Raël: The Alien Prophet
TV-MA
Extraterrestrial intelligent design becomes ludicrous cult movement fodder in this French docuseries
7.0
TV Show
France
French
Documentary
2024
ANTOINE BALDASSARI, MANUEL GUILLON
Raël
183 min
TLDR
Basically, take the standard cult story, and just add aliens and human cloning to the mix.
What it's about
After an alleged encounter with an extraterrestrial race called the Elohim, former sports journalist Claude Vorilhon becomes Raël, leader of the UFO cult known for dabbling in human cloning, amongst other controversies.
The take
Stories about cults have fascinated viewers because of how absurd their ideas can get… And how easy these ideas can lure in lost and broken people. Plenty of these cults tend to stick with ideas that sound similar with the world’s major religions, but not many claim to be able to clone humans. Raël: The Alien Prophet plays out like the regular cult playbook, with a regular man suddenly amassing riches, power, and fame through charisma, and abusing his followers to obtain more, but the show keeps the viewers’ interest by primarily focusing on what sets the movement apart: the aliens and the human cloning.
What stands out
Raël doesn’t stand out from plenty of other cult leaders, aside from two things– One, his authority doesn’t come from God, but rather, from extraterrestrial beings; Two, with aliens being misinterpreted as divine beings, it’s easy for him to adapt his scams as he bounces (or is chased out of) country to country. Cults are scary enough, but Raël seems especially menacing because of how global his ideas can spread.
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