![]() The Raelians: Building Better Humans?
I expected feedback on my last column, “What the modified can do for the mutants of the future”, which outlined how body modification could help prepare humanity for major morphological changes in generations to follow. However, I’d written it sort of tongue-in-cheek, so I was very surprised when I got a personal email from Rael — yes, that Rael. The email told me that it was important that we talk and urged me to call him at Clonaid in Geneva.
For those of you who don’t know, the Raelians are an organization — some would say “alien sex cult” — that believes in scientific creationism — that “aliens” came to this planet and manipulated primitive DNA in order to create humans. In 1973, French journalist Claude Vorilhon (who now goes by “Rael”) was contacted by a small alien being who told him that their race, the Elohim (“those who came from the sky”, as described in Genesis), had been the ones who had created human life on Earth, and that mankind had mistaken them for gods and built religions around them. Because of the moon landing, they felt we were mature enough to hear the truth, and dictated the Raelian message. This book instructed humanity to build an embassy for the Elohim, as well as working to “catalyse a society adapted to the future”. Their faith (apologies to Rael for referring to it as such) believes that science will save us and allow us to “paint a new multi-coloured tapestry of humanity, giving people freedom and choice to be themselves and fulfil themselves just for the pure pleasure of being.” Now, before you write the Raelians off as a UFO cult, realize that not only have they sold a million copies of their “holy book” and not only do they have 60,000 active members around the world — primarily doctors, research scientists, and futurists — but they control Clonaid [clonaid.com], the now vindicated human cloning corporation long accused of being a fraud… until it started pumping out “increasingly perfect” human clones for wealthy Raelian parents. Rael has given me permission to include the following transcript of our telephone conversation here. My apologies for any typographical errors, this was transcribed quickly.
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RAEL: |
Well, you can’t have these modifications. We can’t do these procedures to adults, or even children. These procedures only work on very young fetuses.
Don’t you agree that the role of a good parent is to give their children the best opportunities they can? We all try and make enough money to send our children to a good school… why not give them a 400 IQ if you can? Wouldn’t it be abusive not to do so? If you can make your child eight feet tall, why shouldn’t you? Most men die of heart attacks — my son has two hearts, and barring the unexpected, our doctors expect him to live to at least two hundred if not longer. Because he is purely a product of blastopore transplants, there’s not even any risk that he’ll have genetic abnormalities in the future. |
BME: |
How can he be a normal human if he’s got two hearts?
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RAEL: |
All of that is surgical. His genetics are still technically that of a homo sapiens, even though he is obviously much more. If he were to have children in the future in the traditional way, that child would appear as you or I, not as their father… unless, as I hope, he will also bear a Raelian child.
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BME: |
I guess the obvious thing to point out is that it’s the human spirit that makes people good, not the perfection of their physical form.
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RAEL: |
Oh, but you are wrong — metaphorically, the most powerful gods are always the most beautiful. The Elohim are beauty. Beauty is love, and Love is what we’re trying to achieve. If our creations are not good, it’s because they are not physically good. That’s all we are. By creating the perfect physical form, we create perfect goodness in that person. Just like you believe that the right tattoo makes a person better, we believe that the right body makes a person better.
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BME: |
OK… so… what next?
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RAEL: |
We need volunteers. I’d like you to help me find mothers for the Raelian children of the future. Mothers who can nurture these superhumans, and protect them while they’re young and fragile. We will provide assistance, but it is important to us that these children grow up in the real world, not in a laboratory.
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BME: |
If you don’t mind, I’ll put up a transcript of this interview on my site, and set up an email address where members can contact you.
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RAEL: |
That sounds wonderful, I appreciate it, and I look forward to having you in the future with us.
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BME readers interested in learning more about this project are welcome to contact Rael’s organization c/o [email protected]. He has asked that only women and couples willing to conceive modified children apply. This branch of the work is being made financially possible by Clonaid, who charge wealthy individuals a great deal of money to provide clones devoid of neural-tissue to guarantee the availability of organ transplants should they or their loves ones need them.
Please seriously consider the implications of this type of life before writing. By working with Mengele, Rael has shown that he’s willing to sleep with the devil if he feels it serves his “gods”, and I can’t say that I believe all the details of the story. I’ve tried to provide links in the sidebar for those who wish to research this developing story further and verify Rael’s claims.
The attached illustrations are just ones that I quickly added from my own archives, other than the photos of Rael which are from his website. I anticipate being able to follow this up within about two weeks when I get the supplemental information.
Welcome to the future,
Shannon Larratt
BMEzine.com
Of course this was an April Fools parody article! However, most of the backstory is true, including…
- 40 of 43 Presidents really have been taller than the person they beat, and height really is the primary factor in US elections (I didn’t check other countries but I assume it’s the same).
- Rael is real, the story about him is real, and the cult/group is real.
- Clonoid is real, it is owned by the Raelians, and they have produced clones, they claim. They have refused any independed scientific testing and most people have denounced them as a fraud of some sort.
- The procedures on newts were real as described, and the Nobel Prize really was given for this.
- The procedures on humans as described would work and are real, and, at least the less monstrous ones, are things that we should expect to see in our lifetimes I think.
- Dr. Josef Mengele really did do bizarre experiments with twins, although not in vitro as far as I know. He did move to Argentina and Brazil after the war, and the American government did use his research and that of other concentration camp doctors to further their own nationalistic drives.
That’s about where the truth ends. Mengele of course did not work with Rael, and kept an incredibly low profile because he was a war criminal on the run. Rael and Clonaid have no interest that I know of in producing “modified” or otherwise improved humans. In fact, one of their goals as stated on their website is to create perfect humans and avoid these defects. Cyclopidia and the other defects mentioned are all real and could be controlled, but are usually far less positive than as I’ve described.
Anyway, I hope people enjoyed it and it gave people something to think about. It gave me an excuse to basically write some bad sci-fi, which was a lot of fun for me…