For the Record
by James DeMeo, Ph.D.
28 Nov. 1996
Originally circulated privately,
now approved for posting at the OBRL web site.
**********
(( For those unfamiliar with the background of the following materials, kindly review articles posted at the OBRL web site posted under the heading "Response to the Skeptic Groups". Orgonomy remains a controversial science, nearly 40 years after Reich's death, and the same constellation of institutions and characters continue to hound and attack those who follow in Reich's track. http://www.orgonelab.org/skeptics.htm ))
In an unsolicited letter from several weeks ago, Mr. Joel Carlinsky
confessed to me that he was helping various "skeptic group" members, behind the scenes, towards the preparation of different published anti-Reich materials, as described in points #1, #2, and #3 below. This basic information was posted out to our e-mailing list (and on the Orgonomy Mailing List) some time ago, but I did not previously reveal that it was Carlinsky who provided me with the photocopies of the pertinent pages from those publications, and the confessional letter describing his own behind-the-scenes role. He was quite proud of this "accomplishment" and boasted about it.
This week, I got another confessional threat-letter from him, in which he states:
"...If you had been willing to work with me from the beginning, we might
have done a lot of good together. Instead,...I was forced by your actions
to turn against orgonomy and seek to destroy it. You created an enemy ...
You also bring retribution upon those around you; your ardent championing
of Peter Duesberg has led to my attacks on his work, which I would
otherwise have ignored; innocent Reichian therapists may find their
livlihoods suffering as a result of your forcing me to discredit orgonomy;
and cancer patients will posibly die because you forced me to ridicule and
discredit the accumulator. I assume you are not happy about all this, but
you consistantly refuse to take responsibility for the forseeable
consequences of your actions. Mildred Brady wrote only two articles about
Reich; I won't slak off that easily. How much damage do you think I will
unltimate be able to do to you and orgonomy if I keep it up? Will
"Greensprings" enter the American vocabulary along with "Waco" and "Ruby
Ridge"? Is that what you want? Does your identification with Reich make you
seek martyrdom?... ORGONOMY DELENDA EST!" (author's emphasis)
My "actions", to which he refers, are: Following his many disturbing
"solicitations" over the years, I have simply but consistently refused to
"work with" Mr. Carlinsky (especially after learning of his burglary of the
Reich Museum, his cooperation with the skeptics groups, and his exposing of
Jerry and Desire Eden to radioactive materials). His threats and
repetitive widely-distributed smear-letters preceeded, by many years, my
first written articles defending my name and work, and Reich's name and
work, from ongoing destructive attacks.
Carlinsky's recent letters to me follow his attempts, since Summer 1996, to
disrupt several scholarly conferences: The Reichian body-oriented
psychotherapy conference in Boston, our OBRL Greensprings 96 summer seminar on "Today's Children", the NOCIRC 4th International Conference on the Sexual Mutilation of Children, and conference sponsored by a pro-Velikovsky group in Portland, Oregon.
As I've said before, Carlinsky has similar goals to, and is working closely
with CSICOP and the skeptics, and is out to destroy Reich's work and
orgonomy in total. Among the skeptics, he offers up his own anti-Reich,
anti-orgonomy articles for publication, or supplies snooped-out information
by which the skeptic's main authors can make their anti-Reich attacks even
more polished and destructive (ie, the "Skeptical Inquirer" smears by
Martin Gardner and Henry Bauer). Among the Reichian groups, Carlinsky
*disinforms* to fragment and sow dissention, as with the fabricated smears
against my work in his "Orgonomy Peddlers" article. Incredibly, this same
poisonous disinformation smear article is today wilfully and prominently
displayed at Mr. Jammerling Ogg's PORE website, portrayed as "serious
material" alongside text from Wilhelm Reich's books and other materials
taken from the Wilhelm Reich Museum. Surely, this constitutes a "first"
for Carlinsky, whose anti-orgonomy articles previously had only been
published in the "skeptic" journals and newsletters, and in the totally-sleazy pornographic magazine "Edios".
James DeMeo, Ph.D.
Note: For more information on Mr. Carllinsky's relentless smears and attacks directed against the work of Wilhelm Reich, and against James DeMeo, see the articles here and here.
*********
29 October 1996
Subject: Continuing Distortion and Smears of Wilhelm Reich's Discoveries
Orgone Biophysical Research Lab
E-mail to: info(at)orgonelab.org
(Copy into your email program and insert the "@" symbol)
http://www.orgonelab.org
Forwarded News Item
**********
Several new books and articles recently came to our attention which smear
and distort the research and discoveries of Wilhelm Reich. For historical
purposes, we wish to keep a record of these items, and request that xeroxes
or summaries of any similar recent items be forwarded to OBRL. The war
against Reich's discoveries continues, with CSICOP (Committee for the
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) taking a lead
position, from where they exert influences over many academic publications
and scholarly scientific societies. Note that CSICOP, and their various
academic affiliates, also have been leaders in the documented and ongoing
unethical attacks against other scientific pioneers, such as Jacques
Benveniste, Peter Duesberg, Halton Arp, and Immanuel Velikovsky. The
professional "super-critics" who attack and censor Reich and his
contemporary followers are the same ones who attack and censor Benveniste,
Duesberg, Arp, Velikovsky, etc.
Item #1: "The Dictionary of Metaphysical Healthcare: Alternative Medicine,
Paranormal Healing, and Related Methods" by Jack Raso, edited by Manfred
Kroger, Foreword by Saul Green. Prometheus Books (Publishing house
informally affiliated with CSICOP) The book contains uncomplimentary and
distorted entries on "Orgone Therapy", "Reich Blood Test", "Reichian
Breathwork" and "Reichian Therapy" using descriptive terms such as
"allegedly", "purportedly", "supposedly", and "pseudodiagnosis" as a
put-down in the typical CSICOP fashion. The author, Raso, is a Board
Member of the National Council Against Health Fraud, which is widely known
for its attacks against all forms of natural healing, including nutritional
approaches, homeopathy, and therapeutic touch. He also was a recent
speaker at a CSICOP annual meeting.
Item #2: "Mind Games: Are We Obsessed With Therapy", by Robert Baker,
Prometheus Books.
Mini-chapter appears, titled: "Orgonomy: Wilhelm Reich and the Legacy of
Freud and Jung". Presents a few accurate paragraphs on Reich's early work,
but quickly degenerates into typical CSICOP smears and nastiness,
describing Reich's American period of research as being "so bizarre as to
defy belief". Inaccurately describes the "orgone box", "cure for
everything", "Cloud Buster", "weird discoveries... brought derision and
hoots of laughter", "Reich was deranged", "paranoid", etc. The chapter
ends with a quote from a prior anti-orgonomy smear article by Joel
Carlinsky, who is described as "one of orgonomy's most persistent and
effective critics"; the quote further distorts Reich's therapeutic
discoveries, and gives a malicious description of the American College of
Orgonomy.
Item #3: "Sexpols, Orgone Energy, Cloud Busters, and Bions: Remembered,
but Not Relevant" (Book Review of "Beyond Psychology") Skeptical Inquirer,
September/October 1995. Bauer is Dean of Arts and Sciences at Virginia
Polytech University, and a Senior Fellow and Book Review Editor of the
Society for Scientific Exploration. In this article, Bauer quotes much
from Reich's personal diary, but understands little or nothing, and is
entirely unsympathetic to the personal situation Reich was facing at the
time: a controversial Jew on the run from Nazis in Germany and Denmark.
Bauer makes various out-of-context quotes from Reich's personal diary to
attack Reich personally, and also to attack Reich's scientific discoveries.
Bauer announces: "This book provides copious support for those who would
debunk Reich's scientific pretentions..." as if picking apart Reich's
personal life -- or any scientist's personal life -- was a valid method to
evaluate their laboratory experimental findings! Bauer's distortion is
more than casual, however, given that he previously had sent to him, in his
role as Book Review editor of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, a lot
of documentary materials and bibliographic citations of published studies
which confirmed many of Reich's scientific discoveries. Bauer deliberately
ignored all the materials placed into his hands and, by publishing in
Skeptical Inquirer, insured no rebuttal would ever be published in that
magazine. A more lengthy review of Bauer's "article", with review of
subsequent personal correspondence -- and a discussion of Bauer's similar
unfair and unethical tactics used against the work of Immanuel Velikovsky
-- will appear in a forthcoming edition of Pulse of the Planet, the
research journal of the Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory.
Copyright (C) 1996, All Rights Reserved by James DeMeo
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