Ordeal by Fire: The Tragedy of the Solar Temple

✍ Scribed by Massimo Introvigne

• Book ID: 102619531
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 137 KB
• Volume: 25
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0048-721X
• DOI: 10.1006/reli.1995.0023

✦ Synopsis

Ordeal by Fire: The Tragedy of the Solar Temple

M I

On October 4th and 5th, 1994, fifty-three people were found dead in Switzerland and in Canada. Their bodies-some showing signs of violence suffered before the fires-were found in the incinerated centres of a neo-Templar movement called originally International Order of Chivalry Solar Tradition or, for short, Solar Tradition, and after 1990-91 Order of the Solar Temple. The movement is part of one of several currents which as a whole compose the universe of the contemporary occult-esoteric movements, the neo-Templar tradition. In this paper I propose to trace, first of all, the history of the neo-Templar tradition, then that of the Solar Temple, relating the essential information on the tragedy of October 1994, and finally suggesting some possible interpretations. 1995 Academic Press Limited