Joseph Di Mambro

Joseph Léonce "Jo" Di Mambro (August 19, 1924 – October 5, 1994) was a French cult leader of the Order of the Solar Temple (alongside Luc Jouret) a new religious movement. He, alongside 52 other members of the group, died in a mass murder-suicide on October 5, 1994.

Quotes

• We are rejected by the whole world. First by the people, the people can no longer withstand us. And our Earth, fortunately she rejects us. How would we leave [otherwise]? We also reject this planet. We wait for the day we can leave... life for me is intolerable, intolerable, I can’t go on. So think about the dynamic that will get us to go elsewhere.
  • Spring 1994, quoted in Mayer & Siegler 1999, (1999)"“Our Terrestrial Journey is Coming to an End”: The Last Voyage of the Solar Temple". Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 2 (2): 172–196. ISSN 1092-6690. DOI:10.1525/nr.1999.2.2.172.

• People have beaten us to the punch, you know. [...] In my opinion, we should have gone six months before [Waco]... what we’ll do will be even more spectacular...
  • Spring 1994, talking to Luc Jouret, quoted in Mayer & Siegler 1999

• Space is curved, time comes to an end... Our cycle is over, these images tell all. [...] The good-hearted man can live in this precise second... a sublime event: the passage of the cycle of Adamic man towards a new cycle of evolution, programmed on another earth, an earth prepared to receive the stored vibrations enriched by the authentic servants of the Rosy Cross.
  • Talking to a member of the OTS, quoted in Mayer & Siegler 1999

About Joseph Di Mambro

• [Di Mambro] explained to us that one day we’d all be called to a meeting at which a transit would be accomplished. It had to do with a mission, with a departure towards Jupiter.... He said to his listeners that they had to be on call twenty-four hours a day so as not to miss the departure and that once the order was given, we would have to move quickly.
  • Quoted in Mayer & Siegler 1999

• But interestingly, for the members of the group, the real charismatic personality was Jo DiMambro. Now when I look at the video recordings of Jo DiMambro's lectures, it is just disastrous. He wasn't an eloquent speaker. But when I spoke with former members, and I told them that, they were just incredulous. Jo DiMambro, they would say, he was brilliant, he was extraordinary, and so on, because those people invested him with the qualities of a cosmic master.
  • Jean-François Mayer, Apocalyptic Millennialism in the West: The Case of the Solar Temple, 1998

• DiMambro had created a kind of virtual reality around himself. He only saw people who accepted everything he demanded. He didn't very much like people contradicting him. He was also trying to cultivate relationships with some other occult orders around the world. He was developing a fantasy world, and suddenly people in the core group put that into question --suggesting that actually this world he had created around himself doesn't exist.
  • Jean-François Mayer, Apocalyptic Millennialism in the West: The Case of the Solar Temple, 1998

• [Di Mambro] could have reached the end of his rope. He could be at the end in terms of health. He could be at the end in financial terms. He could be harassed by people who want money. He could be at the end on the level of the sect— there was a loss of members, loss of support, abandonment by his close relatives.
  • Investigating Judge Piller, quoted in Hall, John R.; Schuyler, Philip D. (2000). "The Mystical Apocalypse of the Solar Temple" (in en). Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe, and Japan. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-97766-8. 

• Joseph courant à perdre haleine à mes côtés, avant qu’un obus nous fracasse, c'est le souvenir le plus fort qu’il me reste de lui. Un garçon qui a peur.
  • Joseph running breathlessly beside me, before a shell smashed us, is the strongest memory I have of him. A scared boy.
  • From his former friend Gilbert, quoted in Bédat, Bouleau & Nicolas 1997 (Bédat, Arnaud; Bouleau, Gilles; Nicolas, Bernard (1997) (in fr). L'Ordre du Temple Solaire: Enquête et révélations sur les chevaliers de l'apocalypse. Montréal: Libre Expression. ISBN 978-2-89111-707-4. )