Persuaded they held the key to great treasure and were targets of a Masonic plot, members of the aristocratic de Védrines family turned over their lives, fortune, and ancestral château to Thierry Tilly — a shadowy “grand master.”

Then came captivity and torture—and a bizarre escape.

Philippe de Védrines and Brigitte Martin disassociated themselves from Tilly in 2008, but it was not until the spring of 2009, when Christine finally managed to flee from England and tell her story to the French police, that a European warrant was issued for Thierry Tilly’s arrest on charges of “fraud, imprisonment accompanied by acts of barbarism and torture, extortion of funds, and abuse of weakness.”

Astonishing new revelations soon enriched the cultish aspects of the story. Christine de Védrines’s lawyer, Daniel Picotin, an avowed anti-cult activist, has described Tilly as a “guru” who brainwashed the family into believing they were a vital link to a sacred order, an offshoot of the Knights Templar, called L’Équilibre du Monde—“the Balance of the World”—which is activated at moments of extreme planetary peril… Read the full story in Vanity Fair online.

Three generations of an aristocratic French family have “awoken” from the spell of an Oxford-based guru who is accused of spinning a lurid fantasy to rob them of their fortune.

At least eight members of the Védrines family, aged between 96 and 24, are now said to be ready to give evidence against Thierry Tilly, a self-proclaimed financial genius, master spy and agent of an age-old secret order.

Thierry Tilly, an Oxford-based Frenchman, has been arrested over allegations that he kidnapped, tortured and brainwashed several generations of an aristocratic family into giving up their fortune.

Thierry Tilly, 45, allegedly posed as a secret agent to convince the rich and highly educated De Védrines family that they were the lost descendants of an ancient society called L’Equilibre du Monde (The Balance of the World), and that he had “superhuman powers” to help them reclaim their illustrious past and its “limitless treasure”.