Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 17:29:26 -0500  
From: Kenn Thomas <skthoma@umslvma.umsl.edu>
To: orgonomy@jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: Reich & Conspiracy Theories
Sender: owner-orgonomy@jefferson.village.virginia.edu

>the statement that a "conspiracy of government agencies" "le[a]d [sic; it's
`led'] to his death" is hyperbole.  

Are you saying he was accidentally put in circumstances that clearly would 
lead to his death?

>Are you saying Reich was murdered?  What evidence is there for that?

His daughter believes this. I do find it curious that he died just 
before he was about to be released. The evidence is abundant that he
was harassed before being jailed and that the Air Force wanted his 
cloudbusting work for its weather control and death ray research. 

Are we to wait for the prison pharmacist to confess before we start 
thinking along these lines?

>Sadly, Reich ending up in jail was not unrelated to incredibly
>poor choices made by Reich in defending (or not defending) himself.  What
>exactly did he expect would happen when he just refused to show up in court?

Reich probably had a clearer picture of how bad the cards were 
stacked against him than we do. All the Monday morning quarterbacking 
aside, I think he demonstrated courage in presenting the truth as a 
defense. Too bad for the courts that they couldn't handle it or wouldn't 
accept it. Reich probably would have been convicted even if he had lawyer.

>I didn't say anything about clinical diagnoses.

You said Reich was paranoid. I disagree.

>I was simply speculating as to why rather paranoid conspiracy theories _unrelated to Reich or
>Reich's case_ are seen (by some) as appropriate material for an orgonomy
>list (such as the recent "UFO/mind-control connection" piece).

Orgonomists for years have been shying away from Reich's UFO work even 
though it is rare serious research attempting to study the phenomenon. 
Reich's ideas on alien abduction and UFO propulsion can be helpful to 
people interested in this and I'm happy to see these connections being 
made. Labelling Reich crazy and destroying his life obviously didn't make
those experiences go away.

>What is "the Con" ?

The Conspiracy. The con job that says mechanistic science is where 
it's at and that Reich was paranoid.

>Certainly the FDA should have given Reich a fair trial.  There is
>nothing conspiratorial about holding such a view.

D'accord.

>I did not mention the word "credibility".  I was trying to say something
>about rational discussion and the need to substantiate our claims.

Only to the satisfaction of OML sympaticos, not to some bogus "skeptical" 
and "objective" point of view acceptable to authorities or the mainstream 
culture. It's certainly a mistake looking at Reich's trial as his failure 
to substantiate his claims about the orgone. The FDA had ample opportunity 
to repeat his work in a correct way but instead "repeated" it in a way 
that "proved" it irrational. 

"There are no authorities."

kt


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