Cult of The Week: Raelians

 Raelians, a follower of Rael a Frenchman and former race car driver whose parents, the Vorilhon, called him Claude when he was born in 1946. He claims that on December 13, 1973, he was in a volcano near Clermont-Ferrand, France, when he saw a UFO "7 meters in diameter made of a very shiny silver metal and moving in a total silence." He says a radiant being emerged and entrusted him with a message revealing the true origin of mankind. They told him that henceforth he would be known as Raël, which means "messenger."

His followers consider him to be "the prophet of the third millennium." Like all good religious leaders, Raël expects his followers to support him. A 10% tithe is the norm.

He explains his mission in his book, The True Face of God . According to Taras Grescoe of Salon.com, Vorilhon claims that he was taken to the planet of the Elohim in a flying saucer in 1975, where he was introduced to noted earthlings such as Jesus, Buddha, Joseph Smith (Mormon founder) and Confucius. The Elohim, small human-shaped beings with pale green skin and almond eyes, were apparently the original inspiration for the Judeo-Christian god. They informed Vorilhon that he was the final prophet -- sent to relay a message of peace and sensual meditation to humankind under his new name of Raël -- before the Elohim would return to Jerusalem in 2025. If you ever pay attention, the leader is always "the final prophet".

Raelian Creationism

As in every cult, there will be blatant, even nauseatingly similiar parallels to the conventional religion, mostly Judeo Christian Religious beliefs:

About 22,000 years ago, aliens from another world had reached a very sophisticated level of technological advancement. On their home planet, they had been experimenting with the creation of life. The result of one experiment was a creature that escaped and killed several of their people, so they decided to find a planet suitable for their experiments. They found earth, and their experiments in DNA manipulation continued. They created all life on earth, both plant and animal. In fact, some of the scientists created monstrous life forms which are now known as dinosaurs. But ultimately, they created human beings who were "made in their image." They grew in intelligence and knowledge. 

But, the humans were kept in ignorance regarding advanced technical knowledge, particularly how to prolong their life spans (called the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Bible), because some of the alien creators thought that humans shouldn't know too much lest they become dangerous. On the other hand, there was a group of alien creators (called the serpent in the Bible) who thought that humans should know as much as possible. So, they helped the humans gain a great deal of knowledge. Unfortunately, this displeased the home world government, who then exiled these alien creators to earth for a period of time and sent the others home.

 Nevertheless, when the humans learned they had the capacity to be like their creators (be like God), they realized they had been kept in ignorance and became angry. This upset the research and development on earth even more. Therefore, their ability to gain more knowledge was stopped (kicked out of Eden), and alien soldiers with atomic disintegration weapons guarded the entrance to the creators' residence (Tree of life) to prevent human beings from getting more scientific knowledge.

Later, some of the aliens who were in exile on earth took for themselves wives among the human women (Genesis 6). Their offspring were mighty and strong and desired to gain the same level of knowledge as their creators. This displeased the leaders on the home world, who then decided to destroy all life on earth with nuclear missiles. But the creators who had been exiled on earth heard of this plan and instructed Noah to build a spaceship in which he could keep people from every race, as well as all the genetic information in cellular form, safe (Noah's Arc). This he did, and while the earth was destroyed by nuclear weapons (the flood was a giant tidal wave resulting from the explosions), Noah hovered above the earth in his spaceship, preserving life. He then landed after the radioactive levels had dissipated sufficiently enough to allow him to return to earth and reestablish life on it. The creators eventually learned that the humans meant no harm to them, so they promised to never destroy the earth again.

After the races were reestablished, the most intelligent of them, the Jews, built a space ship (The Tower of Babel) in order to travel to the distant home world. But this frightened them, so they took all of the most intelligent of people and scattered them among primitive tribes so as to confound their language and prevent further technological development.

From this point on, communication with the people on earth was kept to a minimum. The exiled creators were allowed to return to their home world. But, the creators kept in contact with humans by sending them different "prophets" at different times and places. These prophets (Abraham, Moses, Muhammad, Jesus, etc.) were specially prepared by the creators to have abilities above those of normal humans.

A spaceship appeared to Moses to give him messages to help him escape the oppression of more numerous oppressive tribes -- tribes who had not suffered the scattering of their people, unlike the Jewish people who had been scattered. Samson was a telapathist and was instructed not to cut his hair, because hair functions as antennae which aided telepathy. It was through telepathy that the aliens kept in contact with and guided Samson. The Ark of the Covenant was a small nuclear device. Jonah's great fish was a submarine. Women with flying suits appeared to Zechariah.

 Ultimately, the aliens will return to earth and reveal themselves as the true creators of life on earth, establish a one world government, one language, and one currency. But, earth isn't the only place where life was created. In fact, there were three worlds. "Of the three worlds where life has been created, the one which makes the most progress will receive the inheritance. The ones which have not progressed, will be dominated by the other, and eliminated. This is also true on Earth between nations."

This is common in every cult that I have ever studied, take stories from the Bible and put a artistic spin on it, of course I think they had a dose of psychedelic meds on this one...

The Beginning of the Realian Movement

Mr. Claude Vorilhon was born on Sept. 30, 1946 in Vichy, France.However, on December 13th, 1973, Mr. Vorilhon's life took a drastic change when he went to "a volcano overlooking Clermont-Ferrand in Central southern France." He had been enjoying the scenery for some time and was about to leave when he says "Suddenly in the fog, I saw a red light flashing; then a sort of helicopter was descending towards me... I could hear absolutely nothing, not even the slightest whistle. A balloon maybe? By now, the object was about 20 meters above the ground, and I could see it had a somewhat flattened shape. It was a flying saucer." He goes on to say that it was about 7 meters in diameter and 2.5 meters high with a white flashing light. A trap door opened and a stairway unfolded down to the ground. A figure about four feet tall descended. It had long black hair, a small black beard, and was dressed in a green one-piece suit. An alien with a beard...This alien claimed to speak all the languages of the earth and said that he came from another planet. The alien went on to say that they had been watching him, Claude (Claude Vorilhon is now known as Rael), for a long time and that on this particular morning, through telepathy, the alien had drawn Claude to this location so they could meet. What is particularly interesting is that this alien asks, "Have you read the Bible?" Claude asks why, and the alien says that he has many things to tell him about the Bible. He entered the spacecraft with this figure, which Claude says had no apparent internal light source, but light was emanating from everywhere. There were no instruments that you might find in an aircraft cockpit. Chairs were translucent and very comfortable.

Claude was told that he was chosen because they needed someone who was intelligent, open to new ideas, and who was from a country where such new ideas were welcomed. The alien also said it was because Claude had a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, and that this would be an "ideal link between two very important peoples in the history of the world." Claude asked where they came from. The alien answered that he was from a planet similar to earth but very far away. The conversation soon ended, Claude was returned to the ground, and the spaceship disappeared into the midst.

The next day, Claude returned to the same place with a notebook and a Bible. The spaceship reappeared, and he and the alien once again had a conversation inside the ship. The alien then told Claude that a long time ago on their planet they had reached a high level of technical and scientific knowledge, and that soon we on earth would reach the same level. The alien then asked Claude to refer to the Bible and said, "Only the parts of the Bible that I will translate are important. Other parts are merely poetic babbling of which I will say nothing. I am sure you can appreciate that, thanks to the law, which said that the Bible had always to be recopied without changing even the smallest detail, the deepest meaning has remained intact throughout the ages, even if the text has been larded with mystical and futile sentences. The alien then proceeded to radically reinterpret the Bible, and this helps to rationally explain the many contradictions the Bible has.

After many such encounters with the alien, Mr. Vorilhon has now undertaken the task to spread the message of this alien to the world. His movement has grown to thousands of members on every continent. He has gained a strong financial base along with a publishing house. He gives public talks and travels, accepting interviews as he tries to gather more and more converts to his movement.

Raelians and Jesus

Of course they have to explain Jesus..."Christ's role was to spread the truth of the Biblical scriptures throughout the world so that they could serve as proof for all of humanity when the age of science would finally explain everything. The creators therefore decided to arrange for a child to be born of a woman of the Earth and one of their won people. The child in question would thereby inherit certain telepathic faculties which humans lack." So, he was half human and half alien hybrid with telepathic abilities. In the Rael's book, it says that Mary was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. This means that she was the one chosen. When the angel of the Lord appeared to her, it was really one of the creators that appeared and explained that Mary would bring forth a son of "God," a being that was half alien and half human. At Jesus' baptism in Matt. 3:16-17 where the Father spoke, it was the aliens revealing to Jesus who He really was and what His mission was to be. Being led into the desert to be tempted by Satan is interpreted to mean that Satan tested Jesus to see if His "intelligence was positive and if he really loved and respected his creators." Thus, after Jesus passed His test, He went on to perform many miracles which were really the application of scientific techniques which He learned from the creators. Additionally, Jesus was able to "speak convincingly through a type of telepathic group hypnosis." In almost every group, this phenomenon is interpreted in a different way but it all means the same thing. Isn't telepathy, hypnosis and miracles junk science and the opposite of science? Wouldn't that come under the heading of faith or religion?

When Jesus walked on water, He was able to do this because the creators "supported him using an anti-gravity beam." This beam created a turbulence which was interpreted as a storm, but when Jesus entered the boat the beam stopped and so did the storm.

The death of Jesus served only to make known the truth of the origin of life via the creative work of the aliens. There is no efficacious atonement. But, Jesus was resuscitated with the help of the creators who used their technology to bring Him back from the dead.

The main problem with this "religion" is the issue of non falsifiability. This means that Raelianism cannot be proven false. How do you disprove that 20,000 years ago aliens created life on earth? Sure fossil evidence and the ancient age of the earth may be proof enough, but has that stopped creationists from claiming the earth is 4,000 years old? But just like creationists, Raelians simply cast a doubtful light on the scientific community and tells us that many mistakes have been made so we can't trust what science tells us in this regard. Proving Christianity or Islam is false is easy, for example, by producing the body of Jesus or Mohammad. All that is needed is archaeological evidence sufficient enough to demonstrate that Jesus died, was buried, but did not rise. This could be done by discovering a tomb with an inscription or document in it of who He was, His alleged miracles, His patronage, etc. If the archaeologists also found the bones of the wrists and feet damaged from nails consistent with those used at the time, etc., this could be sufficient proof that Jesus didn't rise from the dead. It would be a very serious problem for the Christian faith. Therefore, this is a way that Christianity is falsifiable. There is no way to prove that the Raelians system of belief is false. No matter what is said to the Raelians, they simply reinterpret science, evidence, the Bible, and other ancient documents in such a way that they agree with their belief system.

I like to Party Like it's 9

 Therefore, the Raelian story is nothing more than a story that cannot be verified, shown to be false, or anything. It is just a story, and unfortunately people are believing it.