Text: For example, there is Dayton Miller's work on the dynamic aether drift,(12) Halton Arp's work on energy/matter bridges between galaxies in deep space,(13) Giorgio Piccardi's work on solar influences upon the physical chemistry of water,(14) Frank Brown's work on cosmic modulation of biological clocks,(15) Harold Burr's work on the electrodynamic characteristics of creatures and the natural environment,(16) Hannes Alfven's work on streaming plasmas in the depths of space,(17) Thelma Moss' work on energy-field photography,(18) Bjorn Nordenstrom's work on x-ray phantom-images and circulation of bioenergy,(19) Robert Becker's work on mammalian bioelectrical limb regeneration,(20) Rupert Sheldrake's work on morphogenetic fields,(21) Louis Kervran's work on bioenergy-driven biological transmutations,(22) Berkson, Emergy, Anderson and Spangler's works on non-constant, continuum effects in nuclear decay processes,(23) and Paul Dirac's observations on the "neutrino sea".(24) And yes, we must not forget the work of CSICOP target Jacques Benveniste,(1) who demonstrated a non-molecular, likely energetic phenomena long known to homeopathic physicians. Each of these workers discovered or argued for a force conceptually similar to orgone: mass-free, yet capable of affecting or being bound to matter, participating in physical chemistry, metabolism, and heredity in some way, possessing measurable biological, meteorological, and cosmic components, reflectable by metal shielding, yet also amplifiable (and not extinguishable) through use of solid metal enclosures. Only in the case of Moss do I recall orgone being mentioned as a possible mechanism, but the properties and behavior of the phenomena independently identified by these researchers were orgone-like in many ways. So much for the assertion that no one "outside orgonomy circles" has detected these phenomena. Other aspects of Gardner's attack on Reich focus upon his personal life, and his observations of UFOs. Here, highly selective quotes and exaggerations paint an awful portrait of Reich; one would never guess that he was admired by his coworkers for being an emotionally honest, patient, and gentle man. But is this really an issue? Could we condemn the telephone or the light bulb if it were proven that Bell or Edison somehow behaved in an "unlikable" way? Reich's personal life has no bearing at all on the question of whether or not the accumulator or cloudbuster really function as described; similarly regarding UFOs, which Reich, and a host of other reliable witnesses have seen from time to time. Unless we wish to focus specifically upon the question of UFOs, or upon Reich's Arizona experiments, his speculations about the nature of the UFO are of only passing interest. Gardner is also very selective when discussing the childhood recollections of Reich's son, Peter.(25) He cites the passage where Peter Reich helps his father work the cloudbuster in the Arizona desert, where UFOs were observed, but says nothing of the child's recollections of Government Agents invading his father's Maine laboratory, putting accumulators to the axe, and carrying away crates of books for burning in incinerators. And likewise regarding Reich's writings in Contact With Space.(26) The UFO observations are mentioned again and again, but nothing is said of Reich's successful experiment for bringing moisture to the deserts. Gardner brands Reich paranoid for his speculative, and forlorn writings from this time when he was working almost entirely alone in the middle of the desert, and under malicious attack by the popular media, by academics, and by the Government. The diagnosis of "paranoia" is only correct in circumstances where there is no real threat to the individual in question, only a falsely perceived one. In Reich's case the threats were real. Gardner's Attack Against James DeMeo Gardner's discussion of my work was in many cases either only partly true or incorrect. This may be due to the fact that he relied on dubious sources for information on my research. Rather than write me for details on my published experiments,(5, 27) Gardner relied on a National Enquirer article I know nothing about. He also relied on second-hand, word-of-mouth recollections of a lecture I gave to the Association for Arid Lands Studies,(28) or a clandestinely recorded version of that lecture. I learned about the Skeptical Inquirer article not from its editors, from CSICOP, or Gardner, but via an anonymous phone call. Such intrigue! Whatever, the figures Gardner cited, of my engaging in 13 successful cloudbusting operations out of 15, are several years out of date. As of October 1988, I have participated in or directed over 30 different cloudbusting operations, more than half of which took place during mild to severe drought conditions, or desert conditions. Approximately 80% of these operations were successful in that significant rains, and other major and distinct atmospheric changes, developed within 48 hours after onset of operations. This success rate is preserved for the drought-desert operations, as assessed independently. These latter experiments include work during the 1986 Southeastern drought, which did dramatically end shortly after our cloudbusting operations began, and a most recent cloudbusting operation (mid-September 1988) in the drought zone of the Pacific Northwest. Another successful cloudbusting operation recently took place in the harsh deserts north of Yuma, Arizona, confirming the desert-greening possibilities raised by Reich in Contact with Space over 30 years ago. For the record, all my cloudbusting operations since 1980 have been preceded by a documentary telegram to NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration). They are documented and evaluated via ground photos, satellite imagery, and National Weather Service data. (Addendum 1989: Following unethical and probably illegal destruction and purging of cloudbusting-related documents from files at NOAA offices, and discovery of a policy of unethical disinformation by NOAA officials regarding my research, under protest I ceased sending them any documentary materials. See the article on "Disinformation" posted at this web site.) Gardner implies that I make a lot of money from the orgone research, when the truth is that it costs me a lot of money, and returns nothing financially. It costs thousands of dollars to launch a cloudbusting operation of any magnitude, and because of the hatred towards Reich's works which currently exists, funding is not available through ordinary sources. The orgonotester, which I import but do not manufacture, is made by the Marah SA company, which also makes top-notch air ion measuring equipment. Apparently Dr. Walter Stark, the Swiss ion expert who developed these instruments, is also interested in orgone energy. I started giving workshops on "The Bioenergetic, Orgonomic Basis of Life and Weather" after I saw the need for factual education on these subjects. For the record, the workshops are attended by many enthusiastic young students, often the brightest and best, who usually already know a lot about Reich, and feel deeply offended that so many of their professors put him down without the slightest notion of what they are talking about. What Is the Real Reason Gardner Attacks Reich and Orgonomy? We come to a point of consideration, namely why it is that Gardner attacks Reich in such a blind way? He is decidedly upset that the orgone question did not lay down and die with Reich in 1957: "One might have thought that today's orgonomists...would confine themselves to Reich's youthful contributions to psychoanalysis, which are reasonably sane and still greatly admired by many psychiatrists, but no -- most of them buy it all."(2:28) The thought that these younger orgonomists might have been persuaded to accept Reich's findings by weight of evidence does not pass into Gardner's pen. However, a clue to his own motivations for attacking and distorting the record is found in Gardner's own writings. In The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener,(29) Gardner finally makes known his own world view. And what do we see? One reviewer puts it so: "...not what we might expect from an apostle of the rational. Gardner announces that he believes in the existence of God -- not the pantheistic God of Spinoza or Einstein, but an omniscient creator who would be recognizable to anyone immersed in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Gardner is deeply convinced of the possibility of a soul and an afterlife, if not of a conventional heaven and hell. He writes movingly about the benefits of prayer, not merely for its possible psychological value, but also because God might actually heed it."(30) Now, Mr. Gardner is fully entitled to believe whatever he wishes, but we must note that Reich's functional, bioenergetic works stand in clear opposition to both a dead, machine-like universe, and a dualistic, "spirit-versus-flesh" anthropomorphic deity. Indeed, Reich argued persuasively that the mechanistic-mystical world view was the result of a perceptive splitting-off of organic sense functions, caused by the chronic damming-up of emotional-sexual energy within the body of the observer.(31) For these reasons, he argued, animistic peoples, who lived a more vibrant and uninhibited emotional and sexual life, and who consequently remained relatively free of neuroses,(32) could feel, with their sense organs, the tangible energetic forces which shaped and created the universe. To them, the spirit-forces were dynamic, alive, in the "here and now", and not divorced off into some intangible "heaven" or "hell". Reich also pointed out the essentially mystical nature of many concepts of modern physics, wherein, like deistic religion, the basic forces which shape and structure the universe, are also not tangible, not directly measurable, and not observable through the senses. Mystical physics of today says we can't possibly touch or see these forces directly, given that they expended their influence billions of years ago,or are woven into the fabric of an unobservable "space-time continuum". According to this view, the central creative event which put the whole universe into motion occurred in a primordial "big-bang", which only by "accident", we are told, conforms to the biblical Genesis. This point of view might be convincing were it not for the fact that plenty of contrary empirical evidence exists. In addition to the evidence cited above, we may ask: what do Reich's functional discoveries do to such a world view? Reich's orgone is a spontaneously pulsatile, excitable, and negatively-entropic energy. It is an active, creative principle which is tangible, real, measurable, and in the "here and now". Through experiment, it was found that concentrated, excited orgone in high vacuum absorbs and diminishes electromagnetic excitations transmitted through it. As such, it provides a mechanism for the red-shifting of galactic light, through a means other than doppler effects.(13, 31) These findings completely undermine the theoretical basis of the "expanding universe", the "big-bang", "relativity", and popular notions such as "black holes", etc. Indeed, any astrophysical theory which requires a constant light speed and "empty space" is undone by Reich's findings. And if Reich is correct about the streaming, pulsatile, superimposing nature of the orgone continuum in space,(33) it would also fulfill the requirements of prime mover, putting the anthropomorphic deity into the unemployment lines, and preserving Genesis only as historical literature, and not important natural philosophy. Who will deny the growing speculative tendency in certain quarters of astrophysics for linkage between the big-bang and the book of Genesis? This connection has not even been lost on the Pope! But there is more. Reich also argues that the spontaneous aspects of life, namely those governing emotion and sexuality, are not only natural and biologically necessary, but also measurable and tangible.(31, 34) Sex is not a sin to Reich, and Original Sin is psychopathological myth. The sexual impulse is not intrinsically devilish but an aspect of bioenergetic superimposition and charge, striving for natural release, even among adolescents and the unmarried. All this harkens back to a similar, historically important difference between the world views of Galileo, history's greatest empiricist, and Newton, a man who was preoccupied with theology. Galileo looked to the energetic aether as probable prime mover, at work in the here and now. He was antagonistic towards "revealed truth", and demanded that his critics reproduce his experiments before making judgments, to "look into the telescope". But not so Newton, who argued for dominance of the Church over matters of experimental science.(35) He proclaimed the aether to be static and immobile, without a shred of evidence in order to eliminate its participation in the ordering and movements of the Heavens. That role, he believed, belonged only to the Christian anthropomorphic God. Newton's theological restraints on scientific inquiry have remained to this day, and are even championed by a scientistic community bent on a near total denial of the bioenergetic in the natural world. In the late 1800s, Michelson and Morley searched for but did not detect Newton's static aether. But their student, Dayton Miller, did detect and fully document a moving, dynamic, metal reflectable form of it.(12) And so did Reich, who discovered this same dynamic energy as the sensible and measurable sexual-biological-cosmic orgone energy.(4) Reich's works not only undermine many popular "facts" regarding human behavior and the origins and functioning of life, but also all the various mechanistic and mystical theories of science which demand the absence of a dynamic energy in the natural world. Gardner and the CSICOP gang oppose Reich not because he failed to provide good empirical evidence for such an energy, but for just the opposite reason, because he did. "When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him." Jonathan Swift REFERENCES: 1) E. Davenas et al, Nature, 333:832, 1988; J. Maddox, et al, Nature, 334:287, 1988; J. Benveniste, ibid, p.2; J. Benveniste, Science, 241:1028, 1988. 2) M. Gardner, "Reich the Rainmaker: the Orgone Obsession", Skeptical Inquirer, 13(1):26-30, Fall 1988. 3) W. Reich, The Einstein Affair, Orgone Institute Press (xerox avail. from Wilhelm Reich Museum, PO Box 687,Rangeley, Maine 04970), 1953. 4) J. DeMeo, Bibliography on Orgone Biophysics, Natural Energy Works (PO Box 1395, El Cerrito, CA 94530), 1986. 5) J. DeMeo, "Preliminary Analysis of Changes in Kansas Weather Coincidental to Experimental Operations with a Reich Cloudbuster", U. of Kansas thesis, Geography-Meteorology Department (xerox avail. from Natural Energy Works, PO Box 1395, El Cerrito, CA 94530), 1979; J.DeMeo, "On the Origins and Diffusion of Patrism: the Saharasian Connection", U. of Kansas dissertation, Geography Department (xerox avail. from University Microfilms), 1986. 6) S. Muschenich & R. Gebauer, "Die (Psycho-) Physiologischen Wirkungen des Reich'schen Orgonakkumulators auf den Menschlichen Organismus", U. of Marburg (FR ofGermany) dissertation, Psychology Dept. 1986. (Published as Der Reichsche Orgonakkumulator, Nexus Press (avail. through Natural Energy Works, PO Box 1395, El Cerrito, CA 94530) 1987. 7) M. Sharaf, Fury on Earth, a Biography of Wilhelm Reich, St. Martin's-Marek, NY, 1983. 8) M. Gardner, "The Hermit Scientist", Antioch Review, Winter 1950-1951, pp.447-457. 9) M. Gardner, chapter on "Orgonomy" in In the Name of Science (later titled Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science), Dover, NY, 1952. 10) R. Blasband, "An Analysis of the United States Food and Drug Administration's Scientific Evidence Against Wilhelm Reich, Part 1: the Biomedical Evidence", J. Orgonomy, 6(2):207-222, 1972; C. Rosenblum, ..Part 2: the Physical Concepts", J. Orgonomy, 6(2):222-231, 1972; C. Rosenblum, ...Part 3: Physical Evidence", J. Orgonomy, 7(1):92-98, 1972; J. Greenfield, Wilhelm Reich Versus the USA, W.W. Norton, NY, 1974; J. DeMeo, "Postscript on the Food and Drug Administration's Scientific Evidence Against Wilhelm Reich", Pulse of the Planet, 1(1): 18-23, 1989. 11) J. Greenfield, ibid.; T. Wolfe, The Emotional Plague Versus Orgone Biophysics, the 1947 Campaign, OrgoneInstitute Press, NY, 1947; W. Reich, Listen, Little Man, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, NY, 1974. 12) D. Miller, "The Ether-Drift Experiment and the Determination of the Absolute Motion of the Earth", Reviews of Modern Physics, 5:203-242, 1933. 13) H. Arp, et al, The Redshift Controversy, W.A. Benjamin, Reading, MA 1973; H. Arp, Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversies, Interstellar Media, Berkeley, CA, 1987; cf. C. Rosenblum, "The Red Shift", J. Orgonomy, 4:183-191, 1970. 14) G. Piccardi, Chemical Basis of Medical Climatology, C. Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1962; cf. J. Bortels, "Die Hypothetische Wetterstrahlung als vermutliches Agens Kosmo-Meteoro-Biologischer Reaktionen", Wissenschaftliche Seitschrift der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, VI:115-124, 1956. 15) F. Brown, "Evidence for External Timing in Biological Clocks", in An Introduction to Biological Rhythms, J. Palmer, ed., Academic Press, NY, 1975. 16) H. Burr, Blueprint for Immortality, Neville Spearman, London, 1971; cf. L. Ravitz, "History, Measurement, and Applicability of Periodic Changes in the Electromagnetic Field in Health and Disease", Annals, NY Academy of Sciences, 98:1144-1201, 1962. 17) H. Alfven, Cosmic Plasmas, Kluwer, Boston, 1981; cf. , "The Big Bang Never Happened", Discover, June, 1988, pp.70-80. 18) T. Moss, The Body Electric: A Personal Journey Into the Mysteries of Parapsychological Research, Bioenergy, and Kirlian Photography, J. P. Tarcher, Los Angeles, 1979. 19) B. Nordenstrom, Biologically Closed Electric Circuits: Clinical, Experimental and Theoretical Evidence for an Additional Circulatory System, Nordic Medical Publications, Stockholm, Sweden, 1983. 20) R. Becker & G. Selden, The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life, Wm. Morrow, NY 1985. 21) R. Sheldrake, A New Science of Life, The Hypothesis of Causative Formation, J. P. Tarcher, Los Angeles, 1981. 22) L. Kervran, Biological Transmutations, Beekman, Woodstock, NY, 1980. 23) J. Berkson, "Examination of Randomness of Alpha Particle Emissions", Research Papers in Statistics, F.N.David, ed., Wiley, NY, 1966; G. Emery, "Perturbation of Nuclear Decay Rates", in Annual Review of Nuclear Science, Annual Reviews, Palo Alto, CA 1972; J. Anderson and G. Spangler, "Serial Statistics: Is Radioactive Decay Random?", J. Physical Chemistry, 77:3114-3121, 1973 24) P. Dirac, "Is There An Ether?", Nature, 162:906, 1951; also see L. deBroglie, Non-Linear Quantum Mechanics, Elsevier, NY, 1960; H. Dudley, New Principles in Quantum Mechanics, Exposition University Press, NY, 1959, H. Dudley, Morality of Nuclear Planning, Kronos Press, Glassboro, NJ, 1976. I. Asimov, The Neutrino, Avon Books, NY, 1966. 25) P. Reich, A Book of Dreams, Harper & Row, NY, 1973. 26) W. Reich, Contact With Space, Core Pilot Press, NY, 1957. 27) J. DeMeo, "Field Experiments with the Reich Cloubuster: 1977-1983", J. Orgonomy, 19(1):57-79, 1985; J. DeMeo & R. Morris, "CORE Progress Report #13, Fighting the Extreme Drought of Spring 1985: Southeast", J. Orgonomy, 19(2):265-266, 1985; J. DeMeo & R. Morris, "CORE Progress Report #14: Possible Slowing and Warming of an Arctic Air Mass Through Cloudbusting", J. Orgonomy, 20(1):120-125, 1986; J. DeMeo & R. Morris, "CORE Progress Report #15: Breaking the 1986 Drought in the Eastern U.S., Phase 3: A Cloudbusting Expedition into the Southeastern Drought Zone", J. Orgonomy, 21(1):27-41, 1987; J. DeMeo & R. Morris, "Preliminary Report on a Cloudbusting Experiment in the Southeastern Drought Region, August 1986", Southeastern Drought Symposium Proceedings, March 4-5, 1987, Columbia, SC., South Carolina State Climatology Office Publication G-30, pp.80-87, 1987. 28) J. DeMeo, "Nine Years of Field Experiments with a Reich Cloudbuster: Positive Evidence for a New Technique to Lessen Atmospheric Stagnation and Bring Rains in Droughty or Arid Atmospheres", Abstracts of Papers, Program of the 1987 Meeting of the Association for Arid Lands Studies, El Paso, Texas, p.6, 1987. 29) M. Gardner, The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, Quill, NY, 1983. 30) F. Golden, Book Review, Discover, October 1983, pp.88-91. 31) W. Reich, Ether, God and Devil, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, NY, 1973. 32) B. Malinowski, Sexual Life of Savages, Routledge & Keegan Paul, London, 1932; W. Reich, The Function of the Orgasm, Noonday, NY, 1971; W. Reich, The Sexual Revolution, Octagon Books, NY, 1971; V. Elwin, The Muria and their Ghotul, Oxford U. Press, Calcutta, 1947; J. Prescott, "Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence", The Futurist, April 1975, pp.64-74; J. DeMeo, "On the Origins and Diffusion of Patrism: The Saharasian Connection", ibid. 33) W. Reich, Cosmic Superimposition, Wilhelm Reich Foundation, Rangeley, Maine, 1951. 34) W. Reich, The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, NY, 1982. 35) L. C. Stecchini, "The Inconstant Heavens" in The Velikovsky Affair, The Warfare Of Science and Scientism, A. deGrazia, Editor, University Books, NY, 1966; D. Kubrin, "How Sir Isaac Newton Helped Restore Law'n Order to the West", unpublished monograph, 1972. 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