'Cosmic Christ' evades a test of his mortality

GILBERT BOURDIN, whose titles include Lord Hamsah-Manara and the Messiah of Cosmo- Planetary Synthesis, believes he is immortal.

He has yet to be proved wrong. The self-proclaimed head of 'universal religion' escaped an attempt to kill him at his monastery in the French Alps on Wednesday when an illegal Moroccan immigrant set out to test the theory.

But Mr Bourdin, also known as the Cosmic Christ, the Matraya Buddha of Compassion, King Melkitsedec of Justice and Peace for the Jews, Supreme Imam Mahdi Manarah of the Muslims and Avatar Kalki Awaited by the Hindus, had knocked off for the day when Belayid al-Hassan dropped in on the Mandar'Om monastery near the Provencal town of Castellane.

Mr Bourdin was already at home as the 35-year-old Moroccan, armed with a .22 rifle and describing himself as a fundamentalist Muslim, took three 'knights of the Golden Lotus' hostage during a guided tour at around 6pm on Wednesday, according to police. First, he took his guide and later captured the other two knights.

'The Lord must expose himself to the power of fire to prove his divine nature,' Mr Hassan explained. Three and a half hours after the hostage-taking began, he let the second two knights go to convey his message. The pair, described only as the Tyson brothers, returned and overpowered the Moroccan.

Mr Hassan was turned over to earthly gendarmes, who said he would appear before a magistrate in nearby Digne-les-Bains late yesterday. The police said the suspect had difficulty expressing himself in French and appeared 'confused'.

Mandar'Om, over Lake Castellane, has three huge statues, including Europe's largest Buddha, and is far from popular with the locals. Already home to several temples, it is in dispute with the Castellane town hall over a request for planning permission to build a 'Pyramid-Temple of Unity'. This week, the blue-robed Mr Bourdin made a discursive plea in a television interview for his request to be approved.

Like its founder and chief, Mandar'Om has other names such as 'The New Jerusalem and City of the Light of Religious Unity' or, for short, just 'City of Light'.

While Mr Hassan may have done nothing to disprove Mr Bourdin's theory that he is immortal, the incident did little to clarify Mr Bourdin's other claim - that he can 'slay 700,000 demons in one night'. A possible explanation is that the demon in Mr Hassan got the Moroccan into Mandar'Om before nightfall.