Raelian Projects as Possible Worlds: Dreaming and Fearing the Future by Carly Machado (Anthropology, University of the State of Rio de Janeiro)

Abstract

Raelians are a transnational "religious-scientific" movement devoted to spreading the Message of the Extraterrestrials – the Elohim. – through their prophetical leader, Claude Vourilhon, now referred to as Raël. Using science to explain the "truth" behind all traditional religious interpretations, Raël proposes a new morality, articulated according to extraterrestrial guidelines. This chapter focusses on the polemical discourses employed by Raelians in their efforts to gain publicity for the movement, and in particular, Raelian uses of the Internet. For Raelians, the Internet represents and configures a sacred field in which their prophecies can be realized: virtual eternal life, freedom of expression, a new form of ethics, transnational action, and a newly "designed" religious identity. Raelian websites are continually being created, designed and updated in order to generate controversy and to polemically link Raelian ideas to key contemporary Western social issues. Websites are in fact the only concrete manifestations of some of the most controversial Raelian enterprises, such as Clonaid, "the first human cloning company," or Clitoraid, a non-governmental organization launched by Raël in order to "reconstruct the clitorises of African women." Through their combination of digital technology, biotechnology, and Raelian beliefs in extraterrestrial life, space travel, alien "intelligent design," and transhumanism, these websites inhabit an indeterminate space between religion and science, or more properly speaking, "popular science" and "science fiction." Most importantly, as this chapter shows, these Raelian projects point to the future as the site of projected "possible worlds:" not yet realized, but plausibly on their way to becoming real. In this way, Raelian "cyber-reality" is of a part with a more culturally diffuse set of quasi-religious, "pop-sci" and "sci-fi" projects, dreams and aspirations, and a public sphere defined by shared desires, hopes, certainties, uncertainties and fears about the future.

About the Author

Carly Machado (PhD, 2006, Faculty of Social Science, University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) conducts research in the field of religion and media, with a particular focus on new technologies, cyberculture, and the contemporary religious imaginary, both in Brazil and in transnational contexts.  Her doctoral dissertation, Imagine if it all were true: the Raelian movement among truths, fictions and religions of modernity, dealt with the Raelian Movement, a controversial new religious movement concerned with questions about human cloning, bioethics, and the existence of extraterrestrials.  Dr. Machado teaches at two universities in Rio de Janeiro: Estacio de Sá University and Candido Mendes University, and has published in the journal, Religião e Sociedade [Religion and Society].  For 2007, she is a visiting postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University.

Contact and Further Links

Contact Information: machado.carly@gmail.com