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The Miami Herald, USA
Mar. 4, 2005
Nicholas Spangler
www.miami.com

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ReligionNewsBlog.com • Item 10485 • Posted: Friday March 4, 2005  

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Let us now paraphrase the Gospel of Rael: An immortal race of alien hotties created the first humans in a laboratory 22,000 years ago. The aliens check in on us every Sunday, around 11 a.m.

Ten cloned babies burble happily in secret locations around the planet, hunted by extremist Catholic factions.

Eight thousand four hundred ex-earthlings — including Buddha, Mohammed and a clone of the half-alien Jesus — live on the aliens’ planet, attended by hot alien pleasure robots. The Buddha is still chunky. Nobody said fat — but the aliens aren’t starving him, if you savvy.

Now we turn to the Press Release of Rael, which arrived by e-mail a week ago:

”Celebrate the First Femininity Day ever, as Raelians across the USA present a fully nude choreographed street performance to emphasize the crucial importance of Femininity. In Miami, the location will be on Lincoln Road on March 6th at 2 p.m., starting at Washington Avenue and continuing to Alton Road.”

Recall that Rael is the French-born prophet and race car driver who says he met an alien in a volcano in 1973 and visited the home planet shortly thereafter. In 2002, the Raelians claimed to have cloned a baby girl. The claim drew the attention of news media and the eager condemnation of various Senate subcommittees, and Rael was much in the public eye those months: 50-ish, receding hairline, prone to latter-day Elvis jumpsuits, uncannily immune to parody. The cloning claim was never substantiated.

Rael is not likely to be in town this weekend, which leaves South Florida’s Raelians, who number around 15, to parade naked on their own.

The Spokeswoman of Rael, in an interview one recent afternoon, qualified this. ”We may be hiding the nipples and genital area,” she said. ”Like with a butterfly, or with flowers.”

Also, this will not be the First Femininity Day ever, but the second. Last year’s coincided with an Italian festival in Miami Beach and so drew less attention than it perhaps deserved.

The Spokeswoman of Rael said this poolside at a luxury condominium building in Hallandale Beach. She wore heels and a floral print dress that left her shoulders bare. She meant to look good and she did. She said her name was Lisa Lumiere: 34, Japanese, makes her living practicing Chinese traditional medicine. Then she wrote her name in Japanese characters. ”Li-Sa,” she said. ”It means pear water.”

Last year’s parade went well. Everyone wore white Indian saris, tied to expose one breast. ”This was right after Janet Jackson’s beautiful accident. It was very, very spiritual. They did this also in Japan, France, Italy and all over Africa.”

It was apparently enough of a success to bear repetition, so we may expect a single-file line of semi-naked, possibly dancing Raelians to snake down Lincoln Road. Possibly they will wear wings, since Lumiere has some left over from a recent Goddess Workshop.

Lumiere said she’d already seen two UFOs when she met Rael. Her parents — her father is a schoolteacher, her mother a doctor — overcame their misgivings and grew fond of him. He explained the universe to her, and she followed him around the world for 14 years. She was his girlfriend for four. He later married an ex-ballet dancer who appeared in 2002 Playboy spread. Lumiere said she is not bitter.

”He’s the most intelligent person I’ve ever met,” she said. ‘He taught me so much. With someone like that — it is selfish if I keep him for myself. ‘You are ready, little bird,’ he told me. ‘You’re ready to fly.’ ”

Lumiere was opaque. She seemed to subscribe wholeheartedly to Raelian doctrine. She must have known that, by inviting an interview, she risked as much public mockery as the naked stunt planned for Sunday could draw. She knows both will draw attention nonetheless, and perhaps converts.

How could a seemingly rational, intelligent adult believe in this science fiction? Maybe her infatuation with Rael overpowered her reason.

Or maybe she has material motive — the movement does, after all, encourage followers to donate any inheritance to Rael, the Guide of Guides.

But it is much more interesting to believe she is driven by faith. What is the difference, after all, between someone who believes Jesus walked on water by divine will, and someone who believes He walked with the aid of an antigravity beam?

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