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Author: James DeMeo
Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory,
Ashland, Oregon, 97520 USA
The first systematic study of the cloudbuster -- a large passive antenna, similar to the lightning rod, but which is grounded into living water ("highly structured" or "activated" water) – was undertaken by myself in late 1970s field trials at the University of Kansas. The work included 12 tests for increasing clouds and rain during normal, non-drought conditions, 3 tests for decreasing clouds and rain during episodes of heavy rains, and controlled photographic analysis of the effects of the apparatus on fair-weather cumulus clouds. The tests to decrease rain produced no apparent result, but the other two tests did, and my Thesis on the subject was accepted.(1) The study area for that work was the entire state of Kansas, which approximates the anticipated range of influence of the apparatus.
Subsequent individual field trials were undertaken by myself during mild to severe droughts in Florida,(2) Illinois,(2) Georgia / S. Carolina,(3) Arizona,(4) Washington State,(4) and California (5) Results were very positive, with a restoration of natural rainfall episodes generally within 48 hours after operations commenced. Cloudbusting experiments have also proceeded in arid and semi-arid lands, in the Southwestern USA,(6) Greece,(7) Cyprus,(7) Israel,(8) Namibia,(9) and Eritrea (10). These latter cases often constituted more definitive case studies, given the drier desert conditions under which the apparatus was tested. Nevertheless, the results were also positive in these cases, sometimes far beyond our expectations, with the termination of drought conditions and development of significant rains over adjacent desert areas.
Not all of these field operations have been subjected to a complete data analysis, but most have, using weather data from the National Weather Service or other official sources. In particular, I point to my 1989 study undertaken in Arizona, where five operations were made with the cloud buster on pre-announced dates. An observed average-doubling of rainfall occurred for a full one-week period after operations commenced.(6) Results of approximately 80% of my experimental field operations have been positive, with published field reports in non-mainstream but peer-reviewed journals, and regular abstracted paper presentations to various scholarly societies (Association for Arid Lands Studies, Association of American Geographers, American Association for the Advancement of Science, International Society for Biometeorology, American College of Orgonomy) and International Symposia(Congress on Geo-Cosmic Relations Amsterdam; Relations of Biological and Physicochemical Processes with Solar Activity and Other Environmental Factors Pushchino, Russia).
Taken together, my findings have confirmed the original 1950s claims of the inventor of the cloudbuster, Wilhelm Reich.(11) To clarify, I am not the inventor of the cloudbuster, nor the first person to test it and announce positive results.(12) I am, however, the first natural scientist to undertake systematic and ongoing field tests of the cloudbuster, with presentation of significant positive results within formal academic institutions for open discussion and debate. As such, my work constitutes a corroboration and verification of Reich's prior findings.
Usually, this form of corroboration is sufficient to open the doors of science to professional advancement, funding possibilities, and so forth. In the present case, the positive results observed and reported have had just the opposite effect, in the USA at least. At the "official" academic level, Reich's biological and atmospheric discoveries are still widely misunderstood and irresponsibly misrepresented. A major problem for the scientist who is serious to investigate Reich's findings is the unfortunate fact that his major books and research journals were literally "banned and burned" by the US Government in the 1950s, in a legal case with much broader historical significance than the Scopes Monkey Trial.(13) Most of Reich's central experimental protocols appear only in those same destroyed books and journals, which are difficult to obtain and not widely found in libraries.
In my view, Reich was a genius, and his findings provide a sound and productive basis forunderstanding many atmospheric processes and problems, as well as providing a very practical approach (Cosmic Orgone Engineering, or cloudbusting, as it is popularly called) to actually do something constructive in regions suffering drought or desert spreading.
For example:
Reich appears to have been the first scientist to describe the role of atmospheric haze as a precipitation-blocking factor in drought and desert atmospheres.(11) Reid ' Bryson's work on desert dusts is better known,(14) for sure, but the dust theory suffers from the assumption that "haze" is composed 100% of particulates. Reich attributed at least some of what we call haze to a stagnated form of the atmospheric orgone, which impedes the transmission of light. (Recall that Reich's orgone is an aether-like energy continuum, upon which the mechanics of light-transmission may be dependent.) Bryson's arguments, like those of Reich, were never widely acknowledged by atmospheric scientists. But from field observations, it is apparent that "desert haze" can be softened and observably reduced with a few minutes work with the cloud buster. If haze were fully composed of particulates, this would not be possible. Based upon Reich's theory, and data on atmospheric haze, I have produced a comprehensive Desert-Drought Map which suggests a trans-oceanic global interconnectivity between all desert regions of the world, from which droughts periodically erupt.(15)
Reich appears to have been the first scientist to fully describe what we today call forest-death,(16) including: the dying of trees from the topdown, hazy and suffocated atmospheres filled with ozones and acids, blackening rock surfaces, and other components widely observed and acknowledged today but virtually unknown in Reich's time. Based upon Reich's theory, and with assistance from a German group, I recently directed a 4 year experimental investigation of the cloud buster's influence upon air pollution levels in the region around Berlin. The preliminary results appear positive, but there are several complicating factors which must be controlled for in the analysis, which will be forthcoming at some point in the near future.(17)
In both the above cases, Reich's observations agree with the modern-day descriptions, but his theories as to the mechanisms are based upon his life-energetic discoveries, which are essentially unknown to most scientists. This difference in mechanism may raise objections, but at a basic level Reich's approach provides a completely new and revolutionary way to look at nearly unresolvable problems. One may agree or disagree with Reich's assertion, of a living and sensitive atmosphere, but his ideas are testable and refutable, in the best tradition of the natural sciences, and provide an approach to actually do something of potential benefit in deserts and air-polluted environments. The classical mechanistic approaches, of "empty space" and a dead atmosphere, by definition claim no capacity in this regard. Surely, this alone warrants a more open attitude.
Our laboratory has recently been moved to a new headquarters in rural southwestern Oregon, at 4200' altitude, where some of the more sensitive orgone energy experiments described by Reich can be undertaken. Several educational seminars and workshops have been established for the interested student and/or professional, and our Drought Abatement and Desert Greening Programs continue to be offered as a service, to those regions in critical need where funding is available. Those with interests in this new field of research are invited to contact us for a brochure, publications, list, and schedule.
Citations:
1. J. DeMeo: Preliminary Analysis of Changes in Kansas Weather Coincidental to Experimental Operations with a Reich Cloudbuster, Thesis, Univ. of Kansas, Geography Meteorology Dept. (cf. Masters Abstracts, 18(1), 1980). Bound xerographic copy available from Natural Energy Works, PO Box, 1148, Ashland, Oregon 97520.
2. J. DeMeo: "Field Experiments with the Reich Rain Cloudbuster: 1977-1983", Journal of Orgonomy, 19(1):57-79, 1985.
3. J. DeMeo & R. Morris: "Preliminary Report on a Cloudbusting Experiment in the Southeastern Drought Zone, August 1986", Southeastern Drought Symposium Proceedings, March 4-5, 1987, South Carolina State Climatology Office Publication G-30, Columbia, SC, 1987.
4. J. DeMeo: "CORE Progress Report #20: Breaking the Drought Barriers in the Southwest and Northwest USA", Journal of Orgonomy, 23(1):97-125, 1989.
5. J. DeMeo: "CORE Operations in the Western USA", Pulse of the Planet 3:110-111, 1991; "CORE Breakthrough in California Rains, March 1991", Pulse of the Planet 3:115-116, 1991; "CORE Progress Report #26: California Drought of 1990-1991, Part II. With a Special Note on Underground Nuclear Testing and the Oakland Wildfires", Journal of Orgonomy, 26(1): 49-71, 1992.
6. J. DeMeo: "OROP Arizona, 1989: A Cloudbusting Experiment to Bring Rains in the Desert Southwest", Pulse of the Planet, 3:82-92, 1991; also published as a Special Report, Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory, 1991.
7. J. DeMeo: "CORE Progress Report #25: Two Year Research Summary – The American Institute ofAmerican West, Greece, and Biomedical Climatology Germany", Journal of Orgonomy 25(2):181, 1991; "CORE Research and Field Operations Overseas", Pulse of the Planet 3:111-112, 1991.
8. J. DeMeo: "OROP Israel 1991-1992: A Cloudbusting Experiment to Restore Wintertime Rains to Israel and the Eastern Mediterranean During an Extended Period of Drought", Special Report, Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory, 1992; "CORE Report #30: The Desert Greening Project in Israel 1991-1992", Journal of Orgonomy, 26(2):248-265, 1992; reprinted in Pulse of the Planet 4:92-98, 1993.
9. J. DeMeo: "OROP Namibia 1992-1993", Pulse of the Planet 4:115, 1993.
10. Data not yet published or presented publicly.
11. W Reich: "DOR Removal and Cloud-Busting", Orgone Energy Bull., IV(4):171-182, 1952; "OROPDesert. Part 1: Spaceships, DOR and Drought", Cosmic Orgone Engineering, VI(1-4):1-140, 1954; "Expedition OROP Desert, Ea: DOR Clouds Over the USA", Cosmic Orgone Engineering, VII(1-2):4-19, 1955; Contact With Space, Oranur Second Report: Orop Desert Ea, Core Pilot Press, NY, 1957.
12. A few examples of the earliest corroborating reports: W Hoppe: "Wolkenbildung und Wolkenzerstoerung durch argon Energie (Cloud Formation and Cloud Destruction through Orgone Energy)", Int. Zeitschrift fur Orgonomie, 1(4):204, 1953; W Moise: "OROP Drought Atlantic Coast -Summer 1954", Cosmic Orgone Engineering, VII(1-2) :68-83, 1955; C. Kelley: A New Methodof Weather Control, Radix Institute, Santa Monica, CA, 1961 ; R.A. Blasband: "CORE Progress Report", J. Orgonomy, 5(2):189-191 , 1971; TJ. Constabfe: "Operation 'Backwash' #1 : Rainmaking, Los Angeles Basin", J. Orgonomy, 5(2):192-198, 1971; J. Eden: "Drought Relief in the North- west",J. Orgonomy, 6(1):98-103,1972.
13. J. Greenfield: Wilhelm Reich Vs. The U.S.A., W.W. Norton, NY, 1974; L Wyveil: "The Jailing of a Great Scientist in the USA, 1956" and "Eyewitness Report of the Burning of Scientific Books in theUSA, 1956", Pulse of the Planet 4:70-75, 1994.
14. R. Bryson & TJ. Murray: Climates of Hunger, U. Wisconsin Press, Madison 1977; R. Bryson & D.A. Baerreis: "Possibilities of Major Climatic Modification and their Implications: NE India, A Case for Study", Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 48(3):136-142, March 1967.
15. J. DeMeo: "Research Progress Report", Pulse of the Planet 2:82, 1989; also see: "Desert Expansion and Drought: Global Interconnections and the Desert/Drought Map", Abstracts of Papers, Association for Arid Lands Studies Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon, April 1990, and "The Desert-Drought Map and its Implications", Abstracts, 90th Annual Meeting, Association of American Geographers, San Francisco, California, 29 March - 2 April, 1994, p.81.
16. W Reich: The Oranur Experiment: First Report (1947-1951), Wilhelm Reich Foundation, Maine, 1951 [originally appeared as Orgone Energy Bull., 111(4)185-344, 1951]; "The Blackening Rocks: Melanor", Orgone Energy Bull., V(1-2):28-59, 1953; W Reich & R. McCullough: "Melanor, Orite,Brownite, and Orene: Preliminary Chemical Analysis", Cosmic Orgone Engineering, VII(1-2):29-39, 1955.
17. J. DeMeo: "Reduction of Rainwater Acidity Following the End of the 1986 Drought: An Effect of Cloudbusting?", Journal of Orgonomy, 21 (2):249-251, 1987; "CORE Research and Field Operations Overseas", Pulse of the Planet 3:112-115, 1991 ; "Orgonomic Project Waldheilung 19891993", Pulse of the Planet 4:114, 1993.
James DeMeo, Ph. D., is Director of the Orgone Bio-physical Research Lab, which he founded in 1978. He received his doctorate in geography from the University of Kansas, where his research corroborated various aspects of Wilhelm Reich's social and biophysical discoveries. He also studied environmental science and chemistry at Florida International and Florida Atlantic Universities. Dr. DeMeo was formerly on the faculty of geography at Illinois State University and the University of Miami, and was a Research Associate of the American College of Orgonomy. He has published numerous articles on the issues of energy resources, health, cultural history, environmental problems and experimental orgone research. He is the author of the popular Orgone Accumulator Handbook, editor of Pulse of the Planet journal, and co-editor of a forthcoming Compendium on Orgonomy, soon to be published in Germany by Zweitausendeins Verlag. He currently is organizing new research and graduate level programs at the newly founded Greensprings Center (of the Orgone Biophysical Research Lab) in Ashland, Oregon. ~
This article appeared in the American Institute of Biomedical Climatology (AIBC) newsletter September, 1996 (Letter # 20).
American Institute of Biomedical Climatology
313 South 17th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
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This newsletter article contains several noteworthy scholarly points regarding the use of Reich’s cloudbuster for affecting weather patterns, particularly in mitigating drought conditions and affecting rainfall. James DeMeo's work, as outlined above, focuses on both validating and expanding upon Reich's original findings. Key scholarly points include:
Systematic Study and Field Trials: DeMeo conducted the first systematic study and ongoing field trials of the cloudbuster starting in the late 1970s, with experiments aimed at increasing clouds and rain during drought conditions and analyzing the effects on fair-weather cumulus clouds. This represents a significant effort to apply scientific methods to Reich's theories.
Positive Results in Various Geographies: The field trials were conducted in diverse locations across the United States and in other countries, including arid and semi-arid regions. DeMeo reports positive outcomes in these trials, such as the restoration of natural rainfall episodes usually within 48 hours after operations commenced.
Quantitative Analysis and Peer Review: Many of the field operations were analyzed using data from official sources like the National Weather Service. The findings have been presented in non-mainstream but peer-reviewed journals and at various scholarly societies and international symposia, indicating a level of academic engagement and scrutiny.
Corroboration of Reich's Claims: DeMeo positions his work as a corroboration and verification of Wilhelm Reich's original claims regarding the cloudbuster's efficacy in affecting weather patterns. This is notable because Reich's work has been controversial and not widely accepted within the mainstream scientific community.
Theoretical Contributions: Beyond empirical results, DeMeo discusses theoretical implications, such as the role of atmospheric haze in blocking precipitation and the potential for desert haze reduction using the cloudbuster. These points suggest a new perspective on understanding and addressing drought and desertification.
Orgone Energy and Atmospheric Processes: The research draws on Reich's concept of orgone energy, an aether-like energy continuum, proposing it as a factor in atmospheric processes. This is a significant departure from conventional atmospheric science and represents a novel theoretical framework for understanding weather patterns.
Challenges in Scientific Acceptance: Despite positive results, DeMeo outlines the challenges faced in gaining scientific acceptance and funding for research on Reich's methods. This includes historical context, such as the banning and burning of Reich's works by the U.S. government, which has contributed to the skepticism and controversy surrounding his theories.
Ongoing Research and Education: The article mentions the establishment of educational seminars and workshops, and ongoing research projects, indicating a commitment to furthering the study and application of orgone biophysical research in practical and academic contexts.
These points collectively highlight the efforts to scientifically explore and validate Wilhelm Reich's orgone theory and its applications in weather modification, while also acknowledging the controversies and challenges associated with this line of research within the domain of mainstream science.
Sometimes however, it is needful to bid a royal adieu to the conventional halls of academic scholarship and move on to greener, more open pastures.
Commentator: Katriel Porth
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