Von: joel carlinsky
Datum: Mo 14, Feb 2005 2:55
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This article was written in 1996. It was first posted to the OrgonomyMailing List, where it stired up quite a fuss, then published in PARANOIA magazine, and finally posted on the KEELYNET website, where it is still available. This version has been edited slightly. The instances of incompetent missuse of the cloudbuster described in this article are not the only ones. In the years since this article was written Dr. DeMeo has continued with his war against the environment and done a lot more damage. Someday I intend to write an article dealing with the additional harm he has done since this article was written.
Wilhelm Reich, in his book, "The Murder of Christ" spoke of the harm done to the cause of freedom by irresponsible "Freedom Peddlers" and warned about the possibility that his own work would be similarly usurped by "Orgonomy Peddlers" who would use it in harmful ways. As with so much Reich said, this warning has been ignored by many people favorably disposed toward Reich and his work, many of whom are supportingand encouraging individuals whose reckless and irresponsible misuse of Reich's discoveries and incompetent and misguided efforts to "prove Reich right" are causing serious ecological damage.
I wish to make clear that the criticism that follows is not directed at Reich and his theories, but only at the actions of certain present-day Reichians whom I regard as incompetent and irresponsible "Orgonomy Peddlers" of the type Reich warned about. I specifically am not contesting the facts of orgone biophysics, but the misguided application of those facts by one group of proponents of Reich's work, specifically, Dr. James DeMeo and his associates. I am convinced that Dr. DeMeo and his associates are doing a great deal of harm to the environment and innocent members of the public as well as hurting the long-term prospects for serious investigation of Reich's discoveries by ill- conceived cloudbusting operations conducted without proper ecological knowledge or concern for the environment. Dr. DeMeo's obsessive compulsion to convert unbelievers and his need togather statistics has resulted in devastation to ecosystems and other damages due to storms, floods, and freezing weather.
In 1989, DeMeo, then living in the San Francisco Bay area, conducted aseries of cloudbusting operations in the Arizona desert. As recounted in his article in "The Journal of Orgonomy", he first visited Arizona in March, two months before the rainy season starts, and within 3 days had produced rain. He subsequently visited Arizona one weekend each month during the 5-month rainy season and brought rain each time for a seasonal total of 5 times the normal rainfall for the area in which he was working. Now, in any area with a well-defined wet season and dry season, all native plant and animal species are adapted to the normal dry season and need it. Small burrowing mammals such as pocket mice, kangaroo rats, gophers, etc.give birth underground in the dry season; if it rains unexpectedly at the wrong time of year, the burrows flood and the infants drown; reptiles such as snakes, lizards, the desert tortoise, which is on the endangered species list, the gila monster, found only in Arizona, lay their eggs in the dry season under a thin coat of sand, just enough to hide them but allow the sun to incubate them. If it rains out of season, the sand is washed away and they lose a clutch of eggs. These small mammals and reptiles are the base of the food chain and if their population crashes so will that of the owls, coyotes, badgers, and other predators that depend on them.
In "Contact With Space", Reich described exactly what he did in Arizona. He spent 5 months in the desert. He drove 100 miles every day just to familiarize himself with the landscape so he could note any changes in it. By contrast, James DeMeo lived in Northern California and commuted to the desert one weekend a month. After 5 months of patient work, Reich succeeded in obtaining a lush growth of grass WITHOUT A DROP OF RAIN HAVING FALLEN ---- That's right! Reich, according to his own report, did not create rain in the desert and did not want to!
In fact, he explicitly says that rain would have made it impossible to obtain the increase in plant growth he did obtain, since it would have drowned the developing vegetation. Reich's goal, in which he was successful only after 5 months of patient daily labor, was not to make rain, but to revive the stagnant energy field of the desert to the point where it could regulate itself and produce rain at its own times, not according to some man-made schedule.
DeMeo misses this point entirely. He produces rain on an artificial schedule only to create impressive charts and graphs, ignoring the catastrophic effects of 5 times normal rainfall on all plant and animal species, and then, totally disregarding what Reich plainly said, claims to have "replicated" Reich's work in the desert. He repeatly refers to "Reich's rainmaking expedition" and to Reich "making rain in the desert" when in fact Reich specifically said he did not do so.
In more recent years DeMeo has undertaken two trips to Namibia to break droughts there with a cloudbuster. He also trained local operators and left equipment with them so that Namibia now has a permanent drought- abatement program in place. Under normal conditions -- normal for the last 5-6000 years, that is -- Southern Africa has a regular cycle of 3 or 4 good years followed by a drought year. In the dry years, the prevailing winds pick up millions of tons of dust and carry it out over the ocean. About half of it falls into the ocean where it provides silica and phosphates -- essential nutrients -- to the phytoplankton which are the base of the marine ecosystem food chain.
So in years when Southern Africa has droughts, life in the South Atlantic flourishes and in years Southern Africa has good rains, the South Atlantic marine life dies back. The remainder of the dust is carried over to Brazil, where it is the sole source of trace elements not found in Brazilian soils which are essential nutrients for many tropical rainforest plant species. Like the sea-life, the Brazilian rainforest therefore flourishes in years when Namibia has a drought and declines in years when Namibia has plenty of rain. By establishing a permanent drought abatement facility in Namibia, DeMeo has contributed to irreparable harm to the global environment.
He simply doesn't know -- or care -- anything about ecology. In another case of ecological ignorance and irresponsibility, he reports in one of his publications that to make up a water deficit during a recent series of dry years in California, he extended the rainy season by a month one year and 6 weeks another year. I have spoken to a biologist at the Point Reyes Bird Observatory who tells me that in both years in question they lost a significant percentage of babybirds due to inclement weather during the normally dry nesting season. Baby birds get pneumonia in wet weather. Incidentally, some of the birds affected were on the endangered species list.
DeMeo has also done cloudbusting operations in the Middle East. I have documentation in my files showing numerous deaths of people in the region as a result of catastrophic weather during this period. Lest I seem to be singling Dr. DeMeo out for exceptionally harsh treatment, some of his associates are just as unaware of ecology and almost as harmful to the environment.
DeMeo is the leader of a group called the C.O.R.E. (for Cosmic Orgone Engineering) network. Another member of the group, Mr. John Schleining, has taken it upon himself to play Smokey the Bear and stop forest fires in Oregon in recent years. According to their own reports published in the "Journal of Orgonomy", they have caused up to 2.5 inches of rain in a dry summer month which normally has about .25 inch. This is not drought relief; it is blatant disruption.The time to break a years- long drought is in the normal rainy season, not in what is normally the dry season. Despite what Smokey told these people in grade school, natural wildfires have an important role in forest life-cycles and should not be prevented. They open up stands of trees so some can grow, recycle nutrients back into the soil, help some kinds of seeds germinate, and clear away underbrush thatwould otherwise accumulate enough in several years to cause an eventualreally disastrous fire.By meddling in normal forest fire cycles, Schleining and Nagy are following an outmoded fire-suppression policy which the Forest Service now realizes was a mistake and has abandoned.
According to the same report in the "Journal of Orgonomy", the cloudbuster was also used to prevent fire in another way besides increasing rainfall: it was used to decrease the number of lightning strikes in the area. Now, aside from its role in creating useful and necessary fires, lightning fixes atmospheric nitrogen into compounds plants can utilize. For plant species that lack a symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria on their roots, including many temperate-zone forest trees, lightning plays an essential role as a source of fertilizer, so this application of the cloudbuster, far from benefiting the environment, amounts to mere vandalism of Oregon's forests.
Cloudbusting, to be carried out in a responsible manner, requires anecologist as part of the team. Otherwise, even with a thorough knowledge of orgonomy and best intentions, harm will result. For any large-scale or long-term project, an environmental impact study prepared by an ecologist familiar with the area is a must. This is standard procedure nowadays for all government agencies and large corporations; without it, cloudbusting is just another environmental problem. It will not help orgonomy to become known as a form of pollution. Although at early stages of his cloudbusting work, Reich did use terms like"engineering" and "weather control", by the end of his career he had superseded such concepts and, drawing the analogy of the difference betweena dictator and a guide, stressed that the function of cloudbusting is not to control weather in a dictatorial manner, but to remove blockages that obstruct normal atmospheric functioning and restore the ability of the atmosphere to regulate itself.
Cloudbusting in Reich's concept is not technology, but atmospheric medicine; the healing of a sick atmosphere to restore atmospheric self- regulation, after which it should be left alone. People who use terms like "weathercontrol" and "engineering" to describe cloudbusting miss the point entirely. Reich was very clear on this point. DOR fields -- some natural, some caused by nuclear and/or electromagnetictechnology -- obstruct normal atmospheric conditions. The cloudbuster can and should be used to remove such obstacles and heal the atmosphere. It should not be used to impose an artificial, man-made climate regime for political or economic purposes. In his promotional literature, Dr. DeMeo speaks glowingly of his wish to"green the worlds' deserts" and "turn barren deserts into lush pastures."But what he thinks of as "barren" deserts are in fact complex and fragile dryland ecosystems composed of hundreds of plant and animal species that are well- adapted to their dry habitat over thousands of years.
Artifically increasing rainfall to the point of creating "lush pastures" will doom many of them to extinction. The increase in pasturage of the type that will support domestic cattle will result in the exploitation for cattle grazing of habitat of many native life-forms now protected by the fact that they live in regions too dry for humans to exploit. Cattle grazing, and the land-degradation it causes, is a major cause of wildlife extinctions and ongoing desertification in much of the world, including much of the desertification that Dr. DeMeo wrongly ascribes to atmospheric stasis. A short-sighted program to green the world's deserts will only result in a further impoverished biosphere. It should be noted that although there are no laws specifically regulating cloudbusting, The National Environmental Policy Act requires that any project that will affect the environment prepare a environmental impact study and have a means -- such as public hearings -- by which members of the public can voice objections and exercise some input into decisions that can affect their lives. The Endangered Species Act prohibits any project that would destroy members of a listed species or their habitat. And The Wilderness Act prohibits anyaction that would modify the natural conditions of a designated wilderness area, which in the Western United States would be impossible to avoid, given the extent of the area covered by a typical cloudbusting operation.
The authorities, of course, make no effort to enforce such laws in the case of cloudbusting because they regard it as ineffective. It is extremely hypocritical to take advantage of their disbelief to violate laws with impunity while simultaneously denouncing them for their refusal to believe in the cloudbuster's effectiveness. In spite of the failure of the environmental protection to enforce the laws, those laws are reasonable and justified for the protection of the environment and a responsible person who cares about the Earth and its creatures would voluntarily comply. I have harshly criticized Dr. DeMeo and his associates, but I have tried to make my criticisms substantive.
In the past, Dr. DeMeo and his friends have responded to criticisms
by name- calling and personal attacks on the alleged motivations, affiliations,
character, psychiatric condition, lifestyle, criminal history, and previous
publications of the critic, all of which is totally irrelevant. DeMeo also
tends to confuse any attack on his own work with an attack on Reich and
orgone theory in general and frequently responds with a recital of the
wrongs inflicted on Reich by the F.D.A. 40 years ago. I therefore want
to point out that ad hominum attacks and rehashing old grievances will
hardly constitute a rebuttal to the specific criticisms I have made. I
am available for consultation and would welcome correspondence from anyone
who wants information on orgonomy or has anything to say on the subject.
Comments on issues raised in this article are invited.
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