The following is an article from Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.
(Image credit: Flickr user Claire L. Evans)
If mainstream religions leave you cold, why not spice things up by throwing a few UFOs in the mix? Here’s a look at some “religions” that draw inspiration from extraterrestrials.
THE SEEKERS
Close Encounter: In the early 1950s, a suburban Chicago housewife named Dorothy Martin began receiving “mental messages” from what she said were extraterrestrial guardians from a planet called Clarion. She attracted a little band of followers and formed them into one of the earliest UFO cults, which she called “The Seekers.” The aliens reportedly told her that they’d discovered unstable fault lines in the Earth’s crust while observing the planet from their flying saucers. The faults were going to rupture before dawn on December 21, 1954, and cause floods that would destroy much of North America. The good news: Just before midnight, a UFO would take Martin and the Seekers to safety on the planet Clarion.
What Happened: On Martin’s orders, Seekers quit their jobs and gave away their money and belongings in anticipation of a new life on Clarion. Some even divorced their spouses. About 20 Seekers gathered at Martin’s house on December 20 to await the UFO. Midnight came …and went… and no spaceship arrived. The terrified Seekers huddled together until 4:45 AM, when Martin claimed to receive another message from the aliens. More good news! The “God of Earth” was so impressed by the Seekers’ devotion that he’d decided to spare North America. The crisis averted, the alien rescue saucer had returned to Clarion without picking up the Seekers.
Aftermath: Martin fled Chicago to avoid being sent to a mental hospital. She lived in Peru from 1954 to 1961, then returned to the U.S. Now calling herself “Sister Thedra” and leading a group called the Association of Sananda and Sanat Kumara, she continued to relay messages from space aliens until her death in 1992. The Association of Sananda and Sanat Kumara, headquartered in Sedona, Arizona, is still active.
SUMMUM
Close Encounter: One afternoon in October 1975, a former aerobic instructor named Claude King was relaxing, eyes closed, on the couch in his Salt Lake City, Utah, apartment. He’d had some ringing in his ears lately, but this time it was much more intense: King claimed he was “engulfed” by the sound and teleported to an alien world. When he opened his eyes, he was standing next to a giant pyramid on a green lawn, under a blue sky filled with stars. It was the first of many visits to the world of “angelic Beings” known as Summa Individuals, who transmitted their Summum philosophy (“Nothingness and Possibility come in and out of bond infinite times in an infinite moment”) to King via mental telepathy.
(Image credit: Summum)
What Happened: King had his named legally changed to Summum Bonum Amon Ra (although he still went by his nickname Corky). He then founded the ancient-Egyptian-themed Summum religion, which today is headquartered in a pyramid-shaped temple in Salt Lake City and promotes the “Seven Summum Principles: Psychokinesis, Correspondence, Vibration, Opposition, Rhythm, Cause and Effect, and Gender.”
The movement has even developed a form of mummification that draws inspiration from the practices of the ancient Egyptians but incorporates modern materials like fiberglass and polyurethane. The service is available to the public: Human mummification costs $67,000, pets around $6,000. Practitioners of Summum also make sacramental wine called “nectar publications” and meditate over it to fill it with “spiritual concepts.” The group says it has given away more than 250,000 bottles over the years, but only to Summum adherents. Drinking the spiritually spiked wine is said to enhance seven different kinds of meditation.
(Image credit: Summum)
Aftermath: The first human to be mummified using the Summum technique: Corky Ra himself, who died in 2008. His mummy is stored inside the Summum pyramid, in an upright gold “mummiform” coffin just like King Tut’s (except that Corky’s face served as the model for the face of the coffin). The group says that more than 100 people have signed up to be mummified when they die.
THE AETHERIUS SOCIETY
Close Encounter: On May 8, 1954, a London taxi driver and yoga enthusiast named George King was alone in his apartment when he heard a voice command, “Prepare yourself! You are to become the voice of Interplanetary Parliament.” The message was from an alien named The Master Aetherius. King, by virtue of his mastery of yoga, had been selected to be “the Primary Terrestrial Mental Channel for the Cosmic Masters of the Solar System.” These Masters, hailing from Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, would use King to transmit their messages to the world.
What Happened: The Masters told King that selfishness, violence, and other human ills had knocked the Earth’s karma out of balance, as evidenced by pollution, warfare, and other global ills. The aliens, who regularly visited Earth in their flying saucers, wanted to help restore the karmic balance, using spiritual energy generated by prayer circles practicing a “powerful new form of Karma Yoga.” On the Cosmic Masters’ instructions, King formed the Aetherius Society to get the message out.
There’s certainly nothing unusual about praying for the purpose of achieving positive ends, but what set the Aetherius Society apart are devices they use called “radionic batteries.” These sit in the middle of each prayer circle and soak up the spiritual energy. The batteries are “charged” with prayer week after week; then when a disaster strikes, such as a hurricane or the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear meltdown in Japan in 2011, the Society releases the energy using a machine called a “spiritual energy radiator” and transmits it directly to the trouble spot.
Aftermath: Dr. King died in Santa Barbara, California, in 1997, but the Aetherius Society, now headquartered in Hollywood, is still praying away. It has about 650 members worldwide.
THE INTERNATIONAL RAËLIAN MOVEMENT
Close Encounter: If prayer circles don’t float your boat, perhaps the Raëlians are more your speed. As we told you in our book The World’s Gone Crazy, the Raëlian movement was founded in 1973 by an aging French pop star named Claude Vorilhon after he went hiking in a dormant volcano crater in central France. There he met an alien with skin that was “white with a slightly greenish tinge, a bit like someone with liver trouble,” he writes in his book The Message Given to Me by Extraterrestrials. The alien, a member of an advanced race called the Elohim, invited Vorilhon back to his UFO. During this an subsequent visits, Vorilhon was taught the true origin of humanity -namely that humans were created by the aliens in test tubes in a laboratory 25,000 years ago, and prophets like Moses, Jesus, and Buddha were emissaries of the aliens, just like Vorilhon. The aliens told him that when humans perfect cloning and develop the ability to transfer memory and personality from aging bodies into healthy new ones, they will live forever. They also told him that having unlimited, uninhibited sex would enable them to achieve “perfect freedom.” (Image credit: Kmarinas86)
What happened: After his first alien encounter, Vorilhon changed his named to Claus Raël and founded the International Raëlian Movement. He dressed in flowing white garments and grew a topknot of hair that he said was an antenna for receiving further messages from outer space. The messages revealed the extraterrestrial “truth” of stories in the Bible: Jesus walked on water using “antigravitational beams,” Jonah was swallowed by an alien submarine he thought was a whale, and the ancient Hebrews became the chosen people by winning a contest.
Aftermath: Thrown out -and laughed out- of France in the mid-1980s, Raël moved to Spain and eventually to Canada. He and his free-loving followers still live there, in a compound near Montreal. They run a museum called UFOland that presents Raëlism to the general public, and they’re raising money to build a $20 million extraterrestrial “embassy” that will also serve as an alien spaceport. As soon as it’s finished, Raël says, Moses, Jesus, and all the other prophets (who have been kept alive through cloning) will return to Earth in their UFOs.
The aliens have told Raël that they would prefer the embassy to be built in “neutral” territory on land donated by the Israeli government. But the Raëlian Movement’s symbol, a swastika inside a Star of David, has complicated negotiations with the Israelis. (The Raëlians say they’re trying to “reclaim” the swastika from the Nazis.) In 1991 the symbol was changed to a less offensive pinwheel appearance, but that didn’t seem to help much. If the embassy ever really does get built, it probably won’t be built in Israel. The Raëlians claim to have 65,000 members in more than 80 countries. (No word on how many of them are just in it for the unlimited, uninhibited sex.)
(Image credit:Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon)
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This article is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.
Get ready to be thoroughly entertained while occupied on the throne. Uncle John has ruled the world of information and humor for 25 years, and the anniversary edition is the Fully Loaded Bathroom Reader.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!
(oops, meant this as a reply to @sandyra)