteric swords and other were cheap plastic junk and that the visions merely cheez-whiz McGyverisms. Even Di Mambro's son and daughter realized the fake factor was too hard to ignore. The hallowed halls were abuzz with disgruntled rumblings.

A cheerful Brit named Nicki Dutoit who sewed the costumes for the group, was the first to be

murdered. Her husband the handyman Tony Dutoit managed the cheap shitty plastic props. He was stabbed to death. Their three month old baby Christopher Emmanuel was stabbed to death with a wooden stake. Their crime was that they'd named the baby the same name as Jouret's love child and that made him the antichrist, so they were all killed on September 30,1994 in a rented home in Morin Heights. Also, Tony had been spreading the word that the religion was a hoax. The grisly deed was done by future-suicide cult fanatics Joel Egger, 34, Jerry Genoud and Collette Genoud and Dominique Bellaton, all Swiss. Bellaton's baby was supposedly the chosen baby.

A series of suicides and murders occurred here, in Switzerland and France, as believers thought that they'd be sent to Sirius. Willingly and often less so, they were drugged, had plastics bags put on their heads and were shot. Their corpses were laid out in patterns, such as stars or crosses.

In total the Solar Temple Cult had scored an estimated $93 million from between 420 and 600 members.

Coolopolis spoke today to Solar Temple survivor Hermann Delorme. Prior to spending three years with the Solars, Delorme was a divorced insurance guy living in rural Quebec. He took up archery and through those circles was introduced him to a doctor, a female recruiter. Delorme and here clicked. The woman doctor is still alive and practicing in the Laurentians.

Jouret soon talked Delorme into buying three guns equipped with silencers. After cops busted Delorme for the guns, he lost his shot at the inner circle.

"When I met Jouret he was a very mystical person and at that time I was ready to

believe in something," says Delorme, who now makes a living selling French-made imported knives. "I was a little sensitive after my divorce and they seemed to offer something. I got involved, but never with the Solar Temple rituals. I was manipulated by Jouret. He knew what to say to convince me that I was something special and they had chosen me to perform a certain task."
Delorme, however, wasn't moved by Di Mambro, whose cheesy old-style mysticism included telling people what famous person they are reincarnations of.

"Di Mambro was a joke. I didn’t like him. He didn’t like me. I thought he was pure bullshit all the way but people who believed it they took it so far that they just  disconnected. I saw their minds skip. He was a manipulator, a first class asshole. I can't understand how anybody could be influenced by that rat faced guy. I just couldn’t see it. I couldn’t relate to him. He was an insignificant little person he was so obvious what he was doing."

Di Mambro, according to Delorme, was motivated by power. "He'd have two or three houses and people serving him, the power, the women, that was it it all comes down to, nothing else. "

But Di Mambro died, apparently going along with the suicide pact, along with his wife, son and daughter. Respected local cult expert Susan Palmer cites Di Mambro's failing health and impending legal problems and rebellious children for his decision to snuff it. But Delorme is convinced that Di Mambro wasn't slated to die, but die he did, October 5, 1994 - a few days after the Dutoits were killed. It happened in Salvan France. Together with Jouret the bunch all died together. Delorme is convinced that this wasn't scripted. "Di Mambro was an unwilling participant in that final result," says Delorme.
Delorme considers Jouret the deeper enigma. "I knew him relatively well. If you go through his life, you'll find something happened, the breakup of an early marriage, a trauma in his childhood, something caused him to become vulnerable and fragile. He tried to hook onto something. In life we're all looking for a life jacket, something to support us."

"Once you start believing the illusions, and become part of it and following that road, at some point there's no turning back. They kept going until they became totally detached and starting believing that they were something else and they took it to the final conclusion."


So is the Solar Temple Cult alive today?
"I know many people who are involved. You wouldn’t believe what’s going on not just in large groups but small communities, little things, they keep it secret but they manage to keep it around. We’re in a funny world where community is hard to find, families are breaking up, as humans we try to connect. We’re not made to be alone, even animals have groups and we need that to a higher level, so if you're deprived of that you’ll try to reconnect with something. That’s where you get caught, when you're fragile and looking for something."