Talk:Wilhelm Reich
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Quote "(an "energy field", similar to qi or other New Age energy concepts)"
Is Qi a 'new age' concept, I'm not an expert but isn't this to do with tai Chi which actually dates back hundreds if not thousands of year? Can soembody who knows about these things please clarify and if necessary amend accordingly, ta quercus robur 10:36 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC)
- Qi is refered to within certain New Age disciplines, the above wording was not intended to outline the history of the Qi concept, and the new wording is just as nice anyway... -- Jörgen Nixdorf
The orgone stuff is now merged into this article. More is needed about Reich's early career before he diverged from the mainstream. -- Anon.
The Wilhelm Reich page is badly biased.
I get really disgusted when I read scientists talk about Wilhelm Reich. I do not make my living by science, although I am familiar with the scientific method. And I do not have an opinion on orgone energy and all of that stuff one way or the other, I've read a little bit about it, but have not done the experiments, seen if it is reproducible, read the case against it and so forth. Being as I have not looked into it in great depth, I concede that it is possible that Reich made errors in his scientific work. Which is not devastating - Einstein punched major holes in Isaac Newton's work, and he is still viewed with respect - going down blind alleys is not where the glory is, but it does help science as people can say "we examined this and see little worth to it, so examine the other areas first". To reiterate, I know a lot about Reich's political side and little about his scientific side and how his scientific theories panned out when looked at by the wider scientific establishment, and I have no opinion one way or the other about these scientific theories since I know little about them.
Conceding that it is possible Reich made scientific errors - so what? What should the punishment be? This man was hunted by the Gestapo after writing a book castigating them. Then he came to the United States and he was jailed by the US government and died in jail, and his work was, can you believe it, burned by the US government! Do these scientists think Newton should have been jailed for not mentioning relativity in his laws of motion? I find it disgusting how scientists look down their noses and mock this person who was hunted by the Gestapo, thrown in prison by the US government and died in jail, and his work burned by the US government. And this a man who was an assistant to Freud. What are these people advocating, anyone who is suspected of making a scientific error should be arrested by the Gestapo and sent to the death camps?
I am really disgusted by this mocking tone adopted towards Reich. This man fought the Nazis, and was hunted by the Nazis, and he deserves respect. I can barely believe what happened to him when he came to the US, it's one of American history's more embarassing episodes. Saying that the scientific community has come to conclusions which are not in his scientific work and so forth is fine. But adopting the tone of the Gestapo which hunted him is really sick. -- Lancemurdoch 08:55, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I would also like to add that in terms of religious belief, the US has no equal in industrialized countries. A very large percentage of the US population believe the Bible is literally true; that the Book of Revelations is true and predicts the future; that Jesus was born from a coupling of a virgin and a deity, had magical powers, and came back from the dead and ascended bodily into heaven; that people don't die but live forever and will eventually be resurrected and so on and so forth. "In God We Trust" was put on US currency and the words "under God" were put in the Pledge of Allegiance in the US in the 1950's, and when a court had a quarrel with that, the US Congress censured them by a vote which was over 95% pro-censure. School boards in Kansas and elsewhere fight constant battles against fundamentalist Christians who are trying to eradicate mention of evolution from biology classes. And on and on. In this atmosphere, I find it a little strange how Reich, a student and assistant of Freud, who wrote books castigating the Gestapo, was hunted by the Gestapo and came to the US - and who almost unbelievably was jailed for his scientific studies by the US government and his work burned, how he can be mocked and ridiculed for perceived failings in his science, which some have even called "pseudoscience". I am more aware of his political views than his scientific views, I know little about them and concede there may (or may not) be errors in them. But this is a man who was persecuted by the Gestapo and others in his life and is now being persecuted in his death. Disagree with his science if you want, but do not mock him, do not ridicule him, do not act as the Gestapo, the actual Nazi Gestapo actually DID act towards him. He deserves to be treated with respect, even if, like Isaac Newton, he made errors in his scientific analysis. -- Lancemurdoch 09:21, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The reason that Reich is criticized is not that he "made some scientific mistakes", it is that his "orgone" theory is utter and complete nonsense. He discovered a new form of primordial energy that is blue, is responsible for weather, is involved in most disease, and can be concentrated in boxes and used to beneficial effect on humans? Please. The analogy to Newton is absurd. Newton advanced physics immensely. Of course he didn't solve all of physics (I don't know that I'd say he made any mistakes; I don't think of failing to discover relativity and quantum mechanics in the seventeenth century to be mistakes). Reich advanced nothing. Saying so does not make me a Nazi.
The repeated juxtaposition of his persecution by the Gestapo and his being jailed in the U.S. is completely unfair. The Gestapo treatment was typical fascist repression. His trouble in the U.S. was completely different. The U.S. has rules against selling medical devices that have not been approved (approval requires proof of safety and effectiveness). These rules prevent me from coming up with some crazy contraption in my basement and marketing it as a cancer cure, and are intended, among other things, to combat medical fraud. A court determined that Reich was breaking these rules and told him to stop. When he didn't stop, he went to jail. Josh Cherry 21:59, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Reich's work was definitely pseudo-science... but the government definitely engaged in the unsavory practice of book burning. Words should either stand on their own, or fall own their own. No government should be in the business of deciding what people should read.
In any case, there is at least one statement that seems to border on POV:
- ...many scientists still dispute and call pseudoscience (as of 2004).
Still and as of...? Despite claims to the contrary, modern scientists have examined Reich's work, and found that it does not meet the criteria of science. This isn't an opinion that is ever likely to change. Even if orgone energy were to some day be found to exist, the best one could say is that Reich made a lucky guess, and not a rigorous scientific examination.
AdmN 01:53, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
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"orgone guns" and "weather engineering"
"Reich designed orgone "guns" called cloudbusters to suck DOR from the sky. It has been claimed that they can be used to manipulate the weather and to create rainstorms in a process called weather engineering. According to some accounts, the government of Eritrea financed several such projects in the 1980s and 1990s in order to change the weather in the region." (article as of 2 Nov 04)
According to which accounts? This statement seems somewhat unlikely on the face of it and definitely needs verifying. For a start there was no "government of Eritrea" as such in the 1980s since Eritrea didn't become independent till 1993. Also, scientific methods of producing rain (cloud seeding) had been in use since the 1940s and 50s.
Flapdragon, 2 Nov 04
Strong Opinions
Clearly there are some strong opinions regarding Reich and his work. While that's okay, these opinions (for or against) shouldn't be inserted into the article. Statements such as:
- "His scientific discovery of 'orgone energy',
- and various experiments with the orgone energy
- accumulator, which have been confirmed by various
- scientists in both the USA and Europe, even while
- the professional 'skeptics groups' in the USA
- have repeatedly misrepresented that evidence,
- or tried to deny its existence."
show a strong and argumentive bias without citing sources to support this statement. Sources from skeptics should also be presented if the skeptics are mentioned. A link to articles is required here so that this work can be verified (as reminded in every edit window). 152.163.100.8 00:04, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Reich's Politix
Reich's orgone lunacy aside, I had to alter the article as it stood, because an anonymous editor put in what is essentially a rightwing slur (masquerading as even-handedness on the question of "red/black" fascism).
I haven't read Reich's book on fascism, but I would be willing to bet a small sum that the anonymous editor might even have stretched the boox' message even more than this; but since I don't know, I have altered the sentence to a more accurate "stalinism" from the crudely propagandistic "communism" -- rather than excise it completely, which is really what I'd prefer myself.
Article Supporting Reich's Biophysics is NOT biased.
I have studied Reich's orgone research for over 30 years, and assembled the on-line Bibliography on Orgonomy. I did personal research with the orgone accumulator and cloudbuster, published that work under tha auspices of universities and governments, presented this research subject at all kinds of academic forums and scholarly societies, and conclude that the hostility to Reich's orgone energy theory, and against the scientific evidence supporting it, is purely anti-scientific scientism. The super-critics who always attack Reich's orgone energy research, I say, suffer from total bias and exhibit phoney scholarship of the worst sort. The attacks against Reich's biophysical work is often being pushed along by people who have a vested interest to try and mis-portray Reich as having "deserved" to be imprisoned, to have his books burned, and so on. They often are associated with the organzied "skeptic" groups, who attack all kinds of alternative medicine, and give the appearance they are "in the pockets' of the drug companies. Or, perhaps they don't want to see any kind of alternative medical approach be successful. it does not matter. A genuine scienitst must personally investigate what he or she criticizes, before making the critique. So I ask the critics of Reich's orgone research to moderate their tone until they have investigated! I have read virtually all of Reich's original publications, including the "banned and burned" ones, and now put a good list of these publications on the web page. Will they now just erase them? To make it easier to claim that such work "does not exist", just as they claim the orgone energy "does not exist", in spite of many good experiments?
I have read all the published verifying experiments, from the Journal of Orgonomy, Annals of the Institute for Orgonomic Science, Pulse of the Planet, Emotion, Lebensenergie, and other journals. I have read the various academic dissertations and theses which further support Reich. It is an excellent, and quite remarkable large body of positive supporting evidence. There are many such published experimental accounts. Hundreds in fact. What do the "skeptics" have to offer in the way of published negative results on orgone experiments? NOTHING. None of the "skeptics" who publish bad words about Reich's biophysical work have ever undertaken even ONE experiment. They are "armchair experts" who do no work, only criticize and censor, and then sit quietly when books are burned.
I challenge anyone to make a citation, to the work of anyone, which presents details of any experiment giving negative results, by which to contrast and undermine the many, many published accounts with positive results. As a practicing scientist and former university professor myself, I can make this challenge because I know the literature, and know what has and has not been done. So I ask everyone, to stop with all the bad words about Reich's biophysical work, calling him a "quack" or claiming orgone research has "no support" or is "psuedoscience" and so on, because these hard criticisms cannot be supported scientifically. In fact, it is the critics of Reich who behave like psuedoscientific quacks, because they do no experiments, do not read the literature, and speak without full knowledge. No genuine scientist acts that way. And in fact, the heavy weight of scientific evidence is on the side of Reich.
James DeMeo, Ph.D. http://www.jamesdemeo.org
- Will you stop messing up this article now? (BTW and article -supporting- any theory on wikipedia is biased by definition, this article should do nothing more than explicate) Kev 22:12, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Too long, too biased
This article is too long for a minor scientist whose works are controversial, to say the least. It is longer than the articles on, say, Kepler or Freud! Besides that, Mr. DeMeo's misplaced advocacy is a good example of how not to write an article for Wikipedia. I think it should be completely rewritten and drastically reduced.
Rewriting
I agree that this article needs a rewrite, so I've started one and have uploaded some pics. I don't agree that it needs to be shorter, but it does need to be more readable. I've taken the NPOV tag off as it was placed on the page by an anon AOL proxy without discussion. Hope that's okay with everyone. SlimVirgin 21:58, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)
You can't possibly expect anyone to believe that's the best headshot available.
A big thank you to the people who cleaned up this article.