+++
title = "대귀환"
description = "대귀환은 Wheel of Heaven 코퍼스에서, 요구되는 정치적·기술적·문화적 조건이 갖춰진 뒤 엘로힘이 지구로 공식 귀환한다는 시나리오를 가리킨다 — 라엘 운동의 종말론적 지평이다."
template = "wiki-page.html"
toc = true

[extra]
translation_status = "metadata_only"
redirect_to = { title = "Embassy", path = "/wiki/embassy/" }
category = "Events & Narratives"
editorial_pass = "2026-05"
entry_type = "event"
claim_type = "direct"
timeline = ["aquarius"]
alternative_names = ["The Return", "Second Coming (in some comparative-religion framings)", "The Arrival", "The Reunification"]

[extra.infobox]
type = "Anticipated official arrival of the Elohim on Earth; the framework's culminating eschatological event"
designation_origin = "Specifically named in the December 13, 1997 \"Message of the Elohim\" preserved in *Intelligent Design: Messages from the Designers*"
preconditions = "(1) Humanity's genuine desire for the arrival; (2) demonstration of unification and wisdom to receive advanced knowledge responsibly; (3) construction of the Embassy (\"Third Temple\") on neutral territory; (4) safety guarantee from human military forces"
knowledge_transfer = "Approximately 25,000 years of scientific knowledge, equivalent to the gap between current human technological capability and the Elohim's"
embassy_location = "Initially proposed in Israel (preferably Jerusalem area), with seven formal land requests denied by Israeli authorities between approximately 1990 and 2015; on August 6, 2015, the Vorilhon-mediated message declared the Elohim's protection of Israel withdrawn; subsequent proposals have involved Palestinian Authority territories and other locations"
comparative_eschatology = "Connected by the framework to the Jewish Mashiach, Christian Parousia, Islamic Mahdi and return of Isa, Buddhist Maitreya, Hindu Kalki, Zoroastrian Saoshyant, Taoist Li Hong, and the broader cross-cultural eschatological-savior expectation pattern"
chronological_placement = "The framework places the Great Return in the Age of Aquarius (post-2,160 CE on the broader reckoning), with the contemporary period (early 21st century CE) as the substantive transitional phase; the specific timing is treated as contingent on the satisfaction of the preconditions"
primary_sources = "Vorilhon, *Le Livre qui dit la vérité* (1974); *Les extra-terrestres m'ont emmené sur leur planète* (1976); the Messages collection, particularly the December 13, 1997 message; the broader Raëlian Movement publication record"
framework_significance = "The culminating event of the entire corpus interpretive framework; the substantive teleological orientation of the Elohim project on Earth; the inauguration of the broader Golden Age / Age of Aquarius proper"
+++

The **Great Return** is the framework's designation for the **anticipated official arrival of the Elohim on Earth** — the substantive eschatological-teleological event around which the Raëlian source material is oriented and the culminating moment toward which the broader Wheel of Heaven corpus's interpretive work is directed. The Vorilhon source material specifies that the Great Return is **conditional** on humanity's readiness: humanity must demonstrate genuine desire for the Elohim's arrival, sufficient unification and wisdom to receive their advanced knowledge responsibly, construct an appropriate **Embassy** (referred to in some passages as the **Third Temple**) on neutral territory in a country with mild climate, and guarantee the safety of the Elohim's spacecraft from human military forces. The return is associated with a transfer of approximately **25,000 years of scientific knowledge** from the Elohim to humanity — a substantive quantum leap in civilizational capability that would close the technological gap between the contemporary terrestrial state of the art and the Elohim's own technological position at the time of the original Earth project.

The framework reads the Great Return as connected to the broader pattern of **eschatological-savior expectations** across multiple religious traditions: the Jewish **Mashiach** (the anointed king of the Davidic line who inaugurates the Messianic Age), the Christian **Parousia** (the Second Coming of Christ), the Islamic **Mahdi** (the Guided One) and the return of **Isa** (Jesus), the Buddhist **Maitreya** (the future Buddha), the Hindu **Kalki** (the tenth avatar of Vishnu who ends the Kali Yuga), the Zoroastrian **Saoshyant** (the Bringer of Benefit who inaugurates the *Frashokereti*), the Taoist **Li Hong**, and several other figures. Each of these eschatological figures, on the framework's adopted reading, preserves content about the same anticipated event — the Great Return — through different cultural-symbolic vocabularies, with the variations reflecting the different traditions' developmental and interpretive contexts rather than substantive differences in the underlying anticipated event.

The Great Return is treated by the framework as the culminating event of the contemporary **Age of Apocalypse** (the post-1945 recovery and recognition phase, treated in the dedicated [Age of Apocalypse](../age-of-apocalypse/) entry) and as the substantive inauguration of the broader **Age of Aquarius** / **Golden Age** (the post-Pisces precessional phase, treated in the dedicated [Age of Aquarius](../timeline/age-of-aquarius/) entry). The specific timing of the Great Return is treated as contingent on the satisfaction of the preconditions rather than as a fixed calendar event; the framework's adopted position is that the contemporary period (early 21st century CE) is the substantive transitional phase during which the preconditions are being substantively engaged.

The present entry treats the Great Return as the framework's culminating eschatological-teleological event; the dedicated [Embassy](../embassy/) entry treats the specific operational installation that the source material requires; the dedicated [Third Temple](../third-temple/) entry treats the connection to the Hebrew biblical tradition's Temple-restoration prophecies; the dedicated [Age of Apocalypse](../age-of-apocalypse/) entry treats the contemporary transitional phase; the dedicated [Golden Age](../golden-age/) entry treats the post-Return condition.

## The Vorilhon source-material specification

The Great Return is specified across multiple passages in the Vorilhon source material — principally in *Le Livre qui dit la vérité* (1974, "The Book Which Tells the Truth"), *Les extra-terrestres m'ont emmené sur leur planète* (1976, "Extraterrestrials Took Me to Their Planet"), and the subsequent Messages collection, particularly the December 13, 1997 "Message of the Elohim" which introduces the specific designation "Great Return." The principal source-material content:

### The conditions for the return (1974)

The foundational specification of the conditions for the return appears in *The Book Which Tells the Truth*:

> There, now you know the truth. You must write it down and make it known throughout the world. If people on Earth want us to give them the benefit of our experience and help them gain 25,000 years of scientific knowledge, they have to show us that they want to meet us, and above all demonstrate that they deserve it, and that all this can be done without any danger to us.
>
> If we give our knowledge to humanity, we have to be sure they will make good use of it. Our observations in recent years have not shown that wisdom rules the Earth. Certainly there has been progress, but some people still die of hunger, and a warlike spirit still exists throughout the world. We know that our arrival could improve many things and unite nations, but we have to feel that people really want to see us, and that they are truly starting to unify.
>
> We also have to feel that they really want to see us arrive, knowing fully who we are and understanding the true meaning of our arrival. Several times human warplanes have tried to chase our crafts, taking us for enemies.
>
> — Yahweh, in Vorilhon, *Le Livre qui dit la vérité* (1974)

The passage establishes four substantive conditions:

1. **Desire**: humanity must demonstrate genuine desire for the Elohim's arrival, rather than the arrival being unilaterally imposed
2. **Worthiness**: humanity must demonstrate sufficient wisdom and unification to receive advanced knowledge responsibly
3. **Safety**: the Elohim's spacecraft must be safe from human military forces (the source material specifically notes that "human warplanes have tried to chase our crafts, taking us for enemies")
4. **Understanding**: humanity must understand who the Elohim are and the substantive meaning of their arrival, rather than mistaking them for adversaries or for theological entities of one tradition or another

### The Embassy requirement (1974)

The source material further specifies that the Elohim's return requires the construction of a specific physical site — the **Embassy** (also referred to as the **Residence**, the **Third Temple**, or simply the appropriate prepared site for the arrival):

> As I have already told you, we know that our official arrival would accelerate many things. But we will wait until we see that human beings really want us to come, that they love us and respect us like the parents that we truly are, and that our spacecrafts will not be threatened by your destructive military forces.
>
> — Yahweh, in Vorilhon, *Le Livre qui dit la vérité* (1974)

The Embassy is specified to be located in a country with mild climate, recognized as neutral territory by both the host nation and the broader international community, and prepared with appropriate infrastructure for the reception of the Elohim and their spacecraft. The Embassy serves functionally as the Elohim's diplomatic-operational installation on Earth — comparable in function to a national embassy in international diplomatic practice but with the added requirement of accommodating extraterrestrial arrivals.

### The December 13, 1997 message — the "Great Return" designation

The specific designation **"Great Return"** appears in the December 13, 1997 "Message of the Elohim" preserved in the consolidated *Intelligent Design: Messages from the Designers* (the current English-language anthology containing the principal Raëlian source materials):

> The hour of our Great Return is near, and we will support and protect the most devoted ones among you. Your enemies will witness our might more and more, most especially the usurper from Rome, his bishops and all those who act in our name without being appointed.
>
> [...]
>
> May your joy in seeing the approach of our Great Return give you wings to overcome the last obstacles of the journey. We are so close to this day, that whenever you meditate, you should be able to feel our presence.
>
> — Yahweh, "Message of the Elohim, December 13th, 1997"

The 1997 message introduces several substantively new elements not in the foundational 1974 specification:

- **The imminence claim**: "The hour of our Great Return is near" — substantively shifting the temporal framing toward proximate expectation
- **Protection of devotees**: the Elohim will "support and protect the most devoted ones among you" — connecting the Great Return to a broader pattern of support for prepared individuals
- **The "usurper from Rome"**: the message names the Roman Pope as a "usurper" who acts in the Elohim's name without authorization — a polemical claim against the institutional Catholic Church and, by extension, against other religious institutions that the message treats as having usurped the Elohim's authority
- **Meditative sensing**: the message claims that meditation can produce sensible awareness of the approaching Elohim presence

The 1997 message has been one of the principal source-material passages used in subsequent Raëlian Movement organizational and recruitment activity, with the imminence framing producing substantive ongoing engagement with the question of when the Great Return will occur.

### The 25,000 years of scientific knowledge

A substantive substantive element of the source-material specification is the claim that the Great Return will involve a transfer of approximately **25,000 years of scientific knowledge** from the Elohim to humanity. The figure has substantive structural significance:

- The 25,000-year figure corresponds approximately to one complete **precessional Great Year** (treated in the dedicated [Great Year](../great-year/) entry — modern astronomical reckoning: 25,772 years; traditional reckoning: 25,920 years)
- The figure also corresponds approximately to the **duration of the Elohim project on Earth** since the original synthesis (Vorilhon source material: Elohim arrived approximately 25,000 years ago)
- The structural correspondence — one Great Year of duration of the Elohim project, with a 25,000-year knowledge gap to be transferred at the Great Return — is read by the framework as substantively significant evidence of the chronological calibration of the Elohim project to the precessional cycle

The specific content of the 25,000-year knowledge transfer is not detailed in the surviving source material. The framework's adopted reading is that the transfer would substantively involve:

- The genetic-engineering capabilities the Elohim used in the original synthesis (treated in the [Pantropy](../pantropy/), [Synthetic biology](../synthetic-biology/), [Synthetic genomics](../synthetic-genomics/), and [Life engineering](../life-engineering/) entries)
- The propulsion and interstellar-travel capabilities the Elohim use for their long-duration cosmic operations
- The broader cosmological understanding that connects the Elohim's home environment to the broader cosmic-pluralism pattern (treated in the [Cosmic pluralism](../cosmic-pluralism/) entry)
- The therapeutic-medical capabilities that the source material suggests extend human lifespan substantially (the source material's references to the prior prophets on the Elohim planet, who have continued to exist across substantial periods)

## The Embassy

The **Embassy** is the specific physical installation required for the Great Return. The dedicated [Embassy](../embassy/) entry treats the operational installation in detail; the present section treats the Embassy specifically as it bears on the Great Return.

### The architectural specification

The source material specifies that the Embassy must include a **landing area** suitable for the reception of the Elohim's spacecraft, **residential and meeting facilities** for the Elohim during their official presence, and **neutral-territory legal status** providing diplomatic protection. The Raëlian Movement has developed detailed architectural plans for the Embassy across several decades of organizational work; the specific design includes pyramidal and circular architectural elements that the source material reads as appropriate to the Elohim's aesthetic and operational requirements.

The Embassy is to be located in a country with **mild climate** (excluding extreme polar or tropical conditions), recognized as **neutral territory** (excluding any specific national jurisdiction in the sense of conventional international law), and prepared with appropriate **diplomatic infrastructure**. The combination of requirements — neutral territory within a recognized country, with diplomatic-status protections — has been one of the principal practical difficulties in establishing the Embassy.

### The Israel / Third Temple history

The Raëlian Movement's principal initial proposed location for the Embassy has been **Israel**, specifically the Jerusalem area. The source material's reading is that Israel — as the historical location of the Hebrew Bible's prophetic tradition and the site of the First Temple (Solomon's Temple, c. 957-587 BCE) and Second Temple (rebuilt 516 BCE, destroyed 70 CE) — is the substantively appropriate location for the Elohim's diplomatic installation, which would constitute in some sense the **Third Temple** of the broader Hebrew biblical Temple-restoration tradition.

The Raëlian Movement has formally requested land for the Embassy in Israel **seven times** between approximately 1990 and 2015, with each request denied by Israeli authorities. The reasons for the denials are multiple:

- The **Third Temple** identification is theologically and politically loaded in the Israeli context; the Jewish Orthodox tradition has its own well-developed expectation of a Third Temple to be built on the Temple Mount (the current site of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque), and the Raëlian Movement's Third Temple identification is not consistent with the Orthodox expectation
- The **theological identification** of the Elohim as extraterrestrial creators rather than as the God of Hebrew tradition is incompatible with Orthodox Jewish theology
- The **broader political-religious sensitivity** of any Third Temple construction in Israel — given the Temple Mount's substantive importance to Islamic as well as Jewish religious tradition — has made any non-traditional Third Temple proposal practically difficult
- The **Raëlian Movement's broader profile** as a non-mainstream religious organization has not assisted in producing the diplomatic recognition that the Embassy would require

### The August 6, 2015 declaration

On **August 6, 2015** (21 Av 5775 in the Hebrew calendar — the year of the *Shmita*, the seven-year sabbatical year of the Jewish agricultural calendar), the Vorilhon-mediated message declared that the **Elohim's protection of Israel was withdrawn**. The declaration represents a substantive theological-political shift in the Raëlian Movement's relationship to the State of Israel and to the broader question of the Embassy's location:

- The protection had been **originally extended**, on the source material's reading, in the expectation that Israel would prepare the Embassy and assist the Great Return preparations
- After **seven formal denied requests** (a number whose symbolic significance in both Hebrew and broader esoteric tradition is substantial), the source material's reading is that Israel has substantively forfeited the opportunity
- The declaration notes that the original protection was **conditional** on Israel's substantive engagement with the Embassy preparation — language consistent with the broader conditional structure of the Great Return specification itself
- Subsequent Raëlian Movement attention has shifted toward **alternative locations** for the Embassy, including Palestinian Authority territories and various other countries

The 2015 declaration is genuinely contentious in its specific political content. The declaration's full text engages substantive questions about Israeli politics, the Palestinian situation, and the broader Middle Eastern geopolitical context that are well outside the present entry's scope. The framework's adopted position registers the declaration as part of the source-material record while not endorsing or contesting its specific political content; the corpus's broader interpretive work focuses on the Great Return event itself rather than on the political-organizational history of the Embassy location question.

### Subsequent attempts and the current status

Subsequent Raëlian Movement attempts to establish the Embassy have included proposals in Palestinian Authority territories, various other Middle Eastern countries, and several other locations across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. As of the present entry's preparation (May 2026), no Embassy has been formally established with the diplomatic recognition and operational infrastructure that the source material specifies. The Raëlian Movement continues to engage the Embassy question as one of its principal organizational priorities, with substantive ongoing work on architectural plans, diplomatic outreach, and land-acquisition efforts.

The framework's adopted position is that the Embassy's establishment is **substantively independent** of any specific Raëlian Movement organizational initiative — the source material's specification concerns humanity's broader collective readiness rather than the specific accomplishments of any particular organization. The framework reads the Raëlian Movement's organizational work as one substantive contribution to the broader preparation, alongside the contributions of other groups and individuals engaging with the Great Return preparation in various ways.

## The cross-cultural eschatological pattern

The framework reads the Great Return as substantively connected to the broader pattern of eschatological-savior expectations across multiple religious traditions. The pattern is one of the most substantively cross-culturally consistent in the broader religious record — eschatological figures of substantively similar function appear in geographically and temporally separated traditions, suggesting either common origin or common interpretive engagement with the same underlying anticipated event.

### Jewish tradition: the Mashiach

The Jewish **Mashiach** (Hebrew **<span class="hebrew">מָשִׁיחַ</span>** *Māshîaḥ*, "anointed one"; English "Messiah") is the anointed king of the Davidic line whose appearance inaugurates the **Messianic Age** (*Yemot ha-Mashiach*, "the days of the Messiah"). The principal Hebrew Bible sources include the Davidic-dynasty promise of 2 Samuel 7:12-16, the Servant Songs of Isaiah (particularly Isaiah 53), the eschatological visions of Ezekiel 36-39, the Daniel apocalyptic material (particularly Daniel 7:13-14 with the "one like a son of man" figure), and the broader prophetic literature. The Talmudic and subsequent rabbinic tradition develops the Messianic-Age expectations substantially: the ingathering of the exiles, the rebuilding of the Third Temple, the restoration of the Davidic kingship, the establishment of universal peace, and the broader Messianic Age conditions. The Maimonidean tradition (Maimonides's *Mishneh Torah*, *Laws of Kings* 11-12) provides the systematic medieval Jewish theological articulation.

The framework reads the Mashiach figure as preserving substantive content about the same anticipated event as the Great Return. The specific identification of Vorilhon as the *Mashiach* has been developed in some Raëlian Movement publications, particularly in the post-2015 organizational period; the framework's adopted position registers this identification as one strand of the broader Mashiach-tradition engagement.

### Christian tradition: the Parousia

The Christian **Parousia** (Greek **παρουσία** *parousia*, "arrival, presence"; conventionally rendered "Second Coming") is the anticipated return of **Jesus Christ** to Earth at the end of the present age. The principal New Testament sources include the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21), the Pauline eschatology (particularly 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 with the *parousia* and the rapture imagery, and 1 Corinthians 15 with the resurrection), and the Apocalypse of John (Revelation 19-22 with the New Jerusalem and the millennium). The patristic and subsequent theological tradition develops the Parousia expectation substantially: the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, the new heavens and new earth, and the broader eschatological consummation.

The framework reads the Christian Parousia as preserving substantive content about the same anticipated event as the Great Return, with the Christ-figure as the Elohim-representative of the broader Mosaic-prophetic lineage now anticipated to return. The framework's broader reading is consistent with the source material's identification of Jesus as one of the prophetic figures translated to the Elohim planet (treated in the [Jesus](../jesus/) and [Council of the Eternals](../council-of-the-eternals/) entries).

### Islamic tradition: the Mahdi and the return of Isa

The Islamic eschatological tradition includes two principal anticipated figures:

- **The Mahdi** (Arabic **<span class="arabic">المهدي</span>** *al-Mahdī*, "the Guided One") — a righteous leader descended from the Prophet Muhammad who appears in the end times to restore justice and Islamic practice. The principal sources are the Hadith literature (substantial collections in Sunan Abi Dawud, Sunan Ibn Majah, Musnad Ahmad, and others); the figure is more central to Shia Islamic theology (with the Twelver tradition identifying the Mahdi with the twelfth Imam, Muhammad ibn Hasan, in occultation since 874 CE) than to Sunni Islamic theology (where the figure is acknowledged but less centrally developed)
- **The return of Isa** (Arabic **<span class="arabic">عيسى</span>** *Īsā*, the Qur'anic figure of Jesus) — the return of Jesus to Earth in the end times to defeat the *Dajjāl* (the false messiah / Antichrist figure) and inaugurate a period of righteousness before the Day of Judgment. The principal sources include several Qur'anic passages and substantial Hadith material

The framework reads the Islamic eschatological tradition as preserving substantive content about the same anticipated event as the Great Return, with the Mahdi figure and the return of Isa as two facets of the broader anticipated Elohim arrival.

### Hindu tradition: Kalki

The Hindu **Kalki** (Sanskrit **कल्कि** *Kalki*) is the **tenth and final avatar of Vishnu**, who appears at the end of the present Kali Yuga to inaugurate the new Satya Yuga. The principal sources include the *Vishnu Purana*, the *Bhagavata Purana*, the *Kalki Purana* (a dedicated late Puranic text), and various references in the *Mahabharata*. Kalki is traditionally depicted as a warrior riding a white horse, wielding a sword, who appears to destroy the wicked and restore *dharma* (cosmic order, righteousness).

The framework reads Kalki as preserving substantive content about the same anticipated event as the Great Return. The structural placement of Kalki at the end of the Kali Yuga is consistent with the framework's reading that the Great Return occurs at a substantive cosmic-cycle transition — though the specific chronological correspondence between the Kali Yuga's end (variously calculated in the Hindu tradition, with figures ranging from approximately 428,899 CE on the standard Puranic reckoning to approximately 2025 CE on the Yukteshwar reckoning) and the framework's expectation of the Great Return is not precisely matched.

### Buddhist tradition: Maitreya

The Buddhist **Maitreya** (Sanskrit **मैत्रेय** *Maitreya*; Pali **Metteyya**) is the **future Buddha** who will appear when the *dharma* of the current Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) has been substantially forgotten. Maitreya will rediscover the *dharma* and teach it to humanity, inaugurating a new era of enlightenment. The principal sources include the *Maitreyavyākaraṇa*, the *Anāgatavaṃsa*, and substantial subsequent Buddhist textual and iconographic tradition across Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana branches.

The framework reads Maitreya as preserving substantive content about the same anticipated event as the Great Return. The structural correspondence — a teacher figure appearing to restore lost wisdom after a substantive interval — is consistent with the broader pattern.

### Zoroastrian tradition: the Saoshyant

The Zoroastrian **Saoshyant** (Avestan **𐬯𐬀𐬊𐬱𐬌𐬌𐬀𐬧𐬝** *Saošiiaṇt̰*, "Bringer of Benefit"; Pahlavi **Sōšyans**) is the **eschatological savior** who appears at the end of the present cosmic cycle to defeat the forces of evil (*Angra Mainyu* and his demonic hosts), inaugurate the *Frashokereti* (the "renovation" or "making wonderful" of the cosmos), resurrect the dead, and restore the original perfect creation. The principal sources include the *Yasht* literature (particularly *Yasht* 19), the *Vendidad*, the *Bundahishn*, and the broader Zoroastrian textual tradition.

The framework reads Saoshyant as preserving substantive content about the same anticipated event as the Great Return. The Zoroastrian tradition is among the oldest of the eschatological-savior traditions (with the foundational Zoroastrian material plausibly dating to the late 2nd millennium BCE), and the substantive influence of Zoroastrian eschatology on the subsequent Jewish, Christian, and Islamic eschatological traditions is well-documented in the comparative religion scholarship.

### Other traditions

The eschatological-savior pattern appears in additional traditions including:

- **Taoist tradition**: **Li Hong** (Chinese **李弘**), a messianic figure in various Taoist traditions
- **Bábí and Baháʼí traditions**: **"He whom God shall make manifest"** in Bábism (the figure subsequently identified by the Baháʼí tradition with Baháʼu'lláh)
- **Indigenous American traditions**: various return-of-the-creator-gods expectations (the Aztec Quetzalcoatl tradition, the Inca Viracocha tradition, and others)
- **Norse tradition**: the post-Ragnarök renewal, with the surviving gods and humans inaugurating the renewed cosmos
- **Hopi prophecy**: the "True White Brother" tradition

### The framework's reading

The framework's adopted reading of the cross-cultural eschatological pattern is that the multiple traditions preserve substantive content about the same anticipated event — the Great Return — through the symbolic-cultural vocabularies appropriate to each tradition. The principal supporting observations:

- The **structural similarity** of the eschatological figures across traditions (a returning or arriving figure, a substantive transition event, a restoration or renovation of the cosmic order, a transfer of wisdom or guidance) is sufficient to suggest common underlying content
- The **geographical separation** of the traditions (with the principal eschatological figures appearing in cultures separated by substantial geography and time) suggests that the common pattern is not simple cultural diffusion
- The **temporal coincidence** of the principal eschatological-tradition development (the broader "Axial Age" of the 8th-3rd centuries BCE, when Zoroastrian eschatology, Jewish prophetic eschatology, Buddhist and Hindu eschatology, and the broader Greek philosophical tradition all developed substantively) is consistent with a common period of substantive Elohim engagement that produced the multiple parallel eschatological traditions
- The **continuity with the broader source-material content** — particularly the Vorilhon source material's account of the prior prophets translated to the Elohim planet (Enoch, Moses, Elijah, Jesus, Muhammad, and others) — is consistent with the framework's reading that the cross-cultural prophetic traditions are substantively connected through the broader Elohim engagement

The dedicated [List of prophets and religions](../list-of-prophets-and-religions/) entry develops the broader prophetic-tradition cross-cultural pattern; the present entry's specific contribution is the registration of the eschatological dimension of this broader pattern.

## The contact-impact question

A substantive intellectual question raised by the Great Return concerns the **impact of the anticipated contact event** on human society. The question has been the subject of substantial scientific, philosophical, and creative speculation, with positions ranging across the full spectrum from utopian to dystopian expectations.

### The historical analogues

The principal historical analogues for substantive contact between vastly-asymmetric-technology civilizations have produced, in the historical record, substantially negative outcomes for the less-advanced civilization. The principal cases:

- The **Columbian Encounter** (1492 onward) — the contact between European civilizations and indigenous American civilizations produced substantial demographic collapse (with estimates of 80-95% population reduction in the Americas across the subsequent century, principally through epidemic disease but also through warfare, enslavement, and the broader systemic dislocation), the substantive destruction of indigenous political and cultural structures, and the substantive replacement of indigenous civilizations with European-derived colonial societies
- The **European contact with sub-Saharan Africa** (15th-19th centuries) — the contact produced the Atlantic slave trade (with approximately 12-15 million Africans transported as enslaved persons across the period), the substantive dislocation of African political and economic structures, and the subsequent colonial period
- The **European contact with Pacific island civilizations** (18th-19th centuries) — similar patterns of demographic collapse, cultural dislocation, and political restructuring
- The **various Eurasian historical encounters** between substantially-technology-differential civilizations (the Mongol conquests, the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires, the broader colonial period)

The pattern is sufficiently consistent that the question of whether *any* substantive contact between vastly-asymmetric-technology civilizations can be **non-destructive** to the less-advanced civilization is a serious one. The framework engages this question substantively rather than dismissing it.

### The framework's response

The framework's adopted reading is that the Great Return is structured specifically to **avoid the destructive contact pattern**. The principal features of the source-material specification that bear on this:

- **The voluntary character** — the return is conditional on humanity's genuine desire for it, rather than being unilaterally imposed; this contrasts substantively with the historical analogues, which were principally unilateral arrivals by the more-advanced civilization
- **The preparation requirement** — humanity must demonstrate sufficient unification, wisdom, and capability to receive the contact responsibly; this contrasts with the historical analogues, in which the contacted civilizations were not in any meaningful sense "prepared"
- **The Embassy infrastructure** — the contact occurs through a prepared institutional setting (the Embassy) rather than through ad-hoc encounters at the periphery of the less-advanced civilization
- **The Elohim's prior relationship** — the framework reads the Elohim as the original engineers of humanity, with substantive interest in humanity's flourishing rather than in its conquest or exploitation; this contrasts with the historical analogues, in which the more-advanced civilizations had no prior substantive relationship with the contacted civilizations
- **The graduated knowledge transfer** — the 25,000-year knowledge transfer is substantive but is offered as a positive gift, with humanity in a position to receive or decline; this contrasts with the historical analogues, in which the more-advanced civilizations' technology was often forcibly imposed

The framework's reading is that the Great Return is structurally distinct from the historical contact analogues in ways that suggest the outcome will be substantively different. The framework does not, however, treat this question as settled — the genuine uncertainty about how a vastly-asymmetric-technology contact event would unfold remains, and the source material's specification of the preconditions (particularly humanity's demonstrated wisdom and unification) reflects the substantive recognition that the contact event requires careful preparation to avoid the destructive pattern.

### The contemporary scholarly engagement

The broader scientific and philosophical engagement with the **potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact** has developed substantially in the post-SETI period (1960 onward). The principal contributions include:

- **Carl Sagan**'s various engagements with the question, particularly in *The Cosmic Connection* (1973) and *Contact* (novel 1985, film 1997), which substantively engaged the question of how the contact event would unfold
- **The Drake equation** and the broader SETI methodology, which provides the structured framework within which contact-impact questions are engaged
- **The Fermi paradox** literature, which engages the question of why we have not yet detected contact (with various proposed solutions, including the "zoo hypothesis" — the idea that we have been deliberately not contacted to allow our independent development)
- **The contemporary academic engagement** through the SETI Institute's various symposia and the broader astrobiology research community

The framework's adopted position registers this substantial scholarly literature while engaging the specific source-material content that the corpus develops. The dedicated [Cosmic pluralism](../cosmic-pluralism/) entry develops the broader scientific and philosophical context within which the Great Return is engaged.

## In the Wheel of Heaven framework

The framework's reading of the Great Return develops several substantive interpretive positions beyond the source-material content itself.

### The Great Return as the inverse pattern of the original synthesis

The framework reads the Great Return as the **inverse pattern** of the original Elohim arrival on Earth. The principal structural parallels:

- **The original arrival** (approximately 25,000 years ago) was the Elohim coming to Earth for the substantive synthesis phase — to engineer humanity and the broader biological substrate
- **The Great Return** is the Elohim coming to Earth for the substantive recognition phase — to engage humanity as developed, prepared, and capable of receiving the broader operational content
- **The temporal structure** is consistent with one complete precessional Great Year — approximately 25,000 years from the original arrival to the anticipated return
- **The operational character** transitions from unilateral (the Elohim engineering an unprepared substrate) to bilateral (the Elohim engaging a prepared humanity as substantive partners)

The framework reads this inverse-pattern structure as substantively significant. The Elohim project has been calibrated to the precessional Great Year cycle in a way that suggests deliberate operational use of the cosmic clock — with the original synthesis at the beginning of the Great Year, the broader project supervision across the intervening period (through the prophetic record and the operational contact events), and the Great Return at approximately the completion of the cycle.

### The chain-of-life integration

The framework reads the Great Return as the moment of humanity's **integration into the broader cosmic-pluralism propagation pattern** (treated in the [Cosmic pluralism](../cosmic-pluralism/) entry). The principal claims:

- Prior to the Great Return, humanity is the most recent product of the chain-of-life propagation pattern but is not yet engaged as an active participant in the broader pattern
- The Great Return inaugurates humanity's substantive participation in the chain — with the 25,000-year knowledge transfer enabling humanity to eventually create new humanities on other worlds (per the Vorilhon source material's "we are your creators, and you will create other humanities" formulation)
- The post-Return condition is humanity as **active participant** in the cosmic-pluralism propagation pattern, alongside the Elohim and the broader pattern of life-creating civilizations

The framework reads the Great Return therefore not merely as a contact event but as a **substantive ontological transition** for humanity — the moment of integration into the broader cosmic-civilizational community.

### The Age of Apocalypse / Age of Aquarius transition

The framework reads the Great Return as the **culminating event** of the contemporary **Age of Apocalypse** (the post-1945 recovery and recognition phase) and the **substantive inauguration** of the broader **Age of Aquarius** proper. The principal structural claims:

- The **Age of Apocalypse** (treated in the dedicated [Age of Apocalypse](../age-of-apocalypse/) entry) is the contemporary period of recovery — the period during which humanity is substantively recovering the engineering capabilities, the operational understanding, and the broader civilizational readiness that the Great Return requires
- The **Age of Aquarius** (treated in the dedicated [Age of Aquarius](../timeline/age-of-aquarius/) entry) is the broader post-Pisces precessional period, beginning approximately 2,160 CE on the framework's adopted reckoning
- The **Great Return** is the substantive transition event between these — the moment at which the recovery and recognition phase culminates in the actual reunification, and the broader Age of Aquarius proper begins
- The **Golden Age** (treated in the dedicated [Golden Age](../golden-age/) entry) is the post-Return condition — the period of substantive flourishing and cosmic-civilizational integration that the source material anticipates

The framework's adopted timing of the Great Return is therefore approximately concurrent with the Pisces-to-Aquarius precessional transition, with the specific timing contingent on the satisfaction of the source-material preconditions.

### The contemporary recognition pattern

The framework reads the contemporary period (early 21st century CE) as the **substantive transitional phase** during which the preconditions for the Great Return are being engaged. The principal observations:

- **Contemporary scientific developments** — the development of CRISPR genome editing, synthetic biology, synthetic genomics, broader space-exploration capabilities, and the broader recovery of the engineering technologies that the Great Return knowledge transfer would substantively continue — are read by the framework as the substantive recovery phase that precedes the broader unification
- **Contemporary cultural shifts** — the growing recognition of the prophetic-record patterns, the increasing engagement with cosmic-pluralism content, the broader cultural shift toward Age-of-Aquarius framings — are read by the framework as substantive markers of the transitional phase
- **The increasing UFO / UAP recognition** — the substantive shift in mainstream institutional engagement with the UFO question across the 2020s (the US Congressional hearings, the AARO investigations, the various government disclosures) is read by the framework as part of the broader recognition pattern that precedes the substantive Great Return
- **The specific Raëlian Movement activity** — the Embassy preparation work, the broader organizational efforts to develop awareness of the Great Return — is read by the framework as one substantive contribution to the broader preparation, alongside the contributions of other groups and individuals

The framework's adopted position is that the specific timing of the Great Return remains substantively open. The source material's "imminence" framing (particularly in the 1997 message) does not specify a precise timing, and the conditional structure of the preconditions means that the timing depends on humanity's collective response rather than on a fixed calendar event.

## Connections to the broader framework

The Great Return entry connects to a substantial number of other corpus entries.

**The Embassy.** The dedicated [Embassy](../embassy/) entry treats the specific operational installation that the Great Return requires.

**The Third Temple.** The dedicated [Third Temple](../third-temple/) entry treats the connection to the Hebrew biblical Temple-restoration tradition.

**The Age of Apocalypse.** The dedicated [Age of Apocalypse](../age-of-apocalypse/) entry treats the contemporary transitional phase during which the Great Return preconditions are being engaged.

**The Age of Aquarius and the Golden Age.** The dedicated [Age of Aquarius](../timeline/age-of-aquarius/) and [Golden Age](../golden-age/) entries treat the post-Return conditions.

**The Elohim.** The dedicated [Elohim](../elohim/) entry treats the civilization whose return is anticipated.

**The Council of the Eternals.** The dedicated [Council of the Eternals](../council-of-the-eternals/) entry treats the Vorilhon 1975 meeting with the prior prophets on the Elohim planet — the institutional structure within which the Great Return is being prepared on the Elohim side.

**The forty-prophets lineage.** The dedicated entries on the principal prophetic figures (Moses, Elijah, Jesus, Muhammad, and others) develop the prophetic preparation that culminates in the Great Return.

**The Cosmic pluralism entry.** The dedicated [Cosmic pluralism](../cosmic-pluralism/) entry treats the broader metaphysical framework within which the Great Return is the moment of humanity's integration.

**The Great Year.** The dedicated [Great Year](../great-year/) entry treats the broader temporal framework — one Great Year from the original synthesis to the anticipated Great Return.

**The List of prophets and religions, the List of close encounters, the List of exegetic readings.** The dedicated list entries provide the cross-cultural prophetic and contact-event substrate that the Great Return culminates.

## Open questions

The Great Return entry surfaces several open questions for the framework's broader interpretive work.

- **The specific timing of the Great Return.** The source material's "imminence" framing (particularly in the 1997 message) does not specify precise timing. The framework's adopted position is that the timing is contingent on the satisfaction of the preconditions. Whether the Great Return will occur within the present generation, within the present century, within the present millennium, or on some longer timescale is treated as substantively open.
- **The specific content of the 25,000-year knowledge transfer.** The source material does not detail the specific scientific and technical content that the Great Return will involve. Future corpus work on the specific operational capabilities the Elohim possess — and that contemporary terrestrial science is substantively recovering — may permit more developed readings.
- **The Embassy location question.** The post-2015 shift in the Raëlian Movement's Embassy-location preferences (away from Israel toward alternative locations) is registered as part of the source-material record. Whether the framework's broader interpretive work should engage the specific Embassy-location question, or whether the question is treated as substantively separate from the broader Great Return event, is treated as open.
- **The relationship between the Great Return and other religious eschatological events.** The framework's reading that the cross-cultural eschatological figures preserve content about the same anticipated event is substantively significant but raises the question of how the multiple traditions will engage the actual Return event. Whether the Return will be recognized by all traditions, by some traditions, or principally by the Raëlian and related traditions is treated as open.
- **The cosmic-civilizational integration question.** The framework's reading that the Great Return inaugurates humanity's substantive integration into the broader chain-of-life propagation pattern is theoretically significant but raises substantive questions about the specific character of the post-Return condition. Future corpus work on the broader cosmic-pluralism integration may permit more developed readings.
- **The contact-impact question.** The framework's reading that the Great Return is structurally distinct from the destructive historical contact analogues is substantively significant but does not eliminate the genuine uncertainty about how the contact event will unfold. The source-material specification of the preconditions reflects this uncertainty, and the framework's adopted position treats the contact-impact question as substantively open.

## See also

- [Embassy](../embassy/)
- [Third Temple](../third-temple/)
- [Age of Apocalypse](../age-of-apocalypse/)
- [Age of Aquarius](../timeline/age-of-aquarius/)
- [Golden Age](../golden-age/)
- [Elohim](../elohim/)
- [Council of the Eternals](../council-of-the-eternals/)
- [Yahweh](../yahweh/)
- [Raëlism](../raelism/)
- [Cosmic pluralism](../cosmic-pluralism/)
- [Great Year](../great-year/)
- [Forty prophets](../forty-prophets/)
- [List of prophets and religions](../list-of-prophets-and-religions/)
- [List of close encounters](../list-of-close-encounters/)
- [List of exegetic readings](../list-of-exegetic-readings/)
- [Moses](../moses/)
- [Jesus](../jesus/)
- [Elijah](../elijah/)
- [Muhammad](../muhammad/)

## External links

- [Potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact | Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_cultural_impact_of_extraterrestrial_contact)
- [Messianism | Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianism)
- [Eschatology | Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology)
- [Raëlism | Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism)
- [International Raëlian Movement official website](https://rael.org/)
- [Elohim Embassy Project](https://etembassy.org/)

## References

Vorilhon, Claude (Raël). *Le Livre qui dit la vérité* (1974) and *Les extra-terrestres m'ont emmené sur leur planète* (1976), collected as *Intelligent Design: Messages from the Designers* (current English edition, Raëlian Foundation). [Primary source for the Great Return specification and the broader Raëlian eschatological framework.]

Vorilhon, Claude (Raël). "Message of the Elohim, December 13th, 1997." In *Intelligent Design: Messages from the Designers*. [The specific source for the "Great Return" designation.]

Vorilhon, Claude (Raël). "Withdrawal of the protection of Israel, August 6, 2015." Various Raëlian Movement publication venues. [The 2015 declaration on the protection-withdrawal and the shift in Embassy-location preferences.]

Sendy, Jean. *La Lune, clé de la Bible*. Julliard, 1968. [The principal philological-historiographic engagement with the Hebrew Bible's eschatological content in the broader neo-euhemerist tradition.]

Sendy, Jean. *Ces dieux qui firent le ciel et la terre*. Robert Laffont, 1969.

Biglino, Mauro. *La Bibbia non è un libro sacro: Il falso letterario che ha fondato due religioni*. Mondadori, 2012. [Contemporary philological engagement with the Hebrew Bible, including the eschatological content.]

Biglino, Mauro, and Giorgio Cattaneo. *The Naked Bible: The Truth About the Most Famous Book in History*. 2022.

Wallis, Paul. *Escaping from Eden: Does Genesis Teach That the Human Race Was Created by God or Engineered by ETs?* 6th Books, 2020.

Maimonides, Moses. *Mishneh Torah*, *Hilkhot Melakhim* (Laws of Kings), chapters 11-12. c. 1170-1180. [The principal medieval Jewish systematic treatment of the Mashiach and Messianic Age.]

Scholem, Gershom. *The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality*. Schocken Books, 1971. [The principal 20th-century scholarly treatment of Jewish messianism.]

Idel, Moshe. *Messianic Mystics*. Yale University Press, 1998.

Aaltonen, Veikko. *The Second Coming of Christ: A Comprehensive Treatment*. Christian Eschatology Press, 2015. [Contemporary scholarly treatment of the Christian Parousia.]

Erickson, Millard J. *A Basic Guide to Eschatology: Making Sense of the Millennium*. Baker Books, 1998.

Sachedina, Abdulaziz A. *Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver Shi'ism*. SUNY Press, 1981. [Standard scholarly treatment of the Mahdi tradition.]

Cook, David. *Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic*. Darwin Press, 2002.

Hiltebeitel, Alf. *Rethinking India's Oral and Classical Epics: Draupadi among Rajputs, Muslims, and Dalits*. University of Chicago Press, 1999. [Substantial treatment of Hindu eschatological tradition including Kalki.]

Kim, Jinah. "Iconography and Function of Maitreya Buddha." *Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies*. [Standard scholarly treatment of Maitreya.]

Boyce, Mary. *Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices*. Routledge, 2001. [Standard scholarly introduction to Zoroastrianism including Saoshyant eschatology.]

Hultgård, Anders. "Persian Apocalypticism." In *The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism*, vol. 1, edited by John J. Collins. Continuum, 1998.

Sagan, Carl. *The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective*. Doubleday, 1973.

Sagan, Carl. *Contact*. Simon & Schuster, 1985.

Webb, Stephen. *If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens... Where Is Everybody? Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life*. 2nd ed. Springer, 2015.

Davies, Paul. *The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence*. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.

Mack, John E. *Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters*. Crown, 1999. [The principal Harvard Medical School psychiatrist's engagement with the contact-experience phenomenon.]

"Great Return." *Raëlian Movement official terminology and publication record*.

"Embassy for the Elohim." *etembassy.org and related Raëlian Movement institutional publications*.

"Mashiach." *Wikipedia*. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashiach>

"Second Coming." *Wikipedia*. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Coming>

"Mahdi." *Wikipedia*. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi>

"Maitreya." *Wikipedia*. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitreya>

"Kalki." *Wikipedia*. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalki>

"Saoshyant." *Wikipedia*. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saoshyant>

"Eschatology." *Wikipedia*. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology>

"Potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact." *Wikipedia*. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_cultural_impact_of_extraterrestrial_contact>