Hugo pop! | Raël, in the trash!

Why still talk about Raël, this clownish guru who has financially and sexually exploited his followers for 50 years?

Why devote so much media attention to this low-end Captain Cosmos, who strongly encourages his followers to meditate sensually, strip naked, and examine their anuses with a mirror?

Why give precious screen time to this self-proclaimed prophet who claims to have supped with Moses, Mohammed and Buddha on a wonderful planet populated by cute little squirrels with bear faces?

I mean, drugs are more debilitating than they were in the 1970s, but there are limits to hallucinating and buying into any nonsense.

Claude Vorilhon, aka the messenger Raël, flashes on our alien radar because the giant Netflix is ​​devoting a four-episode miniseries to him, online since Thursday. His title : Rael: the prophet of extraterrestrials. Place of manufacture: France, where our little-bunned Oralien saw his first flying saucers, between two incantatory songs to the glory of the Elohims, the true creators of humanity, according to him.

Having a doctorate from Wikipedia in sectarian excesses, thanks to the narcissistic perverts named Keith Raniere, of NXIVM, and Luc Jouret, of the Order of the Solar Temple, I learned nothing new during these four hours which retraced the “journey” by Claude Vorilhon, who was first a pale imitator of Jacques Brel, then a car racing driver, before retraining as a journalist, yes ma’am.

But these various “careers”, which were all flops, were before the famous Close Encounter of the Third Kind, which teleported His Holiness Star Trek to another planet, which was unfortunately visited by tens of thousands of gullible people and vulnerable.

In fact, the documentary Raël’s womenbroadcast last year on Radio-Canada, sheds more light on this humiliating and degrading sect in one hour than the complete Netflix miniseries.

The first hour gives a disproportionate place to the faithful of Raël who still believe in the construction of a circular embassy, ​​with a landing pad for flying saucers, which will welcome the Elohims on their return to Earth. Only one Quebec Raelian, guide-bishop Nicole Bertrand, testifies on camera. She is in fact the spokesperson for the group in Quebec, which the series does not specify.

The Netflix documentary series also interviews former journalist Brigitte McCann, who infiltrated the Valcourt sect in 2003 and published a series of shocking reports in The Montreal Journal. It is thanks to his excellent work, and that of photographer Chantal Poirier, that the Quebec authorities placed this charlatan in their crosshairs, which led to his exile in the United States. Thanks for that.

And thank you to our cartoonist Serge Chapleau, who grabbed the prophet’s quilt to Everybody talks about it, in September 2004. The Raëlians have never digested the humiliation suffered by their leader dressed as Classel in front of 2,179,000 viewers. We don’t see this epic hair-combing scene in the documentary series, but we quickly see Raël in the setting of Guy A. Lepage’s show.

Moreover, Quebec archives abound in the French miniseries on Raël: Ad Libby Jean-Pierre Coalier, report by Paul Toutant and extracts from programs with Paul Arcand, Pascale Nadeau and Pierre Maisonneuve, the excesses of the bearded priest have been well documented.

Media attention around Raëlians, however, exploded on December 26, 2002, when Raëlian chemist Brigitte Boisselier announced, live from a Holiday Inn in Hollywood Beach, Florida, that the first cloned baby had been born. Where when how ? No proof of the existence of this girl has ever been provided, in fact. Hello humbug.

If Raël looks ridiculous in his Halloween outfit, Brigitte Boisselier is much more terrifying, I think, because she is a scientist who speaks in such a gentle tone that she almost hypnotizes us. The documentary team found her in Mexico, where she seems to live in a palace that’s a lot more luxurious than, say, UFOland.

This Brigitte Boisselier remains the most loyal apostle of the movement. She still wears her medallion and defends all of Raël’s vague theories from space. Here’s one who’s drank the Kool-Aid to the dregs.

As for our guru who calls himself the half-brother of Jesus, let’s not forget, he has lived in Japan since 2007. He married a young woman who barely speaks English. Perhaps it’s better for her that she doesn’t understand what comes out of the mouth of her partner, the lucky girl.

In his interview for the miniseries, Raël does not reveal anything shocking. At 77 years old, he looks like Doc Mailloux and he has relaunched his sect, which is gaining popularity, can you believe it?

It is high time that we send Serge Chapleau to Japan to shake his head and send him, once again, to punishment.

I levitate

With the album SOS of SZA

You may have discovered this 34-year-old singer-songwriter at the last Grammy Awards gala. His album SOS, released in December 2022, is excellent if you like pop and melodious R&B. The extract Kill Bill is probably his best known. To introduce yourself to the world of SZA, also try the songs Snooze And Good Daysperfect for evenings at the cottage by the fire or during a Valentine’s Day dinner.

I avoid it

The radio advert of John Deere

When it starts, often during Paul Arcand’s show, we think that it is a real tune of new country. “The sun rises after me. I don’t know that about the little days,” sings a cowboy from a lounge bar, who adds that working hard doesn’t scare him, because he does it for himself and his family, that’s what it is. happiness. And on his John Deere tractor, our man always has a smile. This one-minute advertising refrain, financed by a Laval dealership, gets into our heads never to come out again, and it is this effectiveness that is frightening.