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Raëlism

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Raëlism or Raëlian Church is a UFO religion founded by a purported contactee named Claude Vorilhon. The group is non-theistic, secular, hedonistic, and supports human cloning. It believes that God and souls do not exist; instead it believes that extraterrestrials who created humanity sparked the founding of major religions.

The Raëlian Church has a quasi-clerical structure with a height of seven levels. At the top is Claude Vorilhon, now known as Raël. Raël founded the Raëlian Movement in Paris, France in 1974 after a large conference. Women are a minority among Raëlians but remain relatively visible when advocating refinement and erotic sensualism as members of Rael's Girls and the Order of Angels. The Raëlian Church has attracted priests and bishops from other religions. About one-third of Raëlians pay dues to the Raëlian Church. Many members do not follow strictly the Raëlian ideals that speak against the use of drugs and alcohol. Sensuality is a required part of the Raëlian doctrine, though Raëlians recommend a non-contractual agreement between matured sexual partners. Joining the movement involves a baptismal ritual as well as an official apostasy from other religions.

Raël founded Clonaid, which claimed in 2002 that an American woman underwent a standard cloning procedure that led to the birth of her new daughter Eve (b. December 26, 2002). Although few believe the claim, it nonetheless attracted national authorities, mainstream media, and young adults to look further into the Raëlians' cult status. The use of the swastika in its original logo halted Raëlian requests for territory in Israel, and later Lebanon, for establishing a Third Temple, despite the creation of a new logo without the swastika. The Raëlians have officially revived the original logo.

Beliefs

Raëlians emphasize secular and hedonistic ideas, rather than worshiping a supreme metaphysical deity. The Raëlian Church members follow a UFO religion that favors physicalism - the belief that everything consists only of physical properties. Raëlians deny the existence of the ethereal soul and a supernatural god, and believe that the mind is a function of matter alone—a paradigm which William James (1964) would call epiphenomenalist. This ties into their belief that mind transfer is possible and that it will be possible to create an identical human clone in terms of mind and personality—as long as the clone and the original are not alive at the same time. These beliefs play a part in Raël's purported project, Valiant Venture Ltd. which he says provides a service called Clonaid for homosexual and infertile couples who want a child cloned from a partner's DNA. Raëlians believe that other religions throughout history—such as Buddhism, Islam, and Mormonism—have testaments to extraterrestrial creators. The Raëlian book Let's Welcome our Fathers From Space says that new advanced extraterrestrial civilizations will ultimately practice a final religion or "religion of the infinite".

Structure and membership

Level 6:
Guide of Guides
Planetary guide
Level 5:
Bishop 		Level 4:
Priest 		Level 3:
Assistant Priest
Continental head
National guide
Regional guide 		National guide
Regional guide 		Regional guide
Sources
Level 2:
Organizer 		Level 1:
Assistant Organizer
Level 0:
Trainee

Organizational structure

The structure of the Raëlian Church is a hierarchal religious order with seven levels ascending from level 0 to level 6. The top four levels of the religious order consist of guides. The level 6 guide, known as the Guide of Guides, has the final say on who becomes a level 5 bishop guide or a level 4 priest guide. Bishops and priests promote lower-level members one level at a time during annual seminars. Each bishop or priest can propose a new guide as long as the candidate is from a level below his or her own. Guides can assist regional guides—level 3 and above—in their assigning of non-guide members to levels 3, 2, and 1 which are assistant priests, organizers, and assistant organizers respectively.

Members of the Raëlian structure begin as level 0 trainees during annual seminars. Structure membership counts by third parties are missing or nonexistent, but figures by the movement itself suggest that the size of the structure is small in relation of the size of the whole church. Issue 331 of Raelian Contact Newsletter suggests that the structure has about 2,300 members, the Raëlian Press Release Site says there are about 170 guides, and an article on Raelianews.org says there are 41 bishops. After completing three 7-year terms, Claude Vorilhon holds the highest position.

History

The movement traces its beginnings to a conference in Paris, France of two thousand people in 1974. From there, the MADECH organization was born. The name MADECH is a double acronym in the French language. The first stands for "Movement for the welcoming of the Elohim, creators of humanity" (Mouvement pour l‘accueil des Elohim, créateurs de humanité) while the second stands for "Moses preceded Elijah and the Christ" (Moise a devancé Élie et le Christ). A news agency said that by 1976, Raël transformed MADECH into the International Raelian Movement. Over the years, various news media have given estimates of the movement's size, and the statistics agree with a long-term trend of past growth. However, despite media efforts to provide accurate information, Raëlian Church membership estimates can vary even within a given year by tens of thousands.

Role of women

Women are a minority in the Raëlian Church, however, two anecdotes in the Raëlian Contact newsletter report female majorities joining the movement's Asian Mongolian chapter. Despite the overall difference between the number of females vs. males in the movement, women such as Brigitte Boisselier, the Chief Executive Officer of Clonaid, play a powerful role in the Raëlian Church. There are two major groups of women in the Raëlian Church.

The Order of Angels, founded in the 1990s, consists of over a hundred Raëlian women who call for femininity and refinement for all of humanity. The initiation rites include declaring an oath or making a contract in which one agrees to become defender of the Raëlian ideology and its founder Raël. The Order of Angels has its own hierarchy of rose angels and white angels which, as of 2003, are six and 160 women, respectively. After the Clonaid human cloning claim made the headlines, the Daily Telegraph wrote that members of the order not only provided sexual pleasure for Raël, but also helped donate eggs for efforts towards human cloning. A few days later, Time magazine wrote that French chemist Brigitte Boisselier was an Order of Angels member. Around this time, cult specialist Mike Kropveld called the Order of Angels "one of the most transparent movements" he had witnessed, however, he was alarmed by the women's promise to defend Raël's life with their own bodies.

Raël has instructed some women members to play a pro-sex feminist role in the Raëlian Church. Rael's Girls is another group of women in the movement which are against the suppression of feminine acts of pleasure, including sexual intercourse with men or women. Rael's Girls solely consists of women who work in the sex industry. In contrast to the teachings of the world's major religions, the women of Rael's Girls say there is no reason to repent for performing striptease or being a prostitute. This organization was set up to counteract the influence of the JC's girls mission of the Christian ex-stripper Heather Veitch. Rael's Girls and its founder Raël were featured in a pictorial in the October 2004 issue of Playboy.

Relationship with religious people

There are multiple accounts of former clergy of mainstream religions joining the Raëlian Church, especially in Quebec. The structure of the movement had promoted some of them to the level of a Raëlian priest or bishop due to "extensive Bible training and teaching skills". Two ex-Roman Catholic Priests, Victor Legendre and Charles-Yvan Giroux wrote testimonials regarding their change of faith to Raëlianism. According to one article, a former bishop of the Church of Christ (Latter Day Saints) joined the Raelian Movement in order to express his homosexuality. In the same article, a quote from a Raëlian, Mark Woodgate, states that 8% of Raëlians worldwide are former Mormons. Religiously mixed couples are common in this movement, especially with spouses who are Christians or Buddhists.

Organizational culture

Lack of strict adherence to Raëlian ideal practices

According to Susan J. Palmer, a majority of loosely affiliated Raëlian Movement members have often strayed from following rules concerning "diet, drugs, and sexual activity" as described in the Raëlian books. Sometimes, they will not attend monthly meetings or pay a tithe in proportion to their income. Only the more committed members who do follow such rules can remain in the movement's structure.

According to Michel Beluet, the former director of a Raëlian-built museum called UFOland, the only pressure exerted on members is to attend annual Raëlian seminars, which allows members convinced of Raël's enthusiasm to voluntarily tithe. However, Palmer cites as Raël claiming that more than 60 percent of the Raëlian Movement's members do not tithe. Dawson College students conducted a survey of the membership in Canada 1991. The results were that only one-third of respondents tithed.

Sex

Susan J. Palmer writes that in 1991, a French journalist went to a Raëlian Seminar and taped couples having sexual intercourse in tents. These tapes gained widespread negative publicity—with news stories describing these practices as perverted and a form of brainwashing.

Since 1991, Raël's teachings on sexual intercourse have caused controversy among other religious groups. The next year, Catholic schools in Montreal, Canada objected to a proposed condom vending machine as contrary to their mission. In response, Raëlians guides gave the Catholic students ten thousand condoms. The Commissioner of Catholic schools for Montreal said they could do nothing to stop them. Around this time, Raëlians dubbed the event "Operation Condom".

Sexual predators and guides who force missionary ideas against members are excommunicated by the Raëlian Church for a minimum of seven years—the amount of time Raëlians believe it takes for all of a person's biological cells to be regenerated. Raëlians Issue #324 of Raëlian Contact shows a picture of Raëlians in Los Angeles, California expressing their condemnation of acts of pedophilia, particularly those associated with celibate Catholic priests. Their message is that minors and adults should not be mixed in the act of sex. On the other hand, Raëlians claim children should have "complete sexual liberty". Therefore, authorities in the Swiss canton Valais denied an application by Raël to live in their area.

Apostasy and Raëlian baptism

The major initiation rite in the Raëlian Church is the baptism or transmission of the cellular plan and is enacted by upper-level members in the Raëlian clergy known as guides. Canadian sociologist Susan J. Palmer says that in 1979, Raël introduced the "Act of Apostasy" as an obligation for those preparing for their Raëlian baptism. CTV Television Network states that apostasy from other religions is required for new Raëlian members. Joining the Raëlian Church through transmission of the cellular plan happens only in certain days of the year. There are four such days—marking anniversaries in the Raëlian calendar.

The first ceremonial date is August 6, which marks the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. This is not to be confused with a celebration of the bombing, since Raëlians view events like Hiroshima as events common to socially primitive but intellectually developed societies in the universe. They believe societies that find enough energy to reproduce across star systems, will guarantee their own self-destruction if they become too violent—without ever being able to reach planets in other star systems. The second date is December 13, 1973, the day that Raël says he had his first personal encounter with one of the extraterrestrial Elohim. The third is October 7, 1975, in which the Elohim, Raël says, took him up in a spacecraft and the following day had meals with Jesus Christ, Buddha, and other past religious figures. The last anniversary that Palmer gives is the first Sunday in April, which Raëlians believe is the date when dark-skinned extraterrestrials created Adam and Eve.

The Raëlian baptism is known as transmission of the cellular plan where cellular refers to the organic cells of the body and the plan refers to the genetic makeup of the individual. This Raëlian baptism involves a guide member laying water onto the forehead of the new member. The practice began on "the first Sunday in April" of 1976 when Raël baptised 40 Raëlians. Raëlians believe that their genetic information is recorded by a remote computer and would become recognized during their final hour when they will be judged by the extraterrestrial Elohim.

Critical reception

Susan J. Palmer, a sociologist from Canada, has studied the movement since 1987 and says the movement intentionally stirs a moderate level of controversy to maintain membership. This view is shared by Mike Kropveld—the executive director of an anti-cult organization with the name Info-Cult—who says the controversy leads to criticism by both religious and non-religious people.

Human cloning

The Raëlian Church has close links with the controversial company Clonaid. Brigitte Boisselier, a Raëlian and chief executive of Clonaid, made a controversial and unverified claim that a human baby was conceived through cloning technology. Around this time, Clonaid's subsidiary BioFusion Tech claimed to have in possession a cell fusion device that assisted the cloning of human embryos. The Vatican, however, says that experimenters expressed "brutal mentality" for attempting to clone human beings. Pope John Paul II criticized the experiment which he believes threatens the dignity of human life. In response, the leader of the Raëlian Church dismissed the Pope's ethical concerns, calling them an "accumulation of religious prejudices."

Raëlian organizers made deliberate attempts to shock, titillate, and capture the media's imagination. The book Yes to Human Cloning (2001) attracted media attention after its release, including segments on 20/20 and 60 Minutes. Biophysicist Gregory Stock described the Raëlian Clonaid project as "sufficiently quirky to command instant media attention." It has been estimated that the group received free publicity worth five hundred million US dollars as a result of the Clonaid claim. Mark Hunt, a lawyer and politician who wished to clone his dead son with the help of the Clonaid services, was overwhelmed by the height of the media attention and in an interview said that Clonaid's chief executive had become a "press hog".

In response to Raël's association with Clonaid, South Korean immigration authorities at the airport denied him entry into their country in 2003. This decision led to the quick cancellation of the planned Raëlian seminar which seven hundred registered for. Raëlians of South Korea were instructed by Raël to protest near the center of the country of Ministry of Health and Welfare that ordered him to leave. Officials detained Raël for nine hours at Incheon International Airport before he and his wife Sophie de Niverville left for Tokyo from where they would take another plane on their way back to Canada. Raël responded by saying that Korean officials treated him like a "North Korean" and that he would wait for an apology before coming back to Korea.

Cult status

The government of France classifies the Raelian Movement as a secte (French word for cult). Journalists rarely question the Raëlian Movement's cult status. However, according to Glenn McGee, who is the associate director of the Center for Bioethics' at the University of Virginia, part of the sect is a cult while the other part is a commercial website that collects large sums of money from those interested in human cloning. Journalists also use the word sect as an alternative to the word cult to describe the movement. Journalists prefer this alternative over the word religion because it denotes the movement's lack of affiliation with any mainstream religion. However, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the United States Department of State and sociologist Susan J. Palmer have classified the International Raëlian Movement as a religion.

In 2005, a Wired News report said that two young adults named Abdullah Hashem and Joseph McGowen were welcomed into a Raëlian seminar and had permission to videotape it. They believe the footage they took makes it clear that the Raelian Movement is a cult which should disband. However, a Raëlian guide said in a Wired interview that he is not ashamed of what is shown and that he has no concerns about this incident.

Swastika

In 1991, an anti-cult organization called Info-Cult of Montreal made statements against the Raëlian Church with an article on Le Devoir. Info-Cult branded the Raëlians as promoters of fascism and racism. One reason given was that the church uses a swastika as part of their logo and the other is the Raëlian description of an extraterrestrial global government in which those less than ten percent above average intelligence are excluded from the electorate. Outside Info-Cult's office, Raëlians spoke against the act of discriminating against a religious minority. On January 2, 1992, a dozen people protested against the use of the swastika in the Raëlian logo in Miami's Eden Roc Hotel. Claude Vorilhon appeared at the end of this one week seminar—at a conference with an attendance of 230. The use of the swastika and other Raelian practices has led to criticism from the group Hineni of Florida, a Jewish anti-cult organization.

In February 1991, the Raëlian Church modified their symbol. The official reason given was a request from the Elohim to change the symbol in order to help in negotiations with Israel for the building of the embassy or Third Temple to greet the anticipated Elohim space vessels although the country continued to deny their request. In 2005, the Israeli Raëlian Guide Kobi Drori stated that the Lebanese government was discussing proposals by the Raëlian movement to build their "interplanetary embassy" in Lebanon. However, one condition was that the Raëlians not display their logo on top of the building because it mixes a swastika and a Star of David. According to Drori, the Raëlians involved declined this offer, as they wished to keep the symbol as is. From 1991 to 2007, the official Raëlian symbol in Europe and America did not have the original swastika, but Raël, founder and leader of the Raëlian Movement decided to make the original symbol, the Star of David intertwined with a swastika, the only official symbol of the Raelian Movement worldwide.

See also

References

Cited texts

Further reading

External links

Official Raëlian Sites

Raëlian Research Interests

Sexuality in Raëlism

Unofficial Raëlian Sites

Odd Connection...

Study concerning this New Religious Movement

Criticism from Skeptics



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