The chronicle “The ravages of Raël” as well as the documentary Rael’s women gave me the impetus to denounce some hard-won devastation.
I was 16 when my mother joined the Raelian movement. I will always remember the moment when she proclaimed: “Rael is the most conscious person I have known. »
Shame has haunted me for 27 years. I doubted for a long time the values of respect, integrity and conscience that my mother had instilled in me when I was young.
To my recollection, she also always supported the feminist principles of independence, equality and affirmation.
Bullshitall that, mom?
What was I to think of my identity, my belonging and the unconditional love of a mother when I was a teenager taking care of my little brother, the house and sleeping only a few hours a night so there were Raelians in the house busying themselves with a work with no result, but with devastating personal, family and societal consequences?
Guilt
Added to this is a feeling of guilt. That of not having done everything to get my mother, such an intelligent woman, out of a cursed hold. Directly or indirectly, however, I sent messages and took several concrete actions to try to save my mother from her illusions and save me from my suffering.
Adult, I understand that the human being is made of contradictions, that we are often incoherent, that we do not always embody our principles to the height of our commitment. I also understand fundamental concepts of social psychology such as submission, propaganda and manipulation. The fact remains that the child in me constantly asks the same questions: how is it possible that a person’s devotion to a guru supplants the importance he places on his family ties?
How is it possible that the police woke me up in the middle of the night at 17 because my mother was harboring a Raelian wanted by the police for sexual assault on minors?
Or that my mother deliberately missed my special needs daughter’s seventh birthday, of which she was the only guest, too busy preparing for her participation in a meeting for the construction of the Elohim embassy?
How can one advocate science and conscience and never question the foundations and functioning of the Raelian enterprise? My mother chose to invest all her time, boundless energy and money in oppression, control, submission and dependency. She depends on the Raelian movement to feel valued, even to exist, and she will have given her health, her money and her daily life to the detriment of her life.
The extraordinary mother of my childhood became the depressed mother of my adolescence to finish the indoctrinated, absent and confused mother of my adulthood. I’ve mourned my mother several times, but I’m still hanging on. I want to believe that there remains a pure part in his heart for me, for us. It is on this that I bet for a few crumbs of connection with her.
It goes without saying that I sincerely believe that Claude Vorilhon deserves hell and that he is one of the worst manipulators in history. My feeling of helplessness is total, but I tell myself that writing will calm me down and perhaps calm you down too. It’s so overwhelming to live with shame and guilt. And can I add fear? That of being denied or despised because I have written. But at least I will have written, hoping to raise my conscience and that of my children. Isn’t that what I have to do, mom?