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The Earth is a Dangerous Place - The World View of the Aetherius Society

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Abstract

Current UFO accounts display many of the themes that have been central in most, if not all, of the world's religions (Saliba 1995). The widespread belief in flying saucers and the religious connotations ascribed to their presence have contributed to the emergence of several religious organizations based on the existence and activities of extraterrestrial intelligences who are believed to communicate with select human beings. Moreover, many UFO experiences have been frightening and foreboding. Reports of abductions (cf. Jacobs 1993; Mack 1994) are noted also for stressing the dangers that aliens present to a scientifically inferior human race and for the imminent apocalyptic scenario they so often graphically depict (Whitmore 1993). The drastic demise of the members of Heaven's Gate has lent support to the popular view that UFO religions are dangerous apocalyptic cults and may lead their members to commit suicide or other forms of violence.

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... However, the 1950s is the decade of UFO religions: the Aetherius Society was founded in London in 1954 by George King; the Church of Scientology was founded by L. Ron Hubbard in 1954; George Adamski allegedly met the Venusian Orthon in the Californian desert in the early 1950s; and Mark L. Prophet founded the Summit Lighthouse in 1958 (Partridge 2003: 14---20). The theme of cosmic conflict was prominent in certain UFO---based religions: for example, Hubbard taught that millions of years ago there was an intergalactic conflict of vast significance for planet earth and its human inhabitants; the Summit Lighthouse became the eschatological Church Universal and Triumphant, which expected the end of the world in 1991 (Whitsel 2003); and the Aetherius Society espoused a less inflammatory type of apocalyptic rhetoric that emphasised its role in maintaining interplanetary peace (Saliba 1999). ...
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