"Let's welcome our
fathers from space" is the third important book written by Raël, the
prophet of a new religious movement based on adoration of aliens from outer
space. It's an amplification of the message in his two earlier books, published
together in English as "The message given to me by extra-terrestrials:
They took me to their planet". Today, all three works are available in a
combined edition, "Intelligent Design: Message from the Designers" or
free on-line.
Raël, whose real name is Claude Vorilhon, claims to have met an alien from another star system during a walk in the French mountains in 1971. The message he was commissioned to deliver is weirdly eclectic, and scholars of comparative religion will find traces in it of both gap theory, Adventist soul-sleep, Jain non-theism, Mormon gods who beget children, Theosophy and the writings of Erich von Däniken. Add to that gay liberation, trans-sexuality, sexual libertinage, IQ elitism and transhumanism, and you have a very spicy dish!
Raël explicitly calls his message "an atheist religion". God doesn't exist, there is only a constantly evolving and changing Infinity of time, space, matter and energy. Nor is there an immortal soul or a supernatural realm. Near-death experiences are brushed aside as hallucinations, and at one point Raël even quotes the Bible to prove that the soul doesn't exist. Our universe is just a small atom in another super-universe, where it might as well be part of a worm or a dog. Indeed, humans are a kind of parasites on the body of a great, universal being who is completely indifferent to our existence. Infinity, after all, doesn't care if humans exist or rather prefer to destroy themselves.
Within this Infinity, there are countless intelligent civilizations, some more intelligent than others. According to Raël, humans were created through a process of genetic engineering about 20,000 years ago. Our creators are known as the Elohim, and live on a distant planet in another star system. In effect, these Elohim are the "gods" of the Raëlian religion, making Raël's system a kind of weird polytheism or henotheism within an overall materialist metaphysic. The alien who contacted Raël in the French hills was one of the Elohim. His name? Yahweh. The alien revealed to the stunned Raël that Jesus was also an alien. Indeed, Yahweh turned out to be the literal father of both Raël and Jesus, and a drawing in my edition of this book shows the three of them conversing, drinking wine and eating fresh fruit together! While Raël claims that this doesn't really mean much, I think it's an obvious way to establish his charismatic authority as a prophet. The Biblical theme is also obvious in Raël's meeting with Yahweh on a high hill, which turns out to be a volcano. (Some scholars claim that Yahweh was indeed a god connected to volcanoes, and as every Jew or Christian knows, Moses met God on Mount Horeb.)
There seems to be a tension in Raël's message between the atheist-materialist metaphysics, and the more traditionally religious side. The Biblical references doesn't sound very atheistic, and in passing Raël also mentions various rituals and meditation techniques. There is also a baptism, known as "transmission of the cellular plan", which takes place simply by the laying on of hands. However, how can the DNA patterns of a material human be transmitted through the hands of another human to the Elohim at their distant planet? Here, Raël is forced to postulate a very advanced form of technology somehow involving invisible energy patterns, but this is tantamount to magic or supernatural forces! Note also the contradiction between "the transmission of the cellular plan" and the bizarre ideas about the frontal bone.
Very often, "Let's welcome our fathers from space" sounds heavily anachronistic. The English-language Japanese edition from 1986, which I own a copy of, is replete with drawings that feel very "seventies" in style and content. Somehow, we've seen all this before, haven't we? All the pictures of long-haired males, Jesus, apocalyptic imagery... The very idea of recieving a spiritual message from space aliens is a product of the mostly American contactee craze during the Cold War. The notion about aliens creating humans through genetic engineering (or aliens mating with humans), sounds like vintage Däniken. The Biblical references would be comprehensible, and provocative, to a culture still nominally Christian. Today, Raël's very special form of Bible-centred religion sounds almost politically incorrect. Raël even supports Zionism! The book also has a strong apocalyptic undertone. One of its subtitles is "The End of the World By Nuclear War is Near. They Will Come To Save The Just". Today, environmental destruction or perhaps terrorism rather than nuclear war between great powers is seen as the main threat to humanity's survival.
So how did this anachronistic pseudo-Biblical contactee cult ever manage to survive and even thrive? No idea, but my guess is that Raël had other ideas which turned out to capture the mood of the 1990's and 2000's just fine. The hedonism, emphasis on LGBT rights and advocacy of human cloning would be obvious contenders for such a role. Personally, I have no particular problem with LGBT rights, but overall, I consider the Raëlians to be a bunch of amoral nihilists. Indeed, Raël has an explicitly hedonistic "ethic", purely centred on the physical sensation of pleasure. He even says that humans are really a kind of computers or robots, simply living out their programming. Apparently, it's possible to become a self-programmed computer, but that too is simply a more advanced machine. On the Elohims' home planet, "live fast and die young" seems to be the motto, with many aliens competing in dangerous blood sports just for the fun of it. These aliens must sign a contract stating that they shouldn't be revived after death, and gladly do so! Meanwhile, only a small group of elect alien scientists can attain immortality by the use of cloning techniques. The rest of the Elohim doesn't seem to mind this obvious injustice. They are content with their own, fleeting hedonistic pleasures before being embraced by Infinity...
In many ways, Raëlianism seem to be a bizarre caricature or involuntary parody of the nihilistic Zeitgeist of our times. Only on one issue does Raël take an unexpected position: while condoning suicide in cases of unbearable pain, he doesn't call for suicide in other situations. Taedium vitae apparently doesn't count. Why? Well, the Raëlians need new members and they have to spread the prophet's message far and wide, so obviously we can't have people killing themselves for no good reason! It seems everything is permitted, so long as the prophet gets his worker-ants...
Obviously, this means that the Raëlian religion will disappear, when the spirit of the times will change. These days, it seems to be changing ever so often. Perhaps in 2020, we will all have other fads...
Raël, whose real name is Claude Vorilhon, claims to have met an alien from another star system during a walk in the French mountains in 1971. The message he was commissioned to deliver is weirdly eclectic, and scholars of comparative religion will find traces in it of both gap theory, Adventist soul-sleep, Jain non-theism, Mormon gods who beget children, Theosophy and the writings of Erich von Däniken. Add to that gay liberation, trans-sexuality, sexual libertinage, IQ elitism and transhumanism, and you have a very spicy dish!
Raël explicitly calls his message "an atheist religion". God doesn't exist, there is only a constantly evolving and changing Infinity of time, space, matter and energy. Nor is there an immortal soul or a supernatural realm. Near-death experiences are brushed aside as hallucinations, and at one point Raël even quotes the Bible to prove that the soul doesn't exist. Our universe is just a small atom in another super-universe, where it might as well be part of a worm or a dog. Indeed, humans are a kind of parasites on the body of a great, universal being who is completely indifferent to our existence. Infinity, after all, doesn't care if humans exist or rather prefer to destroy themselves.
Within this Infinity, there are countless intelligent civilizations, some more intelligent than others. According to Raël, humans were created through a process of genetic engineering about 20,000 years ago. Our creators are known as the Elohim, and live on a distant planet in another star system. In effect, these Elohim are the "gods" of the Raëlian religion, making Raël's system a kind of weird polytheism or henotheism within an overall materialist metaphysic. The alien who contacted Raël in the French hills was one of the Elohim. His name? Yahweh. The alien revealed to the stunned Raël that Jesus was also an alien. Indeed, Yahweh turned out to be the literal father of both Raël and Jesus, and a drawing in my edition of this book shows the three of them conversing, drinking wine and eating fresh fruit together! While Raël claims that this doesn't really mean much, I think it's an obvious way to establish his charismatic authority as a prophet. The Biblical theme is also obvious in Raël's meeting with Yahweh on a high hill, which turns out to be a volcano. (Some scholars claim that Yahweh was indeed a god connected to volcanoes, and as every Jew or Christian knows, Moses met God on Mount Horeb.)
There seems to be a tension in Raël's message between the atheist-materialist metaphysics, and the more traditionally religious side. The Biblical references doesn't sound very atheistic, and in passing Raël also mentions various rituals and meditation techniques. There is also a baptism, known as "transmission of the cellular plan", which takes place simply by the laying on of hands. However, how can the DNA patterns of a material human be transmitted through the hands of another human to the Elohim at their distant planet? Here, Raël is forced to postulate a very advanced form of technology somehow involving invisible energy patterns, but this is tantamount to magic or supernatural forces! Note also the contradiction between "the transmission of the cellular plan" and the bizarre ideas about the frontal bone.
Very often, "Let's welcome our fathers from space" sounds heavily anachronistic. The English-language Japanese edition from 1986, which I own a copy of, is replete with drawings that feel very "seventies" in style and content. Somehow, we've seen all this before, haven't we? All the pictures of long-haired males, Jesus, apocalyptic imagery... The very idea of recieving a spiritual message from space aliens is a product of the mostly American contactee craze during the Cold War. The notion about aliens creating humans through genetic engineering (or aliens mating with humans), sounds like vintage Däniken. The Biblical references would be comprehensible, and provocative, to a culture still nominally Christian. Today, Raël's very special form of Bible-centred religion sounds almost politically incorrect. Raël even supports Zionism! The book also has a strong apocalyptic undertone. One of its subtitles is "The End of the World By Nuclear War is Near. They Will Come To Save The Just". Today, environmental destruction or perhaps terrorism rather than nuclear war between great powers is seen as the main threat to humanity's survival.
So how did this anachronistic pseudo-Biblical contactee cult ever manage to survive and even thrive? No idea, but my guess is that Raël had other ideas which turned out to capture the mood of the 1990's and 2000's just fine. The hedonism, emphasis on LGBT rights and advocacy of human cloning would be obvious contenders for such a role. Personally, I have no particular problem with LGBT rights, but overall, I consider the Raëlians to be a bunch of amoral nihilists. Indeed, Raël has an explicitly hedonistic "ethic", purely centred on the physical sensation of pleasure. He even says that humans are really a kind of computers or robots, simply living out their programming. Apparently, it's possible to become a self-programmed computer, but that too is simply a more advanced machine. On the Elohims' home planet, "live fast and die young" seems to be the motto, with many aliens competing in dangerous blood sports just for the fun of it. These aliens must sign a contract stating that they shouldn't be revived after death, and gladly do so! Meanwhile, only a small group of elect alien scientists can attain immortality by the use of cloning techniques. The rest of the Elohim doesn't seem to mind this obvious injustice. They are content with their own, fleeting hedonistic pleasures before being embraced by Infinity...
In many ways, Raëlianism seem to be a bizarre caricature or involuntary parody of the nihilistic Zeitgeist of our times. Only on one issue does Raël take an unexpected position: while condoning suicide in cases of unbearable pain, he doesn't call for suicide in other situations. Taedium vitae apparently doesn't count. Why? Well, the Raëlians need new members and they have to spread the prophet's message far and wide, so obviously we can't have people killing themselves for no good reason! It seems everything is permitted, so long as the prophet gets his worker-ants...
Obviously, this means that the Raëlian religion will disappear, when the spirit of the times will change. These days, it seems to be changing ever so often. Perhaps in 2020, we will all have other fads...
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