Monday 19 February 2024

Raël- The Alien Prophet

 
Somebody recommended me a new documentary from France called Raël- le Prophète des Extraterrestres, or "Raël- The Alien Prophet" in English. This four-part documentary explores the strange case of the Raëlians, a quasi-religious movement centred around belief in UFO's. It was founded shortly after a French motor racing journalist called Claude Vorilhon went for a walk in the countryside near his home in December 1973. He reports that while he was rambling in the area of an ancient volcano in the Clermont-Ferrand region of France, a flying saucer landed near him. A door opened and a staircase came down, and then an alien stepped out. It was a humanoid Nordic being that said its name was "Yahweh Elohim" and it had come from a distant planet to give mankind a message, and that Claude was chosen to deliver that message. He was told to change his name to "Raël" and had several other meetings with Yahweh Elohim. He was told that the aliens, called Elohim, had genetically engineered the human race and also directed famous spiritual leaders. To prove this point, they took Raël to their home planet and introduced him to Jesus, Mohammed and the Buddha. When he got back to Earth, Raël began writing The Book that Tells the Truth which became a bestseller. He called a press conference in September 1974 to found the Raëlian Church and his lifetime of ministry began. Oddly enough, despite its New Age and biblical overtones, Raëlianism is not a spiritual philosophy. Raël preaches pure materialism; there is no natural afterlife, no heaven or hell. The only way humans can become immortal is through cloning technology and brain content transfer, a speculative future method proposed also by transhumanists. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEZVTXwUnxI.
 
Today the International Raëlian Movement claims to have sixty thousand members across the globe. It has declined in popularity in its native France, but is growing in places like Canada, Africa, South Korea and Japan. The Raëlians hold regular meetings and have countryside retreats. In the 1980's there was one in France where the group practiced what Raël calls "sensual meditation" which includes activities designed to break down inhibitions, such as looking at your own anus with a mirror. They believe in free love and it is common there to see couples, and sometimes even more than two people, engaged in alfresco sex. Raël himself, however, is notoriously possessive about his own partners. He founded something called "the Order of Angels" which is made up of the youngest and prettiest women in the movement. They carry out a ritual where they approach Raël in a line while he sits on his throne. They are usually stripped to the waist. Raël has "married" a number of them, including a sixteen year old girl; when he was the age of fifty-six. One of the reasons a lot of Raëlians left France is because of accusations of paedophilia at their summer camps. In 2002 the Raëlians set up a scientific organization called "Clonaid" that was run by Dr Brigitte Boisselier, a chemist; and, typically for the Raëlians, she was very good-looking. She claimed to have cloned a baby, but no evidence for the existence of this child has ever been produced. Many commentators, including people who left the Raëlian Church, believe the whole thing was nothing but a scam to generate publicity. The documentary includes interviews with believers and non-believers alike, even one with Raël himself. The English language version is not dubbed, but given a voice-over; a method usually employed with shorter pieces. It is a far better form of dialogue in my view because you can still hear the person's real voice, played at a very low volume alongside. All the episodes have an 18 certificate because of the many scenes of nudity. Raël himself now lives in Japan at a Raëlian temple dedicated to his glory. He doesn't pussyfoot around with the kind of modesty David Icke does: "I am not a guru!... Make up your own minds!" etc. He is unequivocally "His Holiness Raël", "Guide of Guides" and "Planetary Guide" "for the Elohim on Earth". He acts like it too, barking orders at members of his harem in front of the camera crew; they bow and obey him like good slaves. Despite being hunched, white bearded and in his late seventies, he still commands devotion and adoration from his geishas. I know that the UFO phenomenon is interpreted by people in many different ways. A number of alien cargo cults have sprung up over the years. I know a few people who are in some of them, like the Aetherius Society and the followers of Marshall Vian Summers. I consider those groups pretty harmless, even though I myself don't believe in them at all. They ask for little or no money from their disciples and never encourage actions that could become harmful. Other UFO religions are more sinister. The tragedy of the 1997 Heaven's Gate suicides has become infamous, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca2LhJdlK3U. I think the Raëlians have to be listed as one of the potentially dangerous examples. There is indeed a lot of money involved in membership and Raël enjoys the lifestyle of a Shogun. He wants to build an "embassy" in Jerusalem to welcome the Elohim, a multimillion pound project which will include, of all things, a swimming pool and spa. It will have a large landing pad for the Elohim's disks. When this is built, Raël promises, the Elohim will come down and announce themselves openly to humanity. They have already created a theme park in Canada called "UFO Land". Raëlianism involves actions that I would call indoctrination and sexual exploitation, even if it really only includes adults. Some people define the Disclosure Project as a UFO religion. I disagree with that, even though Dr Steven Greer is clearly afflicted by more than a moderate messianic complex. I was surprised, nonetheless, when I went to one of Greer's live events in London that I saw very few people there I knew from the mainstream UFO community. The event was also very expensive, as is almost everything to do with Greer, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2015/10/ufo-disclosure-2015-truth-or-greer.html. However, the main theme of the talk and indeed most of the Disclosure Project is typical secular exopolitics. There is a spiritual element to some extraterrestrial contact, of that there is no doubt. Mary Rodwell's research in particular reveals this, see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2018/06/programme-287-podcast-mary-rodwell.html. However, it is vital that we remain rational and calm when addressing this. We must realize that there are a lot of deceptive shysters in this world who will without a qualm take advantage of vulnerable people who might be overawed by UFO reality. We must keep an eye on our friends as well. They may need a supportive anchor of sanity if they swim too close to the net of one of these darker UFO cults. At the same time I am not an atheist and do not advocate blind skepticism. At the risk of sounding too much like another New Age guru, I say let us seek balance in everything!
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2021/01/j-posadas-and-alien-communists.html.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As well as having a monumental messiah complex (and being a total perv obv), Raël's obsession with GMOs, nanotech and cloning makes him sound like a transhumanist on steroids! Incidentally, I wonder if you dug a bit deeper into his shady background you'd find some links to one of the covert intelligence agencies as so often happens with people like him?

Calpestavo68

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Could be Calpestavo. He does come from the showbiz world and there's a big crossover there. He had a brief musical career in the '60's. His best known song was called "Madam Pipi", meaning "toilet cleaning lady". Unsurprisingly it wasn't a big hit.