Jean-François Mayer

Jean-Francois Mayer (born 25 April 1957) is a Swiss religious historian, author, and translator. He is also Director of the Institute Religioscope, which he founded. His writing focuses on religion and new religious movements, including the Unification Church, the Church of Scientology and the Pilgrims of Arès. In the 1990s, he was an analyst for the Swiss federal government.

Mayer is most well known for his work covering the Order of the Solar Temple, having been personally consulted by the Swiss police in their investigation of the group. He has been described as "probably the world's leading authority on the Solar Temple".

Early life
Jean-Francois Mayer was born 25 April 1957 in Fribourg, Switzerland. At the age of 16, he was a member of the Opus Dei, then popular among students in Fribourg: soon after, he became involved in the Latin Catholic Church, then converted to the Orthodox Catholic Church, receiving an Orthodox baptism. He later became interested in Lutheranism, then returned to Orthodoxy.

In his youth, he was active in far-right politics in Switzerland. At the age of 19, he organized an anniversary party of the Hungarian Uprising, involving several far-right movements. In a book in 1992, writer René Monzat accused him of having been the leader of "Horizons européens", a small fascist group. Another book the same year accused him of having been a member of the Nouvel ordre social, a movement in Geneva. When asked about this in 1994, he admitted he had a far-right past, and stated: "I wouldn't say, as some do, that it was a youthful error. That would be a lack of courage and dignity, it seems to me. There are things I wouldn't do again, that's for sure, but it was an experience, among others." He abandoned any political affiliation after returning to Switzerland, and former friends who were members of the Nouvel ordre social stated they no longer had contact with him.

Education and career
Mayer received his master's degree from the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 in 1979, and his doctorate degree in history at the same institution in 1984. In 1986, he launched the Ecologist Party in Fribourg. For some years he contributed to the newspaper La Liberté. Mayer worked with the Swiss Radio International and was a researcher in the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Mayer was a scientific associate of the Bureau d'aide et d'information sur les mouvements religieux (BAIMR), a French-speaking anti-cult organization in Switzerland, founded in 1989. He was previously secretary of the International Committee of CESNUR, from which he resigned in 1991. From 1991 to 1998, he worked as an analyst on international affairs and policy for the Swiss Ministry of Defence. In 1999, he founded a firm of strategic researches named JFM Recherches et Analyses, and taught at the University of Fribourg from 1999 to 2007, where he was a lecturer and research associate in their comparative science of religions unit. In 2007, Mayer founded the Institute Religioscope and became the director.

Solar Temple
Mayer was personally involved in the investigation into the Order of the Solar Temple, a cult notorious for committing several mass murder-suicides. He was consulted by the Swiss police, after he was mailed the group's suicide note by its leaders. He was the only civilian involved in the investigation, as well as the only academic to have personal interactions with the group, and was cited as an expert by the judge investigating the case. While the investigation was ongoing, his far-right past attracted media controversy and criticism; he was particularly criticized by Blick and 24 Heures, while the newspaper Le Nouveau Quotidien fiercely defended him. Blick falsely accused Mayer of having been summoned to court due to a personal connection to the group, which was repeated by the ATS: this was incorrect, and he had actually been invited to assist with the investigation as an expert.

Mayer had studied the organization prior, and published the only academic writing on the OTS before the violence occurred, Templars for the Age of Aquarius: The Archedia Clubs (1984–1991) and the International Chivalric Order of the Solar Tradition, published in the French newsletter Mouvements Religieux in January 1993. Mayer had personally attended OTS meetings as far back as 1987, meeting leader Luc Jouret.

Mayer later published a book on his research into the Solar Temple in 1996, Les Mythes du Temple Solaire, praised by reviewers as the "most significant work" on the group. He criticized those who fell for conspiracy theories and lies by the leaders of the cult, as well as members of related religious movements who did not reflect on their beliefs after the deaths. In his view the deaths were motivated by the paranoid personality of the leader and his desire for media speculation and attention. Mayer was described by fellow scholar of religion George D. Chryssides as "probably the world's leading authority on the Solar Temple".

Works
Mayer's writing focuses on religion and new religious movements, including Islam, the Unification Church, the Church of Scientology. He was an early researcher of the Pilgrims of Arès. He has also published works about the link between religion and aliens, the apocalypse, and the Internet. Mayer has argued that the increased freedom of speech and criticism that the Internet allows for creates pressure on religious movements for transparency and accountability, particularly with Scientology. He has been critical of theories of brainwashing.

Mayer is the author of several books on new religious movements. In 1987 he published Les sectes, which discusses cults and their position in society. Three years later he authored Confessions d'un chasseur de sectes, which covers his opinions on his line of work and personal background, as well as how it related to his own religious beliefs.  The book received positive reviews. In 2002 he authored Les Fondamentalismes, a book about religious fundamentalism. Alongside Reender Kranenborg, he was editor of La naissance des nouvelles religions.

He wrote a chapter in James R. Lewis's anthology Violence and New Religious Movements, covering the group the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, a Ugandan cult notorious for committing mass murder-suicide in the year 2000. Mayer's chapter was described by one reviewers as a "welcome addition" to what limited scholarship on the group there was. Another reviewer praised what he viewed as "good scholarship" on the part of Mayer in weighing the different arguments as to what occurred with the group, though he said this did not lead Mayer to "any firm conclusion".