I’ve always cast a jaundiced eye on the shenanigans of scientific fringe groups. But my eye is a little less yellow when I look at Wilhelm Reich. Reich claimed to have discovered a life energy he called “orgone” back in the 1930s. He made a device that supposedly accumulated the energy, the “orgone accumulator” (ORAC), and another that allegedly could manipulate it in the atmosphere called a “cloudbuster.” Some MDs who still subscribe to Reich’s theories publish the Journal of Orgonomy. I remember one article claiming tomato plants grown inside an ORAC produce more and larger tomatoes. There’s a meteorologist named James DeMeo who does research on the cloudbuster. Plus (and this is the ultimate evidence) Kate Bush sang a song about the cloudbuster on her Hounds of Love album. Seeing as you’re the last word on subjects like this, what’s the last word on orgone? Yes, no, or maybe? –Steven Stocker, Baltimore
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In 1956 Reich was convicted of shipping orgone boxes across state lines in defiance of a court order obtained by the Food and Drug Administration. He was sent to prison, where he died of a heart attack in 1957. But his ideas, such as they are, live on. A summary of Reich’s career by science writer Martin Gardner may be found in the fall 1988 Skeptical Inquirer; for a full-length treatment check out Fury on Earth by Martin Sharaf.
