Reference corpus of the Raëlian canon

A catalogue of the texts, traditions, and figures that the three canonical books of the Raëlian corpus — The Book Which Tells The Truth (1974), Extra-Terrestrials Took Me To Their Planet (1975), and Let's Welcome The Extra-Terrestrials (1979) — either quote directly or allude to indirectly, organised into a primary tier of named sources and a secondary tier of hinted ones.

Quick Answer

The three books of the Raëlian canon — The Book Which Tells The Truth (1974), Extra-Terrestrials Took Me To Their Planet (1975), and Let's Welcome The Extra-Terrestrials (1979) — do not present themselves as derived from earlier writings. They present themselves as direct revelation from the Elohim, with prior religious literature treated as imperfect records of earlier Elohim contact. Within that frame, however, the canon engages a substantial body of pre-existing material. This entry maps that engagement in two tiers: a primary tier of texts and figures the canon names or quotes, and a secondary tier of traditions, languages, and motifs it invokes by allusion.

A note on terminology before the catalogue. Within the Wheel of Heaven reading, the texts listed below are not sources of the Raëlian canon in the philological sense; the canon claims revelation, not derivation. The accurate description is that these texts make up the canon's reference corpus — the body of prior writing the canon reads, re-reads, and asks its reader to re-read alongside it.

Scope and method

This article catalogues what the canon itself names and engages, not the broader corpus of materials a reader might bring to interpret it. Three distinctions structure the catalogue:

Direct reference. A text, figure, or tradition the canon names explicitly, quotes from, or attributes a numbered chapter-and-verse to.
Indirect reference. A text, figure, tradition, language, or motif the canon engages without formal citation — through paraphrase, etymological reading, name-checking in lists, or allusion to characteristic content.
Reader-imported context. Material a reader or commentator might bring to the canon from outside (Sendy, Sitchin, Biglino, ancient astronaut literature generally). This third category is outside the scope of this article. It is catalogued elsewhere in the project's source taxonomy.

The cut between (1) and (2) is not always sharp. Where the canon names a tradition but cites no specific text — for instance "Greek mythology" or "Mormons" — the entry sits in the secondary tier. Where the canon quotes verbatim or supplies a chapter-and-verse, it sits in the primary tier.

The text base for this catalogue is the 2005 English-language omnibus edition Intelligent Design — Message From the Designers, which combines all three canonical books. Where the original French editions differ from the English translation in their handling of biblical quotations, the canon itself notes the divergence: the French volumes rely chiefly on the Édouard Dhorme translation of the Bible, while the English omnibus uses the Restored Name King James Version (RNKJV) for most quotations, with occasional use of the New King James Version, the American Standard Version, the Webster Bible, the Hebrew Names Version, and the Darby Translation. These editorial choices are themselves direct references to specific text-traditions and are catalogued below.

Primary tier — direct references

These are texts, figures, and traditions the canon names explicitly, quotes from with chapter-and-verse precision, or treats as proper subjects of interpretation in their own right.

Hebrew Bible / Old Testament

The canon's largest and most precisely cited body of reference is the Hebrew Bible. Quoted books, with characteristic loci:

Genesis — quoted extensively across chapters 1–11, 19, 22, 28, 35. The opening of The Truth is a chapter-by-chapter re-reading of the primaeval history (creation, the Garden, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Binding of Isaac, Jacob's ladder).
Exodus — quoted from chapters 3, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20 (the burning bush, the pillar of cloud and fire, the parting of the sea, manna, the staff of Moses, Sinai).
Joshua — the fall of Jericho (chapter 6), read as a sonic-weapon episode.
Judges — Samson narratives, read telepathically rather than as superhuman strength.
1 Kings / 2 Kings — Elijah's chariot of fire and ascent (2 Kings 2), read as a spacecraft ascension.
Job — quoted from the speeches in chapters 37–38, with a specific footnote pointing out a divergence between the Dhorme French translation and the English RNKJV.
Psalms — quoted in passing.
Isaiah — quoted in the End of the World chapter.
Ezekiel — chapter 1 is treated as a full set-piece description of an Elohim landing; chapter 37 (the valley of dry bones) is interpreted in Extra-Terrestrials Took Me To Their Planet as a description of the biological-creation machine.
Daniel — referenced in the apocalyptic context.

The Pentateuch and the prophetic books are the densest sites of citation. The Song of Songs (called by the canon the Canticle of Canticles) is named in a specific cosmological reading concerning the "height of the creator" measured in parasangs.

New Testament / Christian scriptures

Gospel of Matthew — quoted extensively in The Role of Christ. Citations from chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 17, 19, 25, 26, 28. The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13) is given a specific reading as a description of life being seeded on multiple worlds.
Gospel of Mark — quoted from chapter 16 (the Ascension and the "they shall take up serpents" passage).
Gospel of Luke — quoted from chapter 21 (the parable of the fig tree).
Acts of the Apostles — quoted from chapters 2 (Pentecost), 12 (Peter's prison release), 15, 17.
Revelation / Apocalypse of John — treated at length in The New Revelations. The canon reads chapters 1, 4, 6, and onward as a dictation given to John through what is described as a visual-display apparatus.

Specific Bible translations as references

The canon engages not only the biblical text but specific translations of it, treating translation choices as interpretively decisive:

Édouard Dhorme — the French Bible translation used by Rael during the encounter, named explicitly in the canon's editorial notes. The Dhorme rendering of certain Hebrew terms (notably the use of science where other translations use "good and evil") is presented as preserving meaning lost in other versions.
Restored Name King James Version (RNKJV) — used throughout the English omnibus for its restoration of Elohim and Yahweh in place of "God" and "the Lord".
New King James Version, American Standard Version, Webster Bible, Hebrew Names Version, Darby Translation — all named in the editorial notes as supplementary translation choices.
Latin Vulgate — invoked twice in the editorial notes to settle questions of meaning (caelis, desertum).

Other named texts

The Kabbalah — named in The End of the World, chapter At the Root of All Religions, as "the closest book to the truth." The canon attributes to it a specific cosmological passage concerning the "height of the creator" and the distance between Earth and the Elohim home planet, measured in parasangs. (The reference to a Canticle of Canticles passage within the Kabbalah here points toward the Shi'ur Qomah tradition of esoteric body-of-God speculation.)
The Qur'an — quoted with chapter-and-verse precision in Extra-Terrestrials Took Me To Their Planet. Direct citations include Sura 21:1–5, Sura 54:1, and Sura 56:15–24.
The Book of Enoch — named in the Yes... I am Raelian commentary as one of the texts closer to the canon's truth.

Named figures treated as Elohim messengers

The canon names a roster of historical and traditional religious figures and identifies them as messengers ("prophets") sent by the Elohim. The recurring list:

Moses
Elijah (transliterated EliYah in some quotations)
Jesus
Buddha — given a brief biographical sketch in Extra-Terrestrials Took Me To Their Planet, chapter Buddhism.
Muhammad — within whose writings the Elohim leader is said to have been called Allah "out of respect."
Joseph Smith — named alongside the four above in An Atheist Religion.

Additional figures named within biblical quotations and given Wheel-of-Heaven-relevant interpretation include Adam, Eve, Seth, Enos, Enoch, Noah, Lot, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Samson, Ezekiel, John (the seer of Patmos), Peter, and Joseph (husband of Mary). These are not in themselves source-traditions but characters whose biblical narratives the canon re-reads.

Religious traditions named as direct interlocutors

The canon names specific religious traditions and engages them on doctrinal or comparative grounds rather than only in passing:

Judaism — addressed directly in To the People of Israel; the State of Israel is given a specific eschatological role.
Christianity — the Catholic and Roman Catholic Church are critiqued at length; Mormonism is mentioned by name.
Islam — engaged through direct Qur'an citation.
Buddhism — given its own chapter in Extra-Terrestrials Took Me To Their Planet and discussed as "the religion closest to the Truth" in the 1997 addendum.

Secondary tier — indirect references

These are texts, traditions, languages, and motifs the canon engages without formal citation. They are named, alluded to, or treated as carrying "traces" of the Elohim story, but the canon does not quote from them directly or supply specific references.

Religious traditions named as carrying "traces"

In the chapter At the Root of All Religions (and the closely related commentary section Yes... I am Raelian), the canon and its early followers enumerate traditions in which "testimonies can be found" but from which no specific text is cited:

Greek mythology — named as containing "important testimonies," located by the canon in regions where the Elohim are said to have had bases.
Mormon scripture — named but not quoted.
Mahābhārata (with the Vedas and Rāmāyaṇa listed as its parts) — named in the Yes... I am Raelian commentary as among the surviving traces.
Kojiki of Japan — named in the same list.
Popol Vuh of the K'iche' Maya — named in the same list.
Chronicle of Akakor — named in the same list, alongside the Popol Vuh, as a Latin American testimony.
Epic of Gilgamesh, identified as "Sumerian-Babylonian" — named in the same list.

The Yes... I am Raelian list is a commentary by a follower rather than a statement by Rael, but it appears within the canonical omnibus and articulates the same reading the canon establishes in At the Root of All Religions.

Languages engaged philologically

The canon performs sustained etymological readings, treating word-histories as testimonies in their own right. The languages explicitly drawn on include:

Hebrew — most importantly the plural Elohim, read as "those who came from the sky"; Yahweh; Edenic terminology.
Aramaic — the root of Messiah / meschika is read as "anointed by the Lord."
Greek — a long sequence of Greek etymologies is presented as decisive: angelos (messenger), apocalypsis (revelation), euagelion (good news / gospel), ekklesia (assembly / church), pappas (father / pope), prophētēs (revealer), katholikos (universal), atheos (denying divinity), diabolos (slanderer), eutymos + logos (true science / etymology).
Latin — senior (the elder / lord), pontifex (bridge-maker), cultus (tribute), religio (that which links).
Sanskrit — explicitly named in the context of the swastika, glossed as meaning "well-being" and serving as an icon of "infinity in time."

Geographic and material traces

Beyond named texts, the canon points to physical sites and regions as locations where the Elohim are said to have had bases or left material evidence:

The Andes and Peru (general region, Latin American highlands).
The Himalayas and Tibet (general region).
Greece (general region).
The Nazca lines ("engravings on the plain of Nazca").
Baalbek (Lebanon).
Tiahuanaco (Bolivia).
Easter Island ("Ile de Pâques").
The Pyramids and Egyptian architecture generally.

The canon also alludes to the Atlantis and Mu legends, but specifically as misremembered traces of an antediluvian single continent — that is, as legends the canon explains rather than texts it consults.

Motifs and tropes engaged without specific citation

A small set of comparative motifs surface in the canon without specific textual citation:

Universal flood narratives — the canon's reading of Noah's ark as a spacecraft / genetic-preservation vessel is offered as the underlying reality behind the global family of flood myths.
The Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues — treated as a specific historical episode rather than a comparative motif, but with implicit reference to the broader family of language-origin myths.
Chariot-of-fire / sky-ascent narratives — the readings of Elijah (2 Kings 2) and Ezekiel (chapter 1) are offered as paradigmatic instances of a wider family of sky-vehicle traditions.
Council-of-gods scenes — the bnei-elohim episodes of Genesis 6 and the broader divine-council motif of the Hebrew Bible are engaged through the canon's reading of Elohim as plural.

These are catalogued in the secondary tier because the canon engages them through interpretation of its primary citations rather than by naming a separate body of literature.

Source tensions and unresolved issues

A few clean tensions are worth flagging for future Wheel of Heaven work.

The Dhorme / RNKJV divergence. The French canon and the English omnibus do not always quote the same biblical wording. The editorial notes acknowledge this explicitly, but the practical consequence is that some Wheel of Heaven readings are sensitive to which translation a reader has in front of them. The canon's choice of Dhorme is itself an interpretive position — Dhorme's rendering tends to demystify, and the canon depends on that demystification.

The status of the Yes... I am Raelian enumeration. The list of "traces" (Kojiki, Popol Vuh, Akakor, Gilgamesh, Mahābhārata) appears in a commentator's contribution to Let's Welcome The Extra-Terrestrials, not in Rael's own voice. The list has been canonised by being preserved across editions, but it is a follower's synthesis rather than a direct revelation claim. Whether to weight it equally with the primary tier is an open editorial question.

The "Kabbalah" reference. The cosmological passage attributed to the Kabbalah in The End of the World — with the parasangs measurement and the "height of the creator" / "height of his heels" formula — matches motifs from the Shi'ur Qomah tradition rather than the Zohar proper. The canon names the Kabbalah generically. This raises the question of whether the canon's "Kabbalah" should be glossed as the Shi'ur Qomah corpus specifically, or left at the more general level the canon itself uses.

The Chronicle of Akakor problem. The Chronicle of Akakor, published in 1976 by Karl Brugger from a purported indigenous Amazonian source, has been widely treated as a literary hoax by subsequent scholarship. Its appearance in the canon's "traces" list — published only a few years after Brugger's book — sits awkwardly with the rest of the catalogue, which is composed of texts with deep traditional pedigrees. How to handle this in a serious Wheel of Heaven framing is unresolved.

Direct vs. indirect, again. Some of the categorisation above is borderline. Joseph Smith is named directly, but no Mormon scripture is quoted — so the Mormon tradition sits in the secondary tier even though the figure of its founder is primary. Conversely, the Kabbalah is named generically (secondary-tier language) but a specific cosmological passage is engaged (primary-tier behaviour). These are flagged for future refinement.

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