User reviews

"The highest truth of the universe has been revealed to me: it's that you should all worship me, have sex with me (but only if you're good looking) and give me all your money."

Fascinating and infuriating story about how even some very well educated people can fall prey to a self-absorbed cult leader and waste their lives covering up his lies.

In the style of Holy Hell (about the Buddhafield sect) and Wild,Wild Country (about the Bhagwan/Osho sect), Raël: The Last Prophet tells the story of a cult mainly through interviews with current and former members, mixed with old footage of the sect's often absurd activities.

Interestingly, the cult leader himself, Claude Vorilhon ("Raël"), who has managed to become venerated as a prophet by tens of thousands of followers globally, agreed to be interviewed for this production at his current home in Japan.

Raël is definitely the ultimate for delusional and for gullible, naive followers.

It's not the usual guru sect.

This sect goes way over the top and is still going after nearly 50 years.

What's different about Raël?

Well, this Frenchman claimed that he was taken to another planet to meet the creators of humans.

Not enough you say?

When on the other planet, he met all the main prophets, including Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc... Still not enough for you?

Raël claimed they cloned a human being !

That was so controversial the US passed a law to ban any human cloning.

Raël even had a senate hearing where he testified.

This Netflix documentary series is a rare one where it's just the right length.

I enjoyed this documentary because .... honestly , I have never seen such a high level of gullibility, even for sects !

As Episode 1 of "Raël The Alien Prophet" (2024 release from France; 4 episodes of about 45 min each) opens, it is "Mexico 2021" and a woman who has been a Raëlian since 1993 is being interviewed. We then go back in time to how Raël got his start, and slowly but surely is building a "movement" based on accepting that UFOs have sent extra-terrestrials to help humankind. At this point we are 10 minutes into Episode 1.

Couple of comments: this is yet another documentary mini-series focusing on how a group becomes a cult. The parallels with prior instances are striking, but what makes this still worthwhile is that this movement started in France in the 1970s. There are some interesting "plot changes" along the way which I certainly will not spoil here. The film makers were able to interview quite a few of the cult members (present or past). It seems there are several reviewers here that cannot distinguish between the cult they disagree with and the documentary regarding that cult. To rate this mini-series 1/10 is simply preposterous.

"Raël: The Last Prophet" recently started streaming on Netfilx and I watched all 4 episodes last night in a single setting. As such not revolutionary is revealed but I simply enjoyed watching this. If you are in the mood for another serving of how cults become a cult, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

That aliens might have visited earth, and why wouldn't they? It's a fascinating planet. What I don't believe is that they randomly stopped some French guy and made him the Messiah. I also don't believe that they created humanity, because evolution is a good explanation for that. Rael seems to be a typical cult leader doing nefarious stuff because people let him. The one thing I don't really understand is how opposed people are to human cloning. At the moment it would be a purely biological process - identical twins are clones, so why not give childless couples another option, apart from IVF? If you know nothing about this group, it's a good watch. A.

These voices made my head feel like it was going to explode. Constantly talking over each other in weird cartoon or AI sounding voices. I had to turn it off even though the information seemed interesting enough. I don't even think I can explain it. Hopefully I'm not the only one that feels this way.

It's almost like the backup voices are too loud and the audio is all mixed strangely.

I appreciate that it is more fast paced than a lot of these series and that it isn't set up like some true crime podcast.

I with they would release it with the original dialog and English subtitles. Time to find something else to watch.

This is just another generic story about a somewhat charismatic cult leader and a bunch of lost people who followed him, willing to accept any kind of nonsense to find structure and direction in their lives. However, this case isn't particularly interesting, and as a documentary, it feels lazy, much like many Netflix documentaries that prioritize viewer engagement over meaningful storytelling or observation of phenomena. Instead of creating yet another mediocre drama with a straightforward narrative, relying on testimonials and archive footage as supporting arguments for whatever predetermined story they want to tell, the documentary could have explored broader themes, such as the phenomenon of cults and their similarities to religions. It could have delved deeper into the emergence and practice of monotheistic religions over the past 3000 years, examining the differences between this cult leader and historical figures from Judea, Mecca, or Vermont. Alternatively, the documentary could have focused on Scientology and confronted the influence of Hollywood head-on.

I understand Netflix's business model; these documentaries are cost-effective to produce, add fresh content to the catalog, and keep viewers engaged for longer periods. However, they often lack cinematic or social value. While Netflix's documentary production budget may be small compared to their fiction projects, it still surpasses that of traditional non-streaming documentary projects. It's disappointing that Netflix doesn't aim higher and instead serves up the same content we've seen on cable TV for years, albeit with the Netflix brand attached.

This is a very badly made documentary. The first episode makes it seem like it's in favour of this cult. Clearly the cult is almost an exact copy of Judaism or Christianity. Elohim is found in Genesis in the bible. Please look it up if you don't know. Clearly Elohim is not to do with aliens. There is no evidence or logic but these people think this nonsense is the truth? It's worse than a main stream religion. There is no commentary or narration, just the members talking about it. I didn't bother watching all of it as I was bored. The worst documentary I've seen on this kind of topic. Don't waste your time. The French could learn from the U. K and U. S. on how to do this properly.

People are so gullible, they believe just about anything. I'm surprised that during the old footage of that guru guy getting interviewed when he was young that nobody asked well. Were you taking drugs? Were you on drugs? What drugs did you take? Seriously, I mean yeah I saw UFO and it took him to another planet or whatever other stuff he said, but nobody asked like because that in that day and age drugs were huge. All these cults were like full of drugs so I'm surprised nobody asked like were you on heroin? Did you try LSD? Were you smoking pot like all the time or something like that? Nobody asked any of those questions so I think it's all BS I know people that went on drug trips and said exact same kind of crap And they have that blonde lady that's a chemist to give validation to this because she's really intelligent and she has a degree and she's so smart so of course she believes that it must be true. I just think she's also delusional. She probably had like massive sex orgies at that place and you know that's what most of those cults are all about Due to me, I'm getting no vibes from him of being real all I'm getting vibes of some narcissistic lonely insecure dude that somehow got people to follow him with his BS.

OMG this so called documentary was so boring and uninteresting.

A couple of laconical interviews with mostly still practicing Raelians, one ex-Raelian, and an embittered French magistrate, this has to be one of the laziest bit of documentary making I've had the displeasure to watch in some time.

Part way through I thought - has this been made by a Raelian.

No expose on any damage the cult may have done to its members, with seemingly very little in the way of trying to track down and interview former cult members, or look into the finances of the cult, or look into breaches of laws e.g. Fraud over the human cloning claims.

Mainly just interviews with current, very old cult members.

Boring, biased, and just very poor documentary making.

It starts with this ugly french guy, stupid, charmless, looking like the outcome of a botched scientific operation, who claims he's met aliens, in the most unimaginative and ridiculous way possible. I heard 8-year old kids lying more convincingly.

These aliens (The Elohim) are our creators, and they told him all the secrets of humanity, so he has to spread the word.

The poor guy didn't ask for any of that, he's just the chosen vessel (of all the people in the world, they've chosen the one who looks halfway between a clown and a puddle)

Somehow, some cuckoos are adamant he's telling the truth and devote their life (and money) to him.

They build a community, 70's style, with freedom at its core: Freedom for the leader to f... every woman, for the sake of humanity and the "message", of course. Let alone all the people living naked, in the midst of kids and all the disgusting stories that have been reported around that.

In a nutshell, a manipulating piece of sh... But to be fair, he didn't even try to hide it that much, shame on his followers. Another self-appointed prophet with a gullible audience.

I almost forgot that he had dinner with Mahomet and Jesus, who told him they were actually brothers. Who are we to dare to question that? If Rael says it, it is true, period!

And you'll have to listen to the testimonies of "Raelians", who feel they're unjustly persecuted, for the world fears the righteous ones.

You'll get the pseudo-scientist who sounds like she's taken too many Xanax, then the clueless nymphomaniac guinea fowl who was amazed by the prophet's personality and dreamt of having sex with the Elohims (This lady is probably the dumbest of them all, that's saying something!).

And a bunch of brain-dead morons who still haven't figured it out, 40 years later.

Well, it's almost painful to watch, and if it were a fiction, nobody would believe it.

Beyond ridiculous.