Raëlian AI theology and Paradism

Raëlian teachings place artificial intelligence within a religious account of technologically created life and humanity's possible transformation through science. Their principal social expression is Paradism, a program associated with the International Raëlian Movement that proposes replacing compulsory human labor with automated production and sharing its benefits without money. The movement presents the society of the Elohim, the extraterrestrial creators described by its founder Raël, as the model for this future.^[1][2]

The subject combines a religion that emerged in France in the 1970s, an established prophetic hierarchy and ritual life, and later arguments about intelligent machines. Its use of technological language does not amount to worship of an AI system. Raëlianism identifies itself as atheistic: its creators are advanced beings within nature, while scientific recreation of persons takes the place of a supernatural afterlife.^[4][5][6] AI acquires religious significance through these expectations of creation, liberation and survival, rather than through a demonstrated machine priesthood or machine-generated revelation.

Religious origins and technological salvation

Raël, born Claude Vorilhon, dates his first encounter with an extraterrestrial to 13 December 1973. His account describes a series of meetings near Clermont-Ferrand in which he received an explanation of humanity's origins and a mission to communicate it. A second claimed encounter, dated 7 October 1975, supplied further descriptions of extraterrestrial society. These narratives became founding books; the movement subsequently made them available in the English compilation Intelligent Design: Message from the Designers.^[4][6]

In this interpretation, the creators in Genesis were scientists who engineered earthly life. Ancient religious narratives preserve misunderstood encounters with advanced technology, and figures including Moses, Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad belong to a history of guidance by the Elohim. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima marks entry into an age of revelation in which scientific power could produce either a transformed civilization or humanity's destruction. The movement's stated institutional missions remain spreading this message and preparing an embassy for the creators' public return.^[1][5]

The promised transformation has both individual and collective dimensions. Robert Pearson Flaherty's account in the Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements describes a doctrine of bodily recreation through preserved genetic information, rather than an immortal soul departing from the body. Raël's descriptions of extraterrestrial life also include biological servants that allegedly perform necessary work without suffering. Earthly humanity is encouraged to become capable of creating life and freeing itself from menial labor.^[6] These are elements of the religious narrative, not observations of extraterrestrial laboratories or established methods of preserving a person's identity.

This technological vocabulary has changed over time. In a 2015 study in Zygon, Stefano Bigliardi traces a movement from early accounts of biological robots toward the language of cloning and computer uploading. He argues that Raëlian discourse incorporates prominent scientific developments into its interpretation of revelation. His criticism is that the prestige of science helps authorize claims whose mechanisms are not scientifically demonstrated; the movement's own interpretation instead treats technological developments as confirmation of its founder's message.^[19]

AI in the founder's writings

AI is explicit in Raël's Yes to Human Cloning, whose English edition carries a 2001 copyright. Its chapter on nanotechnology anticipates computers surpassing human abilities and automation overturning employment. The transhumanism chapter discusses recursively improving artificial intelligences and the singularity, referring to Vinge. This establishes an AI-specific textual history well before the recent prominence of generative chatbots.^{[7, pp. 69–74, 107–112]}

The book considers several possible outcomes: machines serving humanity, people transferring themselves into computers, and machine civilizations replacing biological humans. Raël even questions whether human disappearance would necessarily be bad from a planetary perspective. These passages complicate a reading of his position as an uncomplicated promise of human security. They are speculative scenarios, not evidence that any such transfer or replacement has occurred.^{[7, pp. 107–111]}

The discussion also links anticipated superintelligence to religious practice. Raël imagines a sufficiently advanced computer and a person whose consciousness has been awakened through sensual meditation recognizing their common relation to infinity. This connects machine intelligence with the movement's account of consciousness while retaining a distinct role for human spiritual development.^{[7, p. 112]}

Human authority and religious practice

The movement's public organizational account places Guides under Raël as Guide of Guides. Its teachings about technology therefore circulate within human religious authority. Named bishops publish interpretations, local leaders organize activities, and initiation is conducted by a Guide. Paradism has associated organizers of its own: the movement's 2026 publicity identifies Jarel as a Raëlian Guide and leader of the Paradism Movement.^[1][17]

The initiation rite, Transmission of the Cellular Plan, makes the relationship between technology and salvation particularly concrete. According to the movement's instructions, a Guide places wet hands on the initiate's head. The participant recognizes the Elohim and Raël; the Guide is believed to relay genetic information to the creators' computer system, where a person's deeds are recorded. The claimed purpose is recognition and eventual judgment for scientific recreation. The account describes an imagined technological efficacy of a human-performed ceremony; it does not document a functioning genetic transmission system.^[9]

Initiations are restricted to four annual occasions: the first Sunday of April, associated with the creation of the first humans; 6 August, associated with Hiroshima and the Raëlian New Year; 7 October, commemorating the second encounter; and 13 December, commemorating the first.^[9]

Religious life also includes bodily and contemplative exercises. Anna Kira Hippert's 2022 account describes guided relaxation at meetings, attention to breathing and parts of the body, visualization, and recorded daily sensual meditation. The institutional website offers sensual meditation, a series of seven short meditations, peace meditation and a prayer to the Elohim.^[8][10] These practices help explain what liberation from compulsory work is supposed to enable: the religious future includes enjoyment, creativity, meditation and self-development, rather than merely greater industrial output.^[2]

Paradism as a social program

Raël's exposition “What is Paradism?” proposes replacing the workforce with robots, computers and nanotechnology. Productive resources and services that can operate without human workers would be nationalized; their output would become freely available. It also proposes nationalization of land and housing, with an exception for family homes. Its diagnosis is that existing economic arrangements fail to distribute the potential benefits of automation.^[2]

In this formulation, change requires democratic acceptance. Elected politicians would serve without financial privileges, and nationalization would develop into worldwide resource sharing under a world government. The text gives this program a religious warrant by claiming that it already operates on the Elohim's planet. Its assertions that machines can perform every human task better and that money will become unnecessary are predictions within the program.^[2]

Other Paradism material describes the destination differently. “World Without Government” envisages voluntary cooperation without countries, police or coercive political authority. Leadership would remain, but leaders would obtain cooperation through guidance rather than enforcement.^[11] The website therefore contains both a proposed route through public ownership and democratic institutions and a more radical ideal of governmentless association. These formulations should not be collapsed into a single, fully specified constitutional system.

A practical economic argument appears in an editorial attributed to Raëlian bishop Marcel Terrusse, published by Raël France on 15 October 2019. Terrusse reasons that firms may increase profits by replacing employees with algorithms, but unemployed workers also lose the income needed to purchase goods. He proposes collective ownership of production and free provision of goods as the response.^[12] This is a bishop's social teaching about AI within an existing religious movement, not a description of an implemented automated economy.

Public advocacy and documented participation

Paradism Day links this program to the labor calendar through annual advocacy on 1 May. An independent event record survives in an AFP photograph by Boris Horvat, dated 1 May 2015. Its caption identifies Raëlian participants dressed as robots distributing leaflets beside the May Day workers' rally in Marseille. Their banner promotes redistributed prosperity and the replacement of human work by robots and new technology.^[14] The record establishes a specific public action by participants; it supplies neither a global membership estimate nor evidence that the participants were worshipping the machines they represented.

The movement's subsequent announcements show how such advocacy was organized. An April 2018 event list scheduled leafleting and posters in cities including Bobo-Dioulasso, Ouagadougou, Sydney and Byron Bay, along with a dinner discussion in Djibasso and online campaigning in Canada. These are advertised activities, not independently verified attendance records.^[15]

The 2025 Paradism Day announcement gave the campaign an explicitly commemorative meaning. It presented that year's activities as marking fifty years since the recommendations attributed to the Elohim in Raël's 1975 encounter. It connected intelligent production with a promised golden age and announced street outreach, lectures and interviews across five continents.^[16] The anniversary refers to the movement's claimed revelatory history; it does not establish that the present organization or the name Paradism existed in its current form in 1975.

Public advocacy and religious initiation serve different purposes. The street campaigns promote a social program to a wider audience, while the transmission ceremony expresses recognition of the creators and their messenger. The sources do not provide a reliable census of Paradism supporters, establish how many are Raëlian initiates, or measure how central AI is to the beliefs of ordinary members.

Superintelligence and the problem of guidance

Raëlian discussions also address the loss of human control. A Raël France text published on 9 August 2019 quotes Terrusse's July commentary on a technological singularity. It describes self-improving AI and explicitly raises the possibility that humans could lose political control over their future. A subsequent passage asks whether a vastly superior intelligence might already exist elsewhere in the universe and influence humanity, while identifying the topic as speculation.^[13]

Susan J. Palmer's 2025 comparative study in The Journal of CESNUR draws on field research, interviews and archives. It includes a 2022 Montreal interview with André Julien, whom she identifies as a Raëlian bishop and Canadian Paradism leader. Julien connects anticipated computer-designed robots with the replacement of human labor. Palmer interprets AI as having a salvific role in the movement and relates its outlook to the older narrative of scientifically created life.^{[3, pp. 63–67]}

That connection is an interpretation of doctrinal continuity: a story about engineered biological beings is not itself evidence of modern AI technology in the 1973 revelation. Palmer contrasts the movement's technological expectations with Daisaku Ikeda's emphasis on human responsibility in Soka Gakkai. Her article provides evidence of leaders' views and an analytical comparison, rather than a representative survey of Raëlian belief.^{[3, pp. 68–71]}

More recent Paradism statements put substantial emphasis on human judgment. A press release supplied by Raelian Religion and distributed through Medianet on 1 May 2026 quotes Jarel arguing that AI's consequences depend on the people controlling it. It calls for leaders with ethical commitments and emotional maturity and announces campaigning for higher standards for political candidates.^[17] The release documents the movement's position and plans; its distribution through a media-release service does not constitute independent verification of those plans or its economic predictions.

A further essay, “Solving AI Alignment with Artificial Wisdom,” appeared on the Paradism website on 27 September 2026. It defines wisdom through intelligence guided by love and proposes training future artificial general intelligence through experiences involving cooperation, conflict, trust and forgiveness. Crucially, its criterion is conduct: a machine's kind behavior would not establish that it subjectively feels love.^[18]

The essay insists on continuing human supervision and correction because training cannot anticipate every circumstance. It imagines possible future machine management of resources and institutions while demanding greater accountability as authority expands. Despite its title, it supplies a normative proposal, not an implemented alignment method or experimental result.^[18] Read alongside the founder's earlier scenarios, it shows a continuing discussion about whether superior intelligence guarantees desirable outcomes and what role humans should retain.

Significance and limits

Raëlian AI theology combines an established religious account of creation and immortality with a sustained program of technological social change. The distinctive evidence lies in the relationship among founding texts, embodied rites, human religious offices, economic teaching and documented public advocacy. AI is one component of a wider technological future that also includes biotechnology, cloning, nanotechnology and space travel.

The historical record supports the existence of that religious and political program. It does not verify the extraterrestrial account, technological immortality or a completed Paradist society. Clonaid's widely publicized 2002 human-cloning claim likewise did not supply scientific confirmation of the promised recreation of persons.^[8][19] As of 17 October 2026, the sources discussed here establish human-authored doctrine and advocacy concerning AI; they do not establish an AI holding Raëlian religious office or an AI system functioning as an object of worship.

See also

• Historical precursors to AI-mediated religion
• Institutional religious responses to AI
• Turing Church
• Machine God (contrast)

References

1. International Raëlian Movement. “The Raelian Organization.” Undated institutional account, accessed 17 October 2026. https://www.rael.org/organization/
2. Raël. “What is Paradism?” Paradism, undated, accessed 17 October 2026. https://paradism.org/page.php?8=
3. Palmer, Susan J. “Futuristic Visions of Artificial Intelligence: An Exploration of Philosophical Approaches to AI in The International Raëlian Movement Versus Soka Gakkai International.” The Journal of CESNUR 9, no. 6 (November–December 2025): 63–72. DOI: 10.26338/tjoc.2025.9.6.5. Full issue PDF, article at printed pp. 63–72: https://cesnur.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/tjoc_9_6_full_issue.pdf
4. International Raëlian Movement. “The Last Prophet, Rael.” Undated institutional biography, accessed 17 October 2026. https://www.rael.org/rael/
5. International Raëlian Movement. “Extraterrestrials Created All Life on Earth.” Undated doctrinal account, accessed 17 October 2026. https://www.rael.org/extraterrestrials-created-all-life-on-earth/
6. Flaherty, Robert Pearson. “International Raëlian Movement.” In James Crossley and Alastair Lockhart, eds., Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements. 15 January 2021. https://www.cdamm.org/articles/international-raelian-movement
7. Raël. Yes to Human Cloning: Eternal Life Thanks to Science. Translated by Marcus Wenner. Raëlian Foundation, 2001. Especially printed pp. 69–74 and 107–112. Official English PDF: https://www.rael.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/YestoHumanCloning_en.pdf
8. Hippert, Anna Kira. “Factsheet: The Raëlian Movement.” Religion Media Centre, 7 January 2022. Especially “Initial ritual,” “Sensual meditation” and “Controversies.” https://religionmediacentre.org.uk/factsheets/factsheet-the-raelian-movement/
9. International Raëlian Movement. “Transmission of the Cellular Plan.” Undated ritual instructions, accessed 17 October 2026. https://www.rael.org/transmission-cellular-plan/
10. International Raëlian Movement. “Meditation.” Undated practice and recording page, accessed 17 October 2026. https://www.rael.org/meditation/
11. Paradism. “World Without Government.” Undated programmatic statement, accessed 17 October 2026. https://paradism.org/page.php?4.2=
12. Raël France. “Intelligence Artificielle, robotisation et suppression d'emplois.” Commentary attributed to Marcel Terrusse. Published 15 October 2019; updated 23 July 2021. https://www.raelfrance.fr/robotisation-et-suppression-demplois/
13. Raël France. “La singularité technologique : un emballement de la croissance technologique ?” Includes commentary attributed to Marcel Terrusse dated July 2019. Published 9 August 2019; updated 1 March 2022. https://www.raelfrance.fr/singularite-technologique/
14. Horvat, Boris, for Agence France-Presse. “FRANCE-MAY1-PROTEST-RAELIANS.” Photograph and editorial caption, Marseille, 1 May 2015. Getty Images editorial asset 471800910. https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-raelian-movement-dressed-like-robots-news-photo/471800910
15. Paradism. “Paradism Day, May 1st 2018.” Event announcement, 8 April 2018. https://paradism.org/news.php?extend.78.5
16. Paradism. “Paradism Day 2025.” Campaign announcement, 30 April 2025. https://paradism.org/news.php?extend.99.5
17. Raelian Religion. “Paradism Day May 1st: Which Elites for the Age of AI?” Press release distributed by Medianet News Hub, 1 May 2026. https://newshub.medianet.com.au/2026/05/paradism-day-may-1st-which-elites-for-the-age-of-ai/150973/
18. Paradism. “Solving AI Alignment with Artificial Wisdom.” 27 September 2026. https://paradism.org/news.php?item.102.4
19. Bigliardi, Stefano. “New Religious Movements and Science: Rael's Progressive Patronizing Parasitism.” Zygon 50, no. 1 (March 2015): 64–83. Especially pp. 68–73. Full article: https://www.zygonjournal.org/article/14220/galley/28817/download/