Search Results - Mayer, Jean-François

Jean-François Mayer

Jean-François Mayer (born 25 April 1957) is a Swiss religious historian, author, and translator. He is also Director of the Religioscope Institute, which he founded. He received his masters degree, and then his doctorate, from the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 in 1979 and 1984. His writing focuses on religion, with a particular focus on new religious movements and cults, including the Unification Church, the Church of Scientology and the Pilgrims of Arès.

Following a brief career in radio, he undertook an analysis of new religions in Switzerland for the Swiss National Science Foundation, funded by a grant; the results of this work were published in a 1993 book, ''Les nouvelles voies spirituelles''. In the 1990s, he was an analyst for the Swiss federal government on international affairs and policy. Following this, he became a lecturer and research associate at the University of Fribourg, and founded the Religioscope Institute and website, which supply information on religion.

Mayer is most well known for his work covering the Order of the Solar Temple, a group notorious for committing several acts of mass murder-suicide in the 1990s, which resulted in a media frenzy. Having been the only person to study the group prior to their deaths, he was personally consulted by the Swiss police in their investigation of the organization, and was appointed as an expert in the case. He has been described by fellow new religious movement scholar George D. Chryssides as the leading authority on the group, and by Info-Secte founder Mike Kropveld as the "foremost expert" on the OTS. Provided by Wikipedia