Scientology --- What's the deal with cults and their volcanos? <p>

What's the deal with cults and their volcanos?

Much like Dave Letterman's bit, "What's the Deal with Old Guys and Glasses?" come this new possible premise. It seems Hubbard was not the only cult leader to mix up aliens and volcanos.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/news2.html

CLONE DOC'S JOY OF SECTS

DRESSED from head to toe in figure-hugging black, baby-clone doctor Brigitte Boisselier strutted between 17 nervous ‘initiates' to her sex cult.

The ten men and seven women gathered at a remote farmhouse on the 2,000-acre estate of Sir Richard Glyn near Wimborne in Dorset.

And by the flickering light of candles and the booming sound of whale song, the prospective converts to the Raelian movement, in which Brigitte is a ‘bishop', were coaxed into sharing and exploring their darkest fantasies.

This is the same woman who, on Friday afternoon, made the shattering announcement that her Clonaid operation, a medical offshoot set up by the Raelian cult, was responsible for the birth of the world's first cloned baby. She said a 7lb girl named Eve was delivered on Boxing Day morning.

Again, she was dressed in black, right down to her ribbed tights.

If her claims are verified, reputable scientists say it will open a Pandora's Box of mutant horrors and designer children.

The Raelians, led by Brigitte's svengali Claude Vorhilon, believe alien experimenters created the human race 25,000 years ago using DNA technology. The cult preaches the power of group sex and asks for up to 10 per cent of members' earnings after tax to help build an ‘alien embassy'.

Flushed

At the Glyn estate Brigitte took huge delight in listening to her flock describe their sexual urges.

First she led a meditation session, ordering novices—including an undercover News of the World reporter—to lie on the ground, eyes shut.

Walking between the bodies she intoned: "Imagine your souls are contained in balls of energy...now imagine that ball moving upwards and then through space."

Soon afterwards came a separate ‘sex energy' lesson in one of Sir Richard Glynn's barn lofts. The landowner is not a member of the sect but allows his estate to be used by them.

In the loft each member was told to write down his or her most intimate fantasies. A woman in her twenties was picked by one of Brigitte's aides to read out hers first.

Caught between obeying her instructions and deep embarrassment, she obeyed falteringly, flushing a deep red: "I imagine myself being dominated. Not by one man, but by three or four at the same time...one by one they take me...I am naked and submissive."

Brigitte never took her eyes off the woman. The rest of the group squirmed, knowing their ordeal would come.

The £120 course in May 1997 was jointly run by Brigitte and Swiss-born Gerard Jeandupeux.

Gerard leered at our reporter: "It's a shame there aren't more women here. You can't have fun with just a handful." He added later: "If you feel like having a sensual or sexual experience with one or several others, whatever sex, do what you want as long as they agree." Gerard also told our man he could be invited to a bizarre cross-dressing ball in Switzerland. "Men dress as women and wear stuffed bras, and the women dress as men and wear moustaches and play the man role," he said.

"Women are expected to proposition the men and initiate having sex with them."

Brigitte's Raelian master, Claude Vorhilon, insists he met an alien called Yaweh Elohim on an extinct volcano in 1973.

The being, which was apparently olive-skinned and had a wispy beard, gave Claude the name Rael, meaning messenger. He was given a mission to prepare for the aliens' return to Earth, with a deadline of 2035.

His cult, which has an annual turnover of around £5million, now claims 1,000 members in Britain and 55,000 wordwide. Vorhilon himself is a multi-millionaire with a passion for motor racing. In a copy of his book, Extra Terrestrials Took Me To Their Planet, that we obtained at the time, Vorhilon says: "Children should be taught to have sex purely for pleasure without any emotional commitment to the sexual partner."

He adds: "Women particularly should have sex with one or more individuals of either sex as long as those individuals agree, since contraception has freed women from fear of pregnancy...

Threesomes

"Sect members should, at the same time encourage those they love to seek sexual gratification with others. Sect members should also continue to sexually gratify a loved one who does not oppose them having sex with others.

"Sect members should also not reject but have sex with another person if that person wants to gratify them sexually.

"Sect members can have heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual sex in couples, threesomes, foursomes and ‘moresomes'." The sect's HQ in Canada is called UFOland—complete with a replica of the flying saucer Vorhilon insists he saw.

Raelians flock to the site for ‘free love' orgies. In 1992, hundreds more devotees gathered in a field in rural France.

Cloning scientist Brigitte announced on Friday that the Raelians' first cloned baby, Eve, was delivered by Caesarean section at 11.55am on December 26. The mother is said to be a 31-year-old American.

US offshoot company Clonaid apparently began human cloning last spring with 10 implants, five of which were "terminated spontan-eously", French-born Brigitte claims.

She told a Miami press conference: "Five others were successful and are still successful...the next one is due in Europe next week so it's very close and the three others will be born by the end of January, maybe early February."

In his book, Vorhilon suggests that a huge bank of members' DNA is being built up. He urges Raelians to "arrange that on their death, one square centimetre precisely of the bone from their forehead, 33 millimetres above the middle axis between their pupils, is sent to the (Raelian) Embassy for re-creation purposes."

Cloning babies involves making an exact replica of the mother by taking DNA from one cell, implanting it in a ‘hollowed-out' egg and bombarding it with chemicals and electricity. No male sperm is involved.

Evidence

The procedure is illegal in Britain, Western Europe and the US, but there are around 170 nations where it is not banned.

Brigitte provided no hard evidence of the clone-birth, insisting that independent evidence would be provided after the baby emerged from hospital in three days.

Many scientists are sceptical, but British expert Dr Patrick Dixon said that if it is the case: "2003 will go down as the Year of the Clone—when humankind realised that science is running out of control."

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"I'm really disappointed that you're being like this, Jeff. But then again, you have hostile thoughts about me, so we're even."

"But of course, you're so German and you dislike me so much you'd nitpick about anything I did."

--- Deana M. Holmes, the Lucy Van Pelt of a.r.s

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From: jimdbb@aol.com (JimDBB)
Date: 29 Dec 2002 05:34:03 GMT
Subject: A baby called Eve ( Raelians compared to L. Ron Hubbard)
Message-ID: <20021229003403.23518.00000472@mb-mg.aol.com>

A baby called Eve and the mystery of a cult that believes in aliens

The Independent, December 28, 2002 By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Either this was one of the most momentous announcements of all time or it was cheap gimmick designed to garner maximum publicity for an outlandish cult that believes in aliens from outer space. It might be both.

With all the theatrical pose of the Addams Family's Morticia, a French chemist called Brigitte Boisselier stood before the world's press yesterday to announce that the first cloned baby had been born to an American woman aged 31.

Smiling broadly before a bank of microphones, Ms Boisselier said the baby had been cloned by a team of anonymous scientists from unnamed institutes who fused the genetic material from a skin cell of the woman with one of her own eggs. No sperm was involved, she said, but no proof was offered.

The baby is apparently healthy and has been nicknamed "Eve" by Ms Boisselier and her colleagues. The girl, weighing 7lbs, was delivered on Boxing Day by Caesarean section at a hospital in an unspecified country and would be allowed home in three days, Ms Boisselier said.

"It is very important to remember that we are talking about a baby," she said.

"The baby is very healthy. She is doing fine. The parents are happy. I hope that you remember them when you talk about this baby. [She is] not like a monster, like some results of something that is disgusting."

Doctors and other scientists immediately condemned the claim, saying it was unfounded and unethical. The British fertility specialist Robert Winston said those behind the announcement had no scientific credibility.

"These people are barking mad. If you believe in extraterrestrials, it says it all. One will only believe they have cloned a baby if they provide the proof,"

Lord Winston said.

Yet that is just what Clonaid, the company Ms Boisselier runs, intends to do.

She said independent scientists would be allowed to test the baby's DNA to see whether it is identical to that of the mother ā€" as it must be if the girl is a true clone.

Clonaid is affiliated to the Raelian Movement, a cult whose followers believe that alien scientists from another world created life on Earth 25,000 years ago using their own genetic material.

Ms Boisselier thanked the leader of the movement, Claude Vorilhon, a former motoring journalist. She called him by his religious name, Rael, which was apparently given to him by a visitor from space. She described him as her spiritual leader.

Ms Boisselier has entrusted the task of providing proof of the cloning to another journalist, Michael Guillen, a freelance writer who said he was science editor for ABC News for 14 years.

Mr Guillen, who has a doctorate in physics, said he had agreed to act as arbiter on two conditions: that there would be no strings attached and that the DNA tests would be conducted by scientists of his choice who were completely independent of Clonaid or the Raelians. After the tissue samples have been collected from the baby and her mother ā€" in three days' time ā€" tests will be done and the results will be revealed in about a week, Mr Guillen said.

Ms Boisselier said she was confident the tests would prove the baby was a clone. "You can still go back to your office and treat me as a fraud," she told the assembled journalists at a press conference in Hollywood, Florida. "You have one week to do that."

Ms Boisselier said four other women were also pregnant with cloned babies. One is due to give birth next week in an unspecified country in northern Europe and two somewhere in Asia at the end of next month.

The baby to be born in Europe was the child of a lesbian couple and the two other babies were clones of children whose tissue was preserved before they died, Ms Boisselier said.

This is not the first time that maverick scientists have claimed to have cloned human embryos and implanted them into women. Severino Antinori, an Italian fertility doctor, has claimed on two occasions to have done so, saying that one woman was expected to give birth next month.

Dr Antinori said yesterday's claim "makes me laugh and at the same time disconcerts me, because it creates confusion between those who make serious scientific research" and those who do not.

"We keep up our scientific work, without making announcements. I don't take part in this ... race," he said.

Robert Lanza, a cloning specialist at Advanced Cell Technology, a company based in Massachusetts that produced the first reported cloned human embryo last year, said Clonaid had "no scientific credibility at this point".

But he did not dismiss the possibility of success. In some respects, cloning to produce a baby might be easier than cloning an embryo to produce stem cells for medical research. "They may be able to bypass many of the problems that we would encounter in the laboratory," Dr Lanza said.

Ms Boisselier said the technique used to clone the baby girl was similar to that used to produce Dolly the sheep, the first clone generated from the cell of an adult mammal. This involved transferring a nucleus from a skin cell into an egg cell that had had its own nucleus removed, to create a viable embryo.

The Dolly experiment involved 277 attempts to produce one pregnancy that resulted in the birth of a healthy, live offspring. Although other cloning researchers have since improved this efficiency rate, animal studies suggest that the technique is still far too dangerous for humans.

Ms Boisselier said Clonaid scientists began experiments with about 3,000 cow eggs in August 2001 and moved to human eggs in January.

After three months of experiments that had produced cloned human embryos in a test tube, Clonaid implanted 10 women with the embryos. Five of the women had miscarriages, Ms Boisselier said. She said a further 20 women had already been chosen for the second phase of the project. After these women had had the opportunity to become pregnant with cloned embryos, the service would be offered at clinics in each continent, she said.

Asked about payments, Ms Boisselier replied: "Nobody has paid me for anything so far. Maybe that will change. We will offer a service, and we will be asking for money."

THE MAN WHO CLAIMS CLONING 'HOLDS THE KEY TO ETERNAL LIFE'

By Charles Arthur

Claude Vorilhon was a French journalist who specialised in writing about car racing until 13 December 1973, when he visited extinct volcanos in Clermont-Ferrand, France.

He claims he was then contacted by a visitor from another planet, who descended in something the size of a small bus, conical with a flashing white light on its top. Two years later, he was taken to the aliens' planet and shown various super-advanced technologies, including a cloning system that produced five lissom women who, he wrote, "submitted to all my desires" in an "unforgettable bath".

He said the alien called him Rael, so he changed his name to match. The aliens also said "sensual meditation" was "the key to mastering the harmonising possibilities in the brain, given to us by those who designed the human". A good form for such meditation would be sexual, he was told.

So was born the Raelian religion, or cult. Its basic tenets are that humans were created by the cloning of aliens 25,000 years ago and that the super-being Elohim will return in 2025 to Jerusalem and liberate from earthly sorrows people with the "proper" awareness.

The group has an liberal approach to sex (though condoms are obligatory) and its symbol, a whirling wheel in a Star of David, represents the idea that "everything runs in cycles". It sounds like a combination of the tales told by the science-fiction author L Ron Hubbard to underpin the doctrines of Scientology (which claims the life force behind humans arrived on Earth 35,000 years ago), the standard UFO visitation stories and a touch of the 1968 film Barbarella. Oddly, in November 1974, the rock group Genesis released an album with a story whose central character was Rael.

But the movement appears to be thriving, claiming 55,000 devotees worldwide and operating a theme park, UFOland, near Montreal. In the Nineties, Quebec granted the movement religious status. Its devotees have distributed condoms among Canadian teenagers and tried to convert Roman Catholics.

Clonaid, which made yesterday's announcement, was founded in February 1997, shortly after scientists in Scotland announced the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from adult cells. Its goal was to produce the first human clone.

Brigitte Boisselier, a former chemistry teacher, is a Raelian who has said her daughter, aged 24, would carry a cloned baby. Raelhanded the project to Ms Boisselier, claiming "cloning is the key to eternal life". Experts say she does not have a record in any cloning. Rael's response? "Nothing can stop science."

David King, the director of Human Genetics Alert, a group pushing for human cloning to be criminalised, said: "These claims have very little to do with reality, and more about a cult's ploy to boost membership and funds."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=364750

From: jimdbb@aol.com (JimDBB)
Date: 30 Dec 2002 05:53:41 GMT
Subject: Rael: Human copy is start of big things
Message-ID: <20021230005341.13331.00000267@mb-de.aol.com>

For sect, alleged human copy is start of big things

Miami Herald, Sun, Dec. 29, 2002

BY ANABELLE de GALE, KARL ROSS AND DAVID KIDWELL adegale@herald.com

They are doctors and architects, therapists and engineers. They are also members of a worldwide society, 55,000 strong, that believes humans were created by greenish beings from outer space.

''Some people believe that God is sitting on a cloud and yet they are laughing at us?'' said Andre Pinsonneault, a 58-year-old engineer from Montreal who now lives in Miami Beach and is a ''priest guide'' among 25 local Raelians. ``Some people believe in evolution and some in Santa Claus. The more science progresses, people will see that is primitive thinking.''

On Friday, the Raelians announced in Hollywood that scientists linked to the sect had successfully cloned the first human baby, a girl named Eve born somewhere on earth.

The South Florida Raelian community was celebrating the news of the supposed birth, Pinsonneault said.

''Of course we are thrilled. This is what we have been expecting for 20 years;

we just didn't know where or when,'' Pinsonneault said. They still don't know the where: Members say the name of the mother and the child's whereabouts are a closely-guarded secret, not revealed even to the most ardent.

The cloning is just the beginning, Pinsonneault added.

''Being cloned as a baby is not very interesting. We will eventually create an accelerated growth process,'' he said.

The plan is to copy the contents of your mind -- thoughts, memories, etc. -- onto a machine and to have that information fed into a clone after your death.

Pinsonneault compared the futuristic plan to upgrading an out-dated computer.

''It's like transfering old e-mails, files and your favorites to a new hard drive,'' he said. "Cloning is the key to eternal life. If you want to live forever, you will be able to do so.''

Cloning is a pillar of Raelians' philosophy. They believe humans are clones of aliens known as Elohim. They know this, they say, because aliens abducted their Raelian leader, ''Rael'' or Claude Vorilhon, on two occasions and explained it to him.

Pinsonneault, who was raised a Catholic in Canada, read a book written by Rael about the movement 25 years ago and was convinced. He and his fellow Raelians meet once a month at the homes of various members to meditate, teach and encourage "positive energy.'

'WE ARE GROUNDED'

''People think we are a bunch of crazy people,'' Pinsonneault said. "I went to my first meeting expecting to see people in white robes doing stupid things.

What I found was intelligent professional people.

"We are not wackos. We are grounded.''

Not so, say skeptics, including Bishop Thomas Wenski of the Archdiocese of Miami.

''More people would call Monday night football a religion before Raelianism,'' Wenski said.

"Until proven otherwise [the cloned baby] has all the markings of a skillful hoax. Certainly cloning is a dangerous possibility, but these people seem too off the wall to be taken too seriously.''

As adherents of other religions do, Pinsonneault said, Raelians make donations to help spread their word. A minimum annual contribution of $150 is required, though 10 percent of one's salary is recommended.

The members make an annual pilgrimage to Montreal, the home of their leader, to meet for an international Raelian conference.

FOUR HOLIDAYS

The Raelians celebrate four holidays a year:

ā€¢ The first Sunday in April: The anniversary of the creation of the first human being on earth 13,000 years ago.

ā€¢ Dec. 13: The first visit to Rael by extraterrestrials.

ā€¢ Aug. 6: The Raelian New Year is celebrated on the day the United States bombed Hiroshima. The reason? ''This is the first time humans used energy to destroy themselves,'' Pinsonneault explained.

ā€¢ Oct. 2: The second visit to Rael by extraterrestrials.

''It is a beautiful message,'' said Raelian Lisa Lumiere of Hollywood.

The alternative-medicine therapist leads the group in meditation at its monthly gatherings, which are open to the public. Each meeting has a different theme;

the subjects have included happiness, femininity, serenity and infinity.

''I have a regular job and work like everybody else,'' Lumiere said. "In my spare time I spread the beautiful message.''

In addition, Lumiere heads free workshops to teach the curious about the Raelian understanding.

Lumiere was a yoga instructor in Japan 16 years ago when one of her students introduced her to Raelianism. She read the book and attended a Rael seminar held in Tokyo in 1986.

''It was just easier for me to believe that we were created by another human being from another planet as opposed to a supernatural,'' she said. "The science supports us.''

She too called the potential to clone "a great thing for humanity.''

The group originated in France in 1973 when aliens landed in a noiseless craft and abducted Rael, said Ricky Lee Roehr, the president or ''national guide'' of the U.S. Raelian movement. They spent six days telling him about how they founded the human race, then left.

''They looked just like human beings, but with slightly greenish skin, like someone with liver trouble, and almond-shaped eyes,'' Roehr said. "They love us and respect us, but like any good parents they don't want to be overly involved. They want us to learn things for ourselves.''

OTHERS' CANONS

Roehr, like Pinsonneault, dismissed more traditional religions and their texts.

''All of these books were written by primitive people who didn't even understand what a matchbook is or a flashlight, much less flying saucers,'' Roehr said.

Michael Lamas, a New Age merchant who is familiar with Raelian beliefs, flirted with joining the group about 10 years ago.

''I went to one meeting and it wasn't for me,'' said Lamas, who likened their beliefs to a creation theory with a sci-fi twist.

Does he believe the cloning claim?

''They could. They have the money and everything, and the technology is there,'' Lamas said. "That's a pretty bold thing they're doing. If it was for publicity, it worked.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/4832286.htm

From: jimdbb@aol.com (JimDBB)
Date: 30 Dec 2002 06:05:29 GMT
Subject: Rael: " Everything that the Pope is against, I support."
Message-ID: <20021230010529.13345.00000313@mb-de.aol.com>

Leader says Eve will not see outside world until age of 18

WorldNet, December 29, 2002

OF MICE AND MEN

Does the UFO cult that claims to have cloned the first human baby have an agenda beyond weird science?

It appears so, according to interviews with its leader, Rael, formerly French magazine sportswriter and wannabe race-car driver Claude Vorilhon, 56. He took the name Rael after claiming to have a close encounter of the third kind.

His message for the world, like all Raelians, is that there's no God. We can all achieve immortality through cloning.

On Dec. 13, 1973, Vorilhon said he was walking in the Clermont-Ferrand volcanic mountain range in France when a UFO touched down. Humanoid creatures with pale greenish skin and almond-shaped eyes took him aboard, saying they wanted him to be their messenger to humankind.

The aliens explained they cloned the first people 25,000 years ago. Calling themselves ''Elohim'' ā€" a name appearing in Genesis commonly translated as "gods" ā€" the aliens said they had been mistaken as divine by several religions.

The little green people said Vorilhon was himself a clone and that they impregnated his mother in 1946 after the use of the first atomic bombs awakened them to mankind's advanced scientific knowledge.

''When I told my mother and grandmother the true story, my grandmother was relieved because she said that she had seen UFOs lingering around the house over the years and had never told anyone,'' Vorilhon told the Village Voice last year.

Vorilhon, who frequently dons flowing white garments, said his mission is to spread the word that there is no God, and that science and our alien forefathers would set people free ā€"physically and sexually ā€" and help them live forever.

Two years after the aliens' first visit, they reappeared and took Vorilhon to another planet where he said he met Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha. All became immortal through cloning, he said.

Ever since, he's been preaching the message of protecting the rights of the ''unreborn'' ā€" a buzzword he used while testifying before Congress in March 2001. A federal cloning ban would be a Dark Ages act suitable for the Taliban, not freedom-loving America, he said.

''Traditional religions have always been against scientific progress,'' he said. ''They were against the steam engine, electricity, airplanes, cars, radio, television, etc. If we had listened to them, we would still have horses and carts and candles.''

Rael claims he has 2,000 more people on his books waiting to be cloned.

Rael set up Clonaid, the company which helped an anonymous mother clone her child Eve, who was born in the USA. In an exclusive interview with Scotland's Sunday Herald, Rael said Eve would not be seen by the outside world until she was 18. Clonaid has said it will provide scientific proof that the child is a clone within the next week.

He robustly defended the cloning experiment, saying: 'We are for peace and love. This is a time of danger for earth. We are spiritually lost. The two most powerful countries on earth ā€" America and Britain ā€" are ready to kill 100,000 civilians in Iraq, yet people are angry over the birth of a beautiful little girl through cloning.'

Rael's 55,000 Raelian followers believe humans were created in labs by aliens.

Rael claims to have been visited by aliens in his native France, and says his ultimate goal is to clone people at the point of death, grow the clone to adulthood in a few of hours and download their memory into the clone's body ā€"

a technique he says will lead to eternal life and which he believes will be attainable in 25 years.

Rael also attacked Christianity, and particularly the Vatican, for its opposition to cloning. 'Everything that the Pope is against, I support,' he said. 'The Catholic Church is the worst enemy of human nature.'

Those who adhere to Vorilhon's teachings are encouraged to be respectful of other people and to enjoy the sexual company of others, including those of the same sex.

''He surrounds himself with attractive, glassy-eyed women ā€" maybe that's why he likes Florida in the winter,'' said Eric Siblin, a Canadian writer who interviewed Rael for the Canadian magazine Logik three years ago. Siblin said he went to a pro-cloning event in Montreal run by the Raelians, whose interest in extraterrestrials and free love were evident.

''The meeting drew hundreds of people,'' he said. ''Lots of them were sci-fi nerds, and there were strippers, too.''

The sect sells science fiction knickknacks at its theme park/compound outside Montreal known as UFOLand, Siblin said.

The group, which claims more than 55,000 members worldwide, supports itself by tithing member's salaries ā€" up to 3 percent of earnings ā€" selling $9,000 embryo-obtaining ''cloning machines'' and charging large sums for cloning services.

In 1999, Vorilhon persuaded former West Virginia state legislator Mark Hunt to pay $500,000 to open a secret laboratory in Nitro, W.Va., to clone his dead 10-month-old son. Raelian Bishop Brigitte Boisselier, who made Friday's announcement, headed the project, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration closed it down before she could finish.

After that, the Raelians never shunned the limelight.

In June, 2000, Catholic officials in Montreal took the Raelians to court in an attempt to break a lease that allowed the cult to use church property for its meetings. Catholic representatives said they were not aware of the Raelians' sexually libertine and space-age beliefs when they signed the agreement.

Problems with the Catholic Church resurfaced this year when Raelian protesters appeared outside a Catholic secondary school in Montreal and urged students to renounce their religion. The demonstrators carried wooden crosses, which they wanted the students to burn.

The Raelians have had run-ins with public institutions as well. In July 2000, they accused the United Nations of religious discrimination after UNESCO excluded the Raelian cult from its Manifesto 2000, a worldwide petition for peace and nonviolence.

Also, Vorilhon has crusaded to try to establish an embassy, preferably in Israel, for extraterrestrials when they return to Earth. The effort hasn't gone far.

Rael also revealed that his next big venture would be the creation of a virtual sex machine which will allow computer users to have sex with each other online.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30224

From: jimdbb@aol.com (JimDBB)
Date: 03 Jan 2003 18:43:07 GMT
Subject: Rael Religion
Message-ID: <20030103134307.13274.00000368@mb-de.aol.com>

Rael Religion?

ABC News, January 3, 2003 By Geraldine Sealey

That's when 4-foot, dark-haired, olive-skinned extraterrestrials appeared to Vorilhon at a volcano in France and told him they created human life in their image using DNA, he says. The scientifically advanced visitors, known as Elohim, supposedly stayed in contact with humans through the years via prophets such as Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, says Vorilhon, now 56 and a former car-racing journalist.

Now known as Rael, Vorilhon seeks to spread a message of science and spirituality and build an embassy for the extraterrestrials in Jerusalem. Last week, much of the world was introduced to the Quebec-based Raelian movement when the group claimed to have created the first human clone ā€" a step toward achieving eternal life, they believe.

Since then, Raelians have been widely ridiculed as cultists. Indeed, many practices and beliefs of this sect stray far from the mainstream: the UFO theme park, the emphasis on open sexuality, and the leader himself, who wears his hair in a bun perched on his balding head.

But just how much more far-fetched is Raelianism from other faiths? Just the thought of comparing Raelian beliefs to Christianity, Judaism or Islam surely raises sacrilegious flags for many, despite the freedom of religion encoded in the Constitution.

Many religious scholars, though, see a broader definition of religion ā€" and the Raelians fit it, they say, just as Scientologists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons do.

Instead of the word "cult," considered by religious scholars to be the most derogatory term of their field, modern sects are known as "new religious movements" in academic lingo. Just because a belief system is young does not make it wrong, scholars say.

After all, the Romans once considered Christians superstitious for not worshipping the emperor, said Frank K. Flinn, religion professor at Washington University in St. Louis. "Yesterday's cult is tomorrow's religion," he said.

People Who Believe Weird Things

Flinn, who several times has appeared as an expert trial witness to present a legal definition of religion, says he identifies three essential characteristics of a religion. It must possess a system of beliefs that explain the ultimate meaning of life, must teach religious practices and norms for behavior and conduct rites and ceremonies, and must unite a body of believers.

The Raelian movement fits this definition, he said. According to their Web site, Raelians claim 55,000 worldwide followers, although this number has not been independently verified.

Not everyone, of course, is so generous to the Raelians.

"This is from this one guy Rael's one hallucinogenic experience. It's a cult of personality. He's a pretty dynamic, persuasive fellow," said Michael Shermer, director of the Skeptics Society and author of Why People Believe Weird Things . "I've never seen any verification of his 55,000 members."

The Raelians are just the latest fringe religious group to make headlines in recent years and raise questions about what constitutes religion and what makes a cult.

Scientologists have caused a stir with celebrity believers such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, bitter legal battles and accusations of abuse and corruption. The Hare Krishnas defended themselves against brainwashing allegations and gained a reputation for soliciting new members in airport terminals.

While many religious scholars are accepting of new sects, apocalyptic groups often garner criticism. Heaven's Gate, whose members committed mass suicide and made the sect extinct in 1997, believed a spaceship riding behind the comet Hale-Bopp would take them to heaven, for example.

"With groups like Heaven's Gate you might be able to use that term [cult]; they wreaked a great deal of harm," said J. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religions and author of Why Cults Succeed Where the Church Fails .

From UFO Sect to Mainstream Religion?

To many Americans, though, Heaven's Gate equals Hare Krishna equals Moonies.

New beliefs don't win widespread popularity here and are even less welcome than a century ago, Melton said.

Early in the 20th century, 30 percent of Americans were affiliated with a religion. Now, 80 percent claim to be members of a particular church. "The chances of [a new sect's] success are less because the pool of unaffiliated is less," Melton said.

A century ago, Americans considered Mormons cultists, in part because of their polygamous ways. But now, many prominent Americans belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and Mormons (who no longer advocate polygamy) are officially mainstream.

Is such acceptance possible for Raelians?

Usually, successful new religious groups are evangelistic and aggressive about recruiting members, and maintain a fairly low level of tension with mainstream society, Melton said.

Success for the Raelians may mean dropping their affiliation with UFO-style beliefs. "Mormons as polygamists couldn't do it. Mormons not as polygamists could do it," Melton said.

While some observers say the recent publicity about Rael's cloning claims may boost the sect's profile, some scholars say the foray into science may prove calamitous for the movement.

Cloning Failure Could Test Faith

Clonaid, the Raelians' scientific arm, claims to have cloned the first human, but so far the company has not provided scientific proof. And even if it did create a clone, costly mistakes in the process could test Raelians' faith and further ostracize the group.

"In terms of their own belief system, what they're doing [cloning] is ethical, but not in terms of broader society," Flinn said. To illustrate his point of just what can go wrong, Flinn pointed to the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, who has experienced premature aging and arthritis.

For others though, greater costs of Raelians' faith could come to science itself, whether or not their cloning efforts were successful.

"This could be an important development for medical technology that's now tainted," Shermer said. "The real guys are worried Congress will panic and pass restrictive laws [on cloning] because some UFO nut says he did it."

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/raelians030103.html

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