One of the apparently biggest frauds of the established churches is exposed by the Raelians: the original Hebrew for the word meaning God used in the first chapter of Genesis is the plural word Elohim. Whilst there may be good reasons for questioning such an assertion, later on in Chapter 6 of Genesis, the Nephilim are mentioned, again a plural word translated by the Renaissance translators of the Bible as Sons of God, who "married the daughters of men and their issue were the men of renown". Who were the Men of Renown? Well to the translators, they were renowned and famous . . . and this was the powderkeg of the Renaissance. In 12th / 13th Century Toledo, Arab scholars met Greek scholars and discovered that their myths matched and that similar stories had come down to them speaking of the same history. Now few people have heard of the Greek Heroes and the men of renown such as Achilles and Aeneas are not so known - but sons of mortal/immortal unions they were. It was this that started the webmaster seeing plaques depicting mortals and immortals dancing together, undertaking research of the ancient texts to fathom the question of whether such events had really taken place and whether there was a time really when mortals and immortals danced.
My conclusions supported Rael's account. But Rael's account full of biblical references could easily have been written by Von Daniken, who has been pilloried and riduculed for years and who wrote Chariots of the Gods before Rael started publicising and Graham Hancock's book "Fingerprints of the Gods" is in the same line. And from a particularly scholarly perspective Zecharia Sitchin's research of the Canaanite texts agrees. Amazon.com stock both authors' books and this site is interesting.
According to Rael on his visit to heaven he conversed with the the Good Guys and indeed Satan himself. Satan is apparently a good guy but has severe misgivings about humanity and so tempts humanity left right and centre to show to the Elohim who believe that Mankind can be good that really we are a very very dangerous animal. In fact that is exactly the debate that is played out on the East Frieze of the Parthenon Frieze. It's the debate that happened on the throwing of Mankind out of Eden, Sodom and Gomorrah, Noah's Flood, and at Babel. In the Bible, the first Chapter of the book of Job mentions the Sons of God a second time and depicted a similar scenario. The fascinating concurrance of all these old stories led the webmaster into studying Rael's claims. A lot, one feels are right . . . but Von Daniken stated many of them before him, whilst others are disturbing. To that extent this site about the Raelians is interesting and the webmaster holds further views.
On the planet to where Rael was taken, he was warned how Mankind must be stopped from playing with Nuclear Power and how mankind could lead enlightened lives. People should be encouraged to wear long hair as it is supposed to be a help to telepathic communication. Amongst other things, Rael was shown the making of cloned humanoids. I say humanoids as the purpose of these was not as human beings but, (as I think I recall reading the book) with part of their brains "voluntarily disabled" were built as robots to serve men, as biofabric is much more efficient thans computers and electromechanics.
Perhaps there's a good idea behind the making of bio-robots but the "voluntary" disabling of part of the brain raises potentially uncomfortable questions. However, I look at much of today's humanity ever approaching closer to disastrous necessitation of 1984 Orwellian technology because they cannot be relied upon to be good, working as slaves in telecentres for organisations serving no other purpose than the making of money, (try phoning your local branch of your bank, or the water company to mend a leak), Americans voting for George Bush and baying for wars and submitting to requests from authority without question . . . and conclude that much of mankind are merely robots of the computers and slaves to the greed of materialism and the multinational corportions, others aimlessly playing computer games and watching violent movies on TV . . . and conclude that many non-cloned humans are currently as robots who have voluntarily disabled their brains, without intervention of Elohim. Zitchin maintains that Mankind were made as robots to mine gold for the Gods . . . and the classical myth was that Prometheus felt sorry for us on account of the way in which we were treated. So perhaps these robots are not as disturbing after all . . .
But what I find disturbing about the Raelian philosophy is a callous disregard to the concept of a soul. We are, according to his visit to the Elohim, merely mechanical grows from DNA. I know from a limited number of potent psychic experiences that there is something more and beyond of which ghosts cannot be explained by Rael. Eternal life is not, according to Rael, achieved by spirituality but by repeated re-cloning at the end of the body-life and for this purpose at death a couple of square centimetres has to be extracted from the brain at the front of the forehead. One perceives that a religion without soul is a potentially dangerous thing, but all sorts of atrocities have been comitted in the name of religion whether they teach about soul or not. Many promote their own brands of truth whilst denouncing others but this site deals well with issues of God and Religion. The Bahai faith teaches, as the most learned Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks put it "In Heaven there is Truth, on Earth there are Truths".
So I conclude that perhaps there's much of the Raelian philosophy that one can buy into, much that was written by Von Daniken before Rael, much that is confirmed by other sources, and some which is disturbing. However, of the latter, even some of the de-bunking is faulty. Some criticise the use of the Swastika but the reality is that the Raelians use the Vedic version which rotates in the other direction.
But Rael's alleged propensities for motor racing reminded me of an enlightend Indian who told me that he was giving up "fast cars, fast women and slow horses". This reminds me of a quote from A piece of Blue Sky about founding new religions. What a lovely idea it is to found a new religion which has as its maxims to raise lots of money to build an intergalactic embassy and to make robots for gratification and to worship in sensual meditation.
In searching for the message of God among humanity, one has to distill the Truth from the truths and in this, any religious leader that says "follow me, there is no other path" must be treated with considerable discernment.
However you wish to look at the Raelians, it is apparent to anyone with half and eye that the human race is currently in a pitiful and parlous state and that unless we all turn to the good, bad, big bad, will follow. We are currently proving Rael's interview with Satan right!
Ultimately there is only one truth: heaven is only achieved, as Jesus put it, in "love they neighbour as thyself". When my sons quarrel, I say to them "Did you expect that in doing that to your brother, it would help your brother to love you more?" and to the brother: "Love him - he only did that not to hurt you but to evoke a reaction because he wants your attention - may that reaction be love".
Best wishes, Season's Greetings and Happy 2003!