Cult Religions

The Raelian tradition is unique among UFO groups in that it offers a creation story that ties it to the sacred books of the monotheistic traditions. The core idea is that the ancient Hebrew concept Elohim should have been translated as "those who came from the sky" rather than "God." The Elohim come from another planet and are responsible for the creation of life on this planet.

Claude Vorilhon was the person chosen by the Elohim to bring the news of humankind's origins to the people of the planet Earth. The Elohim gave him the name Rael and also assigned him the responsibility of telling the news of the return of the Elohim.

In his book, The Final Message, Rael tells of his first encounter with the Elohim extraterrestrials. On the morning of December 13, 1973, Claude Vorilhon was driving to an office in Clermont-Ferrand, France, where he worked as a journalist for a racing car magazine. However, he felt compelled to drive past the office and visit a nearby volcano in Auvergne, France instead.

When he arrived at the volcano, called Puy-de-Lassolas, Vorilhon parked his car and proceeded to make his way on foot toward the center of the crater, so as to stretch his legs and take in some of the cool, misty morning air. Upon reaching the top of the volcano, he obtained the breathtaking view of the village of Clermont-Ferrand and reflected in appreciation that thousands of years ago the crater had shot out streams of hot molten lava. (The Final Message,pg. 19) After this reflection, Vorilhon turned to leave and walked back down the slope of the volcano....

The Cult of Magna Mater, the Great Mother, is probably the oldest religion of all. The earliest stone-age sculptures depict the mother- goddess, and an idol found in Catal Hüyük, 6000 years old, depict her in the form she later became worshipped as Cybele in Phrygia, as a seated woman flanked by two leopards.The worship evolved through the millennia, but the goddess remained a symbol of the powerful female forces in the universe. Manydifferent interpretations appeared, and various cults have interacted and mixed ideas.Not much is known about her worship in ancient times, but in her incarnation as Cybele in ancient Phrygia she started the cult which would later evolve into the cult of Magna Mater in Rome. As a small child she was put out into the wilderness to die, but instead of killing her the panthers and lions nurtured her, and she grew up into an intelligent, beautiful and headstrong woman.

It is not impossible that she was a child mage who was later deified. She invented pipes and drums, and also magickal medicines which she used to heal sick children and creatures on the Phrygian countryside. She became friend of not only the animals and people, but also the satyrs and other supernatural beings. She fell in love with prince Attis, but their love-story was tragic; The intenselove of the divine Cybele was too much for the mortal prince, and he went mad, castrated himself and died. Cybele, driven mad by grief, roamed around to sound of pipes and drums seeking her lost love. The links between this story and the cult of Inanna/Ishtar/Asherah are quite obvious, and both cults influenced each other heavily. Attis was identified with Dumuzi and Tammuz, other dead and resurrected gods. The cults were widespread, and Ezekiel mentions the female worship of Tammuz in his lamentation over the spread of paganism in Jerusalem (Ezekiel 8:14). Around 200 BC the holy black rock of the goddess was moved from the Phrygian city of Pessinos, which had been the previous centre of her worship. Rome became the new centre, and her cult grew. The romans identified Cybele with the Greek Rhea, and called her Magna Mater, the Great Mother. The priests ofth......

This summer a prisoner in Virginia, Michael Lenz, was executed for murdering a fellow inmate in the name of Asatru, his adopted religion. Though most adherents of the pre-Christian, earth- and heritage-based faith are honorable, law-abiding citizens who don't advocate random violence, a small (about five percent) but media-magnetic group of them are white supremacists, many of them prisoners.Asatruar worship a pantheon of Norse gods like Odin and Thor and goddesses like Freya and Idun. The warrior archetype is honored, but in no way defines the religion, says Stephen McNallen, 57, founder of the Asatru Folk Assembly, a leading Asatru group.McNallen recently set the Asatru record straight, speaking to Beliefnet from hisCalifornia home about respecting our ancestors, balancing the warrior with the Mother, and how he starts everyday with a pot of tea and a well-fed cat in his lap.

What does "Asatru" mean? I usually say that Asatru means, "Those true to the gods" or "The belief in the gods."

How would you sum up the core beliefs of Asatru? Well, people are going to give you different answers on that.

I believe that the core of Asatru comes down to about three or four main points. First, we are related to the holy powers [gods and goddesses], and our task is to evolve to become more like them. Second, we are specially connected to our ancestors, to our living kin, and to our descendants yet tocome—the family line is a continuity that transcends time and space, and even mortality. Third, by leading lives of power and wisdom, we evolve to a higher level and this evolution gives us more choices in regards to an afterlife. And finally, the way of our ancestors is the best way for us, because we are the representatives of those ancestors in this little slice of space and time.

How many Asatruars would you estimate there are in the U.S.? Well, obviously no one really knows because we’re not a very centralized outfit. There is no Pope of Asatru and no Vatican. The estimate that I have heard is 10,000 to 20,000.

What does a day in the life of an Asatruar look like? Are there daily or weekly rituals? I can really only speakto my personal pract......

Matt Feshbach believes he has super powers. He senses danger faster than most people. He appreciates beauty more deeply than he used to. He says he outperforms his peers in the money management industry.He heightened his powers of perception in 1995 when he went to Los Angeles and became the first and so far only "public" Scientologist to take a highly classified Scientology program called Super Power. Where in L.A. did he do this?"Just in Los Angeles," is all Feshbach will say. Super Power is that secret. Under wraps for decades, Super Power now is being prepped for its eventual rollout in Scientology's massivebuilding in downtown Clearwater.

That will be the only place worldwide where the program, much anticipated by Scientologists, will be offered. A key aim of Super Power is to enhance one's perceptions - and not just the five senses we all know - hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard taught that people have 57 "perceptics." They include an ability to discern relative sizes, blood circulation, balance, compass direction, temperature, gravity and an "awareness of importance, unimportance." Church officials won't discuss specifics of Super Power. But Feshbach and another prominent Clearwater Scientologist who, like Feshbach, is a major donor to Super Power's building fund, provided some details in interviews with the St. Petersburg Times. A group offormer Scientologists who worked for the church on a campus in California where the program was in development also described elements of it. Super Power uses machines, apparatus and specially designed rooms to exercise and enhance a person's so-called perceptics. Those machines include an antigravity simulator and a gyroscope-like apparatus that spins a person around while blindfolded to improve perception of compass direction, said the former Scientologists. A video screen that moves forward and backward while flashing images is used to hone a viewer's ability to identify subliminal messages, they said. Hubbard promised Super Power would improve perceptions and "put the person into a new realm of ability." He believed it would unlock abilities needed to spread Scientology across the planet. Fo......