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Lovely thread title, btw.
1) I think Nick’s right, Fury on Earth by Myron Sharaf is the best place to start. You’ll find a lot of the information you’re looking for in there. Sharaf (who passed away recently, I think) was a pupil of Reich’s back in the 50’s and was unofficially appointed as the “historian” of orgonomy. He later had some fallings out with Reich (detailed in the book) but this didn’t stop him from producing the definitive biography. It’s a real labour of love, and a vital reference for anyone interested in Reich’s work. He covers Reich’s life chronologically, giving separate chapters to Reich’s personal and social life, his political/psychiatric work and his scientific work (including his contact with Einstein!). I think he’s very fair handed in the science chapters, and provides details of Reich’s claims, criticism and experiments purporting to disprove these, and in turn, Reich’s response to his critics. Sharaf isn’t on a hard sell “this-is-the-truth” trip with Reich, he remains quite critical of some of his ideas, but what does come through is that a lot of “lazy science” and prejudice were in evidence when some of Reich’s claims were under investigation.
For instance, with regard to Reich’s invention, the orgone accumulator, experimental trials were only carried out once or twice, and not under the conditions Reich specified. The “proof” against this idea isn’t conclusive, as Sharaf presents it. (I’m going from memory here so I might be wrong, will post a correction later if need be). Sharaf uses Reich as an example of a “paradigm shift”, following Thomas Kuhn. Reich’s workis a unified whole, but comes from a completely different headspace (“paradigm”) than that of “normal” science, with fundamentally different baseline assumptions, so it’s no wonder it’s disbelieved and subject to ridicule. I’d like to be proved wrong, but I doubt if there are any experiments conclusively disproving any aspects of his work, I supect most of the people who say this are still trading off the FDA experiments carried out in the 50’s which Sharaf criticises. This is what I mean by “lazy science” – it’s the kind of notion that passes from book to book with (as far as I know) precious little evidence. After all – why would you investigate something that you know is wrong?
Sharaf states in his introduction that little work has done to repeat Reich’s experiments. This was back in ’83, and I think things have changed a lot since them.
James DeMeo’s site is probably a good place to start. DeMeo mentions a list of over 400 or so citations that he has published (not on the net, as far a I can tell), alongside a number of other positives references to orgonomy in this essay.
2) I can’t really answer this one, I’m afraid, I’m not up on the coming and goings of the orgomic community. One reason for avoiding it is the conflicts that you mentioned.
My main source of info on Reich’s stuff is a friend who I met while writing my dissertation (which was on Reich), who trained with Ola Raknes (a student of Reich’s back in the 40’s).He has an incomplete website up somewhere, listing his publications which I will post as soon as I can remember the bloody URL! In the meantime, if you fancy a read of some of this stuff, drop me a PM. May bring some to the next Barb meet
3) Never used a cloudbuster, but I have used an orgone accumulator. It was pretty amazing stuff. I didn’t even have to sit inside it. I could feel a “cloud” of energy, similar to static electricity, coming from inside the box. The sensation was as clear as putting my hand in a bath of water. I’m aware this makes me sound like a candidate for the loony bin, but that was my experience. It’s like a lot of Reich’s work, it sounds so fantastical that only direct experience will give it any credence. Of course, this doesn’t verify all of Reich’s work – there may well be an alternative explanation for this phenomena, but only more experimentation will verify this one way or the other.
I’ve also had a lot confirming experience of Reich’s therapeutic ideas, working on my own “character armour” mostly using the exercises in this book which are pretty amazing. I’m not saying this “armour” has gone, all I can say is that at least I’m a lot more aware of it, which is a start.
Even if you think this is all bullshit, it’s worth reading about Reich – if all his work is a delusion, it’s certainly an amazingly grandiose one. He had a pretty incredible life even though it ended so tragically. |
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