GIVE ME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION

James McCarter meets

the people who believe we were created by extra-terrestrials

THAT grand old American fraudster, L Ron Hubbard, is reported to have said: `If you want to get rich, start a religion.' It seems sound enough advice, and as I should like to be quite a bit more rich than is presently the case, I decided to do some homework. Obviously, the first thing to do was to study the potential market. Where better to begin than at the first public meeting of the Raelian Movement, to be held that night at the Friends' Meeting House in Euston Road?

Not everyone, perhaps, is aware of the aims and beliefs of the Raelian Movement. It is enough to say that they are followers of a Frenchman named Rael, who claims to be the latest and last in a line of prophets stretching back to the days of Moses. Rael himself would be there to explain his extraordinary message.

The last of the prophets was 20 minutes late, but the audience of over 500 waited patiently. They seemed a representative crowd, no age group dominating, modest off-the-peg suits as favoured as jeans and anoraks. We began with a slide-show, accompanied by a rather unfortunate com- mentary in an American accent. This last was later apologised for. The nub of the Radian message is quite simple. Rael, a French journalist christened Claude Vorilhon (and, incidentally, at one point educated by the Jesuits — this may or may not be significant), met extra-terrestrials who told him the true origin, history and destiny of mankind. This encounter took place somewhere near the Puy de Dome, outside Clermont-Ferrand, in the winter of 1973. The ETs, named the Elohim, had created us in a set of genetic experiments about 13,000 years ago. Because they had created us in their image, they loved us.

Of course, it is all in the Bible, if you care to read it correctly. The Tower of Babel was an enormous rocket, the walls of Jericho were shattered by an extra- terrestrial ultrasound weapon, the Flood was a nuclear catastrophe and Noah's ark in reality a flying saucer. The Raelians are keen Biblical scholars.

On the screen we saw images of DNA chains, flying saucers and people with long hair. The main point that the Elohim wanted Rael to get across to a sceptical .world was that they were about to return, sometime in the next 37 years to be exact. But there was a problem: the Elohim were worried about our nuclear weapons. They considered it a strong possibility that when they turned up, or rather returned, we might zap them first and ask questions later. But if we learned in time to curb our aggressive instincts all would be well. The Elohim would then share their wonderful advanced technology with us. Disease would be conquered and genetic engineer- ing would grant us eternal life. There would be peace, love and universal fraternity on Earth. This last point was illustrated by a photograph of a woman with painted breasts. If, on the other hand, we persisted in our folly, the Elohim would wipe us out before we had the chance to do the dirty on them. Cue an image of nuclear Apocalypse.

After the slide show came Rael himself. He was of medium height, with dark hair that bushed out on both sides of his head and receded slightly at the forehead. The beard seemed neatly trimmed. As a prophet, one felt that he lacked the com- manding austerity of a Jeremiah, and that he did not have that mystic aura which would incline one to weave a circle round him thrice. He smiled quite a lot and his eyes had the liquid quality of the spaniel's. He was dressed in white (including boots) and wore one of the large medallions by which Raelians identify themselves, and which, incidentally, make them look like extras from early episodes of Dr Who. Rael, I noted, whatever his other short- comings, obviously understood the import- ance of the corporate image.

As Rael talked and answered questions, I began to wonder if he hadn't stolen a march on me. There were some doubters, but a significant proportion of the audience obviously found the combination of UFOs, Biblical scholarship and a scientific exege- sis of the creation a heady mix. Christians, Rael went on to explain, were welcome to join the movement since Christ Himself was, after all, of extra-terrestrial lineage. When Rael added that Raelians believed in a free expression of human sexuality, I could see that he had what we in business call a proposition.

A middle-aged man dressed in a claret- coloured suit sitting next to me turned to his companion, a woman I guessed to be in her late twenties. I eavesdropped: 'He has only been given a little of the wisdom. He has not mentioned Aspect 3s and Aspect 4s.'

'Perhaps he does not really know.'

I began to listen more closely. Perhaps here was a more sophisticated product awaiting .a world willing to hand over hard cash in return for belief.

'Mrs Simmonds of North London had Aspect 3s materialising as monkeys,' the man continued. 'She is an Aspect 4, as they all are now. She was Sarah, the wife of Abraham, and of Tassamusus the 4th, the disciple Thomas.'

'It's all wrapped up karmically,' the woman replied.

'I was giving a lecture in Bournemouth in 1963 when a Master began to materialise in my hand. I saw the five Masters on the Moon. Their eyes shone like brass.'

The inappropriateness of this metaphor struck me as authentic — a phony would have said that their eyes shone like stars, or gold, but not like brass. For a moment, I could almost believe that I had glimpsed some cosmic conspiracy of which the rest of humanity was sadly unaware.

I spoke to Rael at his hotel the day after the meeting. He was again late. I wanted to establish, first of all, just how much of the wisdom he had been granted. Had he, by any chance, heard of these Aspect 3s and 4s? He did not know what I meant, and I saw no reason to fill him in on the subject. After all, he was the competition.

So, to the meat of the matter. How much money had he raised so far? (Rael says that he is endeavouring to build an embassy in which to greet the Elohim when they return, and for this he needs funds.) Worldwide, Rael has a following of about 30,000, mainly in France, Canada and Japan, although Brazil is beginning to show signs of interest. Together, they had donated about $1 million, but of course Rael himself drew only his expenses from this — hotels, food, flights, that sort of thing. The hotel in which he was staying charged £90 per night — not exactly a stable, but not excessive. I asked if he would have any objection to me looking at the organisation's accounts. Unfortunate- ly, these are available only to existing members, but there was nothing to hide, he said. Rael makes his living from the sale of his books (The Message Given to Me by Extra-Terrestrials is, I think, his best, and at £6 a snip in the paperback edition).

This was all very well, but had he any irrefutable proof of his encounters? Yes, but there were some things he couldn't reveal. It would be demonstrated soon. Why didn't the Elohim give him a vaccine to cure the common cold, just as a demon- stration of good faith? Rael smiled rather sadly — 0 ye of little faith. I pointed out a scientific error in his book — he equates the parsec with the distance of 300,000 miles, when, as everyone knows, it is in fact nearer to 19.2 trillion miles. A bit of a slip-up if you're contemplating intergalac- tic travel. Rael thanked me for spotting this and assured me that it would be corrected in the next edition. It was a problem of translation. (The Elohim seem to have been served slightly better by their translators in earlier times.) Letting this pass, I tried the investigative journalist's shock tactics. Switching rapidly to my sixth-form French, I asked: 'C'est une grande connerie, n'est ce pas, une blague?' Rael's composure was not disturbed.

During the public meeting, Rael had seemed keen to get across the movement's view of personal morality. For a start, drink and drugs were out, since they polluted the perfect creation of the Elo- him. In an imperfect world, that leaves only sex. I got the impression that Raelians are as keen on sex as they are on Biblical scholarship. They have a thing called Sen- sual Meditation, which, if I read the text correctly, means that you should go to bed with people who want to go to bed with you: 'Do not reject someone who wants to make you happy, for by accepting them, you make them happy.' Rael assured me that, in the age of Aids, they were in the forefront of promoting 'safe sex'.

One has to go back into history to understand how this particular aspect of the philosophy was arrived at. On a second encounter with the Elohim, Rael was transported to their home planet. There, he was offered a 'foretaste of paradise'. After a short chat about various episodes in the Old Testament, he was taken to his room. He was asked if he wished for female companionship. A machine was 'He's a journalist on Sunday Sport.' produced which Rael could use to conjure up biological female robots of his own desire. Rael, who obviously knows a good thing when he sees one, created six. As he reports in his book, 'I went to bed and spent the most extravagant night of my life with my marvellous female companions.' I can report exclusively that each robot companion experienced orgasm, although Rael himself could not remember if these had been simultaneous with his own in every case. For those who would find such a prospect of Paradise less than compell- ing, the Elohim practise a form of rugby played in the nude, in which boxing and wrestling are permitted. Rather hard luck on those who don't play the best of games.

I left feeling somewhat dispirited. I remember the earnest young man in the audience of the night before who said, 'We love your message, we want to believe you.' It was true, people did want to believe. There was something infinitely sad in this desire for belief, and eavesdropping on it was like observing the inadequacies of someone else's sexual fantasy. The Raelian message was, precisely because of its ex- cesses, so fundamentally unimaginative; barren when compared with the richness of human experience. And suppose it was true? I thought of Graham Greene's Mon- signor Quixote and his nightmare of Christ stepping down from the Cross triumphant. There are perhaps better ways of making a killing than the religion game.