Remember orgone? Just when you think woos couldn't get any more credulous, I give you:

[beam me up scottie]

The American College of Orgonomy

The American College of Orgonomy (ACO) is a non-profit educational and scientific organization devoted to setting and maintaining standards for work in the field of orgonomy.

The Science of Orgonomy

Orgonomy has roots in biology, biophysics, cosmology -- spanning single-celled protozoa to the formation of galaxies.

***

Wilhelm Reich

Wilhelm Reich (1897 - 1957) discovered a form of energy that he called "orgone” and asserted that this energy -- which has either been mystified through the ages or rejected outright by modern-day scientists -- could be found within all living things and even throughout the cosmos.

***

In 1939, just prior to the outbreak of World War II, he left Europe for the United States. In 1940, having scientifically proven the existence of orgone energy in the atmosphere, he built the first "orgone accumulator” -- a box-like structure designed to concentrate atmospheric orgone energy. He also conducted trials of the orgone accumulator on patients suffering from a variety of ailments. During the same year Reich wrote to Albert Einstein describing the theoretical basis of orgone energy and the orgone accumulator. He visited the professor in 1941 in Princeton, where they talked for many hours with Einstein agreeing to test the device. The outcome of Reich’s visit with the great man is recorded in the literature dealing with the history of science of Orgonomy.

In 1947 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began to investigate Reich’s activities and claims. Some contend that this initial probe into Reich and his work was communist-instigated, undertaken to destroy Reich who had published such compelling, widely read arguments against communism. Others hold that his theories regarding orgone energy, and especially the importance of the function of the orgasm, led to the government’s involvement.

From their FAQ:

What is Orgonomy

Orgonomy is the natural science of orgone energy and its functions. This energy obeys certain laws, and Wilhelm Reich described the functions of the energy and its effects very specifically. To date, we know of no scientific evidence that has been presented that allows us to overturn or even modify any of Reich's original premises or formulations. His energetic theory provides a unified scientific explanation for the development of all living organisms and the structure of the physical world - from the formation of a single-celled protozoa to the construction of the cosmos.

***

What is Orgone Energy

Orgone is Wilhelm Reich's name for the energy from which all nature is created -- the creative force in nature.

Reich proposed some general laws and principles regarding orgone and how it functions. Orgone is:
(1) Mass free and has no inertia (making it difficult to measure)
(2) Universal
(3) The medium for electromagnetic and gravitational activity
(4) That from which matter is created

A more accurate definition can be found in http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/encyclopedia.html">Randi's Encyclopedia

orgone:

A name given by psychologist Wilhelm Reich (1892-1957) to an imaginary substance he believed was normally evenly distributed about the body, but gathered into the genital area during orgasm, then was redistributed after that event. Lack of proper, satisfying orgasms, he said, led to orgone imbalance and attendant negative symptoms of every sort.

Reich preached that cancer was caused by a lack of orgone.

In 1940 he built and marketed a box he called an Orgone Accumulator, and sales were brisk. It was simply a three-foot-square box made of two layers, wood on the outside and metal on the inside. The natural orgone from the sky, he said, was soaked up by the wood and transmitted to the metal and thus to the body of the owner, crouched inside. Orgone Blankets followed, as well as small orgone "shooters" that were said to direct concentrated orgone to needed areas.

Only fourteen years later, in 1954, ever-vigilant investigators for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had discovered these devices and obtained an injunction against Reich selling his products. However, Reich continued, and in 1956 was tried, convicted, and sentenced to a $10,000 fine plus two years in prison. He died in prison, praised by his followers as a persecuted pioneer of progress.

Oh boy, happy days! Thanks to the generous souls at Tools for Wellness, you can still purchase your very own http://www.toolsforwellness.com/83065.html">Orgone Accumulator!

Charge Up with Orgone Energy!

Charge water, food, clothes, and age wine in a real Orgone Energy Accumulator Charging Box!

Based on the discoveries of Wilhelm Reich, this specially designed box accumulates what Reich called the primordial "orgone energy" from the atmosphere. Others call this energy "chi", "prana" or "aether". An orgone accumulating device concentrates this energy which can be used to revitalize water and store food, treat plants, age wine, charge up your favorite T-shirt or boost cosmetics: just about anything!

A funnel attachment lets you direct this powerful energy to a hand, leg, plant, animal, or whatever needs a charge of this Life Energy.

The Charger Box is made according to Reich's original orgone accumulator requirements with the best possible materials and craftmanship. The inside measures 12" x 12" x 12", it sits on wheels for easy moving with a hinged door and an extra shelf. Now you can experiment and put this powerful energy to practical use.

All that for only $599.95

Yep, this quack invented an imaginary substance in 1940 and almost seventy years later woo-peddlers everywhere are still laughing all the way to the bank.

Google orgone muffins, I dare you.

[TZ]

1. Uhm the FDA wasn't around to investigate anything in 1947

What a pack of lies that is

[Codeine]

10. Am I missing a joke?

The FDA has been around since just after the turn of the century.

[TZ]

11. You might be right, I think I misread the timeline

http://www.fda.gov/oc/history/historyoffda/default.htm
They artticle talks about banning the devices in 1954 and that is indeed when the FDA started REALLY cracking down on snake oil merchants..they started with 1938 food and cosmetics act...

[Orrex]

2. The Matrix would have been so much cooler

If they machines had used the humans as Orgone generators instead of "heat batteries."


Take that, Ken Wilber!

[moggie]

12. That would stretch Keanu too much

But as an inert source of heat, he totally nailed it.

[cosmik debris]

3. We have Discovered many uses for Orgone....some of them are:

Absorbs and ELIMINATES chemtrails

-Neutralize the evilness of the towers!

-Repel evil entities and aliens, keep them out of your yard and home

-Protect your home, yard, then cover your neighborhood, town, or city!! If you don't protect your areas they're going to be stomping grounds for the Anuk and demons! These last days, when the veil is lifted, are not going to be friendly!

-Clean the air and help you breathe better. Orgone can help those with asthma and those with breathing problems.

-Eliminates toxins, poisons and radiation from the air

-Defeats chemtrails and keeps your skies clear

-Improves breathing, helps those with asthma

-Promotes natural health, keeps you from catching every flu virus under the sun

-Knocks out bad thunderstorms before they get to your area, chills out tornados headed your way

-Keeps demonic entities out of your home and yard.

-Nullifies the effects of the strong subliminal messaging NWO towers erected everywhere

-Stops ELF attacks

-Helps you sleep better

-Stops sleep abductions

-Emits positive energy, evil can't stand being around it!

--Stops headaches and migraines, improves overall health

-Those areas gifted with Orgone suffered the least amount of damage from Hurricanes and Tornadoes


http://www.orgoneblaster.com/

(yes, I Googled the muffin thing. It took a while to stop laughing.)

[WhollyHeretic]

4. I really thought you wrote that list yourself

I just keep thinking "this has got to be a put on". I found the blog of the person who runs that site http://sherryshriner.blogspot.com/ and then her book http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Codes-Revealed-Coming-Invasion/dp/0595335594/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236958155&sr=8-3

[beam me up scottie]

15. So did I.

If Indigos are such wise empaths, how can they fall for this crap hook, line and sinker?

[moggie]

7. Did someone say Elf attacks?

Mmmm...

Please tell me more about these "subliminal messaging NWO towers". Am I being subliminally manipulated every time I use my mobile phone?

[beam me up scottie]

14. I laughed until I cried, but not because it was funny.

I wonder how much of this stuff is sold by people who know it's bullshit.

[JitterbugPerfume]

26. Damn !

where can I get me some of that :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[WhollyHeretic]

5. I think one of the worst things about woos is that it's impossible to freakin' parody them

That link that cosmik debris posted really seems like an over-the-top parody. I really can't wrap my brain around the fact that people buy that crap.

[beam me up scottie]

16. That's one of the best things about woos if you're selling orgone accumulators :)

Or any of the other stuff marketed to crystal clutchers.

[WhollyHeretic]

23. Well I was thinking of selling carbon pills that clean your chakra and make you

crap diamonds while leaving your innards with a fresh patchouli scent. I don't know if the idea is crazy enough to sell well though.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

6. I like that they wove in an anti-communist conspiracy theory

Nice.

[salvorhardin]

8. You don't see that anymore.

Anti-communist conspiracy theories make me feel all nostalgic.

[moggie]

9. That's because flouridation worked

I agree about the nostalgia: the Obama = Commie thing is so delightfully retro, like tailfins on cars.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

25. I like that old timey feeling

[salvorhardin]

27. I know

Makes me want to go out and rent Red Dawn.

[beam me up scottie]

17. Yeah, those damn commies just hate orgasms!

:rofl:

[uppityperson]

13. Sounds like G. Lucas combines with paper folding.

Use The Force, fold that paper into a crane.

[beam me up scottie]

18. You know, you could make a lot more money selling woo than nursing.

It's like Avon, only easier. Nobody ever returns anything.

[uppityperson]

19. I came up with a whole set of stuff to make money off massage therapy.

How you make money there is sell a product and a trademarked "modality" (I really hate that word, just call it a style, or type). It involved a CD of Special Sounds, a Special set of speakers to put under the massage table/retrofitting unless someone wanted to buy the table WITH the speakers already attached, AND a specific set of movements/ specific routine along with the terminology to properly Confuse and Impress.

Turns out there are already people doing this. Dang. MrUP and I had such fun thinking this up one night, giggling at each other at who could come up with the most bizarre unethical bit.

[beam me up scottie]

21. It's fun, isn't it? We've toyed with the idea a few times in here.

Sadly, we could never come up with anything so ridiculous, so preposterous and so insidious that it could out-woo the creations of professional
woo-peddlers.

[uriel1972]

20. Speaking of orgone energy

Alan Moore (remember him) had a Supreme comic episode where Reich appearing as Orgone Boy with an orgone ray gun. It was hilarious.

[beam me up scottie]

22. Egad. I googled "Orgone Boy" since it sounds hilarious, but I hit the mother load of woo instead.

Courtesy of http://www.skepticfiles.org/misc3/orgone1.htm">The Skeptic Tank

ORGONE.1 By: Pete Porro

Excerpted from the Fall 1988 "Skeptical Inquirer" - the Journal of the
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
(CSICOP) Vol.13, No.1

***

Orgone energy - an energy no physicist outside orgonomy
circles has detected - was "discovered" by Wilhelm Reich
(1897-1956), who began his tragic career an an Austrian
associate of Freud. After being expelled from the German
Communist Party, and later from the International Psychoanalytic
Association, Reich eventually settled in the United States,
where he established a "laboratory" at Rangeley, Maine. Reich
first discovered orgone energy in living things, hence its
name, but he soon became convinced that it was a primeval
force responsible for the evolution of the universe, for
gravity, for life, and for the energy released in sexual
orgasms. He announced that he had created living cells from
inorganic matter and that cancer cells are actually protozoa
that "have a tail and move in the manner of fish." Orgone
energy, he insisted, made the sky blue and caused stars to
twinkle, as if physicists hadn't long understood such phenomena.

***

Unable to get published in mainstream journals, Reich came more
and more to resemble a movie version of the mad scientist. He
likened himself to such martyrs as Socrates, Bruno, Galileo, and
Jesus. Soon he was discovering that orgone had a destructive side
he called "DOR," an acronym for Deadly Orgone Energy. To dispel
the DOR that accumulated in the atmosphere, Reich invented what
he called a "cloudbuster"(Note: See the now rare Donald Sutherland
Video with that British Singer - Tom Mickus). It consisted of
long parallel pipes, their empty interiors "grounded" by hollow
cables to a source of flowing water. Like a lightening rod, the
machine was supposed to draw DOR from the sky. To his amazement,
Reich found that his machine would also condense clouds and
produce rain. "One may create clouds in the cloud-free sky in a
certain manner by disturbing the eveness in the distribution of
the atmospheric orgone energy...The more clouds that are present
and the heavier the clouds, the easier it is to induce growth
of clouds and finally rain"

***

This was topped by a still more sensational discovery. Reich
observed that when his cloudburster was operating it attracted
EA's. EA stood for Energy Alpha, Reich's term for a UFO. (Reich
was fond of acronyms like HIG for Hoodlums in Government, EPPO
for Emotional Plague Prevention Office, and dozens of others.)
EA's are propelled by orgone motors that give off vast quantities
of DOR. At first Reich thought this was an innocent by-product
of spaceships, but soon became convinced that evil aliens were
spying on him and intentionally damaging the area. Fortunately
his cloudbuster drained the DOR from their motors, forcing the
EA's to flee.

In 1954, when Reich banished his first EA, he recorded the
great event in his notebook: "Tonight for the first time in the
history of man, the war waged for ages by living beings from
outer space upon this earth...was reciprocated...with positive
results." The battle took place in Arizona. Here is how Reich's
son Peter described it in A Book of Dreams, a touching biography
of his father:

I was just about to go back downstairs
when I saw it, hovering in the south. I
watched it for a minute. It pulsated and
glowed. Then I ran to get daddy. He was
sitting in his work room at a long desk
writing in one of his red ledger books.
"Daddy, I spotted one. In the east. It
looks pretty big." Reich's daughter, Eva, and her husband,
Bill.] Bill pulled out his binoculars.
"Boy, it sure is something," he said,
handing the glasses to Eva. She looked
for a while and said, "I knew it would
come ." Daddy took off his hat and
pushed his hand through his long silvery
hair. "I wish I knew if this was an
attack or if they were just observing
the Earth."
* * *
I moved the cloudbuster slowly from one
side of the EA to the other. I let it
draw on the right side for a while and
then dipped it slowly like a baby's cradle
on a yo-yo and rubbed back and forth at the
sky beneath it before coming back up to the
other side. I let the cloudbuster orunize
on either side...
"Why its gone!" Bill said...
Daddy said, "That was very good Peeps,
very good. You are a real good little soldier
because you have discovered a new way to
disable EA's. I am very proud of you."

You just can't make this stuff up.

[LeftishBrit]

24. One of my favourite accounts of the Reichian movement..

comes from Stuart Sutherland's "Breakdown". Sutherland was a research psychologist at Sussex University, who suffered from bipolar disorder and wrote this book, of which the first half is about his own illness and its treatment, and the second half more generally about mental illness and its treatments, conventional and unconventional.

On Reich:

"The flavour of dottiness that surrounds Reich can be brought out by a personal experience of my own. In 1954, out of idle curiosity, I visited a community of Reich's disciples. They lived in a commune some time before this style of life became fashionable with the young. The commune occupied several Nissen huts in a pinewood in a deserted airfield. Leaving my car outside a gate bearing the name "Communitas", I walked through the trees toward the nearest hut. On my way, I stooped to pick up a pine-cone. A window shot up and a voice bellowed: "Put that down - it's mine!" Evidently, their ideas about sharing property did not extend to me. Nevertheless, I was received with kindness and given a cup of tea.

The commune had been founded by 11 adults - 5 men and 6 women. They were vague about the number and the parentage of the children, but there appeared to be about thirty or forty running about naked and unkempt. Walking round the airfield, I was puzzled by the fact that one strip of runway had been carefully weeded and levelled - the other runways were long since disused, and were covered with weeds and cracks. The inhabitants, so they told me, had received a message from the master (Reich) that if they tended a runway they might receive a visit from a flying saucer. When I asked if they were looking forward to this visitation, they said, "Of course - the crew will be Martians dressed in green, and they will bring a free issue of orgones, enough to last us for years."

They proudly showed up their orgone box, conveniently placed next to an excessively large double bed... I regretfully declined their invitation to spend half an hour in the box, largely because in order for the treatment to be efficacious, one had to sit in the nude and the temperature was little above freezing...

The group with whom I was talking (four women and a man) had told me that they had an exceptionally good library of the works of Reich and his disciples, and I expressed an interest in seeing it. They explained, somewhat shamefacedly, that although they had originally intended to share everything, there had been a schism in the commune over a doctrinal point: the remaining four men and two women were in a separate building; so was the library, and the two groups were not on speaking terms. They pointed out the building, where I was again treated with kindness and was given an opportunity to inspect the library. The second faction pointed out with sadness that they were excluded from the orgone box and described the suffering they were undergoing as a result. Since the first group had more academic inclinations than they had, it would have been a better arrangement if they had occupied the hut with the orgone box while the others had had access to the library. I was reminded of W. S. Gilbert's tale of the two castaways who divided a desert island between them to their mutual disadvantage:

On Peter's portion oysters grew - a delicacy rare.
But oysters were a delicacy Peter couldn't bear.
On Somers' side was turtle on the shingle lying thick,
Which Somers couldn't eat because it always made him sick."

[beam me up scottie]

28. "...if they tended a runway they might receive a visit from a flying saucer."

When I asked if they were looking forward to this visitation, they said, "Of course - the crew will be Martians dressed in green, and they will bring a free issue of orgones, enough to last us for years."

How sad.