The Raëlians
When French auto journalist and former singer Claude Vorilhon clambered into the Puy de Lassolas volcano in 1973, he saw a flying saucer that disgorged a friendly, glowing alien. Vorilhon learned that he would shortly hold the secrets of the origins of human life. Further, he had been chosen to be the Earth’s Messenger of truth. “Claude Vorilhon” was now a creature of the past.
Henceforth, that person would be called “Raël.” Inspired by this, Vorilhon/Raël founded the Raëlian movement in 1974. A year later, he traveled to Elohim (an ancient Hebrew word meaning “gods”), a distant planet populated by diminutive humanoids with pale, greenish skin and oversized eyes. During his time on the alien planet, Raël was introduced to Buddha, Mohammad, Confucius, Jesus, and Joseph Smith, the 19th-century founder of Mormonism. Vorilhon learned that although “Claude Vorilhon” had been born of a human mother, he had been sired by an alien.
Today (after a period in Montreal), the Raëlians are based in Geneva, and, according to Raëlian literature, are active in ninety countries. Claimed worldwide membership is one hundred thousand. The group’s historical lore is dense and majestic. Thousands of Earth years ago, Elohim on the home planet worried that human beings had the potential to do real damage to Earth and other planets. To forestall that, Elohim already active on Earth denied human beings critical knowledge of human origins, science, and keys for spiritual growth.
The Elohim later changed their minds, but the first attempts to educate humanity did not go well: for instance, an attempt at enlightenment mounted by a cadre of Elohim scientists led by an Eloha named Lucifer had disastrous consequences that resonate on Earth to the present day. And then there was a problem with dissident Elohim more dedicated to their own power than helping Earth. The famed Old Testament tale, the account of Noah’s ark, is an interpretation of a failed attempt by an aggressive Elohim political party, led by an Eloha named Satan, to destroy humankind.
Not long after, the Elohim discovered that they themselves were creations of another, higher race. Elevated by this knowledge, the Elohim resolved to teach and guide humans; Mohammad, Buddha, and Jesus were among the emissaries tasked with carrying out the newly benevolent Elohim agenda.
Much of Raëlian thought is taken from ancient-astronaut theories propounded by rabbinical scholar Yonah Fortner (who wrote about extraterrestrial Elohim in the late 1950s) and writer-translator Jean Sendy (who regarded the Book of Genesis as a fact-based account of alien colonization of Earth). As elaborated on by Vorilhon, humans are descended from alien DNA left on Earth twenty-five thousand years ago. God does not exist; the way to eternal wisdom is an acceptance of the accomplishments of the Elohim, and personal commitments to lives free of strife.
Vorilhon’s pronouncement are seldom less than intriguing. He advocates a “geniocracy,” a “genius” take on the familiar meritocracy idea of leadership and rule, elected by a “selective democracy” and “backed by military might.” Nuclear power, which causes concern in many religions, moved Vorilhon to announce that the detonation of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 lifted the curtain on the Age of Aquarius—more ominously referred to by Vorilhon as the Age of the Apocalypse. This ties in neatly with the Book of Revelation, and like Revelation, offers redemption via a savior. In Raëlian thought, the savior is not Jesus but Raël; in other words, Claude Vorilhon.
Elohim will come to Earth and save humanity, but only after Raël is recognized as the prophet, and is feted with an appropriate temple. In 1997, Vorilhon and an investor group established Clonaid, a company dedicated to the cloning of human beings. It later called itself “the world’s leading provider of reproductive human cloning services.” Initially based in the Bahamas, Clonaid quickly suffered the displeasure of that government, and relocated to Las Vegas in 1998. By 2001, Clonaid operated a small lab in Nitro, West Virginia, an industrial town so heavily polluted that it has been a Superfund site since the early 1980s.
Early in 2003, South Korean officials raided the offices of an affiliated Clonaid company, BioFusion Tech, reportedly because of the ethics of human cloning or, alternatively, because of the company’s fee-based services. The raid followed closely on Clonaid’s December 2002 announcement of the birth of “baby Eve,” a cloned human. Because Clonaid spokesperson/CEO Brigitte Boiesslier (a Raëlian bishop) provided neither scientific proof nor the child, media interest fell off quickly. Governments, though, have kept an eye on the company’s activities.
While Clonaid attempts to work around various countries’ laws and ethics, cash flow is maintained by a program of pet cloning. In the meanwhile, Clonaid claims to have created hundreds of human embryos, which have resulted in more than a dozen births of human clones. To date, no proof of such births exists.
The RMX2010, a boxy Clonaid device invented to aid in embryonic cell fusion, has received a skeptical reception from the world scientific community.
The Clonaid Web site appears not to have been updated since 2009, though click-through will take interested persons to the company’s Investor Relations page.
The International Raëlian Movement site, rael.org, is up and active, as are discrete Raëlian sites devoted to Raëlian radio, world news, Paradism (the Raëlian political arm working toward a world without work or money), unfounded rumors about the Raëlian movement, and atheism (as of January 2016, this site features a labored “priest” joke about pedophilia).
On a more pleasant note, official Raëlian literature supports the “clitocracy” (women’s rights), LGBT activism, and (in a reflection, perhaps, of the Raëlian interest in sensual lives) women’s right to go topless.