It always comes down to “energy,” a belief that we can mend ills with some kind of directed or awakened force. This idea of energy can be seen in the Taoist chi, the “vital energy” of Vitalism from the 19th century, Prana from Hinduism, and even in the Force of Star Wars. Vitalism is still found at the root of many “alternative” treatments. In the New Age, it is often just termed “life force” or “energy.” Such beliefs are not only spiritually based (mostly occultic), but also are the stuff of pseudoscience.
🔹 Hype
One type of this energy is Orgone energy or Orgonite. There are orgonite jewelry, stones, orgone blankets, and other objects. Promotions often sound like this:
<Orgonite is a device that balances and harmonises negative energy. I make a selection of orgonite devices with healing crystals. Whether you’re looking for a pendant to wear, or beautiful pyramids and chakra cones to keep the energy in your home healthy, I’ve got you covered!> From http://goo.gl/Vv8JZb
Or like this one:
<This orgonite pendant contains hematite, which used to be referred to as the “blood stone”, since it has a high iron content. It’s a wonderfully grounding, protective gemstone to use in orgonite. It has a calming energy and can help scatter-brained people or those who have a lot on their minds, in terms of finding inner peace and stillness. It’s good for when you are feeling nervous or need more confidence.> From http://goo.gl/AeKvpQ
I was asked about an “orgone blanket” that a health practitioner had offered the querent. Here is a description:
<Orgone blankets accumulate life energy naturally
– no batteries, no hidden gizmos or gadgets –
An orgone blanket simply does two things that can benefit your body:
1. It stimulates the body’s own relaxation response (parasympathetic system)
2. It imparts a greater bioenergetic charge, especially seen in the field around the red blood cells.” — From site promoting Orgone blankets.>
False! Note the words “parasympathetic system” and “bioenergetic charge” and “red blood cells” to make it sound scientific. This is the stuff of pseudoscience, using scientific terms to sound legitimate. There is a whole industry built up on the concept of orgone, and a cottage industry around orgone blankets.
Pseudoscience thrives now due to the internet and to the increasing anti-objective truth views and anti-science views of the culture.
🔹 So Where Did Orgonite Come From?
It started with a Wilhelm Reich, pseudoscientist extraordinaire:
<Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) was an Austrian-American psychoanalyst who claimed to study a form of energy he called orgone energy. He fled Europe during the run-up to World War II because he was both of Jewish descent and was a communist sympathizer. He emigrated to the United States, where he settled in Rangeley, Maine. His field of study, “orgonomy”, was essentially a form of vitalism that claimed that orgone energy was the fundamental energy of life, and was particularly expressed in sexual activity. Despite his crackpottery, however, Reich’s orthodox work on psychology—called character analysis, which both built upon and departed from Freud’s psychoanalysis — proved to be quite influential to future generations of psychoanalysts.> From Wiki
Here is information on Reich from a New Age site quite supportive of his beliefs:
<The word orgonite comes from “orgone”, the name given by Wilhelm Reich to vital energy found everywhere in nature. It is life energy, also called Ch’i, Prana, Aether. This vital energy exists, in a natural way, under many different forms. It can be neutral (OR=orgone), positive (POR=positive orgone energy) or negative (DOR = deadly orgone energy). When positive, it enables living organisms to exist in a healthy state. Reich did a lot of research on the properties and behaviors of this energy. He built an orgone accumulator out of alternate layers of metal and organic material. He also observed that OR was able to neutralize nuclear radiation.> From http://goo.gl/vo0tmm
The above expresses a spiritual belief, not a scientific one. The New Age does not care about objective truth, so anything that sounds good or seems to work is scientific enough.
Another site that gives advice on how to make an Orgone blanket states that Reich believed Orgone to be the “sexual energy that runs the universe.”
It is not surprising that Reich taught this “sexual energy” idea since he had immoral sexual views, such as defending pedophilia (see chapter 11 in “The Devil’s Pleasure Palace” by Michael Walch; also, “Don’t Follow Your Heart” by Thaddeus J. Williams to be released October, 2023). More details about Reich are too unsavory to share here.
🔹 Reich’s Sad End
This was Reich’s sad end:
<Reich died on November 3, 1957, in the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he was sent for criminal contempt. The criminal charge was levied because Reich refused to obey an injunction against selling quack medical devices such as the Orgone Accumulator and orgone “shooters,” devices which allegedly could collect and distribute orgone energy, thereby making possible the cure for just about any medical disorder except, perhaps, megalomania and self-delusion.> From https://bit.ly/2WyXlPm
🔹 Concept and Consequences
The concept of wearing or using an orgonite object is the same as the concept of using crystals in the New Age and the occult: The belief is that the “energy” will cleanse, heal, draw love into your life, keep out negative energy, clarify thinking, balance energy, and so forth.
There is no such power, just as there is no such thing as orgonite or orgone energy. This thinking is part of an occult and New Age worldview that focuses on creation instead of the Creator. Putting faith in objects or “energy” will only eventually fail.
Moreover, beware of the fallacy of equivocation. This is using a word with different meanings as though the meaning is always the same. People point out that there are vibrations and frequencies such as radio frequencies or MRIs and measurable vibrations and transfer that over to New Age and occult concepts of vibrations, energy, and frequencies as though they are the same thing. This is called equivocation and is a false method but it fools people. This is how the New Age and pseudoscience (and most of “alternative/complementary/functional medicine”) operate and succeed in getting money from people.
This excerpt demonstrates the point about how orgonite syncs with “alternative” healing:
<Orgone therapy is frequently advertised on alternative-medicine sites, along with other treatments such as Therapeutic Touch, Reiki, herbal therapy, chiropractic, naturopathy, acupuncture, pyramid therapy, shamanism, and high-colonic enemas. There is an increasing degree of overlapping and blending of orgone therapy with New Age and other therapies that manipulate the patient’s “biofields,” such as Therapeutic Touch and Reiki. “Biofield” is a pseudoscientific term often used synonymously with “orgone energy.” One can also find foundations and “research institutes” dedicated to the promotion of Reich’s beliefs and practices. At least two of these institutes are located in the U.S.> From http://goo.gl/lHVecR
Trusting something false, especially if it has a spiritual component, can lead to someone being drawn more deeply into false beliefs and even embracing them. For a Christian who puts stock in this, it will undermine his/her faith and put a serious crimp in growth in maturity in Christ.
Unfortunately, as is true of many discredited charlatans, Reich still has his champions and there are numerous websites that attempt to defend his views as scientific.
However, belief in orgone energy is the same as belief in the invisible energies of the occult world used in sorcery, energy healing, and the New Age. Although these energies do not exist as how they are presented, dabbling with them opens occult doors to spiritual deception and damage.
🔹 Create a Problem Orgone Energy Can Fix
A marketing of false products like Orgone energy usually has the strategy to create a non-existent problem using pseudoscience (harmful rays or electrical signals or whatever) and then offer their products as the solution, using false pseudoscience claims. Example:
<How Orgone Energy and EMF Protection Can Help
Issues caused by EMF exposure often manifest as increased stress and chronic pain. The work of Wilhelm Reich suggests the subtle body energy that is part of our being is lost or disoriented due to exposure to internal and external influences, including EMF. Orgone energy devices, like the ULM Energy Blanket, work to improve energy balance and restore the body’s ability to function at its best.> From site selling Orgone Energy Blankets.
The so-called “subtle body energy” does not exist. This is the stuff of New Age beliefs.
🔹 Orgone Energy and the Truth
Although it used to be mainly those in the New Age who fell for things like Orgonite, increasingly it happens in the church. One of the best examples is the recent idea of Earthing or Grounding which I have been asked about and warned about so many times.
Despite the fact that Earthing/Grounding was based on New Age ideas and pseudoscience, it found believers in the church.
If Jesus is the Truth, and if God denounces lying and falsehood throughout Scripture, and if Satan is the father of lies, then surely Christians need to examine methods and products (especially to do with healing) in light of objective data and the facts.
More Information
<ORGONE” IS A WORD that Wilhelm Reich made up, chosen for its shared root with “orgasm.” Reich believed that human sexuality — as expressed via orgasm — was the ultimate expression of mental and physical well-being, and that to harness that power would be to gain control of the one true “universal life force,” or “orgone.” He claimed to have discovered that life force in 1939 in New York through experiments done on mice. (More surreally, Reich also claimed to have seen orgone in the night sky, thanks to a specialized telescope he called an “organoscope.”). In Reich’s conception, orgone is not unlike oxygen in both its fundamentality and intangibility. It’s invisible, but everywhere. We produce it within our own bodies, but it’s possible to run short. In orgone loss (or suppression, as the case may be), Reich saw the source of mental illness, cancer, and virtually any other manner of disease. In orgone, he saw the universal cure.And so he began building the boxes, which he called orgone accumulators. Styled after the Faraday cage, Reich believed the device could gather orgone particles from outside the box and direct them, in concentrated doses, into the living things inside. First he tested them on animals, and in 1940 he built one big enough for humans.> From https://goo.gl/BrZTvA
CANA article on Energy (Article examines the beliefs behind “vital energy” and related terms that are behind beliefs in Orgone)
Power Bracelets; look at 2nd question at this link from CANA FAQ:
Header
Debunking Orgone
http://goo.gl/TNHrR6
<Orgone therapy is frequently advertised on alternative-medicine sites, along with other treatments such as Therapeutic Touch, Reiki, herbal therapy, chiropractic, naturopathy, acupuncture, pyramid therapy, shamanism, and high-colonic enemas. There is an increasing degree of overlapping and blending of orgone therapy with New Age and other therapies that manipulate the patient’s “biofields,” such as Therapeutic Touch and Reiki. “Biofield” is a pseudoscientific term often used synonymously with “orgone energy.” One can also find foundations and “research institutes” dedicated to the promotion of Reich’s beliefs and practices. At least two of these institutes are located in the U.S.> From http://goo.gl/lHVecR