As the auditorium continues to fill, I notice that Ivana's interest in me has waned since she learned that I don't really have the fundamentals of the "message" down, and her gaze wanders to the elaborately muscled men milling in the aisles. But then the lights dim and the evening begins: Brigitte Boisselier, dressed in a wide-brimmed hat and elegant high heels, strides onto the stage and explains that she is a biochemist who was fired from the French firm Air Liquide, as well as declared a "dangerous mother" by the French state because of her advocacy of human cloning. But now, she says happily, she is a bishop in the Raklian movement, and cryptically warns us "not to expect a politically correct evening!" Next onstage is Richard Seed, a Boston-based lecturer famous for declaring that he wants to be the first human to be cloned ("after, of course, my wife, Gloria"). He welcomes cloning as the first step toward rejuvenation -- a balding fellow with bad posture, he repeatedly mentions how nice it would be to be 22 again -- but besides that, he says, "clones will be fun." Seed is at pains to inform us that he's a Christian and a Methodist. (That's a relief, because if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a Muslim Methodist.) I can't help wondering what this guy with a suit and tie and a doctorate in physics from Harvard is doing in this roomful of French-speaking UFO enthusiasts.

Finally, after being introduced as "the prophet of the third millennium," Rakl himself strides onto the stage. Short, with an utterly receded forehead and the remains of curly black hair drawn up into a topknot, he looks a bit like a samurai warrior crossed with the Man From Glad. He's wearing an all-white shirt with huge shoulders, baggy white pants and white slippers, and he sports the heavy silver medallion I've seen around many necks here: a Star of David filled with swirls. (The swirls used to form a swastika, but apparently a fair number of Jews were offended by this attempt at reconciling such a terminally opposed yin and yang.) Somehow, I have trouble convincing myself I'm in the presence of a divine messenger. Rakl has an accent that makes it sound as if he's trying to dislodge a wad of phlegm, or perhaps a mussel, caught in the back of his throat. Which makes me suspect that I'm actually in the presence of a Belgian.

Rakl paces around like a seasoned stand-up comedian, working the crowd. He announces that he has just gained his Quebecois citizenship, and half the audience is on its feet to clap in congratulation. "Unfortunately, I have to be Canadian too!" News flash: Rakl is a separatist! "I've written a book called 'Vive le Quibec Libre,'" he adds darkly. After taking a couple of shots at the pope ("The difference between me and Jean Paul II is that, every year, everything that he says is proved to be false, and everything I say proves to be true!"), he turns to the main theme of the evening. He doesn't want to encourage human cloning in order to create lots of little replicas of himself. He wants to clone himself so he can live forever. "Do you want to die at the age of 35?" he asks. "No!" is the resounding reply from the audience. Actually, judging from the youthful beauty of most of the people in this room, I'm beginning to suspect that I've stumbled onto a sect inspired by the '70s science fiction film "Logan's Run," in which those over age 30 are not only distrusted but also vaporized. And as an English-speaking writer in a roomful of French-Canadian hedonists, I feel like I'm 32 going on 50.

What's more, I'm blatantly scribbling on a notepad just as Rakl is having a go at the journalists in the room. Distancing his religion from the Solar Temple and the Branch Davidians, he confesses his disgust with lazy reporters. "I used to be one myself, you know," Rakl continues. "But why do the journalists always call me for comment when there's a collective suicide? I don't want to die! I want to be around to piss them off for a long time!" The crowd responds with roars of delight.

Ivana, I've noticed, is eyeing my dancing pencil with a look of resentment. Against my will, an image straight out of the remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" springs to mind: Ivana leaps to her feet, points to me in a rage and shouts the word "journalist" from her inhumanly twisted mouth. A circle of toned and tanned bodies inexorably closes in on me, and the scene fades to black as I disappear beneath a pile of writhing lap dancers.

The Raklians have a very nice little religion, I say to myself, gathering up my journalistic impedimenta and making a quick exit. They might even be fun to hang out with for a summer, practicing a little sensual meditation with a United Nations panel of strippers -- if only it weren't for all that UFO stuff. The problem is, I can tell my pleasure would be ruined by the knee-jerk curiosity inculcated by my own sect, the Newsman cult. Too many questions are already springing to mind: What happens if you neglect to pay Rakl his 10 percent tithe? If the Elohim created humans from their own DNA, who created the Elohim? Most important, what happens to Raklians when they get old?

Since I ask questions as obsessively as most true believers avoid them, it's a foregone conclusion: I don't have the requisite faith to make it as a Raklian. In fact, I say to myself, emerging dazed into the comforting Montreal twilight, I probably need a little deprogramming myself.

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