Like a lot of cult leaders, Claude Vorilhon — later known as Raël — had all the answers.
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The epiphany came when he emerged from the mountains of France in 1973 after he said he was abducted by UFOs. He proclaimed himself a messenger from the aliens Elohim, the real creators of humankind.
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And he was, in fact, a prophet. The hippies and dreamers of the early 1970s lapped it all up.
Now, a new documentary on Netflix, Raël: The Alien Prophet, pulls back the curtain on what has been called a sex cult.
The sect has spread around the world with a substantial membership in Quebec.
One former cult member interviewed for the documentary called him a “dangerous sex maniac” who beds a steady stream of beauties.
“Rael seemed almost proud of the number of his conquests,” former disciple Dominic Marson said on the doc.
“He would often talk about sleeping with hundreds, even thousands of women, as if he was really proud. It was strange to be around that. He would openly brag about sleeping with this or that person.”
While there was always a strong sexual component in the Raelians, some former members claim the cult ruined their lives. One said his sexual conquests were not consensual playmates but “sex slaves” and that the Svengali was “addicted to female submission.”
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Among the highlights:
— The Raelians would indulge in mass “sensual meditation” sessions where members were encouraged to strip naked and masturbate. Men urged their female partners to have sex with other cult members so they would be “more fulfilled.”
— Allegations of encouraging child sex abuse emerged when an 11-year-old girl was raped by two cult members in France — reportedly with her mother’s permission.
— Rael claimed the aliens invited him to dinner with history’s greatest prophets: Moses, Mohammed, Elijah and Buddha. Also on hand was Jesus, who later said of the cult leader “he is my brother.”
— The group also claimed to have successfully cloned a human. There is no proof of that ever happening.
At their peak, the Raelians claimed to have 60,000 members with factions in Canada, Africa and Japan, where the 78-year-old guru now resides.
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A former member named Dominique Saint-Hilaire claimed life in the cult was all-encompassing.
“I had never realized the cult could be dangerous. But when you’re inside it, you don’t know you’re being manipulated,” she said in the documentary. “You don’t really think for yourself. Even if you’re told you have free will, ultimately you think as a group. You don’t have free will.”
At the sect’s campsite property that they bought in Southern France in the early 1980s (they called it Eden), Saint-Hilaire said it was “paradise.”
“I met people who were full of love. I realized that love still existed,” she said. “It was a place that was outside of time, outside of society and the weight of everyday life. Everyone was happy, everyone was smiling all the time. There was a lot of harmony.”
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She added: “A Belgian couple were making love in the open air, with all the accompanying sounds. I thought there was no way I could ever do something like that, bu t…”
One ex-member confessed: “To find myself in a group unashamedly naked. It wasn’t easy but we did it. I put my wife in other men’s arms to climb the hierarchy. I accepted it. But then you wake up.”
As for sex with children, Rael would not condemn it because it was “free expression.”
After France declared the group a “dangerous cult” in 1995, Rael and his closest followers fled to Quebec. Some of his members even stripped down for Playboy.
In Quebec, he created his Order of Angels, whose job was to welcome the aliens when they arrived.
“Ultimately, they were sex slaves,” said journalist Brigitte McCann, who infiltrated the cult. “If he wanted to have sex with them, they were not allowed to refuse him. He was always surrounded by a group of female attendants.”
Dominique Saint-Hilaire added: “I saw him with girls who were 16, 17 or 18. My daughter who was under 18 when she was in the movement was summoned by him. So I felt like I had to say something to warn Raelians and possibly warn other people.”
@HunterTOSun
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