New Religious Movements and Science: Rael's Progressive Patronizing Parasitism

The article examines the concoction of religion and “science” contained in the revelation that substantiates a new religion: Raelianism, founded and led by the prophet Claude Vorilhon/Rael after having received a revelation in 1974. After a detailed examination both of Rael's prophetic message...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. VerfasserIn: Bigliardi, Stefano (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
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Veröffentlicht: Wiley-Blackwell [2015]
In: Zygon
Jahr: 2015, Band: 50, Heft: 1, Seiten: 64-83
weitere Schlagwörter:B Rael
B Raelianism
B UFO religions
B Claude Vorilhon
B New Religious Movements
B Pseudoscience
B Science Fiction
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Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:The article examines the concoction of religion and “science” contained in the revelation that substantiates a new religion: Raelianism, founded and led by the prophet Claude Vorilhon/Rael after having received a revelation in 1974. After a detailed examination both of Rael's prophetic message and his/the Raelians’ interpretative practices, an ad hoc model is presented to describe such concoction (“progressive patronizing parasitism”), and it is compared to other models. It is in particular claimed that Rael, while seemingly talking about “science,” is actually constructing a science-fictional and even pseudoscientific narrative. The article finally raises the question whether the discussion of the science-religion interaction from the viewpoint of traditional religions can be considered to be immune to the usage of such rhetorical devices.
ISSN:1467-9744
Enthält:Enthalten in: Zygon
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/zygo.12162