Paranormal, Conspiracies, Occult, Ancient History, Magick, Supernatural, Spiritual, Metaphysical, New Age

by Paul Collins & Phillip D. Collins

Few who have researched the UFO phenomenon are not familiar with the Majestic 12 documents. This controversial series of documents surfaced in 1984 and have been debated ever since. While a related report's discovery in the National Archive lends corroborative evidence to the case for the authenticity of the MJ-12 papers, chronological and formatting anomalies within the documents arouse substantial skepticism. However, all debate aside, what is important about the MJ-12 papers is the portrait that they paint for the public mind. The papers present a shadowy group of policy professionals allegedly established by a secret executive order of President Truman on September 24, 1947. The underlying theme of the MJ-12 documents is inherently technocratic. That is, they dignify the concept of a Technocracy. A technocratic society, or Technocracy, can be defined as follows:

Technocracy, in classical political terms, refers to a system of governance in which technically trained experts rule by virtue of their specialized knowledge and position in dominant political and economic institutions. (Fischer 17)

Oxford Professor Carroll Quigley also wrote about a dictatorship of "experts," suggesting that a cognitive elite "will replace the democratic voter in control of the political system" (Quigley 866). Of just such a democracy of "experts," H.G. Wells stated:

The world's political organization will be democratic, that is to say, the government and direction of affairs will be in immediate touch with and responsive to the general thought of the educated whole population. (26)

Literary critic and author W. Warren Wagar comments on this statement:

Read carefully. He did not say the world government would be elected by the people, or that it would even be responsive to the people just to those who were "educated." (Wells 26)

The MJ-12 documents portray just such a state of affairs. Whether authentic or phony, the purported Majestic group represents the technocratic conception of totalitarianism. Its alleged members constitute a coterie of policy professionals. Yet, most UFO researchers fail to identify this thematic thread of technocratic thought. Preoccupied with aliens and flying saucers, Ufologists overlook the technocratic implications of the MJ-12 documents. Interestingly enough, many Ufologists do not even object to the notion of policy professionals circumventing America's democratic processes and presiding over decision-making. Instead, they merely object to the obscurantism surrounding such cults of expertise. Evidently, some Ufologists do not fear authoritarianism. They only fear secrecy, which, ironically, is a natural correlative of authoritarianism. Yet, Ufologists and others associated with the UFO phenomenon (e.g., contactees, abductees, and cults) are becoming increasingly agreeable towards anti-democratic paradigms, particularly Technocracy. Thus, the MJ-12 documents have proven instrumental in the promulgation of the technocratic paradigm. It is the thesis of this essay that the enshrinement of the technocratic paradigm was the intended corollary underlying the revelation of Majestic 12 documents. The specific variety of Technocracy towards which the UFO community is gravitating is the scientistic theocratic order of a sociocracy.

Sociocracy: The Objective?

The revelation of the MJ-12 documents helped to edify the religious convictions of many UFO cults. Suddenly, an artifact promising to affirm the cosmic presuppositions of UFO true believers had conveniently appeared. More and more, likeminded UFO adherents and contactees were assembling to form scientistic cults. In turn, these scientistic cults have been central to the emergence of what sociologist William Sims Bainbridge calls the "Church of God Galactic." Essentially, Bainbridge's "Church of God Galactic" is a theocracy premised upon the technocratic faith in "progress." It is a religion that is politically and socially expedient because of its emphasis upon unfettered technological development. Commenting on the supposed centrality of this scientistic faith to progress, Bainbridge states:

Religion will continue to influence the course of progress, and creation of a galactic civilization may depend upon the emergence of a galactic religion capable of motivating society for the centuries required to accomplish that great project. ("Religions for a Galactic Civilization," no pagination)

According to Bainbridge, a galactic civilization requires a new galactic religion. Scientistic cults, particularly UFO cults, are the purveyors of this new religious consciousness and they are contributing to the creation of a new theocratic order. Bainbridge reiterates:

J. Gordon Melton's monumental Encyclopedia of American Religions reports the histories and doctrines of thirteen flying saucer cults: Mark-Age, Brotherhood of the Seven Rays, Star Light Fellowship, Universariun Foundation, Ministry of Universal Wisdom, White Star, Understanding Incorporated, The Aetherius Society, Solar Light Center, Unarius, Cosmic Star Temple, Cosmic Circle of Friendship, and Last Day Messengers. These groups mix together various supernatural notions from many other traditions, but a common thread is the idea that the Earth is but a small part of a vast inhabited galaxy. Some, like The Aetherius Society, contend that our planet is the pawn in an unseen interstellar war, and if such a cult became influential our society might invest in cosmic defenses which incidentally would develop the planets as bastions. Others feel we must perfect ourselves in order to qualify for membership in the Galactic Federation of enlightened species, and if such a cult became influential our society might invest much in the attempt to contact the galactic government. These flying saucer cults are all quite insignificant, but one like them could well rise to prominence in a future decade. We need several really aggressive, attractive space religions, meeting the emotional needs of different segments of our population, driving traditional religions and retrograde cults from the field. (No pagination; emphasis added)

Thus, for a galactic society to truly take shape, new UFO cults must consistently clear the religious marketplace and erect a new theocratic order. Sociologists like Bainbridge have actually suggested that the social sciences should augment the efforts of scientistic cults in the formation of this new theocratic order. Bainbridge conducted a five-year ethnographic study of the Process Church, a satanic cult birthed from a schism within the scientistic cult of Scientology ("Social Construction from Within: Satan's Process," no pagination). During his examination of the Processeans, Bainbridge developed a great deal of affinity for the cultists' penchant for re-conceptualizing the roles of God and Satan in accordance with their Hegelian theology (no pagination). This case of Biblical revisionism inspired Bainbridge and, since then, he has encouraged sociologists to take an active part in the re-conceptualizing of traditional religious concepts. It is his hope that such religious experimentation will eventually result in the creation of a "Church of God Galactic." In "New Religions, Science, and Secularization," Bainbridge presents the following mandate:

It is time to move beyond mere observation of scientistic cults and use the knowledge we have gained of recruitment strategies, cultural innovation, and social needs to create better religions than the world currently possesses. At the very least, unobtrusive observation must be supplemented by active experimentation. Religions are human creations. Our society quite consciously tries to improve every other kind of social institution, why not religion? Members of The Process, founded mainly by students from an architecture school, referred to the creation of their cult as religious engineering, the conscious, systematic, skilled creation of a new religion. I propose that we become religious engineers. ("New Religions, Science, and Secularization," no pagination).

Evidently, Bainbridge feels that the sociologist should play a role in the creation of a new religious consciousness. Ethnographic analyses of scientistic cults, particularly UFO cults, will no longer suffice. "Active experimentation" is required. Working in such a capacity, social scientists would cease to be observers. Instead, they would become active promulgators of a new theocracy. Bainbridge elaborates:

Sociologists in most other fields are not shy about undertaking work that has practical implications. Our colleagues struggle against poverty and injustice, seek the best social environment for industrial production, and intervene in political battles. Sociologists of religion are among the most ethical and high-minded of scholars, and there is no reason why they should not apply their knowledge to the creation of new religions. The world needs them. We have roles to play as consultants to existing new religions, helping them solve problems that our research has permitted us to understand. But we must also be prepared to launch new cults of our own invention, a task I admit that is both hazardous to one's own welfare and outrageous in the eyes of people who refuse to admit that all religions are human creations. But it is far better for honest religious engineers to undertake the creation of new religions for sake of human betterment than to leave the task to madmen and wealth-hungry frauds. (No pagination)

In essence, what Bainbridge is promoting is the Comtean concept of a "sociocracy." "Sociocracy" was a technocratic form of theocracy promoted by August Comte, the founding father of sociology. Sociocracy's governing precepts were premised upon the religion of scientism and its priesthood was composed of social scientists. In Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise, Frank Fischer explains the concept of "sociocracy" as follows:

. . . Comte advanced the concept of a "sociocracy," defined as a new "religion of humanity." Sociologists were to identify the principles of this new faith and to implement them through a "sociolatry." The sociolatry was to entail a system of festivals, devotional practices, and rites designed to fix the new social ethics in the minds of the people. In the process, men and women would devote themselves not to God (deemed an outmoded concept) but to "Humanity" as symbolized in the "Grand Being" and rendered incarnate in the great men of history. (71)

In this scientistic theocracy, questions of man's purpose and his relationship with God would become the intellectual property of social scientists. Such a societal configuration is purely technocratic in character. It enthrones "policy professionals" as the sole arbiters of truth. Bainbridge's proposal for social scientists to become religious engineers merely reiterates the technocratic concept of a sociocracy. Historically, the social sciences find their proximate origins with technocratic theoreticians and sociopolitical Utopians. These thinkers would develop several of the theoretical concepts upon which modern socialist totalitarian machinations are premised. Sociology was predisposed to such authoritarian applications from the very beginning. Ever-present throughout sociological theory is the theme of a scientifically managed society.

August Comte was the "principal disciple" of Henri de Saint-Simon (Fischer 70). E.H. Carr characterizes Saint-Simon as "the precursor of socialism, the precursor of the technocrats, and the precursor of totalitarianism" (2). Saint-Simon's philosophy was pure scientism and his vision for a Utopian society was premised entirely upon scientistic precepts. Fischer describes Saint-Simon's vision:

In his [Saint-Simon's] view, a new unity based upon an all-encompassing ideology had to be forged. Only a belief in science and technology could replace the divisive ideologies prevalent at the time, particularly those of the church. In short, priests and politicians--the older rulers of Europe--had to be supplanted by scientists and technicians. (69)

Saint-Simon's vision for a technocratic society actually hearkens back to an older esoteric tradition. Sir Francis Bacon was one of the first theoreticians to formulate the concept of a scientifically managed society. Fischer states: ". . .Saint-Simon's work can be interpreted as a prescription for Bacon's prophecy" (69).

Allegedly, Bacon was the Grand Master of the secret Rosicrucian Order (Howard 74). In turn, this organization was closely aligned with the Masonic Lodge (50). This organizational association is made evident by Bacon's own literature. In 1627, he published The New Atlantis, which was replete with Freemasonic symbols (Howard 74). Author Frank Fischer provides a most elucidating description of the Utopian concepts presented in Bacon's New Atlantis:

For Bacon, the defining feature of history was rapidly becoming the rise and growth of science and technology. Where Plato had envisioned a society governed by "philosopher kings," men who could perceive the "forms" of social justice, Bacon sought a technical elite who would rule in the name of efficiency and technical order. Indeed, Bacon's purpose in The New Atlantis was to replace the philosopher with the research scientist as the ruler of the utopian future, New Atlantis was a pure technocratic society. (66-67)

There is a conspicuous continuity of Masonic thought running from Bacon to Saint-Simon to Comte. This becomes evident in the Comtean contention that "Humanity" was symbolized in the "Grand Being," which incarnated itself through a myriad of historical figures. Automatically, astute readers will identify parallels between the Comtean concept of the "Grand Being" and the Masonic concept of the "Great Architect." Malachi Martin provides further explication of the Masonic "Great Architect":

From the writings and records of speculative Masonry, it is clear that the central religious tenet became a belief in the Great Architect of the Universe--a figure familiar by now from the influence of Italian humanists…The Great Architect was immanent to and essentially a part of the material cosmos, a product of the "enlightened" mind. (521-22)

Like Comte's "Grand Being," the Masonic "Great Architect" was an immanent force firmly anchored to the ontological plane of the physical universe. Essentially, this immanent force constituted an emergent deity, which found incarnation through humanity. Comte also dubbed it the Humanite (Wagar 106-07). Ultimately, this was the patron deity of sociocracy and the social scientist was its divinely ordained expositor of truth. A religio-political milieu governed by Bainbridge's religious engineers would represent precisely the same state of affairs. It is also a state of affairs that the MJ-12 documents were possibly designed to promote. The "revelation" of these documents has effectively conditioned the public mind to accept a technocratic form of governance.

Lester Ward, who is considered the founder of American sociology, believed that the social sciences were far more than a "fact-gathering" enterprise (Bannister 13). He contended that "its goal is a radical 'sociocracy,' not the palliatives that pass for social reform" (13). Ward's "radical 'sociocracy'" began to take shape shortly after World War II. Many American social scientists were also alumni of the Office of Strategic Services, which plagiarized and refined Nazi psychological warfare techniques. William "Wild Bill" Donovan, who was the director of the Office of Strategic Services in 1941, believed that the Nazis' psychological warfare methods could act as models for "Americanized" stratagems (Simpson 24). Psychological warfare swiftly became part of the U.S. intelligence community's operational lexicon (24). Donovan believed the concept to be so significant that it would inevitably become "a full arm of the U.S. military, equal in status to the army, navy, and air force" (24). Six organizations constituted the nucleus of U.S. psychological warfare research (26). These were:

(1)Samuel Stouffer's Research Branch of the U.S. Army's Division of Morale; (2)the Office of War Information (OWI) led by Elmer Davis and its surveys division under Elmo Wilson; (3) the Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) of the U.S. Army, commanded by Brigadier General Robert McClure; (4) the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) led by William Donovan; (5) Rensis Likert's Division of Program Surveys at the Department of Agriculture, which provided field research personnel in the United States for the army, OWI, Treasury Department, and other government agencies; and (6) Harold Lasswell's War Communication Division at the Library of Congress. (26)

Of course, this wartime network was peopled heavily by "prominent social scientists" (26). In some instances, the same social engineers participated in two or more organizations (26). Christopher Simpson enumerates the various social scientists involved:

The OWI, for example, employed Elmo Roper (of the Roper survey organization), Leonard Doob (Yale), Wilbur Schramm (University of Illinois and Stanford), Alexander Leighton (Cornell), Leo Lowenthal (Institut fur Sozialforschung and University of California), Hans Speier (RAND Corp.), Nathan Leites (RAND), Edward Barrett (Columbia), and Clyde Kluckhohn (Harvard), among others. (26)

The Army's Psychological Warfare Division was also largely staffed by social scientists, some of which being OSS officers as well (27). The OSS assigned Morris Janowitz (University of Michigan and Institut fur Sozialforschung), Murray Gurfein, Saul Padover (New School for Social Research), and W. Phillips Davison (Columbia and Rand) to the Psychological Warfare Division to employ their proficiency in "communication and German social psychology" (27). According to Art Kleiner, this wartime network:

was generally an immense catalyst for social science in America (and England), because it pulled university researchers from their isolated posts. They worked together on real-world problems such as keeping up military morale, developing psychological warfare techniques, and studying foreign cultures. (33)

Indeed, the ascendance of the social sciences had begun. The OSS contributed substantially to this rise. Howard Becker (University of Wisconsin), Douglas Cater (Aspen Institute), Walter Langer (University of Wisconsin), Alex Inkeles (Harvard), and Herbert Marcuse (Institut fur Sozialforschung and New School for Social Research) were all "prominent OSS officers who later contributed to the social sciences" (Simpson 27). However, OSS support extended beyond governmental channels. Simpson explains:

OSS wartime contracting outside the government included arrangements for paid social science research by Stanford, the University of California at Berkley, Columbia, Princeton, Yale's Institute of Human Relations, and the National Opinion Research Center, which was then at the University of Denver. Roughly similar lists of social scientists and scholarly contractors can be discovered at each of the government's centers of wartime communications and public opinion research. (27)

During Senate hearings in early November 1945, OSS officer Brigadier General John Magruder adamantly maintained that:

the government of the United States would be well advised to do all in its power to promote the development of knowledge in the field of social sciences. . .Were we to develop a dearth of social scientists, all national intelligence agencies servicing policy makers in peace or war would be directly handicapped. . .[R]esearch of social scientists [is] indispensable to the sound development of national intelligence in peace and war. (Qutd. in Simpson 32)

The consensus among those involved in psychological warfare was that the social sciences, which had been successfully tested during an exceptionally violent conflict, possessed equally promising potentials in times of peace. The weapon had become the surgical knife. Now, the incisions were to be made to the postwar psyche of the public mind. With their Nazi counterparts vanquished, OSS social scientists diffused themselves throughout civilian institutions and commandeered several strategically sensitive positions. These included positions in the mass media and tax-exempt foundations. With social engineers firmly entrenched within America's informational infrastructure, a "radical 'sociocracy'" began to ascend in the West. The paranoia of the Cold War contributed to this ascendance. Ostensibly, the stratagems of Nazi social sciences were adopted by OSS sociologists to counter the psychological warfare stratagems of the Soviet Union. However, the tactics developed by America's social scientists were predominantly employed against United States citizens, specifically through the mass media. Evidently, the threat of communism proved most expedient to the would-be rulers of the Western sociocracy.

Invaders from the Earth?

Likewise, the fear of alien invasion might have been considered a viable option by the ruling elite for the enshrinement of sociocracy. Just such a scenario was examined in the Report from Iron Mountain, a document purporting to be the product of a secret government think-tank. The document reads:

Credibility, in fact, lies at the heart of the problem of developing a political substitute for war. This is where the space-race proposals, in many ways so well suited as economic substitutes for war, fall short. The most ambitious and unrealistic space project cannot of itself generate a believable external menace. It has been hotly argued that such a menace would offer the "last best hope for peace," etc., by uniting mankind against the danger of destruction by "creatures" from other planets or from outer space. Experiments have been proposed to test the credibility of an out-of-our-world invasion threat; it is possible that a few of the more difficult-to-explain "flying saucer" incidents of recent years were in fact early experiments of this kind. . If so, they could hardly have been judged encouraging. (Lewin 66)

Of course, the report was hardly enthusiastic about the prospects of successfully hoaxing an alien invasion. However, it is interesting that the report mentions the possibility of experiments into this avenue of threat promulgation. One cannot help but wonder if Orson Wells' classic War of the Worlds broadcast was one such experiment. The program did manage to generate a substantial amount of panic within certain segments of the population. So substantial was that panic that it drew the attention of certain Establishment bluebloods. In particular, the General Education Board, a machination of the oligarchical Rockefeller dynasty, financed research into the panic surrounding Orson Welles' broadcast. Paul Lazarsfeld, Frank Stanton, and Hadley Cantril conducted this research at Princeton University. Not surprisingly, all of these men were involved in the technocratic social sciences. In the forward to Hadley Cantril's The Invasion From Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic, readers will find the following acknowledgement: "Since the budget of the Princeton Radio Project was obviously unable to anticipate this particular study, the investigation was made possible by a special grant from the General Education Board" (xiv).

Evidently, oligarchical dynasties like the Rockefellers were acutely aware of the readily exploitable fear stemming from alien invasion. Of course, many social scientists of the intelligence community would eventually occupy lofty positions within the Rockefeller Foundation (Simpson 28). Tax-exempt foundations such as these have played an integral role in maintaining the power of the ruling elite. First, they provide tax shelters for the elite's wealth. In addition, they heavily finance socialist revolutionary movements, which provide a politically and socially expedient terrorist threat to the populace. Finally, they support further social science research, which provides the oligarchs with the necessary psychocognitive arsenal to wage psychological warfare against the citizenry. The panic aroused by a fictional alien invasion might have been viewed as one more potential weapon in this Weltanschauungskrieg.

In particular, the panic stemming from the War of the Worlds broadcast held sociological significance to social engineers like Cantril. For men like these, such events provided a panoramic perspective of the psychology of fear. Earlier in The Invasion From Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic, Cantril comments on the Martian scare's didactic value to social scientists:

Such rare occurrences are opportunities, for the social scientists to study mass behavior. They must be exploited when they come. Although the social scientist unfortunately cannot usually predict such situations and have his tools of investigation ready to analyze the phenomenon while it is still on the wing, he can begin his work before the effects of the crisis are over and memories are blurred. (ix)

Just how could the terror of an alien invasion, hoaxed or genuine, benefit the oligarchs and their social engineers? Perhaps Cantril answered the question with the following observation:

A panic occurs when some highly cherished, rather commonly accepted value is threatened and when no certain elimination of the threat is in sight. The individual feels that he will be ruined, physically, financially or socially. The invasion of the Martians was a direct threat to life, to other lives that one loved, as well as to all other cherished values. The Martians were destroying practically everything. The situation was, then, indeed a serious affair. Frustration resulted when no directed behavior seemed possible. One was faced with the alternative of resigning oneself and all of one's values to complete annihilation or of making a desperate effort to escape from the field of danger, or of appealing to some higher power or stronger person whom one vaguely thought could destroy the oncoming enemy. (199; emphasis added)

Naturally, the only other "stronger person" that the average citizen could have appealed to for protection was the State, an entity that was increasingly succumbing to oligarchical control. Though the scenario of a hoaxed alien invasion as a pretext for the subjugation of the masses seems somewhat farfetched, it may have been contemplated. Such a stratagem was certainly nothing new. The dialectical manipulation of the Cold War also helped to maintain the primacy of the ruling elite. Whether under the pretext of Soviet invasion or extraterrestrial invasion, policy professionals were becoming increasingly accepted as the necessary managers of society. The MJ-12 documents helped to ease the American psyche into the religio-political paradigm of sociocracy. The notion of an extraterrestrial threat encourages the following rationale: Democratic governance is ill-equipped to deal with an alien invasion and, thus, must be discarded in favor of a more technocratic societal configuration. After all, only those with specialized knowledge concerning extraterrestrials, such as the alleged MJ-12 group, would be capable of making decisions of political and social significance.

Cults of Cosmic Technocracy?

Interestingly enough, many UFO cults have assumed the technocratic character of the chimerical organization presented in the MJ-12 documents. In fact, some contactees and UFO cultists would adopt philosophies that were closely akin to Hitler's Aryanism. Jacques Vallee elaborates:

[UFO] Contactee philosophies often include belief in higher races and in totalitarian systems that would eliminate democracy. From the statement that UFOs have visited us in the past, it is only a small step to saying that their occupants have "known" the Daughters of Man, "and found them fair!" Then some of us may have celestial blood in our veins, which would make them "superior" to others. The idea of a "chosen people" is an old one; it had lost its appeal in recent decades. Strong belief in extraterrestrial intervention could revive this primitive concept, with particular groups claiming privileges peculiar to those who descend from the stellar explorers. (219)

Evidently, the notion of an alien presence, whether friendly or hostile, is a socially and politically expedient meme for the would-be ruling priesthood of sociocracy. Examined from this vantage point, UFOs play an integral role in the religious engineering projects of sociocrats. Vallee observes: "Contactee organizations may become the basis of a new 'high-demand' religion" (218). Indeed, genetic "superiority" is an extremely "high-demand" requirement of the emergent sociocratic UFO religions. As social scientists continue to undertake the promulgation of such religions, these eugenical proclivities within UFO cults shall only intensify. Sociology is premised upon the Saint-Simonian physiological interpretation of society and governance. Saint-Simon believed an effective social order was analogous to a living organism. Thus, society could be regulated according to the same "physiological realities" that purportedly underpinned human thought and behavior (Billington 212). This physiological approach to governance is a theme echoed by various socialist totalitarian regimes. It provided the theoretical groundwork for Marxism. Billington explains:

Believing that the scientific method should be applied to the body of society as well as to the individual body, Saint-Simon proceeded to analyze society in terms of its physiological components: classes. He never conceived of economic classes in the Marxian sense, but his functional class analysis prepared the way for Marx. (213)

Saint-Simon's physiological analysis of society also inspired the scientific dictatorship of Nazi Germany. Ernst Haeckel, the famous evolutionist responsible for Hitler's introduction to social Darwinism, openly espoused this physiological view. He contended that each cell of an organism, "though autonomous, is subordinated to the body as a whole; in the same way in the societies of bees, ants, and termites, in the vertebrate herds, and in the human state, each individual is subordinate to the social body of which he is a member" (qutd. in Keith, Casebook on Alternative 3, 157). Herein is the central theme of all socialist totalitarian regimes: the subordination of the individual to the collective. Yet, there is always an "elite" that occupies the developmental capstone of the physiological state. For Haeckel, it was the mythical Aryan that exhibited "symmetry of all parts, and that equal development, which we call the type of perfect human beauty" (qutd. in Keith, Casebook on Alternative 3, 85).

Sociology's collectivistic physiological analysis of society is also endemic to UFO cults. Such a view is promoted within the infamous Raelian Movement, an atheistic UFO cult founded in the 1970s. In Intelligent Design: Message from the Designers, a sacred text allegedly bequeathed unto the French atheist Rael by extraterrestrial entities, readers will find a physiological portrait of human governance:

Each person is a useful cell in this huge body we call humanity. The cell in your foot should not decide whether or not your hand should pick up a given object. It is the brain, which must decide, and if the object in question is good, the cell of your foot will benefit from it. (No pagination)

Remaining consistent with this physiological interpretation, the alleged alien messengers conclude that "you must abolish all your electoral and polling systems because in their present form, they are completely unsuited to human development" (no pagination). In the place of the supposedly obsolete democratic paradigm, Rael's extraterrestrial emissaries prescribe a "Geniocracy," which they describe as follows:

…the right to vote should be reserved for those people whose brains are more suited to thinking and finding solutions to problems-that is to say, an elite group of high intelligence…We are talking about placing the genius in power, and you may call that "Geniocracy." (No pagination)

There can hardly be a better description of a Technocracy. This excerpt also echoes Haeckel's physiological interpretation of society, which was tangibly enacted by Nazi Germany. In fact, an undercurrent of Hitlerian thought seems to underpin Raelian philosophy. This becomes evident in the cult's own iconography. Before 1991, the group's official symbol was a swastika enclosed within two interlocking triangles. Of course, the swastika held esoteric significance for the practicing occultists of the Nazi party's inner circle. Needless to say, the semiotic significance of this fact was not lost on more skeptical minds. Public relations considerations prompted the Raelian Movement to eschew the swastika in 1991. However, the continuity of thought remains evident.

Bainbridge's appropriation of UFO cults as potential Petri dishes for religious engineering bespeaks sociology's inherent proclivities toward technocratic thought. A sociologist himself, Bainbridge wishes to see the UFO religion installed as the new "sociolatry" for humanity. Meanwhile, social engineers like Bainbridge would guide the minds of the adherents of this new scientistic theocracy. Premised as they are upon collectivism and authoritarianism, UFO cults are perfectly suited as agents for the sociocratic restructuring of society.

An Exotheological Christ: The New Christianity?

Typically, religious engineering involves the re-conceptualizing of the metaphysical concepts intrinsic to traditional faiths. For instance, the sociopolitical Utopians of Marxism re-conceptualized the traditional Eschaton of Heaven and Hell, transplanting it within the ontological plane of the physical universe. These early religious engineering projects resulted in secular movements that, sociologically, behaved like religions. Social scientists have been involved in religious engineering projects for many years. Saint-Simon, the mentor of August Comte, was engaged in religious engineering projects years before sociology became formally institutionalized. Saint-Simon's vision for a sociocracy was accompanied by a new scientistic religion. Dubbed the "New Christianity," this scientistic faith offered "morality without metaphysics" and "technology without theology" (Billington 214). Saint-Simon hoped that his "New Christianity" would divorce governance from politics, resulting in an apolitical system of "expertise." James H. Billington writes:

Political authority was to be replaced by social authority in his [Saint-Simon's] technocratic utopia. It was to be administered by three chambers: Inventions run by engineers, Review run by scientists, and Execution run by industrialists. A Supreme college was to draw up physical and moral laws, and two even higher academies, Reasoning and Sentiment, were to be filled by a new breed of propagandistic writer and artist. (215)

The Saint-Simonian concept of a "New Christianity" was something of a precursor to the scheme of socialist theoretician Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci's program involved a subtle form of semiotic deception. Traditional religious institutions were to be gradually eviscerated through socialist propaganda and inculcation. However, the standard religious iconography was to be left in place. As God slowly vanished, the omnipotent state was apotheosized. Likewise, the Saint-Simonian program entailed a Fabian strategy for the ritualistic enthronement of Technocracy. The "New Christianity" was meant to be an outgrowth of religion's eventual subsumption under science. Billington expands on the Saint-Simonian program of religious engineering:

In his commentary of 1802 Francois Dupis's The Origins of All the Cults of Universal Religion de Tracy suggested that past religions were not simply senseless superstition, but rather a kind of scientific baby talk: the generalized expression in imprecise language of the scientific thought of the age. Religious ritual was, moreover, socially necessary to dramatize scientific principles for still-ignorant people. Saint-Simon viewed his New Christianity as just such a necessity for the masses. His death left it unclear whether this faith was designed to provide the moral basis for the new social order or merely an interim faith until the masses were educated to accept a totally scientistic system. (215)

Yet, the notion of a "New Christianity" did not die with Saint-Simon. Modern UFO cults, whose religious engineering efforts are being increasingly augmented by the technocratic social sciences, proffer a "New Christianity" of their own. Many UFO cults derive their "New Christianity" from science fiction, a literary genre that Bainbridge feels is the most promising source for the edifying theology of a new galactic religion:

New cults tend not to be very creative, but draw their practices and doctrines from other groups and traditions. If they are to get galactic visions, the best source is probably science fiction. Not only does science fiction offer grand images of galactic civilizations and specific notions of how to achieve them, but it is drenched in occult and pseudoscientific ideas which might well serve people's religious needs if packaged in new churches. ("Religions for a Galactic Civilization," no pagination)

While science fiction venerates science and presents Weltanschauungs that are ostensibly secular, the genre still promotes religious concepts. Bainbridge observes the sci-fi genre's continuing preoccupation with religion:

Religion is a common topic in science fiction, and SF writers have considered it from several perspectives. In The Gods of Mars and in The Master Mind of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs sharply criticized religion for enslaving believers -- for murdering the scientific spirit as well as murdering human sacrifices. Sometimes religion has been seen more sympathetically, even though in conflict with science, as a humane corrective for the excesses of technology gone mad. Examples include A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller and "The Quest for Saint Aquin" by Anthony Boucher. Still other stories have been essays in theology and theodicy for a scientific society, for example "The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke and "A Case of Conscience" by James Blish. (No pagination)

From Bainbridge's vantage point, science fiction provides a rich repository for the provision of socially and culturally expedient myths. These myths, however, are purely scientistic in character. That is, they exalt the epistemological imperialism of scientism. Yet, because they present metaphysical claims (e.g., materialism, physicalism, etc.), the scientistic myths of science fiction still qualify as religions. These religions are developed according to the sociological demands of those seeking to re-sculpt the dominant religio-cultural milieu. In this sense, some science fiction could be considered the modern incarnation of shamanism (i.e., techno-shamanism).

For Bainbridge, the most effective of sci-fi literature are stories that concern themselves with the invention of socially and culturally expedient religions:

More relevant for those who might want to engineer a Church of God Galactic are stories which sketch newly invented religions, cults which might-actually come into existence and if successful shape public policy toward science and technology. (No pagination)

Bainbridge views such literature as a potential self-fulfilling prophecy. Bainbridge contends that when such stories have embedded themselves within human consciousness, they shall actuate themselves. Supposedly, the tangible enactment of this myth will result in the creation of a Church of God Galactic. This new theocratic order will preside over the emergent galactic civilization that has been the dream of futurists for years.

More skeptical researchers might find Bainbridge's assertions regarding sci-fi literature's cultural and social influence somewhat exaggerated. Yet, the techno-shamanic myths of science fiction have helped to shape a sizable portion of modern pop culture. Bishop Seraphim Rose elaborates:

The idea of the possibility of "highly-evolved" intelligent life on other planets has become so much a part of the contemporary mentality that even respectable scientific (and semi-scientific) speculations assume it as a matter of course. Thus, one popular series of books (Erich von Daniken, Chariots of the Gods?, Gods From Outer Space) finds supposed evidence of the presence of "extraterrestrial" beings or "gods" in ancient history, who are supposedly responsible for the sudden appearance of intelligence in man, difficult to account for by the usual evolutionary theory. (73)

So pervasive is such thinking that even reputable scientists have begun to give sci-fi concepts serious credence:

Serious scientists in the Soviet Union speculate that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was due to a nuclear explosion, that "extraterrestrial" beings visited earth centuries ago, that Jesus Christ may have been a "cosmonaut," and that today "we may be on the threshold of a 'second coming' of intelligent beings from outer space." Equally serious scientists in the West think the existence of "extraterrestrial intelligences" likely enough that for at least 18 years they have been trying to establish contact with them by means of radio telescopes, and currently there are at least six searches being conducted by astronomers around the world for intelligent radio signals from space. (Rose 73-74)

The notions of Jesus Christ as a "cosmonaut" and a cosmic "second coming" have gained substantial theological capital among some so-called "Christian" sects. Emerging from these peculiar enclaves of the religious community is a techno-shamanic myth that could be the "New Christianity" of the sociocratic Church of God Galactic. The new scientistic paradigm proffers what can be called an "exotheology." Rose explains:

Contemporary Protestant and Roman Catholic "theologians"--who have become accustomed to follow wherever "science" seems to be leading - speculate in turn in the new realm of "exotheology" (the "theology of outer space") concerning what nature the "extraterrestrial" races might have (see Time magazine, April 24, 1978). It can hardly be denied that the myth behind science fiction has a powerful fascination even among many learned men of our day. (74)

In his final assessment of science fiction, Rose concludes that this ostensibly "scientific and non-religious" genre is, in truth, the "leading propagator (in a secular form) of the 'new religious consciousness'" that is gradually supplanting Christianity (77). Laced with occultism and intimations of an emergent pagan spirituality, science fiction could be facilitating a paradigm shift in religious thinking. Of course, an exotheology requires an exotheological Christ. Science fiction is already paving the way for a new scientistic messiah.

The Star Wars film series provides one case in point. George Lucas presents his conception of the coming New Age Messiah in The Phantom Menace. The chosen one is Anakin Skywalker, who will later become the infamous Darth Vader. During the course of the film, audiences learn that Anakin was "divinely conceived." Anakin's mother says, "There was no father, that I know of... I carried him, I gave him birth... I can't explain what happened." The audience later learns that Anakin was spontaneously generated by midi-chlorians, microscopic organisms that "reside within all living cells and communicates with the Force." Astute viewers will automatically identify the evolutionary theme of abiogenesis, which mirrors the Kabbalistic concept of the golem.

The golem of Anakin Skywalker learns to harness and control the Force, which represents Lucas' animistic conception of God. Humanity really comprises a single organism, which is gradually evolving (notice the commonality between this theme and the elitist "bee hive" conception of mankind). In its final evolutionary stage, the monistic singularity of Man becomes God. Following the Theosophical tradition, Anakin becomes an ascended master and is apotheosized in Return of the Jedi. This myth is gradually becoming the Weltanschauung of Western civilization. In an interview with Christianity Today, Dick Staub stated:

A myth is a story that confronts us with the "big picture," something transcendent and eternal, and in so doing, explains the worldview of a civilization. Given that definition, Christianity is the prevailing myth of Western culture and Star Wars is a prevailing myth of our popular culture. (No pagination)

Evidently, George Lucas is answering Bainbridge's rallying cry for "religious engineering." His science fiction is birthing a new world religion, a Church of God Galactic. Star Wars' significance within pop culture seems to suggest that the meme of exotheology holds some appeal to the secular mind. While many secularists eschew Christian spirituality, they simultaneously seek an adequate substitute for Christ. Consumed by scientism and anthropocentricism, the secular mind refuses the Christian Christ in favor of the exotheological Christ. In this sense, science fiction is continuing the Gramscian march through the institutions.

Meanwhile, darker forces within the intelligence community could be attempting to imbue the exotheological Christ with a greater degree of credibility. Consider the following account of Linda Moulton Howe. During a meeting with Richard Doty, an intelligence officer with the United States military, Howe was presented with a briefing paper regarding alien visitation. This briefing paper presented an interesting messianic claim:

There was a paragraph that stated, "Two thousand years ago extraterrestrials created a being" that was placed on this earth to teach mankind about love and non-violence. (Howe 151)

Clearly, someone was attempting to dignify the notion of Jesus as a "cosmonaut." Was Doty "leaking" information or was he acting on behalf of unseen religious engineers? It must be remembered that the American intelligence community was spawned largely by the technocratic social sciences. In turn, the social sciences find their proximate origins with Baconian occultism, which also heavily inspired the doctrines of many esoteric secret societies. Among one such secret society was Freemasonry, which proffered its own messiah. In Morals and Dogma, thirty-third degree Mason Albert Pike states:

Behold the object, the end, the result, of the great speculation and logomachies of antiquity; the ultimate annihilation of evil, and restoration of Man to his first estate, by a Redeemer, a Masayah, a Christos, the incarnate Word, Reason, or Power of Diety. (274)

The astute reader will immediately notice the capital M in "Man," denoting humanity's intrinsic divinity. Being a god was humanity's "first estate." Thus, the Masonic messiah is not the transcendent Creator incarnated as Jesus Christ. Instead, Masonry posits that the messiah is within Man himself. According to Masonic doctrine, humanity's cognizance of its innate divinity is integral to achieving apotheosis. Pike recapitulates:

Thus self-consciousness leads us to consciousness of God, and at last to consciousness of an infinite God. That is the highest evidence of our own existence and it is the highest evidence of His. (709)

As for the early Christians who believed that Jesus was the transcendent God clothed in flesh, Pike derisively portrays them as superstitious simpletons:

The dunces who led primitive Christianity astray, by substituting faith for science, reverie for experience, the fantastic for the reality; and the inquisitors who for so many ages waged against Magism a war of extermination, have succeeded in shrouding in darkness the ancient discoveries of the human mind; so that we now grope in the dark to find again the key of the phenomena of nature. (732)

Pike's subordination of faith to science betrays Freemasonry's scientistic proclivities. Such scientistic proclivities are also endemic to modern UFO cults. Because the traditional Christ of faith is an inadequate messiah for any potential New Atlantis, a New Christianity must be developed. Social scientists, who partially owe their heritage to Baconian occultism, could be working in tandem with UFO cults to achieve just such an end. It must also be recalled that Lester Ward, father of American sociology, said that the ultimate objective of the social sciences was the formation of a "radical sociocracy." Could the UFO phenomenon be part of a project in the sociocratic restructuring of society?

An exercise conducted by the CIA during the early 60s certainly reinforces this contention. The project, which involved the fabrication of bogus UFO sightings, resulted in the production of an exotheological New Testament. Timothy Good relates this interesting case of religious engineering:

Miles Copeland, former CIA organizer and intelligence officer, related an interesting story to me involving the Agency's attempt on one occasion to use fictional UFO sightings to spread disinformation. The purpose, in this case, was to "dazzle" and intoxicate" the Chinese, who had themselves on several occasions fooled the CIA into sending teams to a desert in Sinkiang Province, West China, to search for nonexistent underground "atomic energies." The exercise took place in the early 1960s, Copeland told me, and involved launching fictional UFO sighting reports from many different areas. The project was headed by Desmond Fitzgerald of the Special Affairs Staff (who made a name for himself by inventing harebrained schemes for assassinating Fidel Castro). The UFO exercise was "just to keep the Chinese off-balance and make them think we were doing things we weren't," Copeland said. "The project got the desired results, as I remember, except that it somehow got picked up by a lot of religious nuts in Iowa and Nebraska or somewhere who took it seriously enough to add an extra chapter to their version of the New Testament!" (357)

If this UFO manipulation perpetrated by the CIA was effective enough to compel certain churches to embellish and pervert the Scriptures, imagine what a deception on a larger scale could accomplish. As sightings increase in frequency and intensity, the religious community might witness the emergence of an exotheological New Testament for a Church of God Galactic. In Morals and Dogma, thirty-third degree Mason Pike states: "God is, as man conceives Him, the reflected image of man himself" (223). According to the Scriptures, God made man in His own image. According to the hidden "religious engineers," it is man's time to return the favor.

Ufology: A Puppet of the Intelligence Community?

There is a body of evidence that seems to suggest that UFO believers are being manipulated. While many UFO researchers have flat out ignored such evidence because it does not support their desire to believe in alien races, Jacques Vallee has actually entertained the theory. In his book Messengers of Deception, Vallee writes:

UFOs are real. They are an application of psychotronic technology; that is, they are physical devices used to affect human consciousness. They may not be from outer space; they may, in fact, be terrestrial-based manipulating devices. Their purpose may be to achieve social changes on this planet. Their methods are those of deception: systematic manipulation of witnesses and contactees; covert use of various sects and cults; control of the channels through which the alleged "space messages" can make an impact on the public.(21)

We have already pointed out that the deception seems to be taking those deceived down a technocratic path. Many UFO believers find the idea of policy professionals sidestepping democratic institutions to deal with the UFO problem quite appealing. However, who is executing this deception? We have already pointed out oligarchical involvement in the manipulation. But the power elite seldom ever put themselves at risk by doing something directly. Organizations and individuals prostituted out to act as fronts provide the power elite with the layers of insulation necessary to continue their criminal enterprises. In the case of the UFO deception, the intelligence community seems to be doing the power elite's dirty work.

It is interesting that one of the individuals who initially authenticated the MJ-12 documents was Richard M. Bissell Jr. In a letter to Lee Graham, Bissell wrote that the MJ-12 briefing document "certainly looked authentic" ("Roswell: Military Forces Acting in Great Secrecy," no pagination). Bissell would also add "On the basis of the material you have sent me I personally have little doubt that it is authentic" (no pagination). Richard Bissell Jr.'s Establishment pedigree was impeccable. His brother, William Truesdale Bissell, was a member of the Skull and Bones secret society at Yale (Tarpley and Chaitkin, 126). Skull and Bones is an elite conduit where the children of blueblood dynasties make connections for life beyond college and are indoctrinated into the philosophies and religion of the power elite. Bissell's father, Richard M. Bissell Sr., was director of the Neuro-Psychiatric Institute of the Hartford Retreat for the Insane (126). One of the Institute's patients, Clifford Beers, went on to found the Mental Hygiene Society (126). The Mental Hygiene Society was involved in the CIA's infamous MK-Ultra mind control project (126). It was Beer's "treatment" at the senior Bissell's institute that inspired him to found the Mental Hygiene Society for the purpose of destructive cultural engineering.

The junior Bissell became an aide to Allen Dulles when Dulles became Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) (127). Bissell would manage the invasion of Cuba, plan the assassination of Castro, and train the squads for these tasks (127). While all failed, the project succeeded in its core purpose of creating "a force of multi-use professional assassins" (127). These assassins would pop up in the Kennedy assassination, Operation Phoenix, and the Contra wars (127). Most of Bissell's adult life was wrapped up in deception and intelligence crimes. Perhaps Bissell's remarks to Graham are yet another manipulation.

It is possible that Bissell and his friends in the intelligence community wanted people to believe the MJ-12 documents were authentic. That way, the documents could act as a tool for predictive programming, conditioning people to accept technocracy in the name of dealing with an alien presence.

Have the OSS/CIA social scientists always been involved in the UFO movement, guiding it down the technocratic path? The vice-chairman of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) in the year of its foundation was Count Nicolas de Rochefort, a member of the CIA's Psychological Warfare Staff (Good 348). It is also significant that, in 1969, retired Marine Major Donald Keyhoe was ousted as NICAP's Director by a faction led by Chairman of the Board Colonel Joseph Bryan III, former Chief of the CIA's Psychological Warfare Staff (351). Should not be lost upon the astute reader the psychological warfare stratagems used by the CIA were developed by earlier OSS social scientists. In this sense, Ufology has become a quasi-sociocratic cult with CIA psychological warfare specialists acting as its presiding religious engineers. A memo from H. Marshall Caldwell, the Assistant Director for the CIA's Scientific Intelligence to then CIA Director Walter Smith shows that the Agency certainly has the motive to embark on such an enterprise. The memo reads:

With world-wide sightings reported, it was found that, up to the time of the investigation, there had been in the Soviet press no report or comment, even satirical, on flying saucers, though Gromyko had made one humorous mention of the subject. With a State-controlled press, this could result only from an official policy decision. The question, therefore, arises as to whether or not these sightings:

1. could be controlled,
2. could be predicted, and
3. could be used from a psychological warfare point of view, either offensively or defensively.

The public concerns with the phenomena with the phenomena, which is reflected both in the United States press and in the pressure of inquiry upon the Air Force, indicates that a fair proportion of our population is mentally conditioned to the acceptance of the incredible. In this fact lies the potential for the touching-off of mass hysteria and panic. (Quoted in Keith, Mind Control, World Control 272)

Caldwell goes on to make the following recommendation:

A study should be instituted to determine what, if any, utilization could be made of these phenomena by United States psychological warfare planners… (Quoted in Keith, Mind Control, World Control 272)

This memo, along with probably several other proposals not yet known by the public, may have led to a Weltanschauungskrieg involving UFOs and the MJ-12 documents. The ultimate objective of this Weltanschauungskrieg could be the sociocratic restructuring of society.

A Global New Atlantis: The Cosmic Eschaton Immanentized?

Of course, the technocratic social sciences, which were instrumental in the formulation of psychological warfare stratagems for the CIA, originated with Baconian occultism. In turn, Bacon's Utopian vision for society was the ultimate objective of older esoteric secret societies. These included Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, which acted as the progenitors of many sociopolitical Utopian movements (namely communism and fascism). These organizations eviscerated the traditional Abrahamic faiths and transplanted their metaphysical concepts within the ontological plane of the physical universe. To understand the conceptual basis and consequences of this transplantation, one should examine the Trinitarian symbolism developed by Joachim of Fiore. Eric Voegelin explains:

Joachim of Flora broke with the Augustinian conception of a Christian society when he applied the symbol of the Trinity to the course of history.... In his trinitarian eschatology Joachim created the aggregate of symbols which govern the self-interpretation of modern political society to this day.... The first of these symbols is the conception of history as a sequence of three ages, of which the third age is intelligibly the final Third Realm.... As variations of this symbol are recognizable the humanistic and encyclopedist periodization of history into ancient, medieval and modern history; Turgot's and Comte's theory of a sequence of theological, metaphysical and scientific phases; Hegel's dialectic of the three stages of freedom and self-reflective spiritual fulfillment; the Marxian dialectic of the three states of primitive communism, class society, and final Communism; and, finally, the National Socialist symbol of the Third Realm. (111-12)

The adherents of communism, fascism, and other varieties of sociopolitical Utopianism qualified as secular Gnostics. Their eschatology envisaged the manifestation of the Eschaton (the "end of days") within the immanent cosmos. Commenting on this new strain of Gnosticism, Wolfgang Smith writes:

In place of an Eschaton which ontologically transcends the confines of this world, the modern Gnostic envisions an End within history, an Eschaton, therefore, which is to be realized within the ontological plane of this visible universe. (238; emphasis added).

The immanentizing of this Eschaton became the ultimate objective of these neo-Gnostic jihadists. Voegelin elaborates:

The attempt at immanentizing the meaning of existence is fundamentally an attempt at bringing our knowledge of transcendence into a firmer grip than the cognitio fidei, the cognition of faith, will afford, and the Gnostic experiences offer this firmer grip insofar as they are an expansion of the soul to the point where God is drawn into the existence of man. (124)

Consistently, the final product of this neo-Gnostic immanentization was the establishment of some authoritarian form of government: "The totalitarianism of our time must be understood as journey's end of the Gnostic search for a civil theology" (Voegelin 163). This outcome is directly attributable to neo-Gnosticism's inherent immanentism. Neo-Gnostics interpreted history as a tangible essence that could be categorized and observed by the empirical sciences. Therefore, their vision of history and theology was conceptually predisposed to the Saint-Simonian physiological interpretation of society, which was inherently totalitarian in character. Just as Saint-Simon extended radical empiricism and the Baconian scientific method to governance, neo-Gnostics extended these concepts to history and theology. Voegelin discusses this extension, which stems from Joachitic immanentism:

From the Joachitic immanentization, a theoretical problem arises which occurs neither in classic antiquity nor in orthodox Christianity, that is, the problem of an adios in history.... There is no eidos of history because the eschatological supernature is not a nature in the philosophical, immanent case. The problem of an eidos in history, hence, arises only when Christian transcendental fulfillment becomes immanentized. Such an immanentist hypostasis of the eschaton, however, is a theoretical fallacy. Things are not things, nor do they have essences, by arbitrary declaration. The course of history as a whole is no object of experience; history has no eidos, because the course of history extends into the unknown future. The meaning of history, thus, is an illusion; and this illusory eidos is created by treating a symbol of faith as if it were a proposition concerning an object of immanent experience. (120)

In a sense, UFO cults and some segments of Ufology continue the neo-Gnostic tradition of immanentization. Some Ufologists argue that God is, by definition, an extraterrestrial. This contention is partially true. God is, indeed, beyond the terrestrial realm. Yet, several Ufologists leap to the conclusion that Yahweh is an alien and Jesus was His "cosmonaut." Obviously, this is a gross oversimplification of the term "extraterrestrial." Ufologists overlook the very etymology of "extraterrestrial." It is derived the Latin word extrus, meaning "outside," and terrestris, meaning "earth." Indeed, God is "outside of earth." He is a spirit and, as such, is located outside the ontological plane of the physical universe. In John 4:24, Jesus says, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." In Hebrews 12:9, Paul refers to the Lord as the "father of spirits." The only time that God was corporeal was during His incarnation as Jesus Christ.

Aliens, however, are purely physical entities. In contending that Yahweh is an alien, Ufologists are embracing neo-Gnostic immanentism. Several UFO cults also embrace such neo-Gnostic concepts. The Raelian movement provides a stellar example. According to Raelian theology, Elohim was actually an alien race responsible for the creation of humanity (Rael, no pagination). Variants of this scientistic creation myth, which is known as Panspermia, are endemic to UFO cults. This myth is eerily similar to the Sirius legend of occult Freemasonry.

In addition to transplanting God within the ontological plane of the physical universe, certain segments of the UFO community also envision an Eschaton within history itself. Their "end of days" culminates with the establishment of a global Utopian society not unlike the technocratic vision presented by Bacon in The New Atlantis. They contend that the erection of this global Utopia will be facilitated by the appearance of aliens and the introduction of humanity to the "cosmic community." The sociopolitical expression of this cosmically constructed Utopia typically involves the amalgamation of the world's nations into a socialist totalitarian world government. Indeed, the UFO phenomenon is facilitating just such a state of affairs. Vallee observes: "Increased attention to UFO activity promotes the concept of political unification of this planet" (218).

Science fiction has already provided the edifying myth for such a political unification. In the sci-fi novel Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke invokes an extraterrestrial facilitator for world governance. Dubbed the Overlords, these aliens hasten the end of sovereign nation-states and the formation of a one-world government. Commenting on how the arrival of the extraterrestrial Overlords has affected the nation-state system, a character named Stormgren remarks: " . . .it is useless to cling to the past. Even before the Overlords came to Earth, the sovereign state was dying. They have merely hastened its end: no one can save it now--and no one should try." (45) This is just one example out of many presented by the proselytes of sci-fi predictive programming.

Yet again, the Raelian movement provides an excellent example. In Intelligent Design: Message from the Designers, the alleged alien contacts of French atheist Rael admonish humanity to abolish nation-states and establishment a world government:

"You must also see to it that all nations of the earth unite to form only one government… The creation of a new worldwide currency and a common language would help you to establish a world government. The Auvergne dialect is no longer spoken in Clermont-Ferrand, and very soon, French will no longer be spoken in Paris, nor English in London, nor German in Frankfurt. Your scientists and linguists should unite and create a new language, inspired by all languages and made obligatory in all schools of the world, as a second language. The same must be done with money. Worldwide currency values cannot be based on the franc, the dollar, or the yen, but must be based on a new currency created for the needs of the whole Earth, without depriving one group of people who would ask themselves why another currency has been chosen instead of their own. Finally, the trigger required to bring about such a union is the suppression of military conscription, which teaches only aggressiveness to young men. Professional armies must then be put at the service of the public. This must happen at the same time in all countries so as to provide an indispensable guarantee of security." (No pagination)

The MJ-12 documents, which present a technocratic societal blueprint, were first presented by William Moore, Jaime Shandera, and Stanton T. Friedman (Cooper, no pagination). Friedman ends all of his lectures with a mandate for global governance, which he encapsulates within the slightly sardonic question, "Who speaks for planet Earth... Argentina?" (no pagination). In this sense, the UFO community is continuing the neo-Gnostic tradition of the early sociopolitical Utopians. No doubt, many within the UFO community are completely unaware of the manipulation that is taking place. Nevertheless, they are serving the sociopolitical Utopian ambitions of the power elite. In turn, the elite's globalist aspirations represent one more link in an ideational chain leading back to the ancient Mystery cults of Mesopotamia. Whether authentic or an elaborate hoax, the MJ-12 documents present the technocratic schematic for the cosmic Eschaton they are attempting to immanentize.

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