What is a RAELIAN? Just started digging…..can't forget about the Swiss
>Switzerland, a Cult Magnet, Attracts Aliens and Cloning Offers New York Times 1997
Nearly 1,000 people gathered in a picturesque Alpine valley this week to celebrate a movement that advocates cloning to promote human happiness.
The Swiss-based movement follows the teachings of a 50-ish Frenchman who goes by the name Rael and who says he has been visited by creatures from another planet. Rael believes that, like characters in the Hollywood movie, Contact, extraterrestrials are linked to people on Earth.
The movement grabbed headlines in June by offering human cloning services, urging those who were interested to write to its Geneva post-office box.
Rael claims to have been contacted in 1973 by almond-eyed aliens who created mankind in laboratories and who will return to Earth one day.
The Raelian movement, which says that it has 35,000 members in 85 countries, is quite strong in Switzerland, said Brigitte Boisellier, the movement's spokeswoman.
The Swiss are tolerant, said Dr. Boisellier, a chemist, explaining that the group feels more comfortable meeting here than in France. They have respect for beliefs.
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Although Switzerland is dominated by the Protestant and Catholic religions, its longtime history of tolerance has made it fertile ground for a number of unusual faiths.
But recently, the phenomenon has grown, at a time when the pristine mountain nation, with one of the world's best-educated and wealthiest populations, is undergoing its worst economic downturn since World War II and is being buffeted by charges about its conduct during the war. The acccusations have seriously tarnished the country's national mythology.
Six years of recession has ended decades of prosperity that made Switzerland's living standards the envy of nearly every European neighbor.
The Swiss involvement in cults was spotlighted in 1994 by the deaths of 48 members of the Order of the Solar Temple. Swiss professors who have studied cults estimate that there are 90 to 120 such groups in the Geneva area alone.
There are only a small number of people belonging to all these sects – it's probably not even 1 percent of the population, said Roland Campiche, an expert in the subject at a Lausanne-based center for religious studies. But it is a very significant phenomenon.
Geneva, known as the Protestant Rome in the 16th century, was once ruled by the stern morality of John Calvin, who permitted little deviation from his faith.
But Switzerland enshrined religious freedom in its Constitution a century ago as a result of a Catholic revolt against the Protestant-dominated central Government.
The Swiss, in contrast to their often dour exteriors, need to be a little bit crazy, said Georg Schmid, a professor who also operates a cult information center in Zurich. We have a hidden side. We often live this out in our religion. It's our relief and our escape.
Occult practices are also popular in Switzerland.
The Swiss fascination with nontraditional beliefs could be seen at a recent Geneva fair that featured 22 European psychics.
Growing disaffection with established churches also has driven people to alternatives, said Philippe Borgeaud, a professor of religious history at Geneva University.
People have an appetite to believe something, he said. But the sects don't only provide spirituality, they give a power or importance to people who are lacking it.
>https://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/12/world/switzerland-a-cult-magnet-attracts-aliens-and-cloning-offers.html#:~:text=Nearly 1%2C000 people gathered in a picturesque Alpine,has been visited by creatures from another planet.