A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

In the case of Dorothy Martin and her followers, as in other millennial space brother
religions, the faithful were to be spared the results of the cataclysm— “[certain earth dwellers]
will be gathered up and relieved of the experiences of the holocaust and of the coming events.”
This caveat recalled nothing so much as the Christian rapture. Although in the case of the space
brothers it would not be Christ and his heavenly host that come for the faithful, but rather Christ
along with other officers of the star command. The cataclysm was offered as a warning and a
stopgap. Without it humans would continue down the path to nuclear destruction—a destruction
that would have disastrous consequences for the earth’s environs as well - “Earth will be
fragmented and the whole solar system disrupted.” 234
Also of note in the preceding
communiqué is the indication that “(i)t is ignorance of the Universal Laws that makes all the
misery of the Earth.” In accordance with harmonial tradition, it is the lack of integration
between terrestrial humans and the Cosmos that drives the problems of the world. The
establishment of Utopia is a matter of re-alignment, an enactment of the “gentle revolution that
lies within your heart.”
Like Scientology, the Great I AM and other space brother religions such as the Unarians,
Martin and her followers paid much attention to the question of past lives. The notion of
reincarnation functioned as a simultaneously centrifugal and centripetal trope. It was centripetal
in the sense that it promoted the belief of the survival of personality and centrifugal in its
intimations of fractured identity—I am Genghis Khan and George Washington and Jesus. As
reported by Festinger et al., there was considerable talk about who each member was in biblical
times. Generally in such “recall,” participants found that they were formerly some exalted
personage or another. Martin, of course, discovered that she had been the mother of Christ. This
sense of former greatness both flattered and made it easier to believe that one was playing a
central role in momentous events. The central appeal of membership in such groups was that
234 Festinger, 53.
148