The Raelians and the Elohim

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from The Washington Post.com, January 17, 2003, with a headline: “The Leader of UFO-Land, [excerpts from an interview with his holiness Raël]. Where is baby Eve? Who is this 56-year-old man who has the world’s scientific and religious communities on edge debating the morality of recreating people in labs? Last month, one of his followers claimed to have produced the first human clone, a baby girl called Eve, born December 26, who was supposedly an exact genetic replica of her mother. That announcement was followed by another—that a second clone had been born. The group has said three more cloned babies will be delivered soon.

“They have offered no evidence. Still, the world awaits. Some believe it is possible—if not now, when? If not the Raëlians, who? Raël, formerly Claude Vorilhon, formerly a French journalist and race car driver, and now leader of the Raëlians, the group that believes life on earth was created by aliens who visited to share intelligence with humans they made, says the revolution toward immortality is only beginning.

“As the clock strikes 3 PM, his holiness Raël walks promptly and quietly into the room. He is not a large man. His eyes twinkle when he speaks; a gentleness emanates from him, and you are not sure what his reality is when he describes his encounter with 4-foot space aliens called Elohim. The Elohim had long, dark hair and olive skin and exuded harmony and humor. They told Raël, he says, that they were the ones who made life on earth—that humans were created from DNA by scientifically advanced people who made human beings, literally, in their image.

“This first encounter, Raël is saying, lasted about one hour. There was a second encounter in 1975, two years later. He was taken to ‘the Planet of Eternal Life, where I saw the prophets and human beings who had been cloned after death, like Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Muhammad.’ Raël says those prophets are still alive on that planet. Raël says the Elohim gave him a message to destroy the myth of God. He said they told him, ‘We were the ones who made life on earth. You mistook us for gods.’ They say humans are now mature enough to understand cloning and should build an official embassy near Jerusalem near the Garden of Eden, where, they say, the first humans were cloned and where the Elohim could return and contact us again.

“Raël says the Elohim created synthetic life as easily as the Bible says God created man from a handful of dirt. ‘There is no “God” in the Bible. “Elohim” was wrongly translated into the word ‘God.’” What does it mean? In Hebrew, ‘those who came from the sky.’”

Dave: Tom, I don’t know where you dig up these things. This is just absurd!

Tom: Hey, Dave, you don’t have to dig these things up. This was major news—all the networks covered this.

Dave: You know what it reminds me of, Tom, the old joke: The scientists got together and—I don’t think we have told this on this program, maybe we have but—the scientists got together and challenged God. They said, “We can do anything you can do. You made a man out of dirt; we’ll make a man out of dirt.” God says, “Huh-uh, get your own dirt!” So, the aliens so called here, “Oh, they created man out of DNA”—Come on, guys! I mean, where did the DNA come from? Where did the alien come from? “Oh, they put us on this planet.” Yeah, but who put them on that planet? It’s just—I’m sorry—it’s absurd. It’s not rational and yet people go for it.

Tom: Of course they go for it, Dave. This is publicity. He’s laying out some ideas that are attractive. Earlier we talked about, or referred to, Mormonism. It was amazing how Joseph Smith was able to gain so many followers so quickly. Within a few years, he had thousands of followers, and one of the reasons was that when he was offering them—these potential disciples—was something so different, so bizarre, it wasn’t like moving from Methodism to Presbyterianism, and so on. This was a whole new deal, and people are attracted to this, there’s no doubt.

Dave: They could become gods, that’s the whole idea of Mormonism.

Tom: And where does that come from?

Dave: It comes from the Garden of Eden, the lie of the serpent. So, Tom, what’s the point here? Now, he says, Elohim in the Hebrew means “beings from the sky.” Come on! That’s not what it means. “El” is God. Elohim means—actually it’s the plural form of “God,” and it’s not—a dual form means “three or more,” which raises big questions, because all through the Bible, I think, 2500 times in the Bible you have Elohim. Genesis:1:1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
See All...: “In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth.: Well then, why does it say “God”? Because the verb is in the singular.

You have, for example, at the burning bush, Elohim said to Moses, not “we are that we are”, “I Am that I Am.” So, all the way through the Old Testament, you have plurality and singularity, Father, Son, and Holy Spiri—three persons, one God. This is absolutely essential, and we’ve talked about it in the past—we don’t have time to go into it again. Philosophically, logically, scientifically, biblically, absolutely essential—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—that God must have both singularity and plurality.

But now he says, “There’s no God. We did it.” Come on! Where did we come from, guys? Where did you get the DNA from, and what’s the point? Nothing about sin—we’ve been talking about it—nothing about judgment, nothing about justice, nothing about the problems in the world. We’re going to solve all the problems in the world through cloning!

Tom: Dave, this is the cosmic gospel—we know in every case. He claims to have had an encounter with alien beings.

Dave: Well, he probably did.

Tom: And each time that we have a manifestation like this—you can go back through history—there’s always a gospel that is presented, and here we have it right here: there is no God, there is no death, we can go on forever, you know, eternal life in a place where—no sin, no problems here.

Dave: Exactly. Comes right out of the Garden of Eden—exactly what Satan told Eve.

Tom: So this is the problem with the publicity that an individual like this is getting because people who are really biblically illiterate, who don’t have a source to compare what these sayings—to check this guy out—are just going along with it, they are buying into it.

Dave: Well, they have a brain, they could think a little bit…

Tom: Well, you’d hope…

Dave:But a lot of people don’t do that. But, Tom, what you pointed out is very important. Now we have the proof, and we researched this in years gone by—whether it’s in a hypnotic trance, whether it’s from yoga, whether it’s the so-called trans-channeling, contact with extraterrestrials…

Tom: Mediumship…

Dave: Yeah, séances, whatever it is, it is absolutely the same message that comes through! There is a commonality in the message, there is no denying it, Tom. We’ve done too much research on this, okay? What is the message? You just said it—it’s right out of the mouth of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. We know the source. Every religion partakes of this. There’s one—not a religion—one way to God that’s on the other side, and all the religions of the world are against it. It’s just part and parcel of the same delusion that the serpent gave to Eve in the Garden.