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74 dead, three countries, one cult.
The Order of the Solar Temple left a trail of destruction that still baffles experts today.
Founded by Joseph de Mombro, a jeweler, a former jeweler, and Luc Jouret, a homeophobic, Not homeophobic.
That's not what I meant to say.
A homeopathic doctor.
This wasn't your typical doomsday cult, though.
They targeted the elite lawyers doctors, politicians the people you would least expect to fall for such extreme beliefs, ignoring Scientology, of course.
We'll talk about that at some point on this channel, I'm sure.
So how did these intelligent individuals end up participating in a mass transit to Sirius.
Today, we will be breaking down the rise and fall of the Order of the Solar Temple, exposing the manipulation tactics that turned ordinary people into devoted cultists and what horrors became of them.
Crime, conspiracy, serial killers, cults, and murder.
All things that I love to consume, and I know you do too, you sweet little button-nosed baby boy.
And also you're an intellectual, sweet, beautiful-minded freak.
But today we are talking about just that, the Order of the Solar Temple.
Very disturbing cult.
I feel like not as many people know about this one.
There are frickin' magic, magic, ethereal kids in this cult.
Okay?
It's gonna get weird as frick.
So, without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes and jump through this windshield into this crazy cult together.
And of course, we're going to start out with who the heck is running this shit.
And that is the doula and the doctor, Joseph DeMombro.
It's a very scary name for me.
I mean, I know what he did, so maybe that's why it's scary.
But anyway, Joseph DeMombro wasn't always a cult leader.
They never are.
Born in 1924 in Pensee Esprit, in France.
I will say a lot of things wrong, forgive me.
He started out as a regular Joe, fixing watches and selling jewelry.
But this guy had a taste for the weird.
In 1956, he joined AMORC or A-M-O-R-C, the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosé Crucis or Crucis.
There's a couple ways to say it.
Sounds like...
A lot of fun to me, to be honest.
Sounds like something I would join when I'm like 14.
Instead of Dungeons and Dragons, it was the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rose Cruties.
Sounds badass.
Anyway, this group was found on the belief of spiritual development, including mysticism, alchemy and more.
This is sounding more and more awesome as I go, but I promise you it's not.
However, this was only just the beginning of D'Ambro's journey into the world of the strange.
Meanwhile, across the globe, Lou Zuray was born in 1947 in Belgian Congo.
And this dude became a doctor graduating in 1974.
But regular medicine for him was not enough.
He got into homeopathy.
Homeopathy which is basically just expensive water, if you ask most scientists.
We don't need to get into it, but people loved it.
And Jouret became a big shot speaker on alternative medicine and new age crap in French speaking Europe.
Jouret really was quite convinced that he had a mission to fulfill, that he was like a kind of representative of the Templar order into the profane world.
But anyway, here's where things get interesting.
In 1982, these two weirdos met when Jerez joined DeMombro's Golden Way Foundation.
And it was like a match made in cult heaven, if there is such a thing.
And they both basically just had a hard-on for cult and esoteric teachings.
And they hit it off immediately.
And Amambro, now pushing 60 at this point, had been running in Golden Way Foundation in Geneva attracting all sorts of people who thought crystals could cure cancer and that aliens built the pyramids and whatnot, which I
I'm not opposed to that theorem, gonna be honest.
Not the crystals thing, but the aliens thing.
I just can't, I don't know how you explain it otherwise.
It was the perfect combo though.
The behind the scenes mastermind and the charming front man.
And these two didn't waste any time.
In 1984, they officially founded the Order of the Solar Temple which, to be fair, is a badass name, and their logo is kinda tight.
I'm not gonna lie.
The first thing I said when I saw it, I was like, it's pretty sweet.
I'm not gonna lie.
But they're pieces of shit, so that's the only thing I'm gonna give them.
And they would kick off the Order of the Solar Temple with a ceremony in Geneva where they swore allegiance to a once and future supreme secret master of the temple.
And de Mambro took on the role of the puppet master, pulling the strings from behind the curtain like wizard of oz, and jireh, with his smooth talking ways, became the face of the organization.
So dimambro was behind the curtain and jireh was the the front man, if you will.
So jireh was out there giving lectures, recruiting members and spreading their philosophy and, oh boy, did people eat it, the fuck up.
Giray was especially successful in Quebec, where he managed to rope in executives and managers from Hydro-Quebec.
And I can't, I don't understand why all these cults that I talk about, they're all connected to Quebec.
What the hell's going on up there?
Get it together, Quebec!
I know it's not all of you, Quebecois, but...
My lord.
But anyway, high-level professionals were falling for his spell and the Order of the Solar Temple was growing and pulling in members from various esoteric groups, including Jauret's own, Amenta and Arcadia clubs.
So there you have it a former jeweler and a homeopathic doctor still sounds wrong.
Both with a taste for the bizarre joining forces to create what would become one of the most notorious cults of the 20th century.
But this was just the beginning unfortunately, and the Order of the Solar Temple was about to take its followers on a wild ride, to say the least.
And trust me, it does not end well.
So let's get into the cosmic child and nightly dreams.
Yes.
You heard what I said.
So you might think a cult.
Mixing Knights Templar lore with UFO beliefs would be too ridiculous to gain followers.
But the order of the solar temples teachings were about to get even weirder and deadlier.
So how did they convince educated professionals that a toddler was the cosmic Messiah?
Let that sink in. cosmic messiah.
But the OTS belief system was a bizarre cocktail of neo-templar ideas and new age concepts.
On the surface they preached love, light and spiritual elevation, but behind closed doors it was all apocalypse and transit to other planets, as most cults are.
I mean, it's always like the front-facing looks all good and everything, like we just talked about the FLDS or you know, Children of God and everything.
If people come to visit, looks fine from the outside, kinda, but in reality, it's just... shit.
But de Mambro claimed that OTS was preparing for new age, ushered in by cosmic children, special beings with superpowers, little like Incredibles, children fucking running around, cosmic powers and whatnot, being size and everything.
And his daughter, Emmanuelle, born in 1982, was the star of this cosmic show.
Naturally, of course, it had to be his daughter.
And he told members she was the cosmic child and the embodiment of the cosmic Christ.
They're like mixing the Bible with Star Wars putting it together.
So how did he explain her conception?
This is awesome and crazy.
It's crazy.
Not through normal means, of course, could not be through normal intercourse and whatnot.
According to dimambro, emmanuel was conceived through cosmic intercourse.
Everything's got to be cosmic with this guy, with a ghost-like master.
So i don't know if it was a woman or a man or just a ghost, i'm not sure.
But the knights templar obsession ran deep in the ots and it's literally just the plot from star wars, which also copies the story of jesus.
So it's just.
It's just plagiarism all around and it's real.
So it's not fun.
You know, if it's fiction?
If it was fiction it'd be fun, but it's not.
So they claimed direct lineage from the medieval Templars saying secret masters sent them esoteric messages.
And these weren't your average weekend LARPers.
As you know, if you don't know what LARPers is, it's right here on screen right here.
Or you can show them a video of them.
These people took this stuff extremely seriously, and their rituals were elaborate affairs invoking a whole hierarchy of ascended masters.
He would say to us do you realize that we are the only people on the planet to be seeing these things?
That throughout history, there have been great souls, great saints, and they have never had a sign.
And we have flashes, signs.
We have the blood of Christ.
And these ceremonies were designed to convince members that they had special roles in the coming of the new age.
And it was all part of a plan to keep people hooked into the OTS's unique mission, which was that they were reincarnated saints.
And you would go through this ritual where you would be given a cross, you would be sworn in as a member and you would also swear not to reveal any of the going-ons inside this place, this group, because everything was kept extremely secretive.
But here's where it gets really dark.
While they talked about love and enlightenment in public, the private teachings were very doom and gloom.
They pushed ideas about persecution and the impending apocalypse, creating a sense of urgency among members.
And we see this with every cult that I've talked about and pretty much every cult in general, whether it's Jim Jones or the Order of the Solar Temple or Children of God.
Like all, these cults always need a fear-mongering aspect to keep people with them.
So they push the same rhetoric.
And the contrast between the OTS's public face and its inner teachings was stark.
On one hand, you had Lou Jouret giving lectures about alternative medicine and spiritual growth, and on the other hand, you had Joseph de Mambro spinning tales about cosmic children at the end of the world, which sounds?
Cooler.
Kidding.
I'm kidding.
But this mix of Knights Templar mythology, New Age concepts and apocalyptic beliefs created a potent brew of cult stew.
So the OTS managed to create a belief system that was both attractive and terrifying.
And this combination would prove deadly effective in controlling its members.
But beliefs alone don't explain what was to come.
The Order of the Solar Temple was about to take a very dark turn, and its members were along for the ride, whether they knew it or not.
And the stage was set for tragedy, with Dimambro and Jauret holding all the strings.
And trust me, you don't want to miss what happens next.
So picture this.
It's 1989 and Joseph de Mambro is living large.
First class travel, multiple luxury homes, and a growing bank account fueled by devoted followers.
It's a lot like some other religions I know.
They just love to use the church's money.
But!
Here's the kicker.
The Order of the Solar Temple hit its peak membership of 442 across six countries and the seeds of its destruction were already taking root.
So how did it all unravel so quickly?
Well, let's break it down.
The OTS had spread its tentacles across Europe, and North America.
We're talking 90 members in Switzerland, 187 in France, 43 in Martinique and 10 in Spain, 86 in Canada, mostly in Quebec, of course, and 16 in good ol' USA.
But not too shabby for a cult that believed in cosmic children and night Templar ghosts, right?
But how did they keep all these people in line?
Well, DeMombro and Geray weren't idiots.
They set up these three tiered systems and at the bottom you had the amante club, and this was just like entry-level stuff, where they would spew their philosophies and try to find the spiritual elite, and only a select few would move up to the next level.
And if you were lucky or unlucky, depending on how you look at it you get bumped up to the arcadia level, And this is where things got more, let's say, advanced.
They would prep you for the ultimate initiation into the OTS.
But the real prize, the International Knighthood Organization.
I, again, they got cool names.
Like, I kind of get why people went into this because they're like, I get to be a knight?
What?
And there's cosmic children and fucking wizards and shit?
Sounds awesome.
And this was the top tier, the VIP.
And special publications, fancy initiations, the whole nine yards.
Now, while all the spiritual mumbo jumbo was going on, DeMombro was living it up.
And former members kind of spilled the beans, saying he was using the group's funds to support his opulent lifestyle.
And where was all the money coming from?
The members, of course.
D'Amembro and Jarret were encouraging their followers to make significant financial contributions to the group.
And they even had plans to build health centers in Europe and Canada.
Guess who's footing the bill for that?
And in Quebec, Jarret was on a roll.
His motivational speaking gigs were attracting executives and managers like flies to honey.
I would have become involved with just about anything to stay with Dr Jouret, and I felt that if I was able to get closer to him or at least to stay within the group, that at some point I would probably gain more knowledge.
I would probably have access to revelations wonderful things.
And even maybe at one point to be in contact with either entities or extraterrestrials.
And these weren't your average Joe Schmoes.
These are high level professionals falling for this stuff.
So it's like I really would have loved to be in that time and listen to Geray speaking and like see if if I'd fall for it because I'm an idiot.
So maybe I'm like so dumb that I wouldn't fall for it.
But here's the thing about building your empire on a foundation of bullshit.
It is bound to crumble eventually.
And as the money rolled in and the memberships swelled, cracks were starting to form in the cult.
People were beginning to ask questions.
Where was all the cash going?
Why did D'Ambro need such a fancy house, or sorry, fancy houses?
And wasn't this supposed to be about spiritual enlightenment, not material wealth?
So the OTS had built a complex web of manipulation, using its tiered structure to keep members always striving for the next level of enlightenment.
It flatters your ego to be part of a group that designs itself as an elite.
That are the chosen ones.
How can you not feel good about it?
I actually believed that I was superior to most other people on this planet, that I had been chosen.
And I would start considering other people as being less than what I was.
But as we know, the higher you climb, the harder you fall.
And oh boy, was the Order of the Solar Temple about to take a hell of a tumble.
His own flesh and blood was about to pull back the curtain on daddy's little magic show.
And let me tell you what Ailey DeMombro discovered in the early 1990s made David Copperfield look like a birthday party magician.
So Ailey, Joseph DeMombro's son, stumbled upon a shocking.
Those spiritual visions members were experiencing were completely fake.
They were as real as a $3 bill.
And it turns out dear old dad was using special effects and holograms to fake the whole thing.
And this wasn't just some minor fib.
We're talking about the foundation of the entire cult being built on smoke and mirrors, like literally.
So when Ailey spilled the beans about 15 members decided that they were gonna get the hell out of Dodge.
However, some folks were so deep in the Kool-Aid, if you will, that they refused to believe any of it.
So they stuck around, probably thinking Ailey was just jealous of his dad's sweet hologram setup.
I don't know.
But the special effects weren't the only thing raising eyebrows.
Members started noticing that while they were pinching pennies for the because, DeMombro was living it up like a rock star.
And in 1994, two members got fed up and wrote a letter calling out DeMombro's shenanigans.
And they weren't pulling any punches, saying his fraudulent actions had quote-unquote, destroyed the fraternity built by the members.
But Damanbro wasn't about to take this criticism lying down.
He went full dictator mode, demanding absolute obedience from the remaining members.
And anyone who dared question his divine wisdom got the stink eye to say the least.
So the once cozy cult started feeling more like a pressure cooker at this point.
And as the walls closed in, Damombro's paranoia went into overdrive and he started seeing enemies everywhere.
So the guy who once claimed to chat with the cosmic master was now jumping at shadows, and the order of the solar temple was transforming from a wacky new age group into something much, much darker.
And that whole transit idea was about to take a whole new sinister meaning.
But even as things got weird, a lot of the members just clung to their beliefs.
And maybe they thought that if they believed hard enough, those holograms would turn real.
Just your typical Tuesday in cult land.
Imagine being so insecure in your leadership that you see the Antichrist in a newborn.
Yeah.
And did I mention this supposed embodiment of evil was named Christopher Emanuel?
So in 1994, Tony and Nicky Dutois, members of the Order of the Solar Temple, welcomed their son, Christopher Emanuel, into the world.
D'Ambro thought he was the Antichrist because this innocent baby's arrival would start a chain reaction that would start to expose how far off the deep end Joseph D'Ambro had gone.
See, de Mambro had a thing about the name Emmanuel.
He'd already claimed this for his own daughter, Emmanuel, born in 1982.
And he'd been parading her around as some sort of cosmic child, if you remember, and the living embodiment of the cosmic Christ, as you do.
Classic mom with a new baby, you know.
So when the Detois had the audacity to name their kid the same name, which is an extremely popular name, Emmanuel DeMombro lost his fucking shit.
But here's where it gets really messed up.
DeMombro, the guy seeing evil babies everywhere, was dealing with his own embarrassing health issues.
The early 1990s were not kind to him, to say the least, because he had to now start wearing adult diapers.
Talk about a fall from grace for a so-called spiritual leader.
He's an asshole, so I'm gonna make fun of him.
So let's talk about these cosmic children the OTS were just obsessed with.
DeMombro had convinced his followers that these special kids were destined to play a big role in the coming new age, and his daughter Emmanuel, was supposed to be the star of the cosmic show.
The star of the play.
But And now, here comes little Christopher Emmanuel, coming to steal her thunder.
And to Mambro's reaction, he straight up declared this innocent baby the Antichrist.
A grown man, in diapers, called a newborn baby the embodiment of evil.
What a piece of shit.
But his health was failing and his authority was being questioned.
And now he felt challenged by a baby's name.
So this guy was just losing his shit.
And it was a perfect storm of crazy.
The Dutois probably had no idea what they were walking into when they named their son Emmanuel.
Or Emmanuel.
However you want to say it.
They were just regular members of the OTS, not trying to start any cosmic drama.
But in D'Amembro's warped mind, they committed an unforgivable sin.
Or a sin that he completely made up.
More like it.
And this moment would mark a turning point for the OTS.
In D'Amembro's declaration about Christopher Emanuel ramped up the apocalyptic rhetoric within the group.
And the us versus them.
Mentality went into overdrive, with de Mambro positioning himself and his loyal followers against a world he saw as increasingly hostile.
So the fate of the Dutrois family hung in the balance and, spoiler alert, it didn't.
It didn't end well at all.
So while DeMombro was busy labeling babies as the antichrist, he was also cooking up an even crazier idea.
In the early 1990s, he started pushing the concept of transit to his followers.
And at first it sounded pretty harmless, just some metaphorical mumbo jumbo about changing consciousnesses.
But oh boy, did it take a dark turn.
DeMombro, probably feeling the heat from all the drama, started ramping up the apocalyptic rhetoric.
Like I said,
And he convinced his followers that the world was going to shit and that they needed to prepare for departure.
But this wasn't your average doomsday prep.
DeMombro told them that they were going to literally travel to another planet, Geiselong Musk.
And, according to the research, DeMombro described this transit as quote-unquote a passage across a mirror or travel in a spaceship.
Huh?
It sounded like a bad sci-fi movie, but people bought it nonetheless.
And like I said before, these aren't just some random lost hippies from the 60s or something.
These were lawyers, doctors, highly educated professionals that fell for this crap.
And the OTS's beliefs were heavily influenced by a guy named Jacques Brer.
And he had all these ideas about the end of Christianity, throwing out dates like 1999, 2147 or 2666 as the big finale.
And D'Ambro, as Jarret took this apocalyptic nonsense and mixed it with some new age fears about the environment going to hell.
And the result was a belief that the world was doomed and only the OTS members would survive.
But here's where it gets even more messed up.
D'Ambro's paranoia went through the roof at this point.
And in his writings he claimed, quote unquote, all the polices in the world are focused on us and that their file was the hottest on the planet.
This guy seriously thought he was the main character in some global conspiracy.
And as the pressure mounted, the idea of transit started to look less like a metaphor and more like a euphemism for sluice slide.
Members were told to be on 24 hour alert for a meeting to accomplish. this transit.
It wasn't a choice anymore.
It was framed as a necessary for their survival.
And external pressures like police investigations only fed into de Mambro's persecution complex.
He used these real world threats to reinforce the idea that they needed to escape to another world.
So he was just using anything the world threw at him as a means to exit this world with his cult.
So he didn't have to deal with his shit that was in his fucking diaper.
I think the people who claim that de Mambro was a conman are right.
I think that the people who claim that de Mambro was convinced about his spiritual message are right too.
De Mambro was just a kind of complex personality, actually a kind of schizophrenic and disturbed personality.
The major.
The terrible consequence of it is that he is a total loss of reality, and the dream world he elaborated was shared with several people who more and more entered into his delusions.
But planning a mass transit isn't exactly straightforward.
And D'Ambro and Jarret were busy making preparations and they weren't subtle about it at all.
In a conversation recorded by police, they even talked about making their transit more spectacular than the Waco tragedy.
So they were like looking at other cults and seeing how they could one-up them like fing psychos if they weren't enough.
So a bunch of smart educated, successful people were convinced that they were about to go on a cosmic road trip, when they're really being led to their deaths.
So you might think that planning a mass transit to another planet was the craziest thing the Order of the Solar Temple could do.
But on March 8th, 1993, they took it to a whole level of insanity.
What happened that day would set the stage for one of the most shocking cult tragedies in history.
And on that fateful day in Quebec, two OTS members, Jean-Pierre Venet and Herman Delorme, decided it would be a great idea to try and buy some illegal guns.
And not just any guns, mind you, but three semi-automatic weapons with silencers.
Because nothing says peaceful spiritual group like silenced firearms, am I right?
And the cops nabbed Vinay and DeLorme faster than you could say cosmic transit.
But wait, there's more.
Our boy Luc Jarre, the charismatic frontman of the cosmic shitshow, was also implicated in this harms deal.
And he was just chilling in Europe at the time, probably sipping on really expensive water called homeopathic medicine.
And now you'd think getting caught trying to buy illegal weapons would be, you know, a wake up call to these folks.
But no.
D'Amembro took this as a sign that they were being persecuted.
This whole fiasco kicked D'Amembro's paranoia into overdrive even more.
And the media had a field day with this story, labeling the OTS as a cult of the end of the world.
I mean, they weren't wrong, but still.
And then just adding fuel to the dumpster fire.
This is when the Waco siege happened, which was another cult tragedy in Texas.
I'll probably do a deep dive on it at some point.
So DeMombro and Geray were watching that shit show go down and you'd think they'd be thinking yeah, we should chill out a little bit.
We should take a step back.
No, no.
They decided to just make it a competition.
And in a conversation that was later recorded by police, Geray whined that, quote unquote, Waco beat us to the punch.
They took the spotlight from their cult.
What the fuck is going on?
DeMombro, not to be outdone, replied that it would have been better if they had executed their plans six months earlier.
He even bragged that their event would be more spectacular.
The arrest, the media frenzy and the Waco incident all combined just to create a perfect storm of paranoia and urgency within the OTS at this point.
And DiMombro and Jarret were now more determined than ever to carry out their insane plan.
So in October 1994, he got his wish.
The events that unfolded over those few days would redefine the meaning of transit from a journey through space to a one-way ticket to oblivion.
And trust me, the destination was far from heavenly.
It all started on October 4th, 1994, in Morin Heights, Quebec.
The police would respond to a fire and found two charred bodies.
And turns out, these weren't just any victims.
They were Colette Rocher and Gary Ganoud.
And they'd been murdered days before the fire was set.
But this was just the beginning.
In the same cottage, hidden away in a closet, the cops found something even more horrifying.
And those were the bodies of Tony Detois and his wife Susan Robinson and their baby son Christopher Emmanuel.
The Antichrist, as DeMombro claimed.
On the night of October 4th, fires broke out in Scherry and Grange-sur-Salvin.
I said those wrong.
It is what it is.
Switzerland.
And when the smoke cleared, the body count was staggering.
23 bodies dead. in Sherry and 25 in Grand Guet-sur-Savanne.
And many of those people had taken sedatives before being shot or poisoned.
And in Sherry, the scene was like something out of a twisted ritual.
The bodies were arranged in a circle, like some messed up version of King Arthur's round table.
And the cops found 65 bullets in the bodies.
A bit overkill, if you ask me.
Now, some of these deaths were straight up murders, but others the cops would call slewers lives.
But how do you classify death when someone's been brainwashed into thinking they're going to a space vacation?
It's not exactly a voluntary trip when you've been fed lies and fear for years.
So when the deaths settled, the body count was 53.
Five in Quebec and 48 in Switzerland.
And de Mambrou and his pals didn't discriminate.
They used knives, guns, poison, whatever it took to complete the transit.
And during the first transit, de Mambrou and Jarret would also be among those dead bodies.
And the media were reporting on this insane cult and what had happened.
It's not every day.
A bunch of seemingly normal people, successful people, decide to check out en masse because of some guy in diapers told them to.
The fires were discovered in two Swiss villages.
In the village of Chiri, police found a burnt-out farmhouse.
Inside lay the bodies of 23 people.
The public was shocked, horrified and probably a little bit fascinated too, as we do get fascinated with these crazy events.
And the Swiss cops and judges dug into this mess for months.
And their conclusion was that this wasn't just some random tragedy.
It was a result of years of manipulation and some seriously messed up theology.
And D'Ambro and Jerez had managed to convince intelligent people that death was just a quick pit stop on the way to Sirius.
But this wasn't the end of it.
Some of the survivors believed in the OTS's mission.
After all this death and destruction, there were still people who thought yeah, This seems pretty legit.
The Order of the Solar Temple had one last trick up their sleeve.
A PR campaign from beyond the grave.
DeMombro wasn't about to let a little thing like death stop him from controlling the narrative.
After the bodies were found and the fires put out, investigators discovered a treasure trove of tapes and documents left behind by the OTS.
And these weren't just any old papers.
They were carefully prepared statements and videos ready to be sent out to the world.
And D'Amembro had planned this whole thing down to the last detail, including his posthumous message, and in a letter addressed to the french minister of the interior, he straight up accused the government of trying to destroy the ots.
His exact words were we accuse you of having attempted to deliberately destroy our order for reasons of state.
So the guy was just blaming the french government for his own messed up actions.
Classic cult leader.
And the OTS left behind a whole bunch of documents that they called the Testament.
And it was basically a collection of writings justifying their actions and describing the events leading up to the transit.
And they even pointed out some of the members they considered traitors, who were supposedly executed as part of the group's final act.
So basically anybody that refused to be killed at the end of it got killed anyway because...
That's just how cults go.
So the world is watching at this point, waiting to see what the remaining OTS members might do next.
And they would not be disappointed because there would come another transit.
So over the next three years, the body count would continue to rise, in a series of events that left investigators baffled and the public just horrified.
On December 23rd 1995, just over a year after the first transit police made a grim discovery in the Vercors Mountains near Grenoble France, where 16 more bodies, including three children, were found in a remote clearing.
And this wasn't some random tragedy.
It bore the hallmarks of another OTS transit.
And the victims had been shot twice before their bodies were set on fire, which sounds familiar to the first transit.
And the killings were orchestrated by Christian Bonnet, a Swiss psychotherapist who'd taken over the European branch of the OTS after de Mambros' death.
And she wasn't working alone.
So two of her accomplices were Jean-Pierre Lordanchet and Patrick Rostand, who were in active duty at the French police.
So investigators found that many of the victims had taken sedatives before being killed.
It's like they were trying to make the death as comfortable as possible for the victims.
How thoughtful.
But why did these people agree to die?
Well, according to witness accounts collected by the Swiss and French police, some remaining OTS members had expressed regret for not participating in the earlier transit, and they were actually jealous of the dead.
And just when authorities thought they'd seen the last of the OTS, they would strike again on March 22nd 1997, where five more bodies were discovered in St.
Casimir, Quebec.
And this time, the victims included four OTS followers and the parent of one of the members.
And the Quebec police reported that there was no evidence of violence or poisoning in this incident, although the victims had consumed significant doses of tranquilizers.
And one victim was suffocated with a plastic bag, a method seen in the 1994 transit.
And the police would find a letter explaining that their actions were intended to ensure a path to the new world.
Because apparently, the only way to reach the new world was through a cocktail of drugs and self-inflicted death.
But in a bizarre twist, the children of one couple involved in this final incident were allowed to choose whether to participate in the slower slide.
And thankfully, they chose to live.
And while that was the final event of the solar temple and it's supposedly gone at this point, its shadows still looms large.
And the OTS tragedies didn't end with those 74 deaths.
They sparked a chain reaction that's still unfolding today.
So after the smoke cleared, investigators and conspiracy theorists had a field day, obviously.
And some people just couldn't believe that successful professional people would be willing to off themselves on a cosmic road trip.
So they came up with all sorts of wild theories.
Maybe it was a government plot or the Illuminati or aliens, which all, fair. to be honest.
And this just lit a fire under the public and the anti-cult movement in Europe specifically, which basically just amped up investigations into cults.
And suddenly every new religious group was under the microscope.
France and Belgium went full paranoia mode and they started side-eyeing all kinds of minority religions.
Even peaceful groups got accused of being potentially violent or planning mass sluice slides like the Order of the Solar Temple.
But that's pretty much it for the Order of the Solar Temple.
I mean, it's a somber reminder of how far people will go in search of meaning.
I mean 74 people's lives were lost and this Kevin's pissed about it too.
I don't know if you heard him growl.
I mean, it's just crazy to me how one person or two people can create this religion and convince people to take their own lives.
It's just horribly sad but also I mean incredibly fascinating.
I mean, we're just people and we're all flawed and we all, we all want to search for what we're here for and where we're going but um, this one is is very very, very unfortunate.
But that is it for today.
If you did enjoy this video, or like or learn something from this video, go ahead and give the video a like.
If you have any suggestions for me, let me know down below.
I always love reading the comments and i take a lot of your suggestions and make them into deep dive videos.
Uh, and until then, i will see your beautiful face in the next video.
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