Luc Jouret

Luc Jouret was a Belgian homeopathic physician and New Age lecturer who co-founded the Order of the Solar Temple in Geneva in 1984. The movement traced its origins to a revival of the Knights Templar and believed in an impending global catastrophe in the mid-1990s. Members sought to enter a higher spiritual plane to escape this event. This belief led to the murder-suicide of 74 members between 1994 and 1997, with buildings set ablaze. The Order of the Solar Temple was one of several New Religious Movements in the 20th century whose existence ended in such tragic events. Despite these incidents, the group is believed to have survived into the 21st century.1