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"chembusters", and other concoctions from the internet madhouse work to destroy
Wilhelm Reich's research legacy, and reveal a profound hatred for the man and his works.
James DeMeo, Ph.D.
Over the last decade there has been a slow and steady growth of misinformation and distortion about Wilhelm Reich's work, found on the websites of people promoting things such as the Montauk Project or "Trance Channeling" the dead Reich from the grave, to milder mixtures of his ideas with mystical religious ideas. Perhaps the most bizarre and widespread distortions are found in the promotional materials for people selling products such as "chembusters", "holy hand grenades", "orgonite", "orgone generators", "orgone converters", "orgone zappers", "orgone pyramids" and a host of similar things. Notably, they all claim (without evidence) to have made great "advancements", going "beyond Reich", in a manner which makes a mockery of Reich's original solid and authentic natural-scientific findings.
There are "orgone crystal power accumulators" (bearing no resemblance whatsoever to Reich's original orgone accumulator), "orgone pendants" and "pendant-beamers" (again, no connections to Reich), "orgone manifestors", "orgone chalice transmuters", "tachyon orgone Reiki massage throw blankets", "therapeutic orgone wealth prosperity and money pillows", "orgone generators [for] love and sex" or for "weight loss" or "...career, business and prosperity", and "radionics rife orgone tesla HHG zappers", and even "orgone-powered ouija spirit boards" all sold with Reich's name and terms stuck to them like so much glitter sprinkled on glue. "Money! Wealth! Power! Sex!" some of them shamelessly proclaim. Virtually nothing in their materials or construction resembles Wilhelm Reich's original or authentic descriptions of orgone energy-accumulating structures, even though they boldly lie about it.
Whatever claims these people make to scientific evidence must rely upon research conducted by Reich or the professional scientists who have undertaken controlled experiments with the "plain" orgone accumulator in laboratories, and for which positive results have been obtained, including in universities under double-blind conditions -- see the on-line Bibliography on Orgonomy. Or, in a few cases where honest people have been duped, they simply do not know how Reich's discovery anticipates everything will carry an innate charge of orgone energy, with a weak radiant field. However, you can get a stronger charge and radiant field from any ordinary bag of steel wool from the hardware store -- and the charge of the original and properly-constructed Reich orgone blankets and accumulators is greater still. For those who stumble upon Reich's discoveries by way of "orgonite" claims, this may seem really like authentic hot-shot stuff, but it is not. They will remain trapped in ignorance until such time as stumbling over Reich's original publications.
In short, the internet "orgone gadget" sellers they have no defendable scientific evidence for any of their "additions" to the "old Reich", whom they claim to have advanced "far beyond". Their gadgets may seem more colorful and artistic than the plain old-fashioned orgone blanket, but in terms of function, they are lagging far behind Reich.
Upon digging deeper, on their websites and e-groups one finds the people hawking this stuff also making allusions to demons in other dimensions, to large government conspiracies such as "chemtrails", and from there to "shape-shifting reptilian space aliens" who have "substituted themselves into military and key government and UN positions", "taking over the bodies of aircraft pilots and ground crews, and well-known politicians", with the goal to poison their own countrymen and families with toxic chemicals secretly sprayed from the air. They make other references to "ascended masters" and such, and many are factually refugees from religious cults. The devices are promoted for "self defense" against the same demons and space-aliens. The "HHG" term means, for example, "Holy Hand Grenade", and supposedly acts like a regular hand-grenade bomb in some nether-worldly dimension inhabited by demons -- putting one of these on your desk is said to drive away the demons." Some advocates of this madness are refugees from the old mystic Saint Germain "I AM" cult, out of Mt. Shasta, while others more generally espouse "magik" terms which even a dedicated alchemist would be embarrassed to associate with. Reich's name, and his term "orgone", "cloudbuster" and similar terms as developed with specific meanings and used in authentic natural-scientific research are included in their on-line discussions and products they sell, sometimes quite openly to "Obtain Money! Power! Sex! and Magik!", as if there were some direct and honest relationship to Reich, which there most certainly is not.
Taken together, the individuals promoting these distortions drag Reich's good name and work down into a dirty mystical swamp, and little recognizable remains of his authentic research findings, on orgone energy or otherwise. For those struggling to get a clear picture of Reich's findings, these efforts have the result of dramatically muddying of the waters. It is a toss-up to know which is more damaging to Reich's name and work -- the outrageous falsifiers of the CSICOP "professional skeptic" variety, who engage in deliberate distortions as a means to ridicule the man and his work (see for example my article here: http://www.orgonelab.org/gardner.htm), or the "madhouse" internet distorters, whose embrace of Reich provides an equally hideous misportrayal.
At some point in the future, I may write up a more complete disclosure, providing names and websites of the worst offenders, but a simple internet or eBay search on the terms "Wilhelm Reich" or "orgone" will turn up quite a few of them, usually at the "top listings" and also on quite a few of the internet "adwords" advertisements hawking their stuff. A Google search of "orgone" turns up a half-million webpages, with perhaps only 1 out of 100 providing authentic information. Ebay in particular is littered with products abusing the term "orgone", and which have no relationship whatsoever to Reich's discoveries. In a recent survey I made at the time of this writing, eBay was selling 236 items with "orgone" in the title (or 375 in the title and descriptions) -- out of this number a total of Three (3), or around 1%, used the word with accuracy, roughly paralleling the situation on the larger internet search engines.
As a help, the OBRL website includes a special Resource Guide which provides the names and weblinks of most authentic Reich/Orgonomy institutes and organizations, and the very few manufacturers of authentic orgone energy accumulators. Certainly there may be some others we have missed who are not included, but it is a reasonably comprehensive and useful guide for the beginner to consult: http://www.orgonelab.org/resources.htm
James DeMeo, Ph.D.
Director, OBRL
April 2007 (revised August 2010)
Postscript
Also see the following pertinent articles documenting other horrid distortions of Reich:
Book Review: The Montauk Project.
On Atmospheric Disturbances, "Chemtrails" and the "Croft Chembuster": Critical Discussions.
Film Review: Dusan Makavejev's WR Mysteries of the Organism.
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