Scapegoat in the case of the Solar Temple

Testimony of Jacques-Marie Bourget

Grand reporter at Paris-Match

After the Swiss, French and later Canadian tragedies of the Solar Temple, I felt compelled to investigate for Paris-Match which put 5 journalists at my disposal as well as ample financial resources so that I would be able to conduct a full inquiry. Michel Tabachnik, a well-known conductor, was cited by TF1 (a French television channel) as "number 3 in the organization''.

For many days, my team and I crossed the entire world working on this accusation waged against Tabachnik. In the end, however, no one was able to find the slightest piece of evidence suggesting the conductor's culpability. Alone, I continued to work on this story for months discovering a banal truth : Tabachnik was guilty only of being simply an"innocent'' man enamoured with spirituality, a spirituality which lead him 15 or 20 years ago to frequent the group of STO (photos from this period have been published in order to convince us of his guilt). I have acquired proof that this group took cover behind the notoriety of the conductor, quoting him or putting his name forward, when Tabachnik was absent or uninformed about the members steps and declarations.

The dozen lectures given by Tabachnik to members of the Solar Temple greatly intrigued me. To attempt to understand their content, I had to delve into elements of Jung (Swiss disciple of Freud), then into aspects touching of Greek philosophy, Egyptian myths, and alchemy which are all part of general culture and of the patrimony of history and ideas. If these texts of Tabachnik had one default, it was - in my opinion - that they were very difficult to understand. But, they were never morbid nor did they preach death, even less announcing an Apocalypse. Tabachnik's lectures addressed ordinary members of the STO, in other words, several centenaries of Swiss, French, Canadian, and American adherents who are still alive today.

After spending two years investigating the "Solar Temple case'', I am certain that it is also the "Tabachnik-case'', one of a conductor, taken like others such as Stockhausen, Karajan, Celibidache, Messiaen, etc., by a philosophy which is not of a common herd. For this "strangeness'', and also because of his fame, Tabachnik has been thrown like a bone to public opinion in order to appease it. This unjust act was in fact a manipulation by the police. The journalist who established the myth that Tabachnik was number 3 in the STO were initially instigated (as they have themselves confessed) by French agents, officials of one of the two secret branches of the police : the "Renseignements Generaux''.

The media campaign conducted against Michel Tabachnik has now suffered its official blow. At the end of a five years investigation and a trial of two weeks, the French Justice, as well as the Swiss justice three years earlier, pronounced a "discharge" (Relaxe) stressing that Tabachnik could not be involved at any level in this case. The dossier of the examining magistrates obviously did not contain any accusation against him. The slander created by both the police and media has also forbidden him to practice his profession.

I would like to add that Michel Tabachnik, has discussed extensively his spiritual adventure and his subsequent misdeeds, in a book prefaced by Pierre Boulez (Un mot de Pierre Boulez ! ):"Bouc Emissaire'' (Scapegoat) (published by Michel Lafon).