While Merinda was too bored with heteronormative relational projections and too busy with conferencing to write a description for our conversation about Escaping Twin Flames (sorrrryyyyyy! But go listen anyway, folx—it's a doozy), here’s wishing your ears a happy Monday with our latest episode on Raël: The Alien Prophet (2024). Spreading the message of the Elohim—an extraterrestrial species they believe to be responsible for creating human life on Earth—Raëlians got their start in France in the 1970s, started a lab called Clonaid, spoke before the U.S. Congress, and now boast an international movement. Vehicular modes of transport in this episode include not only spaceships but also Mike’s Hot Take Express! We hop aboard the latter to talk craft, genre, and the clichés and expectations attending them. What does free love have to do with human cloning? Why are claims about human exceptionalism so pervasive? How is a cult documentary like a sonnet? And does the Hot Take Express have a good snack cart? Listen and find answers to all but one of those questions.

Links:

Susan J. Palmer, Aliens Adored: Raël’s UFO Religion (2004). https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/bucknell/aliens-adored/9780813534763/

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Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.