Susan J. Palmer

The contributors to this volume examine children from many different alternative religious movements worldwide, including The Family, Hare Krishna, Wiccans, and Pagans, Messianic Communities, and the Rajneesh (Osho) Movement. The essays explore two general questions: 1) What impact does the presence of children have on a new religion's lifestyle and chance of surviving into the future? 2) Is child abuse more likely to occur in unconventional religions, or are children born into them, the 'new' religions have grown up and have become an important and rapidly changing social force that we cannot reasonably dismiss or wisely ignore

Aliens Adored is the first full length, in-depth look at the Raëlian movement, a fascinating new religion founded in the 1970s by the charismatic prophet, Raël. Born in France as Claude Vorilhon, the former race-car driver founded the religion after he experienced a visitation from the aliens (the "elohim") who, in his cosmology, created humans by cloning themselves. This pioneering study provides a thorough analysis of the movement, focusing on issues of sexuality, millenarianism, and the impact of the scientific worldview on religion and the environment. Raël's radical sexual ethics, his gnostic anthropocentrism, and shallow ecotheology offer us a mirror through which we see how our worldview has been shaped by the forces of globalization, postmodernism, and secular humanism.