Universe People or Cosmic People of Light Powers (Czech: Vesmírní lidé sil světla) is a Czech and Slovak new religious movement founded in the 1990s and centered around Ivo A. Benda. Their belief system is based upon the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations communicating with Benda and other contactees since October 1997 telepathically and later even by direct personal contact. They are considered to be the most distinctive UFO religion in the Czech Republic.
Following the mass suicide of the members of the cult Heaven's Gate in 1997, the Universe People attracted the attention of Czech media as a group with similar ideology and potential to commit similar acts. The danger of this development has diminished in later years (2004). On several occasions, the group also managed to appear in the Czech and Slovak mass media.
Read more about Universe People: History, Ideology, Opponents and Cultural Impact
Famous quotes containing the words universe and/or people:
“Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.”
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846)