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Raëlism, also known as Raëlianism, is a UFO religion founded in 1970s France by Claude Vorilhon, now known as Raël. Scholars of religion classify Raëlism as a new religious movement. The group is formalised as the International Raëlian Movement (IRM) or Raëlian Church, a hierarchical organisation under Raël's leadership.
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin, or they can be part of a wider religion, in which case they are distinct from pre-existing denominations. Some NRMs deal with the challenges that the modernizing world poses to them by embracing individualism, while other NRMs deal with them by embracing tightly knit collective means. Scholars have estimated that NRMs number in the tens of thousands worldwide. Most NRMs only have a few members, some of them have thousands of members, and a few of them have more than a million members.
Raël is a French journalist who founded and leads the Raëlian Movement, an international UFO religion.
Eduard Albert Meier, commonly nicknamed "Billy", is the founder of a UFO religion called the "Freie Interessengemeinschaft für Grenz- und Geisteswissenschaften und Ufologiestudien" and alleged contactee whose UFO photographs are claimed to show alien spacecraft. Meier claims to be in regular contact with extraterrestrial beings he calls the Plejaren. He also presented other material during the 1970s such as metal samples, sound recordings and film footage. Meier claims to be the seventh reincarnation after six prophets common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Enoch, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Immanuel (Jesus), and Muhammad.
Cult is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "A relatively small group of people having beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister, or as exercising excessive control over members." The term is often applied to new religious movements and other social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term has different, and often divergent or pejorative, definitions both in popular culture and academia, and has been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.
The Aetherius Society is a new religious movement founded by George King in the mid-1950s as the result of what King claimed were contacts with extraterrestrial intelligences, whom he referred to as "Cosmic Masters". The main goal of the believer is to cooperate with these Cosmic Masters to help humanity solve its current Earthly problems and advance into the New Age.
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard routinely referred to "space opera" in his teachings, drawing from science-fiction and weaving it into his origins of human history. In his writings, wherein thetans were reincarnated periodically over quadrillions of years, retaining memories of prior lives, to which Hubbard attributed complex narratives about life throughout the universe. The most controversial of these myths is the story of Xenu, to whom Hubbard attributed responsibility for many of the world's problems.
Philip Jenkins is a professor of history at Baylor University in the United States, and co-director for Baylor's Program on Historical Studies of Religion in the Institute for Studies of Religion. He is also the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University (PSU). He was professor and a distinguished professor of history and religious studies at the same institution; and also assistant, associate and then full professor of criminal justice and American studies at PSU, 1980–93.
A UFO religion is any religion in which the existence of extraterrestrial (ET) entities operating unidentified flying objects (UFOs) is an element of belief. Typically, adherents of such religions believe the ETs to be interested in the welfare of humanity which either already is, or eventually will become, part of a pre-existing ET civilization. Other religions predate the UFO era of the mid 20th century, but incorporate ETs into a more supernatural worldview in which the UFO occupants are more akin to angels than physical aliens, but this distinction may be blurred within the overall subculture. These religions have their roots in the tropes of early science fiction and weird fiction writings, in ufology, and in the subculture of UFO sightings and alien abduction stories. Historians have considered the Aetherius Society, founded by George King, to be the first UFO religion.
The academic study of new religious movements is known as new religions studies (NRS). The study draws from the disciplines of anthropology, psychiatry, history, psychology, sociology, religious studies, and theology. Eileen Barker noted that there are five sources of information on new religious movements (NRMs): the information provided by such groups themselves, that provided by ex-members as well as the friends and relatives of members, organizations that collect information on NRMs, the mainstream media, and academics studying such phenomena.
Commander Ashtar is the name given to an extraterrestrial being or group of beings that a number of people claim to have channeled.
Universal Life is the name of a controversial new religious movement based in Marktheidenfeld, Germany, which is described by members as a part of the new revelation movement. The group was originally called Heimholungswerk Jesu Christi, but has been known as Universal Life since 1984.
Susan Jean Palmer is a Canadian sociologist of religion and author whose primary research interest is new religious movements. Formerly a professor of religious studies at Dawson College in Westmount, Quebec, she is currently an Affiliate Professor at Concordia University. She has authored and edited several books on NRMs.
The application of the labels "cults" or "sects" to religious movements in government documents usually signifies the popular and negative use of the term "cult" in English and a functionally similar use of words translated as "sect" in several European languages. Government reports which have used these words include ones from Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, and Russia. While these documents utilize similar terminology they do not necessarily include the same groups nor is their assessment of these groups based on agreed criteria. Other governments and world bodies also report on new religious movements but do not use these terms to describe them.
Raëlian beliefs and practices are the concepts and principles of Raëlism, a new religious movement and UFO religion founded in 1974 by Claude Vorilhon, an auto racing journalist who changed his name to "Raël". The followers of the International Raëlian Movement believe in an advanced species of extraterrestrial aliens called Elohim who created life on Earth. Raëlians are individualists who believe in sexual self-determination. As advocates of the universal ethic and world peace, they believe the world would be better if geniuses had an exclusive right to govern in what Rael terms Geniocracy. As believers of life in outer space, they hope that human scientists will follow the path of the Elohim by achieving space travel through the cosmos and creating life on other planets. As believers in the resurrection of Jesus through a scientific cloning process by the Elohim, they encourage scientific research to extend life through cloning; however, critics outside are doubtful of its possibility.
Heaven's Gate was an American new religious movement known primarily for the mass suicides committed by its members in 1997. Commonly designated a cult, it was founded in 1974 and led by Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985), known within the movement as Do and Ti. Nettles and Applewhite first met in 1972 and went on a journey of spiritual discovery, identifying themselves as the two witnesses of the Book of Revelation, attracting a following of several hundred people in the mid-1970s. In 1976, a core group of a few dozen members stopped recruiting and instituted a monastic lifestyle.
Andreas Gruenschloss is a German scholar and was Professor of Religious Studies at University of Göttingen from 2002 to 2023. An ordained Protestant pastor, he is the author of books and scholarly articles about interfaith matters, Buddhism, Aztec religion, new religious movements and. lately, religious responses to the COVID19-crisis. He publishes both in German and in English and is a co-editor of the Marburg Journal of Religion.
John A. Saliba is a Maltese-born Jesuit priest, a professor of religious studies at the University of Detroit Mercy and a noted writer and researcher in the field of new religious movements.
References
- 1 2 Christopher Partridge (12 November 2012). UFO Religions. Routledge. pp. 185–. ISBN 978-1-135-25159-8.
- 1 2 Norway James R. Lewis Associate Professor of Religion University of Tromso (17 November 2003). The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements. Oxford University Press, USA. pp. 425–. ISBN 978-0-19-970875-8.
- 1 2 Huwiler, Sira. "Sektenchefin Uriella fordert, Pädophilen freizulassen (Cult leader Uriella calls to release pedophile)". Die Welt . Axel Springer AG . Retrieved 22 November 2015.
- 1 2 Dammann, Viktor. "Uriella now defends a Bubenschänder". Blick . Ringier . Retrieved 22 November 2015.
- ↑ Frederick William Dame (2001). History of Switzerland: Modern Switzerland. E. Mellen Press. ISBN 978-0-7734-7250-1.
- ↑ Diana G. Tumminia (2007). Alien Worlds: Social and Religious Dimensions of Extraterrestrial Contact. Syracuse University Press. pp. 309–. ISBN 978-0-8156-0858-5.
- ↑ Uriella ist tot: Sektenführerin aus Ibach stirbt im Alter von 90 Jahren (in German)
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