Editing Order of the Solar Temple (section)

=== Background ===
The OTS was one of numerous [[neo-Templar]] organizations active in France and Switzerland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These organizations followed a tradition of claiming unbroken descent from a lineage of [[Grand master (order)|grand masters]] that claimed to go back to the original medieval [[Knights Templar]]; the original Knights Templar had been dissolved by [[Pope Clement V]] following accusations of witchcraft and [[heresy]] at the beginning of the fourteenth century.{{sfn|Clusel|Palmer|2020|p=219}}{{sfn|Introvigne|2006|pages=19–20}} In 1310, 54 Templar knights were burned at the stake, and four years later the Grand Master and a local leader were as well.{{sfn|Lewis|2004|p=297}} French esotericist and alchemist [[Jacques Breyer]] initiated a resurgence of neo-Templar groups in France in 1952. This "Arginy renaissance" was tied to a claimed mystical experience in the [[Castle of Arginy]], which led to the founding of the [[Sovereign Order of the Solar Temple]] (OSTS), which was formally created in 1966.{{sfn|Introvigne|2000|p=141}}{{sfn|Chryssides|2006|p=126}}

[[Joseph Di Mambro]] was a French jeweler with an interest in esotericism. After scamming a business partner in the late 1960s, Di Mambro fled France, before returning to [[Pont-Saint-Esprit]] in 1972 and acting as a psychiatrist. Soon after, he was sentenced to six months in prison for writing bad checks, breaching patient trust, and for impersonating a psychiatrist.{{sfn|Bédat|Bouleau|Nicolas|1997|p=37}}{{sfn|Lewis|2004|p=301}} In the late 1960s, he became a member and lodge leader of the [[AMORC]] organization in [[Nîmes]], France.{{sfn|Michaud|1996|p=32}} AMORC is the largest contemporary [[Rosicrucian]] organization, structured into lodges which performed initiation rituals into specific degrees.{{sfn|Chryssides|2006|p=126}} [[Luc Jouret]] was a Belgian homeopath. He traveled widely studying various forms of alternative and spiritual healing, before settling in [[Annemasse]] and practicing homeopathy there.{{sfn|Introvigne|2006|p=29|pp=28–29}}