For those who have long awaited the Orgonescience Book, while you are waiting, the function of the former Orgonescience list has been taken up and is being continued and expanded by the Orgonomic Ecology Mailing List. To subscribe to the Orgonomic Ecology list, send an e-mail to: OrgonomicEcology-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk
The Orgonomic Ecology list is a moderated list to educate and organize potential activists to work on practical campaigns to help protect the earth from irresponsible and incompetent misuse of the Reich cloudbuster and similiar technologies that interact with the life energy envelope of the earth. Posts are moderated to maintain the focus on environmental issues related to cloudbuster proliferation and similiar topics.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
PLEASE PASS THE WORD AROUND ABOUT THIS BOOK
This book is being marketed only through the internet, and will not be sold in bookstores. So, please help us spread the word.
If you belong to any groups or mailing lists of people who might have an interest in alternative science, alternative medicine, environmental issues, or any of the many other fields upon which orgonomy sheds light, please let them know of this oportunity to learn some of the important findings and insights that have developed from the basic pioneering work of Wilhelm Reich.
This website is a work in progress. It will be added to regularly, so be sure to bookmark it and return to it from time to time to see what new material has been added.
To reserve a copy, or if you have any comments or questions, please contact us at orgonebook@gmail.com or orgonebook@yahoo.com .
If you belong to any groups or mailing lists of people who might have an interest in alternative science, alternative medicine, environmental issues, or any of the many other fields upon which orgonomy sheds light, please let them know of this oportunity to learn some of the important findings and insights that have developed from the basic pioneering work of Wilhelm Reich.
This website is a work in progress. It will be added to regularly, so be sure to bookmark it and return to it from time to time to see what new material has been added.
To reserve a copy, or if you have any comments or questions, please contact us at orgonebook@gmail.com or orgonebook@yahoo.com .
Monday, March 15, 2010
A LETTER SENT IN DECEMBER, 2008
Here is a letter I sent out to the members of the orgonescience list in December, 2008, a year after the list was shut down. It has obviously taken longer than expected to get all the editing done on the more than 2,000 posts in the list archive. I hope the wait was worthwhile.
From: joelcarlinsky
Subject: [orgonescience] Orgonescience List Archive to be available on-line
To: orgonescience@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, December 24, 2008, 4:29 AM
Hello, everyone on my mailing list! And year-end greetings!
It has now been about a year since I discontinued the Orgonescience list
and I have not heard from most of the list members in that time. But
things have been happening.
Shortly after the list was suspended, one of the members volunteered to
edit the more than 2,000 posts in the list archive into book form, to be
posted on a website. Since those posts contain a lot of very valuable
information that is not available anywhere else, this on-line book will be
the only source of most of this information.
Well, Murphy's Law kicked in, of course, and after a lot of work had
been done, there was a computer crash and what had been done was
lost. Fortunately, another list member volunteered to help, and between
the two of them, the book should be ready soon. I hope to get it posted
in the next few months.
Of special importance is the fact that durring this year Dr. Eva Reich
died, after having been incapacitated by a stroke for the past several
years. She was the one entrusted by her father with the task of
continuing his work, and although events conspired to prevent her from
carrying out that role, a glace at his will confirms that she was the one
he considered to be his appointed successor.
Back in 1987, Jay Mikesell and I went to her home in Maine and spent
some time there having a private course in orgone biophysics from her.
At the time, she told us we were the only ones to ever study orgone
biophysics from her. All the other students who had come to her to learn
about her father's work had been mainly interested in therapy and
childraising, so that is what she taught them.
She also said that of all the people who had asked her about orgonomy
since Reich died, I was the only one who had asked the right questions.
I have a letter from her stating that I had tutoring from her in orgone
biophysics and that she considers me "very knowledgeable in that field".
Jay died a few years ago, so that leaves me as the only living person, as
far as I know, who studied orgone biophysics under the one person
designated by Reich to be his successor.
Much of the material in the posts I sent to the orgonescience list was
based on what I learned while at Eva's place in Maine, so I consider
there to be a direct continuity between the work of Reich, much of it
never published, and the information that will be made available to the
public for the first time in this compilation of posts from the
Orgonescience list archive.
This takes on added importance because this past year was also the
first year since the 50th aniversary of Reich's death, and for all of those
50 years, many people have labored under the misapprehension that at
the end of the 50-year period, all his unpublisheed writings would be
made public. In the event, that has proven not to be true.
The Reich Archives have been made part of a special rare books
collection at the Countway Memorial Library of Harvard Medical School
in Boston, under a contract that severely restricts who is allowed access
and which documents they are allowed to see. Permission is controlled
by a committee appointed by Mary Higgins, who succeeded Eva Reich as
Trustee of the Estate of Wilhelm Reich and has managed it ever since
with extreme reluctance to permit anyone to read any of the material
therein.
So it is now finally, once and for all, obvious that we cannot just wait for
time to make the unpublished work of Reich available to the world. I
therefore consider that what Jay and I learned from Eva Reich
constitutes a legacy direct from Reich which now will never be available
from any source other than from me.
This includes a lot of material on an orgonomic concept of ecology and
evolution, as well as medical material pertaining to the uses of the
orgone accumulator, and the details of cloudbusting techniques never
before published. It also goes into a lot of detail about the real nature of
radioactivity and how it affects the living organism, how life arises from
inert matter, and a host of other topics not generally accessible.
This will be a compilation of short posts, arranged more-or-less by
topic, not a systematic organized presentation. If there is enough
interest, if enough people read it, I will do a more organized systematic
presentation, possiblly in the form of an on-line correspondence course,
at some future date.
From: joelcarlinsky
Subject: [orgonescience] Orgonescience List Archive to be available on-line
To: orgonescience@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, December 24, 2008, 4:29 AM
Hello, everyone on my mailing list! And year-end greetings!
It has now been about a year since I discontinued the Orgonescience list
and I have not heard from most of the list members in that time. But
things have been happening.
Shortly after the list was suspended, one of the members volunteered to
edit the more than 2,000 posts in the list archive into book form, to be
posted on a website. Since those posts contain a lot of very valuable
information that is not available anywhere else, this on-line book will be
the only source of most of this information.
Well, Murphy's Law kicked in, of course, and after a lot of work had
been done, there was a computer crash and what had been done was
lost. Fortunately, another list member volunteered to help, and between
the two of them, the book should be ready soon. I hope to get it posted
in the next few months.
Of special importance is the fact that durring this year Dr. Eva Reich
died, after having been incapacitated by a stroke for the past several
years. She was the one entrusted by her father with the task of
continuing his work, and although events conspired to prevent her from
carrying out that role, a glace at his will confirms that she was the one
he considered to be his appointed successor.
Back in 1987, Jay Mikesell and I went to her home in Maine and spent
some time there having a private course in orgone biophysics from her.
At the time, she told us we were the only ones to ever study orgone
biophysics from her. All the other students who had come to her to learn
about her father's work had been mainly interested in therapy and
childraising, so that is what she taught them.
She also said that of all the people who had asked her about orgonomy
since Reich died, I was the only one who had asked the right questions.
I have a letter from her stating that I had tutoring from her in orgone
biophysics and that she considers me "very knowledgeable in that field".
Jay died a few years ago, so that leaves me as the only living person, as
far as I know, who studied orgone biophysics under the one person
designated by Reich to be his successor.
Much of the material in the posts I sent to the orgonescience list was
based on what I learned while at Eva's place in Maine, so I consider
there to be a direct continuity between the work of Reich, much of it
never published, and the information that will be made available to the
public for the first time in this compilation of posts from the
Orgonescience list archive.
This takes on added importance because this past year was also the
first year since the 50th aniversary of Reich's death, and for all of those
50 years, many people have labored under the misapprehension that at
the end of the 50-year period, all his unpublisheed writings would be
made public. In the event, that has proven not to be true.
The Reich Archives have been made part of a special rare books
collection at the Countway Memorial Library of Harvard Medical School
in Boston, under a contract that severely restricts who is allowed access
and which documents they are allowed to see. Permission is controlled
by a committee appointed by Mary Higgins, who succeeded Eva Reich as
Trustee of the Estate of Wilhelm Reich and has managed it ever since
with extreme reluctance to permit anyone to read any of the material
therein.
So it is now finally, once and for all, obvious that we cannot just wait for
time to make the unpublished work of Reich available to the world. I
therefore consider that what Jay and I learned from Eva Reich
constitutes a legacy direct from Reich which now will never be available
from any source other than from me.
This includes a lot of material on an orgonomic concept of ecology and
evolution, as well as medical material pertaining to the uses of the
orgone accumulator, and the details of cloudbusting techniques never
before published. It also goes into a lot of detail about the real nature of
radioactivity and how it affects the living organism, how life arises from
inert matter, and a host of other topics not generally accessible.
This will be a compilation of short posts, arranged more-or-less by
topic, not a systematic organized presentation. If there is enough
interest, if enough people read it, I will do a more organized systematic
presentation, possiblly in the form of an on-line correspondence course,
at some future date.
CLOUDBUSTING
There are a lot of people fooling around with cloudbusters nowadays, and I thought this rather humorous warning might be appropriate.
More seriously, though, I devote a lot of space in the book to explaining the potential risks of cloudbusting. In fact, the proliferation of cloudbusters in the hands of incompetent operators is rapidly becoming one of the most serious environmental problems facing this planet.
It is relatively easy to learn how to do cloudbusting. What is more important, and much harder to learn, is how NOT to do cloudbusting; knowing the errors to avoid is the all-important first step that should be learned before starting any cloudbusting project.
The Rhyme of the Rain Machine
by F. W. Clarke, 1891
Said Jeremy Jonathan Joseph Jones,
“The weather is far too dry,
So I reckon I’ll have to stir my bones
And try the effect of concussive tones
Upon the lazy sky.”
So Jeremy Jonathan Joseph went
Away to the nearest town:
And there his money was quickly spent
For queer contraptions all intent
To make the rain come down.
There were cannon, and mortars, and lots of shells,
And dynamite by the ton;
With a gas balloon and a chime of bells
And various other mystic spells
To overcloud the sun.
The day was fair and the sky was bright,
And never a cloud was seen;
When Jeremy Jonathan set alight
His biggest fuse and screwed up tight
The joints of the rain machine.
He fired a shot, and barely two,
When the sky began to pale;
The third one brought a heavy dew,
But at the fourth tornadoes blew,
With thunder, rain, and hail.
It rained all night and another day,
And then for a week or more;
It flooded the farm in a scandalous way,
And drowned poor Jeremy, sad to say,
Who Couldn’t stop the pour.
O! Jeremy Jonathan Joseph Jones,
Your farm was fair to see;
But now a lake lies over its stones,
From whose dark bosom horrific moans
Are heard noctallee.
To check the flood you started, I’ve heard
All efforts were in vain;
Until the Bureau at Washington stirred,
And stopped the storm with a single word,
By just predicting - Rain!
More seriously, though, I devote a lot of space in the book to explaining the potential risks of cloudbusting. In fact, the proliferation of cloudbusters in the hands of incompetent operators is rapidly becoming one of the most serious environmental problems facing this planet.
It is relatively easy to learn how to do cloudbusting. What is more important, and much harder to learn, is how NOT to do cloudbusting; knowing the errors to avoid is the all-important first step that should be learned before starting any cloudbusting project.
The Rhyme of the Rain Machine
by F. W. Clarke, 1891
Said Jeremy Jonathan Joseph Jones,
“The weather is far too dry,
So I reckon I’ll have to stir my bones
And try the effect of concussive tones
Upon the lazy sky.”
So Jeremy Jonathan Joseph went
Away to the nearest town:
And there his money was quickly spent
For queer contraptions all intent
To make the rain come down.
There were cannon, and mortars, and lots of shells,
And dynamite by the ton;
With a gas balloon and a chime of bells
And various other mystic spells
To overcloud the sun.
The day was fair and the sky was bright,
And never a cloud was seen;
When Jeremy Jonathan set alight
His biggest fuse and screwed up tight
The joints of the rain machine.
He fired a shot, and barely two,
When the sky began to pale;
The third one brought a heavy dew,
But at the fourth tornadoes blew,
With thunder, rain, and hail.
It rained all night and another day,
And then for a week or more;
It flooded the farm in a scandalous way,
And drowned poor Jeremy, sad to say,
Who Couldn’t stop the pour.
O! Jeremy Jonathan Joseph Jones,
Your farm was fair to see;
But now a lake lies over its stones,
From whose dark bosom horrific moans
Are heard noctallee.
To check the flood you started, I’ve heard
All efforts were in vain;
Until the Bureau at Washington stirred,
And stopped the storm with a single word,
By just predicting - Rain!
WHAT THIS BOOK IS NOT ABOUT
(1) UFOs are a fascinating subject, but not a part of the natural sciences, and will not be gone into except to state that for reasons gone into in the text, I regard Reich as having been mistaken in identifying the lights he saw in the night sky as spaceships from some other planet. I think there is sufficient evidence to show they were a local lumination of the atmospheric energy excited by either his own cloudbusting equipment or the atomic bomb tests then underway in nearby Nevada.
It was perfectly reasonable for him to make such an error under the influence of the culture of the times, but it was an error, and there is no reason today to consider UFO reports as having anything to do with orgone biophysics, except as reports of such nocturnal orgonotic lumination effects.
(2) Natural science is not history or biography. The personal life story of Wilhelm Reich is an interesting one, but his scientific claims stand or fall on their own merits, not as a part of that story. I will not go into biographical trivia about Reich. I wish to stick to issues of scientific facts, and speculations derived from those facts.
(3) Conspiracy theories are part of the social sciences, not the natural sciences, and therefore will not be investigated in this context. I am available to investigate crimes at the going rate for private investigators. I do not work for free and will not investigate criminal activity unless paid to do so. If government officials are engaging in illegal activity, they may continue to do so as far as I am concerned, unless someone is willing to pay me to expose them.
(4) Chemtrails are a myth, based on misunderstanding of the visible effects of DOR in the atmosphere. Nobody is "spraying" anything out of airplanes. DOR is a real and serious problem, most of which is caused by the use of nuclear technology. It can be combatted to some extent by proper cloudbusting, but the "chemtrail" mythology, combined with the bogus equipment irresponsibly promoted by Don Croft and his followers is nothing but a crackpot cult and deserves no serious consideration.
(5) If you are interested in spiritual matters, consult the Bruja, Hexenmeister, or Shaman of your choice. I have enough on my plate dealing with how the real world works without getting into invented ones.
It was perfectly reasonable for him to make such an error under the influence of the culture of the times, but it was an error, and there is no reason today to consider UFO reports as having anything to do with orgone biophysics, except as reports of such nocturnal orgonotic lumination effects.
(2) Natural science is not history or biography. The personal life story of Wilhelm Reich is an interesting one, but his scientific claims stand or fall on their own merits, not as a part of that story. I will not go into biographical trivia about Reich. I wish to stick to issues of scientific facts, and speculations derived from those facts.
(3) Conspiracy theories are part of the social sciences, not the natural sciences, and therefore will not be investigated in this context. I am available to investigate crimes at the going rate for private investigators. I do not work for free and will not investigate criminal activity unless paid to do so. If government officials are engaging in illegal activity, they may continue to do so as far as I am concerned, unless someone is willing to pay me to expose them.
(4) Chemtrails are a myth, based on misunderstanding of the visible effects of DOR in the atmosphere. Nobody is "spraying" anything out of airplanes. DOR is a real and serious problem, most of which is caused by the use of nuclear technology. It can be combatted to some extent by proper cloudbusting, but the "chemtrail" mythology, combined with the bogus equipment irresponsibly promoted by Don Croft and his followers is nothing but a crackpot cult and deserves no serious consideration.
(5) If you are interested in spiritual matters, consult the Bruja, Hexenmeister, or Shaman of your choice. I have enough on my plate dealing with how the real world works without getting into invented ones.
INSIDE THIS BOOK:
What do AIDS, severe storms, wildlife dieoffs, birth defects, droughts, mental illness, acid rain, sexual problems, the hole in the ozone layer, and climate change have in common?
Disparate as this listing may seem, they are all effects of a single cause, according to a wide-ranging theory little-known to most scientists. The hypothesis first advanced in the 1950s by Wilhelm Reich, M.D., claims that underlying the movements of the atmosphere there is a constantly fluctuating energy field which also constantly is creating and dissociating the material substances that make up the atmosphere. When this field is fluctuating within normal limits, the weather remains within normal limits and the chemical composition of the atmosphere is also normal.
When the energy field is excited by exposure to concentrated radioactivity or high-voltage electrical equipment, the weather will go to extremes of alternating droughts and floods, and the chemical composition of the air will vary from the norm, with greater production of some elements, less production of others, and an over-all greater acidity of the water created in the sky.
The theory also predicts, and confirming evidence has been found, that the abnormal excitation also has an adverse effect directly on all biological processes. In this framework, the hole in the ozone layer is not due to chemical substances released from activity at ground level, but is being caused by the interference with the normal atmospheric creation processes at high altitude.
The changes in climate which are now being observed are due to the abnormal fluctuations of the earth’s field. The acidity of rainwater, which is a threat to forests in several parts of the world, occurs because the water which is being constantly created in the sky from mass-free energy is defective. Many types of diseases, including birth defects and behavioral disorders, are caused by the deforming effects of the ambient energy which is essential to life, but must be within normal parameters to properly fulfill this function.
According to Reich, and those who have followed in his tracks, the ongoing increase in electromagnetic technology and especially the use of nuclear power on this planet are causing an ever-increasing excitation of the earth’s field, which thus is at the roots of a very wide range of biological and meteorological problems. Short of a nearly total abandonment of almost all the technological advances of the past century, there is no realistic solution to many problems, which are popularly blamed on a host of unrelated causes, instead of a single underlying cause. Is the situation therefore hopeless? NO! Not at all.
There are several ways that the deterioration of the atmosphere can be halted, and even reversed, without the politically and economically impossible task of convincing the human race to change its ways. But the solutions would require thinking outside the usual boxes and that is what most people, even including most environmental activists, are most reluctant to do.
Disparate as this listing may seem, they are all effects of a single cause, according to a wide-ranging theory little-known to most scientists. The hypothesis first advanced in the 1950s by Wilhelm Reich, M.D., claims that underlying the movements of the atmosphere there is a constantly fluctuating energy field which also constantly is creating and dissociating the material substances that make up the atmosphere. When this field is fluctuating within normal limits, the weather remains within normal limits and the chemical composition of the atmosphere is also normal.
When the energy field is excited by exposure to concentrated radioactivity or high-voltage electrical equipment, the weather will go to extremes of alternating droughts and floods, and the chemical composition of the air will vary from the norm, with greater production of some elements, less production of others, and an over-all greater acidity of the water created in the sky.
The theory also predicts, and confirming evidence has been found, that the abnormal excitation also has an adverse effect directly on all biological processes. In this framework, the hole in the ozone layer is not due to chemical substances released from activity at ground level, but is being caused by the interference with the normal atmospheric creation processes at high altitude.
The changes in climate which are now being observed are due to the abnormal fluctuations of the earth’s field. The acidity of rainwater, which is a threat to forests in several parts of the world, occurs because the water which is being constantly created in the sky from mass-free energy is defective. Many types of diseases, including birth defects and behavioral disorders, are caused by the deforming effects of the ambient energy which is essential to life, but must be within normal parameters to properly fulfill this function.
According to Reich, and those who have followed in his tracks, the ongoing increase in electromagnetic technology and especially the use of nuclear power on this planet are causing an ever-increasing excitation of the earth’s field, which thus is at the roots of a very wide range of biological and meteorological problems. Short of a nearly total abandonment of almost all the technological advances of the past century, there is no realistic solution to many problems, which are popularly blamed on a host of unrelated causes, instead of a single underlying cause. Is the situation therefore hopeless? NO! Not at all.
There are several ways that the deterioration of the atmosphere can be halted, and even reversed, without the politically and economically impossible task of convincing the human race to change its ways. But the solutions would require thinking outside the usual boxes and that is what most people, even including most environmental activists, are most reluctant to do.
THE BOOK VERSION OF THE ORGONESCIENCE LIST ARCHIVE
This book consists of exerpts from posts to the Orgonescience discussion list that existed on the internet from March 7th, 2006, to December 9th, 2007. In that time, 2101 messages were sent to the list, almost all of them by myself. When the list was discontinued, I was faced with the choice to either delete all that information, or preserve it in some way. The choice was made to preserve it, and this book that you are now about to read is the result.
Much of the material I sent to the list consisted of short commentaries on news items that suggested an orgonomic interpretation or pronouncements by members of other lists oriented to orgonomy with whom I disagreed. In the process of editing, much material was found to be dated or not relevant to a more general readership interested primarily in orgone biophysics, and not in the day-by-day incidents that often inspired comment. Much material has therefore been deleted as irrelevant for the purposes of this book. What remains is, I hope, what will be of interest, and possibly of use, to individuals with an interest in the scientific aspects of orgonomy, the science of the life energy founded by Wilhelm Reich between 1936 and 1957.
In 1987, after nearly 20 years of being intensely interested in orgonomy, having already done considerable cloudbusting work, having replicated most of the experiments published by Reich, and having confirmed his claims and results, I had a unique opportunity to attend a private seminar in Hancock, Maine, given by Dr. Eva Reich, the daughter and designated successor of Wilhelm Reich.
This seminar, for which we paid, was the only one she ever gave which was devoted entirely to orgone biophysics, not primarily to psychology and child-rearing methods, which were the major interests of most of her students. Only one other person, the late Jay Mikesell, attended, and since he is now dead, I am the sole surviving student of that course. As far as I know, we were the only ones ever to have such tutoring, and she once told me that of all the people who had asked her about her father’s work, I was the only one who asked the right questions.
Since the death of Jay Mikesell, I am left as the only person to have had training in orgone biophysics from the person Reich designated as his successor. I have a letter from Eva Reich testifying to that, and saying she considers me “very knowledgeable in that field.”
We taped the whole thing, and I still have about 22 hours of the seminar on tape. If I ever get the money, I will have it transcribed and made into a book. And maybe someday, if anyone is interested, I will give a seminar and try to poass on some of that knowledge.
Much of the material I sent to the orgonescience list reflects that tutoring; much of it does not. I take full responsibility for everything I said in the posts that are now made available here.
Eva should have been teaching all those years after Reich died; the unfortunate circumstances that removed her as trustee of his estate and effectively prevented her from filling that role could have been countered if funding had been available to set up a school of orgonomy, but it never was. I tried on several occasions to raise funding for orgonomic work, and setting up a venue for her to teach orgonomy was one of my top priorities, but I never was able to raise the money.
And now, with the sequestration of the Reich Archives apparently becoming permanent, much of the unique body of knowledge brought into being by Wilhelm Reich is apparently lost forever.
This list was never intended to be an on-line tutorial in orgone biophysics; it was supposed to be a forum for discussions on the scientific issues raised by the discoveries of Wilhelm Reich. But it is clear now what I should have known right from the start: there simply wasn't enough interest to sustain a list devoted solely to the scientific aspects of orgonomy.
I might think the dearth of interest was due to the fact that I was the moderator, except that the other Reichian discussion lists suffer from the same lack of activity. Both the Wilhelm Reich List and the Orgonomy Mailing List deal with a wide array of topics which have little or nothing in common except for the fact that they all were of interest to Wilhelm Reich at one time or another. The scientific aspects of orgonomy are the subject of only a small minority of the posts to those two lists.
Most of the material on those other lists consists of psychology, politics, conspiracy theories, sexuality, UFOs, free-energy claims, alternative sciences unrelated to the orgone discoveries of Reich, and biographical trivia about Reich. A large amount of space is devoted to details of publications and where to find them. There is endless discussion of almost everything except the essential--the factual discoveries which make orgonomy a reality-based science instead of a crackpot pseudoscientific cult.
My efforts to introduce a focus on orgonomic science into those lists were met with apathy from most of the members, and active opposition from a few individuals who obviously felt threatened by the subject matter. Those two or three people sabotaged every attempt to discuss orgone energy rationally. I thought that starting a new list, where I could control the content and prevent such disruption, would allow the people who wanted to discuss orgone energy to do so without distractions, but it seems there simply are not enough of them.
The orgonescience list in two years gathered only about 50 members, and only two or three of them had anything to say. Almost nobody showed much interest in anything I have said either. And, most important, nobody showed any interest in conducting and reporting any actual experimental work. I do not think this is a case of simple lack of interest. I think there is a psychological defense mechanism at work here, just as Reich described it. He called it "sitting on the spot,” and he described in detail in Listen, Little Man, the exact same phenomena among his followers in the 1940s.
I still have hopes that someday it will be possible to have some sort of meaningful discussions and cross-fertilization of ideas about orgone energy, but it looks right now as if an on-line mailing list just is not the right venue to go about it. Rather than allow the information in the list archive to be lost, it is now being presented in this form for whoever might be interested.
Since this was not originally written as a book, it is more a collection of short essays and letters, many of them in response to questions or comments from other list members, and many others as commentary on items in the daily news. Inevitably, it will seem disjointed and will skip from one topic to another and back again in places. For that, I appologize to the reader.
I would have liked to have written an organized systematic presentation of the material, placing each subject in some sort of proper order to facilitate understanding, but that would not have been possible without writing a whole new book from scratch. Someday, if there is enough interest, I may do that. But for now, this compilation, intended to preserve in an accessable form the information that came up in the course of the two-year history of the orgonescience list, will have to do.
Much of the material I sent to the list consisted of short commentaries on news items that suggested an orgonomic interpretation or pronouncements by members of other lists oriented to orgonomy with whom I disagreed. In the process of editing, much material was found to be dated or not relevant to a more general readership interested primarily in orgone biophysics, and not in the day-by-day incidents that often inspired comment. Much material has therefore been deleted as irrelevant for the purposes of this book. What remains is, I hope, what will be of interest, and possibly of use, to individuals with an interest in the scientific aspects of orgonomy, the science of the life energy founded by Wilhelm Reich between 1936 and 1957.
In 1987, after nearly 20 years of being intensely interested in orgonomy, having already done considerable cloudbusting work, having replicated most of the experiments published by Reich, and having confirmed his claims and results, I had a unique opportunity to attend a private seminar in Hancock, Maine, given by Dr. Eva Reich, the daughter and designated successor of Wilhelm Reich.
This seminar, for which we paid, was the only one she ever gave which was devoted entirely to orgone biophysics, not primarily to psychology and child-rearing methods, which were the major interests of most of her students. Only one other person, the late Jay Mikesell, attended, and since he is now dead, I am the sole surviving student of that course. As far as I know, we were the only ones ever to have such tutoring, and she once told me that of all the people who had asked her about her father’s work, I was the only one who asked the right questions.
Since the death of Jay Mikesell, I am left as the only person to have had training in orgone biophysics from the person Reich designated as his successor. I have a letter from Eva Reich testifying to that, and saying she considers me “very knowledgeable in that field.”
We taped the whole thing, and I still have about 22 hours of the seminar on tape. If I ever get the money, I will have it transcribed and made into a book. And maybe someday, if anyone is interested, I will give a seminar and try to poass on some of that knowledge.
Much of the material I sent to the orgonescience list reflects that tutoring; much of it does not. I take full responsibility for everything I said in the posts that are now made available here.
Eva should have been teaching all those years after Reich died; the unfortunate circumstances that removed her as trustee of his estate and effectively prevented her from filling that role could have been countered if funding had been available to set up a school of orgonomy, but it never was. I tried on several occasions to raise funding for orgonomic work, and setting up a venue for her to teach orgonomy was one of my top priorities, but I never was able to raise the money.
And now, with the sequestration of the Reich Archives apparently becoming permanent, much of the unique body of knowledge brought into being by Wilhelm Reich is apparently lost forever.
This list was never intended to be an on-line tutorial in orgone biophysics; it was supposed to be a forum for discussions on the scientific issues raised by the discoveries of Wilhelm Reich. But it is clear now what I should have known right from the start: there simply wasn't enough interest to sustain a list devoted solely to the scientific aspects of orgonomy.
I might think the dearth of interest was due to the fact that I was the moderator, except that the other Reichian discussion lists suffer from the same lack of activity. Both the Wilhelm Reich List and the Orgonomy Mailing List deal with a wide array of topics which have little or nothing in common except for the fact that they all were of interest to Wilhelm Reich at one time or another. The scientific aspects of orgonomy are the subject of only a small minority of the posts to those two lists.
Most of the material on those other lists consists of psychology, politics, conspiracy theories, sexuality, UFOs, free-energy claims, alternative sciences unrelated to the orgone discoveries of Reich, and biographical trivia about Reich. A large amount of space is devoted to details of publications and where to find them. There is endless discussion of almost everything except the essential--the factual discoveries which make orgonomy a reality-based science instead of a crackpot pseudoscientific cult.
My efforts to introduce a focus on orgonomic science into those lists were met with apathy from most of the members, and active opposition from a few individuals who obviously felt threatened by the subject matter. Those two or three people sabotaged every attempt to discuss orgone energy rationally. I thought that starting a new list, where I could control the content and prevent such disruption, would allow the people who wanted to discuss orgone energy to do so without distractions, but it seems there simply are not enough of them.
The orgonescience list in two years gathered only about 50 members, and only two or three of them had anything to say. Almost nobody showed much interest in anything I have said either. And, most important, nobody showed any interest in conducting and reporting any actual experimental work. I do not think this is a case of simple lack of interest. I think there is a psychological defense mechanism at work here, just as Reich described it. He called it "sitting on the spot,” and he described in detail in Listen, Little Man, the exact same phenomena among his followers in the 1940s.
I still have hopes that someday it will be possible to have some sort of meaningful discussions and cross-fertilization of ideas about orgone energy, but it looks right now as if an on-line mailing list just is not the right venue to go about it. Rather than allow the information in the list archive to be lost, it is now being presented in this form for whoever might be interested.
Since this was not originally written as a book, it is more a collection of short essays and letters, many of them in response to questions or comments from other list members, and many others as commentary on items in the daily news. Inevitably, it will seem disjointed and will skip from one topic to another and back again in places. For that, I appologize to the reader.
I would have liked to have written an organized systematic presentation of the material, placing each subject in some sort of proper order to facilitate understanding, but that would not have been possible without writing a whole new book from scratch. Someday, if there is enough interest, I may do that. But for now, this compilation, intended to preserve in an accessable form the information that came up in the course of the two-year history of the orgonescience list, will have to do.
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