DVD Review: Children Of The Stars

I’ve always thought you had to be a bit of a kook to join a cult, with equal parts lunacy and sadness dominating your personality. But I’ve also always found these people fascinating. Children Of The Stars is a documentary film about Unarius (meaning “universal articulate interdimensional understanding of science” – oh boy!) and its members (or students, as they are referred to). The film focuses on several members (none of whom are young, interestingly), who are allowed to tell their stories through a series of interviews.

The film begins with some images from science fiction, with a man telling us how we have waged war on Martians. “Call it sci-fi, but it’s real,” he says earnestly. And that’s one defining and interesting characteristic about the Unarius folks: they don’t believe there is any such thing as imagination; they believe it’s all memory. And so they will say things like “Star Wars is real.” And they believe that Gene Roddenberry, through the Star Trek series, was actually giving us information about real events. They also believe very strongly in past lives, and in a confederation of planets. Unarius student Billie McIntyre says: “Every year in October we have a Conclave of Light, welcoming the brothers of the confederation to land. It’s active with thirty-two other planets.” Sadly, she informs us that Earth has yet to join the confederation. “But we will soon,” she promises.

The Unarius Academy Of Science was founded by Ernest Norman (known as Raphiel or The Moderator to the cult members) and Ruth Norman (referred to as Uriel by her faithful followers) in the 1950s. And after Ernest’s death in 1971, Ruth became the leader, and the members seemed to worship her, calling her an archangel. Ruth was a nut, but she was all about a peaceful existence for people, and you can’t argue with that. Though the film largely follows the viewpoints of the members, it does give us some background information on Ruth Norman through an interview with a sociologist. And a lot of their ideas are presented in snippets of science fiction films that the cult members made themselves. Yes, these people make their own science fiction films. (One failing on the part of this DVD is to not include these films as bonus features. That would have been great!)

They believe that they have had past lives on this planet and other planets. Apparently Ernest and Ruth both come from the Planet Aries. One of my favorite moments in the film is the series of paintings of Ruth’s past lives – everyone from Queen Elizabeth I to Johannes Kepler to King Arthur. Unarius student Tracey Kennedy tells us that when she met Charles (whom they refer to as Antares), he told her, “I know you from Atlantis.” Unarius student Dan Smith, however, has the funniest line of the film. When describing meeting Ruth at a dinner, he says: “Wow, this is an archangel, and she’s telling me I should have some custard.” But he does get a bit of competition from Kevin Kennedy, who says: “Martians did interbreed with peoples on our world. That is what started the Chinese civilization.” Ah! That of course prompts the question, Can Martians drive?

There is a lot of great stuff in this documentary, and yet I found myself wanting more. For example, there is nothing on the current structure of the cult. Ruth Norman died in 1993, so who has been running the show since then? And is there some sort of hierarchy? And how is the group funded? Toward the end, a few of the members talk about how and when they joined, but I wanted more of that. These folks are allowed to tell their stories, which are certainly entertaining, but the interviewer never puts them on the spot. He is very gentle with them, and that ends up being a weakness of the film. Also, I found myself wondering about ex-members. That might be outside the scope of the film, I understand, but I’m curious and I wish at least one ex-member had been interviewed. Or has no one ever left the group?

Special Features

The DVD contains approximately twenty-six minutes of bonus footage, most of it from interviews in which members focus on their problematic past lives. One guy talks about how his past lives affect his marriage. It must be exhausting to be crazy. One woman talks about her past life in Germany: “She was an opera singer also that entertained Hitler.” But this woman seems old enough to have been alive during World War II in this lifetime. And guess what, she is. She explains this, sort of: “Now I was in this body at that time, but I also had another body at that time, out there.” Uh, what? She then adds, “I probably shouldn’t have brought it up.” Another guy went to see Gladiator (the Russell Crowe movie) and spotted himself – well, one of his past selves – in the arena. (Hey, that extra used to be me!) The sociologist does touch upon the question of where the cult gets its money.

The last couple of minutes are actually a trailer for the film, which is tacked onto the bonus footage rather than included as a separate special feature.

Children Of The Stars was directed by Bill Perrine and was released on DVD on March 8, 2016.