Luc Jouret

Luc Jouret
Photo of Jouret, used to advertise a 1991 lecture
Born	Luc Georges Marc Jean Jouret (1947-10-18)18 October 1947 Kikwit, Belgian Congo
Died	5 October 1994(1994-10-05) (aged 46) Salvan, Valais, Switzerland
Cause of death	Suicide
Occupation(s)	Founder, Order of the Solar Temple
Spouse	Marie-Christine Pertué ​ ​ (m. 1980⁠–⁠1985)​
Children	1
Signature

Luc Georges Marc Jean Jouret (French: [ʒuʁɛ]; 18 October 1947 – 5 October 1994) was a Belgian doctor and homeopath. Jouret founded the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS) with Joseph Di Mambro in 1984. He committed suicide in the Swiss village of Salvan on 5 October 1994 as part of a mass murder–suicide. While Di Mambro was the true leader of the group, Jouret was its outward image and primary recruiter.

Born in the Belgian Congo, Jouret was an athletic child, which he aimed to pursue in his later life. However following a period of sickness, he was unable to fulfill this goal, and instead he acquired a medical degree. Losing his faith in modern medicine due to his sickness, he shifted from normal medicine to homeopathy and other kinds of alternative medicine, on which he gave lectures alongside New Age topics. He was known as an excellent public speaker. In 1981, he met Di Mambro, with whom he became close.

Jouret was the group's public face, but in his role internal to the group, he was subservient to Di Mambro. Following stressors within the group, including Jouret's arrest for directing members to illegally buy silencers in Canada, he and Di Mambro became increasingly paranoid, and the group's ideological concept of "transiting" to another dimension would grow more prominent. Jouret, alongside another member, killed the 23 members in Cheiry. He then died from poisoning, alongside 24 other members in Salvan.