Raël facts for kids

Raël (born Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon, 30 September 1946) is a French journalist who founded and leads the Raëlian Movement, an international UFO religion.

Before becoming a religious leader, Raël, then known as Claude Vorilhon, worked as a sports-car journalist and test driver for his car-racing magazine, Autopop. Following a purported extraterrestrial encounter in December 1973, he formed the Raëlian Movement and changed his name to Raël (meaning "messenger of the Elohim"). He later published several books, which detail the encounter with a being called Yahweh in 1973. He traveled the world to promote his books for over 30 years.

Early life

Vorilhon was born in Vichy, Allier, France. He was raised in Ambert in the home of his maternal grandmother, who was atheist. His father was Jewish and his mother was a "devout atheist". He attended a Catholic boarding school with Le Puy-en-Velay and caused a scandal by taking part in communion without being baptized. His parents withdrew him from the boarding school to put him in school in Ambert. He would later advocate Huguenot descendents to receive reparations from the Church.

At the age of 15, Vorilhon ran away from boarding school and hitchhiked to Paris, where he spent three years playing music on the streets and in cafés and cabarets. He met with Lucien Morisse, the director of a national radio program, who was scouting for young talent. Vorilhon signed a record contract and became a rising teen pop star on the radio. He took on a new identity, assuming the name Claude Celler, and released six singles, including a minor hit song, "Le miel et la cannelle" (Honey and Cinnamon). Vorilhon had a passion for the songs of Belgian singer Jacques Brel, and tried to imitate his singing style. .....

Vorilhon decided to work as a sports journalist to gain access to the world of car racing. He met Marie-Paul Cristini, a nurse. They moved to Clermont-Ferrand, where Vorilhon started his own publishing house. He created a sports car magazine entitled Autopop, whose first issue was released in May 1971. One of the tasks for his new startup was the position of testing new automobiles, which enabled him to enter the motor racing world.

The Raëlian messages

According to the book Le Livre qui dit la vérité (The Book That Tells the Truth), Vorilhon had an alien visitation on 13 December 1973. In a secluded area within a French volcanic crater, an extraterrestrial being came out of a craft that had descended gently from the sky, and told him, in French, that he had come for the sole purpose of meeting with him. Raël said he was given a message by this alien and told that it was his mission to pass this message on to the people of Earth.

The book states that advanced human scientists from another planet with 25,000 years of scientific advances created all life on Earth through DNA manipulation. These scientists, Raël said, were originally called Elohim or "those who came from the sky". He wrote that around 40 prophets in Earth's history were sent by Elohim, but their messages were distorted by humans, largely because of the difference in the level of civilization between the advanced race and Earth's primitive one.

Raël said he was given the mission to inform the world of humanity's origins in anticipation of these extraterrestrials' return by building a residential embassy in neutral territory. He stated that certain mysteries were explained to him based on new interpretations of sacred texts such as the Bible. He said that, on 7 October 1975, he was contacted by one of the Elohim, who took him to another planet to meet Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. He stated that his second book, Les extra-terrestres m'ont emmené sur leur planète (Extraterrestrials Took Me To Their Planet), relates the teaching he received from these people. In this book, Raël describes harmonious and peaceable beings free of money, sickness, and war.

In 1974, Raël decided to give up his automobile magazine, Autopop. That September, the last issue, number 34, was published. Raël then devoted himself to the task he said was given by his "biological father", an extraterrestrial named Yahweh. Shortly after a first public conference, Raël founded MADECH, a group of people interested in helping him in his task, which later became the International Raëlian Movement.

Marriages

Raël has been married three times.

His first wife was Marie-Paul Cristini. Sociologist Susan J. Palmer said that Cristini, a nurse, diagnosed Raël as clinically depressed after he appeared at her doorstep in 1987, burnt out from the tasks he carried out within the movement.

Raël focused on spreading his message in Japan in the 1980s, and by 1987, he met Lisa Sunagawa. Sunagawa soon began accompanying Raël during his travels to Lima, Miami, Brazil, and Martinique. In the 1990 Radio Canada television documentary They're Coming!, Raël is seen with four women, while Lisa, in slow motion, wears a pink tutu and holds hands with him.

Raël separated from Sunagawa sometime between 1990 and 1992. Around that time, Sophie de Niverville, whose mother and aunt were both Raëlians, was convinced of the authenticity of the messages. Sophie received a Raëlian baptism at age 15. When she turned 16, she married Raël at Montreal's city hall. During a December 2001 interview with Palmer, Sophie spoke positively about Raël, despite their divorce the previous year; they continued to live together.

Racing career

In 1994, wealthy Japanese Raëlians rented a race car and showed it to Raël. They believed that if he raced it, it would generate publicity for the movement. Raël accepted the offer on the condition that the funding not come from member tithes or embassy funding. Funding for Raël's races, which took place in the 1990s and early 2000s, came mostly from well-funded European and Japanese people. His best finishes included "a 3rd place finish in GT1 in Lime Rock with the Mosler Raptor in 1997, and a 7th place finish at Watkins Glen with a Viper GTS R in a 1999 FIA GT race". Raël participated in the 1999 BFGoodrich Tires Trans-Am Series and the 2000 Speedvision GT Championship. According to Palmer, Raël announced in November 2001 that he intended to retire from professional auto racing. She said that he still enjoyed racing in the form of video games.

Promoted technologies

Raël believes humanity is slowly transitioning into a society where humans will not need to work or have jobs. This is due to human technological advancement and because humans "are not made to work". He has stated that work is for machines, whereas humans are made to create, think, and enrich themselves.

Much of Raël's advocacy concerning futuristic technology is described in his 2001 book, Yes to Human Cloning. He supported human genetic engineering in order to avoid genetically inherited diseases and to reduce the economic burden on society. He said that no distinctive emphasis needed to be allocated to a particular race or religion. Elsewhere in the book, he stated that nanotechnology will make it possible to have micro-distributive power generation (essentially a power plant in each house), fur-like furnishings that are self-cleaning with hair-like fibers that move on their own, and biological robots. Nanostructures control biology, so Raël expected that meat and salads will someday be grown in a machine via molecular construction.

Raël believed that genetically modified food is the only way to stop hunger everywhere in the world, and he saw a future where qualities of different foods can be combined through direct genetic modification. In Raël's book, Extraterrestrials took me to their planet (book number 2 in the volume Intelligent Design), he said that animation of plant life was possible through nanotechnology and that he was presented genetically modified flowers, that swayed and changed colors with music, while on another planet.

Discography

• 1966: "Sacrée sale gueule"
• 1966: "Dans un verre de vin"
• 1967: "Le Miel et la cannelle" (Honey and cinnamon)
• 1967: "Madam' Pipi" (Mrs. Toilet attendant)
• 1967: "Monsieur votre femme me trompe" (Mister, your wife is cheating on me)
• 1967: "Quand on se mariera" (When we'll get married)

See also

In Spanish: Rael para niños