Luc Jouret and the Order of the Solar Temple

Zip Dobyns

The news of the world seems to spin by at such a rate that many incredible stories dominate the headlines for a few days and then disappear like soap bubbles. When several homes in more than one town in Switzerland went up in flames in a single day with 48 dead bodies in them, and all were found connected to a mysterious guru named Luc Jouret, the stories were splashed around the world. The body count was increased when 5 deaths near Montreal, Canada which had occurred the day before were also found to be related to Jouret’s sect. Jouret and his “next-in-command” leader Joseph di Mambro, a 70-year-old French-Canadian, were declared missing and were suspected of murdering their followers. Later reports claimed to have identified the bodies of both Jouret and di Mambro among the dead, and authorities were said to be investigating. After that, the story died, as far as I know. Presumably, authorities are still investigating.

Though a mass suicide like Jonestown was initially suspected, it was quickly obvious that most of the dead individuals had been murdered. Many had been shot in the head and the weapons used were not found. Some people had plastic bags tied over their heads. Some had been drugged. Some were children including a baby in Canada which had been strangled. The first farmhouse to burn was in the tiny village of Cheiry. The alarm went off just after midnight. A booby-trap of 100-gallon bottles of gasoline wired to clocks failed to go off. Soon after 3 A.M., three chalets in Granges-sur-Salvan, about 100 miles south of Cheiry, went up in flames when a similar device did work. At least 4 children were among the 25 dead there, and 10 bodies were charred beyond recognition.

The rumors swirling around the case include reports of financial problems when cult members tried to get back money loaned to the cult. Jouret claimed to be a homeopathic physician and a disciple of an Indian guru named Krishna Macharia. But members of the New Templar Knights which Jouret tried to take over in the early 1980s said that his main aim was money and girls. The group booted him out and Jouret formed his own Order of the Solar Temple which copied some Rosicrucian practices. The cult grew to a few hundred members, most from middle-class folk in Switzerland, France, and Canada. One rumor said that the cult was a cover for drug smuggling and money laundering and that Jouret and di Mambro had gotten into trouble with one of the international cartels.

Lois Rodden provided Luc Jouret’s date and place of birth in her Data News: October 18, 1947 in Kikwit, Zaire, 5 S 2.6, 18 E 49. Even though we lack a birth time, the case was sufficiently sensational that I thought our readers might like to have his data. The time I chose for the enclosed chart is purely speculative, based on the single event of the mass murders and his presumed death with his followers, so angles and house placements are really unknown. Given his date, the planets (except for the Moon) and the asteroids will be reliable within a degree or so.

I chose this speculative birth time for Jouret because it put the P Moon on P Mars at the time of the mass death. P Iphigenia, the teen-aged girl sacrificed in the Trojan War, was also in 0 Virgo and they were all quincunx natal Katanga in 0 Aries, the asteroid named for Jouret’s birth country which is now called Zaire. Jouret’s stellium in Scorpio fits his reported interest in money and girls. Both Leo and Scorpio deal with power issues and most of Jouret’s planets were in the signs which are generally highly charismatic—Leo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius. His grand trine in air signs involving Uranus, Sun and Pallas was a key to his verbal skills in persuading people to follow him. Such skills would also have been reinforced by his Sagittarius Moon which would have been trine at least one or more of his Leo planets, depending on his birth time.

Among his interesting asteroids were Laverna, the goddess of thieves, opposite his Juno. The midpoint of Saturn/south lunar node, a potential lesson point, was quincunx Libitina and Damocles in 7 Pisces. Libitina was a Roman goddess of death and Damocles was famous for a sword hanging over the head. P Winchester, the asteroid of guns, squared Jouret’s lunar nodes when he died. P Vesta was square Hel, a Norse goddess of death and P Hel was on the true south lunar node. P Guernica, symbolizing the death of innocent victims, was opposite Aletheia (goddess of truth) and square Daedalus, the father of Icarus, and Philosophia. Mythology describes Daedalus as a real wheeler-dealer so its conjunction with philosophy for the religious cult seems appropriate. P Icarus, the over-reach kid, was opposite Fanatica and quincunx Saturn when Jouret died. P Fanatica was conjunct Vesta and P Siva (Hindu god of destruction) was conjunct Europa. P Hephaistos who made the weapons for the gods of Olympus was opposite Chiron and Karma and square natal Winchester. There is always more, but this will give our readers a start, and you can also experiment with more traditional factors if you want to go further. If any readers see new information about the case, I would appreciate hearing about it.

Copyright © 1994 Los Angeles Community Church of Religious Science, Inc.

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