Mans Right To Know - The Story of Wilhelm Reich<embed style="width:500px; height:407px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=4731618210941209731&hl=en" flashvars=""> </embed>
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Reich was not the first to discover or investigate what he called orgone. Every culture and language has a different name for the same energy. Same stuff, different name, packaging, and promotion. Orgone, chi, qi, ki, life force, life energy, bio energy, od, prana, mana, psykhe, Spiritus, etc. The whole point of mentioning Reich: "I would like to plead for my right to investigate natural phenomena...." I think any scientist or any individual has the right to investigate anything without interference nor punishment from those that have an opposing view. To not allow or to discourage an opposing view is suspect.
it is really a strange situation. reich was an acclaimed psychoanalyst, moved somewhere else and got trouble everywhere he went. really unimaginable how he could keep going ... in contrast to chi or prana, reich investigated within the frame of western science. testing, validating, repeatable experiments. just think of his oranur experiments ... big effects that almost traumatised half of the people around him at that time; should be verifiable. and remember reich contacted einstein and got him quite interested in his work until einstein decided there is nothing in it. now, for me it is really difficult to charge the discoverer of relativity for mainstream stubbornness. and do not forget that around that time quantum physics took of, a subject that has since been at least as controversial as a possible new energy. in short, this mainstream turned him down thing has some debateable aspects. nevertheless, as i said, i find it hard to believe that someone can write that conscious and precise while being in fact mentally distorted.
or think of the cloudbustering. according to reich this was almost sensational. and his books are available today, so everybody could go and replicate the thing. and literally almost everybody since there is no big tech hurdle in any of his pieces as far as i know. don't get me wrong. i am practising meditation and am aware of the shortfalls of modern science. and just look at shaolin monks if you want to see physical effects of working with "chi". but, nevertheless, reich entered the field from within western science and found what he found out of western science. so there should be tons of crazy physics students building crazy cloud busters during their holidays ... just because it is simple and possibly working ...
ratboy, do you have any first hand experience with accumulators? i considered to get one, but never followed up. what would be interesting experiments with it? actually i think i would get two of them, one with reich's order of cotton and metal, the other vice versa. otherwise it is difficult to isolate the effect to orgone i'd guess.
no.. not my area of expertise. there are many youtube and google videos though. although most aren't labeled as such. here are those that are: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=orgone&hl=en&sitesearch= <object width="500" height="418"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dqw7z2JJ-w4&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dqw7z2JJ-w4&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="500" height="418"></embed></object>
About 2-3 years ago I was tempted to make some orgonite, but my list of things to do is over 16 notebook pages. Someday. Some people are building orgone devices and using phosphorescent glow tape to observe the moving orgone produced from the orgonite in a darkened room. I don't think physicists would be interested in researching orgone even if they knew it had positive uses. Not unless there were significant profits to be had, since orgone is essentially free. Not unless it could be used as a weapon to kill masses of people. Researchers like Reich are easily labeled as kooks if they are not working on mainstream, acceptable ideas. It is a pop culture, you're not one of us world. One of the greatest scientists and inventors was Nikola Tesla. He was labeled a kook by his competitors and government. He had inventions, credit and theories stolen from him decades after he first discovered them. This lone man would have had more patents than Edison's huge team if he had not been penniless most of his life. Both of these guys were rather eccentric, but that seems to be the case with nearly all great minds as they are not operating at the level of us "normals''.
People who push Reich's primitive ideas as "scientific truths" are kooks. Reich was one of many scientists who pondered the meaning of life. But when science was not ready then any answers suggested were at best speculative. Take a look at a more modern view of Reich's work here: http://www.ist-signal.org/conferences/SAB02workshop/wsgrow_paper_7.pdf It is possible that one day real science will arise out of Reich's work. But at this point it is not science.