Gilbert Bourdin was born in Martinique in 1923 and spent his early career in the French Civil Service. His early life is otherwise mostly obscure. When he was 33, he moved to France and studied law, economics, and politics. He also developed an interest in esoteric studies and got involved with several Rosicrucian and Martinist groups as well as Theosophical Society.
In 1961, Bourdin traveled to India to study under Swami Sivananda and was initiated as a sannyasin, receiving the name Hamsananda Sarasvati. Upon returning to France in 1962, Bourdin spent about a year living in a cave as a hermit, engaging in meditation and yoga. He garnered some attention during this time and began to teach yoga, publishing his first book on the subject.
In 1967, he established the Association of the Knights of the Golden Lotus near Avignon. This organization was intended to be a philanthropic association dedicated to the arts and sciences. In 1969, Bourdin and his initial disciples acquired land in the French Alps and started building what they called the Holy City of Mandarom Shambhasalem, which was essentially a monastic community.
The group, whose theology became known as “Aumism” due to Bourdin’s focus on the Hindu mantra “aum,” peaked at about 1,200 members, many of whom lived at Mandarom. In addition to prayer and meditation, they constructed buildings including the Lotus Temple, completed in 1977, and a series of large and small statues. A 72-foot statue of Buddha Maitreya and a 69-foot statue of the Cosmic Christ were completed during the 1980s, as were a mosque, Hindu temple, and synagogue. These various facilities were intended to fulfill Bourdin’s declared role as the “avatar of synthesis” who would unite the world’s faiths.
In 1990, members of the community constructed a 108-foot stature of Bourdin, which they called the Temple-Statue of the Cosmo-Planetary Messiah, a title Bourdin adopted for himself that year. He also awarded himself the title “His Holiness, the Lord Hamsah Manarah.” Over the next 12 months, the Mandarom community held six ceremonies of “Revelation and Sevenfold Crowning of the Avatar of Synthesis,” each focused on a different major religion.
In 1994, a former member of the community accused Bourdin of having molested her in the 1980s when she was 15 years old. Bourdin was arrested on rape charges in June 1995 and released two weeks later pending trial. Following this arrest, several other former members came forward with similar claims.
The suicides associated with the Order of the Solar Temple sect in 1994 had increased official French scrutiny of new religious movements, and Aumism was included in a 1996 government report listing 172 groups as “dangerous” cults. The group lost its permit to build a huge Pyramid Temple at Mandarom, which had also been opposed by local environmental groups. Bourdin made a public statement proposing to withdraw from public teaching and to consider destroying the statues at Mandarom, but never acted on these proposals.
Bourdin died in March 1998 at age 74, still awaiting trial. Efforts to hold a funeral for him at Mandarom and bury him there were blocked by local officials, and he was ultimately buried at a small cemetery nearby. Legal actions against the Aumist community continued, and in 2000, two individuals received compensation over their molestation claims. Local officials also claimed that the proper permits for the construction of the Temple-Statue of the Cosmo-Planetary Messiah had never been obtained, and on September 6, 2001, a court authorized its destruction. Officials forced their way onto the property and demolished the statue with explosives.
There are estimated to be about 400 Aumists worldwide, primarily located in France and Africa, today. The group is still embroiled in litigation in France over its official classification as a cult association and over the financial costs of the demolition of the Temple-Statue. The group is governed by a committee of devotees.
Key Sources:
CNN.com. (2001, September 6). French demolish guru statue.
Introvigne. M. (1999, December). Holy Mountains and Anti-Cult Ecology: The Campaign Against the Aumist Religion in France. Social Justice Research.
Jacot, J.-M., & Dhimat, V. (2008). AUMISM: The Birth of a New Religion – A short history of the first 47 years 1961-2008. CESNUR.
Lewis, J. R., & Petersen, J. A. (2005). Controversial new religions. Oxford University Press.
Thebault, P. (2001, September 6). “Cosmoplanetary” French statue plunges to earth. Reuters.
Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religious Movements 