Ridiculed at the time, the European-born psychiatrist is largely forgotten today, and his work on what he called orgone energy remains outside the scientific mainstream.
But a small number of scientists and other believers are working to advance his studies –- and resurrect his reputation.
(Via The Anomalist.)
I don't know enough about Reich's work to offer an informed opinion. Some of the guiding principles admittedly sound wacky, but is it too much to ask for a round of double-blind experiments to help settle the matter?
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Reich was, of course, never "discredited" only persecuted to death. He was basically an occultist without quite knowing it but made the mistake of trying to disguise his occultism ("orgone energy") as "science." His theories are "scientific" in the same sense that homeopathic medicine is "scientific," that is, only if you want to use the term in a kind of honorific way.
Unfortunately, the disreputability into which occultism has fallen as the result of the dominance of the dogmas of materialistic scientism requires the use of this term in this honorific sense to cover occult research. Would double-blind trials verify Reichian "orgone blankets" and "orgone boxes" (accumulators)? Only probably in the sense that homeopathic medicine has been BOTH verified AND "deverified" in various medical testings.
(I do so love making these kinds of grand pronouncements!)
--W.M. Bear
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