Disinfo and Sexual Slander of Wilhelm Reich in Nature Magazine, and a Retraction.
Nature magazine, considered one of the "top" science journals, has long been known to be heavily biased in favor of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms, as well as having cozy relationships with the anti-science "skeptic clubbers". They have systematically engaged in unethical attacks upon natural healing methods, as well as censoring out critics of popular mainstream ideas - as with their dirty tricks and outright censoring of scientists Jacque Benveniste and Peter Duesberg.
So it was not too surprising when they consulted with an "art's journalist" to do a full-page gossip column in their pages, wherein several paragraphs slandered Wilhelm Reich. The original item was so:
Josie Glausiusz, "Pre-digital dreams", 488:270, 16 August 2012.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7411/full/488279a.html
In this article, writer Glausiusz repeated slanders from the 1940s, falsely accusing Reich of offering the orgone accumulator as method for "curing cancer", and as a sexual appliance which could "increase orgastic potency". Glausiusz also confusedly implied that Alan Turing -- one of the famous British code-breakers who significantly advanced the Allied cause during World War II -- was forced into Reich's form of body-oriented psychotherapy, "to cure his homosexuality", after which he committed suicide in 1954. But Reich had no British trainees in his methods at that early date, and in fact Turing had been subjected to hormone injections, by court orders when his homosexuality became publicly known. While Reich considered homosexuality to be a neurosis, he was sympathetic to their plight and had openly advocated for decriminalization and tolerance.
Reich's meeting with Einstein was also misrepresented, where Glausiusz claimed "Einstein pronounced it (the accumulator) a dud". But in fact, after corresponding with each other, Einstein invited Reich to his Princeton home where they talked for 4-5 hours. After observing Reich's demonstrations of apparatus, Einstein spent several weeks making independent tests, declaring in a 1941 letter he had confirmed the thermal anomaly inside the orgone accumulator. Everything Glausiusz wrote about Reich was a half-truth or lie, and the language of it left the reader with the impression of Reich as a sleazy crackpot, which might have been the premeditated goal.
After the Glausiusz article appeared, I wrote a four-page rebuttal article titled "In Defense of Wilhelm Reich", correcting the errors and presenting a heavily-cited discussion on the many published articles and books which reported new experimental results affirming and verifying Reich's original findings. These studies were undertaken by medical and scientific professionals, working within mainstream universities or private institutes and clinics, produced under excellent control and sometimes double-blinded procedures, and published in peer-reviewed forums, such as university doctoral dissertations or scholarly science journals.
This rebuttal article was firstly circulated privately to a number of other scientists and physicians, notably those whose work had been cited in it, asking for additional signatures in support of Reich. A public call to "Stand Up for Wilhelm Reich" was also given, and I was most pleased at the positive response. A total of 22 professional scientists and physicians with the MD or PhD degree, as well as a few MSc and PhD candidates, quickly agreed to sign on, as a public protest against the on-going slanders of Wilhelm Reich and his orgonomic science. This rebuttal article with the 22 signators was then submitted to Nature magazine for publication consideration.
Nature rejected the article within 24 hours, also deleting it from their on-line submission system thereby making appeals of the rejection impossible. A shorter Letter to the Editor was then composed and submitted, with the same signators, and this did gain some traction, especially when I informed them we would publish the longer article in another peer-reviewed scientific journal. Two months of back-and-forth emails then transpired. Nature editors finally refused to publish the shorter letter. However, they did agree to print their own "Correction" to the Glausiusz article, based upon documents provided to them which allowed no "wiggle room" for alternative interpretations. Here is what they wrote, though it hardly covers the issues:
Nature, Volume 491, Page 191 (08 November 2012)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7423/full/491191b.html
A review of 'Ghosts in the Machine' (J. Glausiusz Nature 488, 279; 2012) reiterated incorrect information provided by the exhibition that Alan Turing underwent orgone therapy to 'cure' his homosexuality; he was in fact treated with hormones. Furthermore, Einstein did not actually pronounce the orgone energy accumulator "a dud" (for details, see his letter of 7 February 1941 in W. Reich The Einstein Affair Orgone Institute Press; 1953).
PDF Download of page:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7423/pdf/491191b.pdf
The whole procedure was unpleasant, rather like pulling teeth, but I suppose this is something of a small victory, a "first" in the history of Orgonomy, to have even that small public retraction and correction appear within a major scientific journal. However, one must question how Nature would permit such an article as Glausiusz's to be published in the first instance, where sexual slander obtained by a city-beat non-scientist journalist, repeating "stuff she heard" at an art museum display in New York City, is published without any fact-checking. Well, that is typical, isn't it? Reich has become the "whipping boy" for "all the people who matter" in the literary arts scene, as well as within certain lofty scientific circles. Nature magazine also has lapsed into a careless attitude of maliciousness towards scientific dissenters, and uses unscientific terms such as "deniers" (with open comparisons to Holocaust deniers) to describe critics of the "infectious HIV" hypothesis, or the "CO2 warming" hypothesis, as if their ex-cathedra declarations were so absolutely certain that mainstream views cannot possibly be questioned. Such mechanisms of ridicule are also used by the "skeptic clubs" and have no place in science.
The original rebuttal article "In Defense of Reich" will soon be submitted to another peer-reviewed science journal which has expressed interest, and announced when it becomes available. A longer public petition will also be developed, where other signators beyond the original 22 can add their names in solidarity, to Stand Up for Wilhelm Reich.
More later, and thanks for your interest.
James DeMeo, PhD
Director, Orgone Biophysical Research Lab (OBRL)
Ashland, Oregon, USA
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PS. If you are glad to see this kind of research and public educational activity, please consider to support James DeMeo's research by a donation to OBRL. You can do this easily by credit card or by PayPal, by using the following link:
Checks can also be sent, made out to "OBRL" or "Orgone Biophysical Research Lab":
PO Box 1148, Ashland, Oregon 97520.
Also plan ahead to give the following books as gifts to your friends and family over the holidays. Or purchase for yourself if you do not yet have them. These titles are available from the Natural Energy Works on-line bookstore (
http://www.naturalenergyworks.net ) as well as in the USA and Internationally on any of the Amazon.com (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, etc.) and some other international book-catalog websites.
*The Orgone Accumulator Handbook: Wilhelm Reich's Life Energy Science and Healing Tools for the 21st Century, With Construction Plans
*Saharasia: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence, In the Deserts of the Old World
*Heretic's Notebook: Emotions, Protocells, Ether-Drift and Cosmic Life Energy, with New Research Supporting Wilhelm Reich
UPDATE, May 2014: We now have a full webpage on the Wikipedia slanders of Wilhelm Reich, with additional weblinks to other sites detailing their long history of misinformation, attacks, slander and defamation against unorthodox scientific and health-related ideas. See here::
http://www.orgonelab.org/wikipedia.htm
Once again:
WARNING: WIKIPEDIA LIES. POISONED WELL. DO NOT DRINK.
The Wikipedia website entries are popular, but can be altered by virtually any anonymous person who desires to scribble some unsubstantiated personal opinion, gossip or deliberate deceit into their pages, or to erase legitimate and accurate materials which they object to. Over the years, the Wikipedia entries on "Wilhelm Reich", "orgone energy", "orgonomy", "orgone accumulator", "cloudbusting", and so on, have occasionally shown some allegiance to facts, but typically degenerate shortly thereafter when invaded by vandals. Important factual materials then get erased, and substantial falsehood and even slander is inserted -- usually by those identifiable as professional "skeptic clubbers" and other "activists" with a personal grudge against Reich's ideas and discoveries. None of the revisionist scribblers uses their real name when doing this, of course, and so the whole thing boils down to some insipid and foul "consensus" where the ignorant and hostile anonymous majority determines what is allowed, and knowledgeable dissenters are basically thrown out the door.
About five years back, or longer, I spent many hours correcting false statements and adding documentary citations onto the Wilhelm Reich Wikipedia page, detailing new scientific papers, academic dissertations, published articles in peer-reviewed journals and new books which supported Reich's biophysics. At one point, they were erased and deleted by some malcontent, substituted with words declaring no such independent professional corroboration of Reich existed. This allowed other kinds of slander to persist, as without scientific verifications, then the falsehood of "Reich the crackpot" could be asserted without opposition. I then spent additional hours reposting the materials. Now they have vanished again, and "Reich the crackpot" is back into Wikipedia. All the newer scientific evidence validating his findings, indicating their importance for psychology, biology, physics, cosmology and atmospheric science, etc., has been fully deleted.
By contrast, nearly every published paper that ever had bad words about Reich, even if filled with foul lies and fabrications, including or especially the new malicious and lie-filled book by C. Turner
"Adventures in the Orgasmatron", gets quoted as if it was "important intellectual commentary" validating dismissal of his life and work as a wasteland. By contrast, experimental confirmations of his findings, undertaken by professionals working in universities or private laboratories and published in peer-reviewed journals, are simply erased from existence, in rather outrageous
Lies of Omission.
Wikipedia thereby helps to publicly spread a fully malicious misrepresentation of Reich's life and work, and about the science of orgonomy more generally. Wikipedia entries on Reich should therefore not be consulted as factual or accurate material.
They are only valid as evidentiary expressions of the open war against his findings which began in Europe in the 1930s, when Nazis and Communists maliciously assaulted him in newspapers, put him on death-lists and burned his books. This same malicious aggression to Get Reich continued in the USA after 1947 when a tidal wave of mainstream media slander began, leading to his death in prison, and the burning of his books. Today, people of similar upset emotional backgrounds aim to utterly destroy the legacy of his research, through continued slander and distortion. Wikipedia is now a leader in this effort.
Do a search on the words Wikipedia+Lies or Wikipedia+slander to review a host of websites put up by scholars and others on the subject, their own small protests against the ant-army of scribblers who have plenty of time on their hands compared to anyone who actually works for a living.
Consequently, we wish to post up a warning sign:
WARNING: WIKIPEDIA LIES. POISONED WELL. DO NOT DRINK.
These are the reasons why reputable and serious university professors will scold or even flunk a student if they dare to cite Wikipedia as a reference source, doubly so for any controversial subject.
See here for info:
Permission is granted for this email notice to be freely circulated, but only in its entirety.
Thank you.