ABSTRACT
The Solar Temple developed a quasi-Catholic mystical theology not unlike Aum Shinrikyo's quasi-Buddhist doctrines about moving from this world to the next. Even though it lacked the strongly apocalyptic Protestant sensibilities of the People's Temple and the Branch Davidians, it ended in murder and mass suicide that bore a striking resemblance to the violence of Jonestown and Waco. As Louis-Marie tells it, the Solar Temple of our era met the same fate that befell the original Knights Templar whom they took as their inspiration. The Solar Temple does not draw its cultural inspiration from the East, but from European Catholicism and its countercultures. The main ideas of the Solar Temple trace to the crucible of neo-Templar and Rosicrucian movements in Switzerland and southern France. Once a month, on the night of the full moon, members of the Order of the Solar Temple came from all over Qubec for a meeting.
