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Subject: orgonomy - Tue, 13 Feb 1996 20:09:47 -0500
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 20:09:47 -0500
From: JefAmherst@aol.com
To: orgonomy@jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Subject: orgonomy
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ORGONOMY PEDDLERS, CLOUDBUSTING, AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Wilhelm Reich, in his book, the Murder of Christ, spoke of the harm done to
the cause of freedom by irresponsible "Freedom Peddlers" and warned about the
possibility that his own work would be similarly usurped by "Orgonomy
Peddlers" who would use it in harmful ways. As with so much Reich said, this
warning has been ignored by many people favorably disposed toward Reich and
his work, many of whom are supporting and encouraging individuals whose
reckless and irresponsible misuse of Reich's discoveries and incompetent and
misguided efforts to "prove Reich right" are causing serious ecological
damage.
I wish to make clear that the criticism that follows is not directed at Reich
and his theories, but only at the actions of certain present-day Reichians
whom I regard as incompetent and irresponsible "Orgonomy Peddlers" of the
type Reich warned about. I specifically am not contesting the facts of
orgone biophysics, but the misguided application of those facts by one group
of proponents of Reich's work, specifically, Dr. James DeMeo and his
associates.
I am convinced that Dr. DeMeo and his associates are doing a great deal of
harm to the environment and to innocent members of the public as well as
hurting the long term prospects for serious investigation of Reich's
discoveries by ill-conceived cloudbusting operations conducted without proper
ecological knowledge or concern for the environment. Dr. DeMeo's obsessive
compulsion to convert unbelievers and his need to gather statistics has
resulted in devastation to ecosystems and the deaths of numerous people due
to storms, floods, and freezing weather.
In 1989, DeMeo, then living in the San Francisco Bay area, conducted a series
of
1
cloudbusting operations in the Arizona desert. As recounted in his article
in The Journal of Orgonomy, he first visited Arizona in March, two months
before the rainy season starts, and within 3 days had produced rain, He
subsequently visited Arizona one weekend each month during, the 5-month rainy
season and brought rain each time for a seasonal total of 5 times the normal
rainfall for the area in which he was working.
Now, in any area with a well-defined wet season and dry season, all native
plant and animal species are adapted to the normal dry season and need it.
Small burrowing mammals such as pocket mice, kangaroo rats, gophers, etc.
give birth underground in the dry season; if it rains unexpectedly at the
wrong time of year, the burrows flood and the infants drown; reptiles such as
snakes, lizards, the desert tortoise, which is on the endangered species
list, the gila monster, found only in Arizona, lay their eggs in the dry
season under a thin coat of sand, just enough to hide them but allow the sun
to incubate them. If it rains out of season, the sand is washed away and
they lose a clutch of eggs. These small mammals and reptiles are the base of
the food chain and if their population crashes so will that of the owls,
hawks, foxes, coyotes, badgers, and other predators that depend on them.
In Contact With Space, Reich described exactly what he did in Arizona. He
spent 5 months in the desert. He drove 100 miles every day just to
familiarize himself with the landscape so he could note any changes in it.
By contrast, James DeMeo lived in Northern California and commuted down to
the desert one weekend each month. After 5 months of patient work, Reich
succeeded in obtaining a lush growth of grass without a drop of rain having
fallen. That's right! Reich, according to his own report, did not create
rain in the desert and did not want to! In fact, he explicitly says that rain
would have made it impossible to obtain the increase in plant growth he did
obtain, since it would have drowned the developing vegetation. Reich's goal,
in which he was successful only after 5 months of patient daily labor, was
not to make rain, but to revive the stagnant energy field of the desert to
the point where it could regulate itself and produce rain at its own times,
not according to some man-made schedule. DeMeo misses this point entirely.
He produces-rain on a highly artificial schedule only to create impressive
charts and graphs, ignoring the catastrophic effects of 5 times normal
rainfall on all plant and animal species, and then, totally disregarding what
Reich plainly said, claims to have "replicated' Reich's work in the desert.
He repeatedly refers to "Reich's rainmaking expedition" and to Reich "making
rain in the desert" when in fact Reich specifically said he did not do so.
In more recent years DeMeo has undertaken two trips to Namibia to break
droughts there with a cloudbuster. He also trained local operators and left
equipment with them so that Namibia now has a permanent drought-abatement
program in place. Under normal conditions-normal for the last 5-6000 years,
that is-Southern Africa has a regular cycle of 3 or 4 good years followed by
a drought year. In the dry years, the prevailing winds pick up millions of
tons of dust and carry it out over the ocean. About half of it falls into
the ocean where it provides silica and phosphates-essential nutrients-to the
photo plankton which are the base of the marine ecosystem food chain. So in
years when Southern Africa has droughts, life in the South Atlantic
flourishes and in years when Southern Africa has good rains, the South
Atlantic marine life dies back. The remainder of the dust is carried over to
Brazil, where it is the sole source of trace elements not found in Brazilian
soils which are essential nutrients for many tropical rain forest plant
species. Like the sea-life, the Brazilian rain forest therefore flourishes
in years when Namibia has a drought and declines in years when Namibia has
plenty of rain. By establishing a permanent drought abatement facility in
Namibia, DeMeo has caused irreparable harm to the global environment. He
simply doesn't know-or care-anything about ecology.
In another case of ecological ignorance and irresponsibility, he reports in
one of his publications that to make up a water deficit during- a recent
series of dry years in California, he extended the rainy season by a month
one year and 6 weeks another year. I have spoken to a biologist at the Point
Reyes Bird Observatory who tells me that in both of the years in question
they lost a significant percentage of baby birds due to inclement weather
during the normally dry nesting, season. Baby birds get pneumonia in wet
weather. Incidentally, some of the birds affected were on the endangered
species list.
DeMeo has also done cloudbusting operations in the Middle East. I have
documentation in my files showing numerous deaths of people in the region as
a result of catastrophic weather he caused.
Lest I seem to be singling Dr. DeMeo out for exceptionally harsh treatment,
some of his associates are just as unaware of ecology and almost as harmful
to the environment. DeMeo is the leader of a group called the C.O.R.E. (for
Cosmic Orgone Engineering) network. Two other members of the group, Dr.
Stephen Nagy and Mr. John Schleining, have taken it upon themselves to play
Smokey the Bear and stop forest fires in Oregon in recent years. According
to their own reports published in the Journal of Orgonomy, they have caused
up to 2.5 inches of rain in a dry summer month which normally has about .25
inch. This is not drought relief; it is blatant disruption. The time to
break a years-long drought is in the normal rainy season, not in what is
normally the dry season. Despite what Smokey told these people in grade
school, natural wildfires have an important role in forest life-cycles and
should not be prevented. They open up stands of trees so some can grow,
recycle nutrients back into the soil, help some kinds of seeds germinate, and
clear away underbrush that would otherwise accumulate enough in several years
to cause an eventual really disastrous fire. By meddling in normal forest
fire cycles, Schleining and Nagy are following an outmoded fire-suppression
policy which the Forest Service now realizes was a mistake and has abandoned.
According to the same report in the Journal of Orgonomy, the cloudbuster was
also used to prevent fire in another way besides increasing rainfall: it was
used to decrease the number of lightning strikes in the area. Now, aside
from its role in creating useful and necessary fires, lightning fixes
atmospheric nitrogen into compounds plants can utilize. For plant species
that lack a symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria on their roots, including many
temperate-zone forest trees, lightning plays an essential role as a source of
fertilizer, so this application of the cloudbuster, far from benefiting the
environment, amounts to mere vandalism of Oregon's forests.
Cloudbusting, to be done responsibly, requires an ecologist as part of the
team. Otherwise, even with a thorough knowledge of orgonomy and the best of
intentions, harm will result. For any large-scale or long-term project, an
environmental impact study prepared by an ecologist familiar with the area is
a must. This is standard procedure nowadays for all government agencies and
large corporations; without it, cloudbusting is just another environmental
problem. It will not help orgonomy to become known as a form of pollution.
Although at the early stages of his cloudbusting work, Reich did use terms
like
"engineering" and "weather control," by the end of his career he had
superseded such concepts and, drawing the analogy of the difference between a
dictator and a guide, stressed that the function of cloudbusting is not to
control weather in a dictatorial manner, but to remove blockages that
obstruct normal atmospheric functioning and restore the ability of the
atmosphere to regulate itself. Cloudbusting in Reich's concept is not
technology, but atmospheric medicine; the healing of a sick atmosphere to
restore atmospheric self-regulation, after which it should be left alone.
People who use terms like "weather control" and "engineering-" to describe
cloudbusting, miss the point entirely. Reich was very clear on this point.
DOR fields-some natural, some caused by nuclear and/or electromagnetic
technology-obstruct normal atmospheric conditions. The cloudbuster can and
should be used to remove such obstacles and heal the atmosphere. It should
not be used to impose an artificial, man-made climate regime for political or
economic purposes.
In his promotional literature, Dr. DeMeo speaks glowingly of his wish to
"green the worlds' deserts" and "turn barren deserts into lush pastures." But
what he thinks of as "barren" deserts are in fact complex and fragile dryland
ecosystems composed of hundreds of plant and animal species that are
well-adapted to their dry habitat over thousands of years. Artificially
increasing rainfall to the point of creating "lush pastures" will doom many
of them to extinction. The increase in pasturage of the type that will
support domestic cattle will result in the exploitation for cattle grazing of
habitat of many native life-forms now protected by the fact that they live in
regions too dry for humans to exploit. Cattle grazing, and the
land-degradation it causes, is a major cause of wildlife extinctions and
ongoing recertification in much of the world, including much of the
recertification that Dr. DeMeo wrongly ascribes to atmospheric stasis. A
short-sighted program to green the world's deserts will only result in a
further impoverished biosphere.
It should be noted that although there are no laws specifically regulating
cloudbusting, the National Environmental Policy Act requires that any project
that will affect the environment prepare an environmental impact study and
have a means-such as public hearings-by which members of the public can voice
objections and exercise some input into decisions that can affect their
lives. The Endangered Species Act prohibits any project that would destroy
members of a listed species or their habitat. And The Wilderness Act
prohibits any action that would modify the natural conditions of a designated
wilderness area, which in the Western United States would be impossible to
avoid, given the extent of the area covered by a typical cloudbusting
operation. The authorities, of course, make no effort to enforce such laws
in the case of cloudbusting because they regard it as ineffective. It is
extremely hypocritical to take advantage of their disbelief to violate laws
with impunity while simultaneously denouncing them for their refusal to
believe in the cloudbusters' effectiveness. In spite of the failure of
environmental protection agencies to enforce the laws, those laws are
reasonable and justified for the protection of the environment and a
responsible person who cares about the earth and its creatures would
voluntarily comply.
I have harshly criticized Dr. DeMeo and his associates, but I have tried to
make my criticisms substantive. In the past, Dr. DeMeo and his friends have
responded to criticisms by name-calling and personal attacks on the alleged
motivations, affiliations, character, psychiatric condition, lifestyle,
criminal history, and previous publications of the critic, all of which is
totally irrelevant. DeMeo also tends to confuse any attack on his own work
with an attack on Reich and orgone theory in general and frequently responds
with a recital of the wrongs inflicted on Reich by the F.D.A. 40 years ago.
I therefore want to point out that ad hominum attacks and rehashing old
grievances will hardly constitute a rebuttal to the specific criticisms I
have made.
There are several excellent sources of information on Reich and orgonomy
other than James DeMeo and his clique. For example, an expensive but very
good correspondence course in orgone physics is available from Dr . Charles
Kelley, 13715 S.E. 36th Street, Steamboat Landing, Vancouver, WA 98684. Dr.
Kelley was a student of Reich in the 1950s and a former meteorologist. His
course, while rather expensive is probably the best systematic presentation
of Reich's physics available.
I am available for consultation and would welcome correspondence from anyone
who wants information on orgonomy or has anything to say on the subject.
Comments on issues raised in this article are invited.
Joel Carlinsky
6 Pond Road
Hawley, MA 01339
U.S.A.
C.O.R.E. NETWORK CENSORS THE INTERNET
Among the countless small movements utilizing the internet to spread their
messages is orgonomy, the science of orgone energy developed in the 1940's
and 50's by the late Dr. Wilhelm Reich. A-n orgonomy Mailing List exists
with about 80 members and an orgonomy bulletin board called Public Orgonomic
Research Exchange (P. 0. R. E.), run by a high-school science teacher in
Maine named Jamerling Ogg.
One of the many aspects of orgonomy is a device invented by Dr. Reich called
a cloudbuster. This device, although intended to improve atmospheric
conditions by freshening the atmosphere and setting stagnant energy into
motion, to the benefit of all species, can also, according to Reich and
others, manipulate weather conditions and in the wrong hands do ecological
damage. A group of Reichs' followers called the Cosmic Orgone Engineering
Network ( C. OR. E. ) have done a lot of experimenting with cloudbusters and
due to almost total ignorance of ecology and an arrogant irresponsible
attitude have caused considerable environmental harm. Since orgonomy is not
part of mainstream orthodox science, no government agency regulates
cloudbusting and only the small number of Reichians is concerned.
An environmental activist with a long-standing interest in orgonomy, Joel
Carlinsky, has documented numerous cases of environmental harm done by the
experiments of the C.OR.E. Network. He sent an article critical of their
irresponsibility to Mr. 0-- to be posted on P.O.R.E. Mr. Ogg, trying to be
fair and impartial sent a copy to the C.OR.E. group, inviting them to write a
response. What he got instead was a threat of a lawsuit if he published
Carlinskys' criticisms. This tactic, although never successful in court, is
frequently used by polluting industries to intimidate and silence
environmentalists. Unfamiliar with environmental activism and fearing heavy
financial losses from what had started out as a mere hobby, Mr. Ogg decided
not to publish the article.
--- from list orgonomy@lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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