Raëlism is a UFO religion that believes that all life on Earth was created in scientific labs by a species of extraterrestrials. Members of this species appeared human and when having personal contacts with the descendants of the humans they made, they were mistaken for angels, cherubims, or gods. Followers of Raëlism, the Raëlians, call these extraterrestrials by the Hebrew word, Elohim. Raëlians believe messengers, or prophets, of the Elohim include Buddha, Jesus, and many others who informed humans of each era. The founder of Raëlism, members claim, received the final message of the Elohim and that its purpose is to pacify and inform the world about Elohim, who wish to be welcome only if humans are peaceful.
The founder's name by birth is Claude Vorilhon, but he is publicly known as Raël. Raël was a French sports-car journalist and test driver and in 1974 founded the Raëlian Movement after a conference in Paris, France. Often called the International Raëlian Movement, Raëlism has been described as "the largest UFO religion in the world". In academic circles, the religion is also known as the Raëlian Church. Within the Raëlian Church, there is a quasi-clerical structure with a height of seven levels (Vorilhon is at the highest level). Joining the movement involves a transmission ceremony as well as an official apostasy from other religions in recognition of Elohim, as the creators of life from the heavens. About one-third of Raëlians pay dues to the Raëlian Church. Members are asked to follow the Raëlian ideals that speak against the use of recreational drugs, tobacco, coffee and limit alcohol to moderation, if at all. Sensuality is an important part of the Raëlian doctrine, though Raëlians recommend a non-contractual agreement between matured sexual partners. Although they hold liberal views of sexuality, the Raëlian Church has attracted some of its priests and bishops from other religions. These views are shared by women who make up a significant minority in Raëlian Church. Some of these women are strong advocates of refinement and erotic sensualism and participate in groups within such as Rael's Girls and the Order of Angels.
Raël founded Clonaid (originally Valiant Venture Ltd Corporation) in 1997, but then handed it over to a Raëlian bishop, Brigitte Boisselier, in 2000. The company claimed in 2002 that an American woman underwent a standard cloning procedure that led to the birth of a 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. The Raëlians have officially revived the logo with its original meaning as a symbol of peace.
The beginnings of Raëlism are rooted in the claims of a former French automobile journalist and race car driver Claude Vorilhon. In his books The Book Which Tells the Truth (1974) and Extraterrestrials Took Me to their Planet (1975), Vorilhon alleges that he had alien encounters with beings who gave him knowledge of the origins of all major religions.
The movement itself 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. In some years, reported Raëlian Church membership estimates have varied by tens of thousands.
From 1980 to 1992, Raël and his movement became increasingly global. Beginning from 1980, Claude Raël's fifth Raëlian book Sensual Meditation was published for the first time and formal publication of the Raëlian Messages in the Japanese language began as part of the Raëlian mission to Japan. Two years later, Africa became another target area in the mission to spread the Raëlian messages.
In December 26, 2002, Brigitte Boisselier, a Raëlian Bishop and CEO of a biotechnology company called Clonaid, announced the birth of baby Eve, supposedly the first-ever human clone, which at that point ignited much media attention, ethical debate, doubt, critics, and claims of a hoax. Spokespeople for the movement, such as Claude Vorilhon, have suggested that this is only first step in achieving a more important agenda, claiming that accelerated growth process and mind transfer, in combination with cloning are mechanisms by which eternal life may be achieved.
Member hierarchy
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
Level 2:
Organizer Level 1:
Assistant Organizer
Level 0:
Trainee
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 in 2007 had about 2,300 members,The Raëlian Press Release Site claims that 170 members are "Raëlian guides", and an article on Raelianews.org says there are 41 bishops.After completing three 7-year terms, Claude Vorilhon holds the highest position.
Converts to the Raëlian movement structure from other religious establishments
Vorilhon, other Raëlians, and their critics have characterized Raëlianism as an atheist "religion" that believes not in God, but in extraterrestrials.Although it holds an irreverent position, there remain 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.
Organized activity
Raëlians drawing with sandThroughout the History of Raëlism, members of the Raëlian Church have toured public settings in advocation of masturbation, condoms, and birth control. Raëlians hope that genetically modified food and nanotechnology will allow humankind to eliminate the obligation to work, in a world that embraces science and technology. Raëlians have founded Clonaid, a company that envisions that someday human beings can be scientifically recreated though a process of human cloning, and Clitoraid, an organization whose mission is to repair genitally mutilated clitorises. Raëlian structure members have set up exhibitions about their beliefs of extraterrestrial intelligent designers sending crop circles, UFOs, and spaceships for their arrival at an embassy.While there have been smaller meetings of Raëlians and non-Raëlians, annual Raëlian seminars have been typically larger. Music has been a feature of large gatherings, where at night, Raëlians have had multiethnic cabaret performances. Seminarists have used colored bracelets to indicate whether they wanted to be alone, be in a couple, or simply meet people.Raëlian structure members who run the seminars have organized group exercises involving meditation with the senses. James R. Lewis—an authority on fringe religious movements—spoke of Raëlians who practiced a Raëlian exercise called Sensual Meditation and discovered "playing fields" where "radical self-reconstruction," "new forms of authority," and "new modes of self-relating" were encouraged
Women-only groups
Raëlian Women at the Seoul Korea Love Hug FestivalWomen 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. 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.
Retreat gatherings and outdoor demonstrations
On a yearly basis, Raëlian members organize seminars that are often attractive to the sexually adventurous.News KNBC called the annual Raëlian seminars "a cross between a nudist camp and new-age retreat." A Spanish television agency reported Raëlian men and women in cross-dressing plays.[66] Not all Raëlian gatherings are exclusive to seminar locations. For example, a photographer of the Associated Press snapped a picture of half-naked Raëlian women wearing pasties as part of an anti-war demonstration in Seoul, Korea. A snapshot by Agence France-Presse revealed Raëlians in white alien costumes with signs bearing the message "NO WAR ... ET wants Peace, too!".Raëlians have also been reported in Nevada's Burning Man festival of 2006, as verified on the Burning Man website and mentioned in Raëlian Contact Newsletter #321.
Initiation of new members
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, 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.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario