The Canon · No. 118
Raëlism
International Raëlian Movement
1974 CE – present · New Religious Movement · Living · France, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Burkina Faso
VIII. POSTWAR & CONTEMPORARY — 1945 – PRESENT
How many
Claims around 90,000 in 120 countries; independent estimates suggest a few thousand active.
Who began it
Claude Vorilhon (b. 1946), a French motor sport journalist, who reported meeting an extraterrestrial in a volcanic crater in Clermont-Ferrand in December 1973 and being renamed Raël.
What it is for
To prepare an embassy for the return of humanity's creators, and in the meantime to promote a hedonistic, science-oriented and demilitarised world.
What it worships
None. Raëlism is atheist in the conventional sense: it denies any supernatural god.
What it holds
Humanity was created in laboratories 25,000 years ago by an advanced extraterrestrial species, the Elohim — a plural Hebrew word in Genesis which Raëlism translates as those who came from the sky. All the great prophets — Moses, the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Joseph Smith — were messengers sent by them, and Raël is the last. The Elohim will return when humanity builds them an embassy and has abandoned war. Science replaces the supernatural throughout: miracles are technology, resurrection is cloning.
What it does
Sensual meditation. Baptism by transmission of the cellular plan, in which a guide places water on the forehead so the Elohim can record the person's genetic code. Membership involves formally renouncing one's previous religion, in writing, to that religion's authorities. The movement is emphatically pro-sexual-freedom, pro-contraception, pro-LGBT and campaigns against female genital mutilation through its Clitoraid project. Its symbol originally combined a swastika within a Star of David, understood as an ancient symbol of cyclical time; it was altered in 1991 after sustained objection and partially restored in 2007.
After death
No soul and no afterlife in the traditional sense. Survival is technological: the Elohim record each person's DNA, and the deserving will be recreated by cloning on the Elohim's planet. Members are encouraged to bequeath a piece of frontal bone for this purpose. Judgment is by the Elohim, on the basis of one's contribution to humanity. Those who do not qualify simply are not recreated. It is the only afterlife in this dossier that is entirely a matter of engineering.
Its texts
The Book Which Tells the Truth (1974); Intelligent Design; Sensual Meditation.
Its branches
None significant.
Of note
Raëlism is the fully worked-out UFO religion — the case where the technological imagination replaces the supernatural entirely, and creation, prophecy, judgment and resurrection are all restated as engineering problems.
Its timeline
- December 1973 CE Vorilhon's reported encounter.
- 1974 CE MADECH founded, later the Raëlian Movement.
- 1997 CE Raël announces Clonaid, a human cloning company, days after Dolly the sheep.
- <strong>December 2002 CE</strong> Clonaid announces the birth of Eve, claimed as the first cloned human. No evidence was ever produced; no independent verification was permitted; the child was never shown. It is generally regarded as a publicity operation and it prompted legislative activity on cloning in several countries.
- 2003 CE A Florida court declines to appoint a guardian for the alleged child after Clonaid says she is outside US jurisdiction.
- 2007–present Clitoraid builds a hospital in Burkina Faso for FGM reconstruction surgery; the project draws both support and criticism over the movement's involvement.
- 2010s–present Continued embassy campaign; repeated approaches to states requesting extraterritorial land.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.