Raelians : Clone Ranger : The Rael World Comes to New York

The first Raelian has just moved to Manhattan, and she's on a mission to multiply. She is hosting her first "sensual meditation" class next week, spreading the extraterrestrial good news on the Upper West Side—and bringing the group's controversial stance on cloning to New York.

One of Raelianism's goals, unraveling the secret to immortality, has embroiled its many scientific followers in the cloning debate. Dr. Brigitte Boissellier, a former biochemistry professor at Hamilton College in upstate New York, brought the Raelians much notoriety last month, insisting that despite heavy opposition to the idea of human cloning among bioethicists and throughout the scientific community, she will persevere in her attempts to clone human beings. Like all Raelians, Dr. Boissellier believes that advanced methods of human cloning will lead to immortality. After all, the Elohim—aliens who created all life on earth—became immortal this way. (See sidebar)

Dr. Boissellier is currently leading a three-person Raelian research team, including a geneticist, a biochemist, and a gynecologist, that has been experimenting with cattle cloning and "is making progress toward human cell cloning." She says five more scientists will be joining her lab this fall.

At present in New York City, the Raelians are mounting a membership drive (they were handing out literature last weekend in Central Park, and making plans to open their homes to group meetings). Marie-Helene Parent, 43, is small-framed, wearing tight black satin bell-bottoms and a clingy, short tee. She cuddles into a white cotton-candy couch as she fields questions about her UFO-based faith, which she has been involved in for half her life. What is the nature and intent of the Elohim? Why is human cloning a mandatory goal? Why is Dr. Boissellier a Raelian? What are Parent's intentions in New York? And, most bizarre, why are Raelians better looking than, say, the average Moonie?

Parent puckers up her glossy, red full lips, takes a deep breath, pauses, and ponders. Finally, she replies in a soft French accent. "To create a painting," she says, referring to one of the many lively works on the walls of her West 52nd Street apartment, "is like an orgasm [accent on the a]."

"The Elohim created us, like we create paintings. We were created out of pleasure, and therefore our destiny is supposed to be pleasure. The more in touch we are with our senses, beauty, and passions, the more one we are with our creators, infinity, and with ourselves." Because of the emphasis on aesthetic and physical pleasures, Raelians devote time to toning and polishing their looks.
"Raelians do seem to be a good-looking group," says Susan Palmer, a Canadian sociologist who is writing a book about them. "Good-looking people may get more positive feedback, and they stay. Also, Rael [the Raelians' leader; see first sidebar] advises not having children until you're totally self-realized (and if you want to be cloned eventually, then you have to make the choice between the two forms of reproduction). And they eat holistic food and promote exercise and don't drink alcohol or coffee so they stay healthier."

So with Raelianism's sexy PR, Parent may not have a hard time recruiting members in the city, despite the religion's central basic assumptions: the existence and cosmic dominance of loving extraterrestrials.
Parent, who helped bring nearly 100 Raelians into the fold in Florida over the last seven years, is confident that she will have even greater success convincing New Yorkers to believe that highly artistic, science-minded, sextraterrestrials created our world, and that—through cloning—we will achieve immortality.

Rael's message has captured the imagination of an eclectic following, including sex industry workers and artists. As for the scientific community, Dr. Boissellier finds it easy to explain Raelianism's appeal. "The more scientists look at the human genome and the more we see how sophisticated it is, the harder it becomes to believe that it all happened by chance through evolution," she explains. "So evolutionary theory is considered less and less viable among scientists, and more and more are joining the Raelians."

She says that after she discovered Raelianism eight years ago, she began reading about ancient gods and the Bible. "I am a scholar," she says. "I need it all to make rational sense. And Raelianism is the first creation story to make sense to me." She says that an estimated 20 percent of the religion's membership comes from the scientific community.

In contrast, young Asian members seem to be attracted to Raelianism's interconnected religious theology and its implicit social rebelliousness.
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A much tinier group of Raelians are Jews—about 60 live in Jerusalem—but they remain a central focus.

"In a sense, all Raelians are Jews," says Rael. "The Raelians have a particular interest in Israel because our goal is to rebuild the third temple," in the form of a government-sanctioned embassy for extraterrestrials. "It says in the Bible that whoever devotes themselves to the building of the third temple is a real Jew. So we are therefore more Jewish than most born Jews." The Raelians have the means to begin building, but are waiting for Israel to legitimize their request. If Israel doesn't cooperate by 2035, Rael teaches that the Elohim will stop protecting Israel from its surrounding neighbors. And if a more alien-friendly country agrees to build the embassy at any time before then, Israel's extraterrestrial-spiritual protection will be lifted.
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Despite the fact that he is a race-car enthusiast who claims an intimate, even familial relationship with extraterrestrials, and that he is a devout atheist with a messiah complex and a Jewish identity, Rael comes across as clear-headed and gentle. As Palmer puts it, "I have always seen Rael as a well-meaning, exciting, intelligent leader. But I have a friend who is a psychiatrist who went to go hear him speak and said he seemed totally paranoid and schizophrenic with his whole God-complex."

Still, most Raelians take their leader very seriously, says Palmer, rarely deviating from his advice. Most are tithed at 3 percent of their net worth. Those in leadership positions give 10 percent. This is not considered a high price to pay in the mission for immortality. According to Nadine Gary, who does Raelian PR, at least 100 young female members have eagerly volunteered their eggs and wombs to the higher cause.
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Of course, at this point the consensus in the scientific community is that human cloning poses serious questions. About one in 10 attempts to clone mammals result in a live offspring, says Cornell University cloning pioneer Robert H. Foote. Foote, who has been cloning animals for 15 years, explains that the overwhelming majority of cloned animals have birth defects and high mortality rates. "Cloning research is vital in that it can yield breakthroughs that will benefit humanity in profound ways," he says. "But I am completely opposed to cloning humans for reproduction. It is way too dangerous, inefficient, and expensive."
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In 1997, President Clinton, following the recommendations of his Bioethics Advisory Commission, which concluded that human cloning would be unsafe and therefore unethical, signed a five-year ban on the use of federal funds for human-cloning research. But so far, only four states —California, Rhode Island, Louisiana, and Michigan—have outlawed cloning for reproductive purposes.

"I would never break the law of any state," says Dr. Boissellier. "If they legally ban cloning research in order to prohibit progress on the research, I will fight to change the laws."
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The Raelians also have a creative, over-the-top approach to their social vision.

"The Elohim teach us that gender roles keep us from understanding our true selves, and therefore our creators," explains Rael. "They are so evolved and enlightened that they have transcended gender barriers." Sexual experimentation and gender play is encouraged. For example, Raelians throw a transgendered ball each year: "Men come dressing and acting like stereotypical women, and women come dressing and acting like men," Rael explains. In this way, he adds, Raelians learn respect for the other gender, and become "inspired to act more human, and less like 'women' or 'men.' We are really quite feminist," he concludes. Raelians welcome gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals into their religion, and march in gay pride parades all over the world each year.

"The Raelians are more tolerant, progressive, and enlightened than the followers of most new religions," maintains Palmer.

Despite their openness, Rael says that his followers have been heavily persecuted in France, which, he points out, is the only country with an "anti-cult ministry."
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Rael himself left France about 10 years ago due to persecution, and started the Quebec chapter, which is now one of the largest in the world.

The Raelians hope to get a friendlier reception in New York. Parent is expecting 20 to 25 guests at her meditation class on Sunday: "We will close our eyes for about 30 minutes at 10 a.m., just to become aware of the infinity in ourselves, and then have telepathic communication, sharing prayer and love with the Elohim at 11. Afterward, a few of us will hit the streets with flyers and books." The only public event she has planned here so far is a three-day appearance at the New Life Expo at the New Yorker Hotel in October. "We are not really advertising now," she says. "I have a list of people's names I have collected in past visits when I came here to speak."
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Sidebar: The Raelian Account of Creation
In idea of the Raelian view of creation from outer space can be gleaned in one of the opening passages of the book The Message Given by Extra-Terrestrials , as revealed to Rael:

In the beginning Elohim created the heaven and the earth. Genesis 1:1 ''Elohim,'' translated without justification in some Bibles by the word "God," means in Hebrew "those who came from the sky," and furthermore, the word is a plural. It means that the scientists from our world searched for a planet that was suitable to carry out their projects. They ''created,'' or in reality discovered, the Earth, and realized that it contained all the necessary elements for the creation of artificial life, even if its atmosphere was not quite the same as our own.

The Raelian perspective is unusual among UFO groups in that it offers a creation story tied to the sacred books of the monotheistic tradition.
But to many Jews, for whom the Hebrew word Elohim is used in prayer referring to God, Rael's definition is quite alien. ''Nowhere in the word Elohim is there anything that means sky,'' says Dr. Robert Harris of the Jewish Theological Seminary. ''Eloh derives from the ancient Hebrew word El or Allah, which means might; im does pluralize the word—although Elohim always takes a singular verb. Therefore, Elohim always functions as the name of God in the singular. In Hebrew, the word sky is either Shamayim or Rakiah.'' [back to text]

Sidebar: Close Encounter of the Raelian Kind
Raelianism was founded 30 years ago in France by auto-racing reporter Claude Vorilhon. Now known as ''Rael,'' he claims that in 1973 he was approached by a four-foot-tall alien who identified himself as one of the ''Elohim''—humanoid, all-powerful extraterrestrials who had created life on Earth through cloning. Vorilhon was the chosen son. His single mother had been artificially inseminated by one of their number, and he was to prepare earthlings for the Elohim's return.

The alien told Vorilhon that DNA is our essence, and that it can be preserved for eternity. He also was told that all earthly religions are misinterpretations of the true extraterrestrial gospel, and that human beings should liberate themselves from the scientifically limited and sexually and artistically repressive tendencies of mainstream religion.

The alien explained that an account of the Elohim's work can be found in the Bible, which, he said, is the oldest atheist book in the world. The alien entrusted Vorilhon with the mission of propagating this revelation and building an embassy in Jerusalem, where the Elohim will officially return very soon, along with Jesus, Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad, who are being kept alive on a distant planet thanks to cloning.

And then the white, green-tinged creature renamed Vorilhon: Henceforth he would be known as Rael.

Since that time, Rael has attracted 55,000 followers in 84 countries. Lapsed Catholics respond readily to his New Age message, couched in familiar New Testament themes. Raelianism also has thousands of followers in Japan and South Korea and a handful of Jews in Israel.

The Raelians' quirky Web site (www.rael.org

)—which greets visitors with a flash film depicting a sombrero-shaped flying saucer speeding around the Earth—is accessible in 17 languages, including Mandarin, Farsi, Swedish, and Slovenian. [back to text] [...more...] [Need the full story? Read this]