Main Contributors
As much as I love the skeptic community, I’ve recently felt that a few problems need addressing. Namely, that refuting unscientific, false or misinformed matters is quite often approached through ridicule rather than a respectful outlaying of the facts. Given the highly doubtful nature of certain premises such as homeopathy, keeping oneself from succumbing to frustration in arguing against such nonsense can admittedly be a very difficult task on its own. Nevertheless, resorting to the derision of “believers” can only result in the affirmation of their misplaced beliefs, as their mere indifference to the alternative is substituted by outward hostility.
When Mitchell and I collaborated on the focus of Lintbox, we both agreed that a certain level of respect for the opposing side would be a good standard to set when making the case for a skeptic and/or scientific-based standpoint. In doing so, we’re able to focus on the subject discussed, reduce the risk of ad hominem attacks in return (or so we thought), and have our points considered perhaps more objectively and sans-antagonism.
And then we approached orgone.
At this point I may be just beating a dead horse, but I feel it’s necessary to delve a bit further into the subject of orgone and orgone crystals. We’ve already touched on the history of Wilhelm Reich’s cloudbusters and orgone energy as well as the many claims surrounding them, and as with virtually all pseudosciences, the fact stands that there is little to no substantial, scientific evidence to support these claims. Regardless, there are several people, such as James DeMeo and Elsworth F. Baker who have decided to follow in Wilhelm Reich’s footsteps and brand Reich a genius persecuted by nefarious corporate influences.
A phrase needing to be repeated time and time again is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The existence of orgone, an immeasurable, ethereal source of energy, by its very nature, defies the laws of thermodynamics and thus renders many theories pivotal to modern science such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity worthless. One may argue that this constitutes an argument from final consequence, however this does not assume my intended point. Orgone isn’t faced with skepticism due to its final consequences, but due to the extraordinary barriers it faces in attaining legitimacy. Simply put, the laws of thermodynamics are a tenacious set of rules by which the universe, as we understand it, is guided. To refute them is to refute all existing scientific theories dependent on the laws, and that is a very large obstacle– one requiring an equally large amount of evidence– to overcome.
But as Mitchell had said, Reich wasn’t a total crackpot. Despite his refusal to treat his own hypothesis with any degree of skepticism, Reich was by no means an antagonist to science and contributed considerably to the field of psychology throughout his lifetime. And although his ideas concerning orgone are considered scientifically dubious at best, there exists a mutation of Reich’s work propagated by the internet on which I can at least agree with DeMeo is absolutely asinine and incoherent.
Self-identified as “Gifters,” orgone crystal vendors rely on vague, tenuous interpretations of Reich’s work to justify the selling of quartz and various other crystals as mystical objects functioning to protect you from various government-sanctioned conspiracies. These conspiracies, of course, are specifically designed to harm or poison its citizens for some vaguely malicious reason. From mind-controlling radiation to chemtrails, Gifters claim that simple shards of silicon dioxide (occasionally tied together by a braided rope) will, through some undefined process, protect the user from virtually all harm.
At the beginning of this article, I outlined the need to be respectful in disputing pseudoscience, however even my dedication to this high standard has its limits. Before Mitchell posted his article concerning cell tower hysteria, I had never heard of Orgone before. In fact, it took me some time to be convinced that it was not an elaborate prank. Regardless, I approached the subject politely and in turn was rewarded with cold dismissal, virulent ad hominem attacks which still continue to this day, and most absurd of all, accusations of being a part of the government conspiracy.
I really wish some people and would wake up and stop calling the towers cell towers, there (sic) not for cell phones , there for tracking and making the population and environment sick. How many new high powered towers keep getting erected near schools, work offices, gas stations, hillsides, churches, etc..?
Would you want to live with one a few feet from your apartment? Seen the fat cables linked to them from the generators? In light of genocidal governement policies, political events and history. Its not a stretch of imagination to understand how theese towers in cunjuction with chemtrails used to cause major harm to the populace. The number of orgonite activist worldwide and growing shows this to be a problem, that is fixable and being corrected, not to be overlooked by rigorous institionalized programming.
-An Orgone Crystal proponent
The truth is, I don’t know what the Gifters are talking about. Their arguments are almost always laced with paranoid ramblings, absurd magic and virtually no science whatsoever. Respect remains important when debating points of view, but in the face of such baseless nonsense, it becomes exceedingly difficult, if not impossible to reach a rational exchange of ideas. The best course of action, therefore, is to not even bother.
And that, I suppose, is my concluding point. As a skeptic, I’ve devoted myself to promoting critical thought and rationality. When it comes to the new-age iteration of orgone energy, however, there remains little point in spending one’s time refuting it given its outlandish absurdity. Those inclined to become devoted “Gifters” have already forfeited any grasp of critical thinking or reason, and therefore cannot, conversely, be swayed by these conventions of thought.
After all, the nearest cell-phone tower will have already taken control of your mind by now.
I’ll see you in the new world order.
6 responses so far ↓
1
Kyle // Jun 26, 2008 at 11:46 pm
WERRRNNSTROM! *shakes fist*
2
ToddInCali // Jun 27, 2008 at 2:52 pm
The enigma that is Wilhelm Reich !
I find this all very amusing, as someone who has extensively studied Reich, and his substantial body of work.
What particualry intrigues me is that people like yourself will make statements like:
“A phrase needing to be repeated time and time again is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The existence of orgone, an immeasurable, ethereal source of energy, by its very nature, defies the laws of thermodynamics and thus renders many theories pivotal to modern science such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity worthless. ”
You lost all credibility with me by making such a statement. It proves beyond any reasonable doubt that you simply have not done your homework. You can not even properly define Orgone, much less its properties. If it is impossible to measure it, how exactly did Reich study it ? What tools did he use to do so ? Did he himself state that it is immeasurable ?
The truth is, that YOU don’t know the answers to any of these questions, because you haven’t been bothered to actually study Reich.
So as far as I’m concerned, the so-called “skeptics” of which you consider yourself a part of their little “community” are just as fallacious and incompetent as far as THIS subject is concerned, as the ridiculous people on the internet peddling “orgonite”.
But at least the “orgonite” freaks have enough common sense to not want to live right next to a cell phone tower.
3
Mitchell Gerskup // Jun 27, 2008 at 5:11 pm
“If it is impossible to measure it, how exactly did Reich study it ? What tools did he use to do so ?”
Precisely. Reich certainly didn’t believe orgone to be immeasurable, yet nobody has been able to observe or measure it. You raise an excellent point… how do we study something if we can’t measure it? Of course, the answer is: we can’t.
“You can not even properly define Orgone, much less its properties.”
Actually, nobody can. That’s the problem.
It’s hard to know exactly what you believe, since your comment is structured more as an ad hominem attack, as opposed to a constructed argument. If you’re going to throw around words like “fallacious”, please be considerate enough to actually point out the fallacy, so the mistake can be corrected. Otherwise, it just sounds like a juvenile attack.
And in case you’re wondering, those “orgonite “freaks”” are more than happy to live next to cell towers, as long as they’ve been properly gifted.
4
Paul // Jun 28, 2008 at 2:09 pm
ToddInCali-
I appreciate your input, but question your motives and your need to resort to the very personal attacks I chided in my article. My provided definition of Orgone is vague, in part, for I felt no need to spend more time on the subject, as it has been covered in previous posts. I also felt it difficult to define a force that has not even been adequately defined by those who had conceived it; Because, despite your accusations to the opposite, I have studied the literature concerning Orgone, most recently, Charles R. Kelley’s ‘What is Orgone Energy?’ which I used as an uncited reference for my article.
There are many claims over the alleged nature of Orgone ‘Energy’: It has no mass, it’s responsible for mass, electromagnetism, gravity, and a variety of biological phenomena including Evolution. This, under a scientific standpoint, is insufficient in defining a universal force, and follows the logic of Carl Sagan’s ‘The Dragon in my Garage,’ ( http://www.users.qwest.net/~jcosta3/article_dragon.htm ). The obvious intention of Reich and those who study Orgone today is to use the concept of Orgone Energy as a veritable Grand Unification Theory of sorts, amalgamating separate and distinct scientific theories into one single explanation. This isn’t enough for science. Science requires such ideas to be tested and reviewed, and unfortunately, Reich’s experiments were fundamentally flawed.
Experiment XX, for example, results in “plasmatic flakes” forming from a sample of water allegedly ‘particle-free.’ However, in his section pertaining to the preparation of the water, Reich writes: “The water is filtered off from the boiled earth, crystal clear. In contrast with the original colorless water, this fluid is one or another intensity of yellow.” Not only does he not explain the filtering process in satisfactory detail, the water is described as a clear-yellow, implying that either solubles or otherwise submicroscopic particles from the soil were present in the water. This is further brought to question following Reich’s writing that “To my great astonishment, I discovered that the flakes, which had formed in a crystal-clear, that is to say, an absolutely particle-free, fluid, were, when examined microscopically, intensely radiating particles of bionous matter. At a higher magnification (3000x), it was possible to observe contracting and expanding bions, with which we were already familiar.” Reich claims that these ‘new’ particles were observed to be contracting and expanding at a magnification of 3000x, which is quite simply impossible using an optical microscope, which has an ocular limit of roughly 1400-1600x magnification. At 3000x magnification, Reich would only be able to see indistinct blobs and airy disks. Despite Reich being therefore convinced of the existence of Orgone, the experiment as a result of these and several other flaws is below satisfactory standards in proving one’s hypothesis. It’s just plain bad science.
I also described Orgone as ‘immeasurable’ as it indeed has yet to be measured by any scientific means (and what form of measurement is used? Newtons? Ohms? Orgone Units?). Despite the many flawed or haphazard efforts in proving its existence, there remains virtually no consistency in how Orgone may confirm its own existence and not be explained by other, existing phenomena. The biggest problem of all, I find, is the included conspiratorial nature of even Reich’s Orgonomy, where, according to Kelley:
“Perhaps the most perceptive of Reich’s insights was the realization that there are forces in human nature which blocked the discovery of orgone energy. It is these forces which in the past distorted and then buried the work of men like Mesmer and Reichenbach. It is the same forces today which not only prevent the serious study by scientists of the concept of orgone energy, but in fact bring about attempts of every possible kind by a vicious minority to destroy the concept and those who support it. The pathological nature of these attacks is shown by their extraordinary and otherwise inexplicable virulence.
Orgone energy is not studied seriously by most scientists because scientists, like other people, suffer from the mass biological disorder which Reich described in detail, and which forms perhaps his greatest contribution to science.
The human race is sick en masse, severely sick. The Christian religion expresses an understanding of this sickness in the concept of original sin. If we examine the world around us, we see that it might easily be a world of plenty. There are techniques and resources to satisfy nearly every human need, enough for every individual to lead a useful, happy, and productive life — yet this world is dominated by wars and threat of war, by irrational politics, in many countries taking the form of fascism in one form or another. Within countries crime and mental illness are prevalent; about one American in ten at one time or another spends time in an institution, and only a small percentage of those who are mentally ill ever reach an institution.”
… Which, I think, drastically shifts Orgonomy from an unconfirmed hypothesis to hysterical paranoia founded by a tautological explanation for skepticism.
If there is any concrete, scientifically-grounded evidence for Orgone Energy I may have missed, I would be happy to receive it. I have no biases when it comes to the truth; I require only a good degree of science and rigor in coming to a conclusion. As I had said before, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You may have found this as a breach of credibility on my part. Nevertheless, this I see as the very core of science, and one which is as of yet to be satisfied on the subject of Reich’s work.
-Paul
5
Gifter // Sep 23, 2008 at 11:33 am
Definitely, Paul ain’t sensible enough to feel the huge power of orgone. DO I HAVE TO MAKE LOTS OF RESEARCHES ABOUT WILHEM REICH TO BE SURE THAT ORGONE IS REAL POWERFUL LIVE ENERGY?
No. It is not necessary. Paul surely needs some orgone to calm down a little bit and respect the people who are trying to avoid cell towers from destructing people’s mind, like they already did with him.
6
Gifter // Sep 23, 2008 at 11:45 am
Paul is marked, and he is a number 18.
P-8
A-1
U-6
L-3
You must log in to post a comment.