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Comment by iamthepieman | Hacker News Reader

That was a rabbit hole i did not need to spend the last 30 minutes on.

For those who don't have the time like I didn't

Organite is a substance made of resin metals and quartz that balances and harmonizes Bio-energy (known as orgone). Orgone is analogous to chi or prana and is a type of bio-energy that reverses the effect of entropy[0] It seems to be a mix of crystal healing and EMF grounding (also known as earthing)

It can:

  - Neutralizes emf radiation.
  - Clears negative energy.
  - Aids in meditation.
  - Supports restful sleep.
  - Enhances lucid dreaming.
  - Relieves stress.
  - Purifies the living area.
  - Can detoxify water.

It is, of course, completely bogus.

[0]If your theory is found to be against the second law of theromodynamics, I give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation. - Arthur Eddington

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The rabbit hole goes deeper than that.

You should research Wilhelm Reich[1], a student of Freud's who came up with the term "orgone", who fled to the US to escape the Nazis only to have his writings confiscated and burnt by the US government, which imprisoned him until he died.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich

"imprisoned him until he died"

True? He died a year in to a two year sentence for violating an injunction against him from committing fraud by selling his orgone accumulators.

"Until he died" being a year, days before his parole, lest anyone think the US government sentences people to life in prison for quackery.

I think this is underappreciated ethical dilemma, rather like Typhoid Mary. I don't think that Wilhelm Reich thought of himself as a quack, or a fraud - he was more of a kind of technological mystic. While he himself was doubtless earnest, this kind of thing really is memetically dangerous - Scientology, for example, is a deliberate and successful attempt to weaponize it. Even now, people do crazy things like "seed" areas with "orgonite" to dispel "negative energy" - that is, they litter the ground with bits of metal encased with resin. A whole religion of woo, just from a few years of exposure to Reich's ideas.

So what is one to do with someone who is earnestly good-intentioned, highly charismatic, and completely stark-raving mad?

>So what is one to do with someone who is earnestly good-intentioned, highly charismatic, and completely stark-raving mad?

Ignore them as you should any other crackpot, charlatan or fraud. Don't waste your energy, time or money on them except to be entertained.

But every time it rains You're here in my head Like the sun coming out Ooh, I just know that something good is going to happen...

"It is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects."

~Nikola Tesla

You just reminded me that my mum was big on homeopathy and regularly gave me homeopathic sand as a kid: https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/fda/fdaDrugXsl.cfm?set...

She also liked Bach flower remedies, and took one in particular for her memory…

She now has severe Alzheimer’s and, conversationally speaking, is no better than a Markov chain with a ~1000 symbol vocabulary.

Sounds like this stuff would be amazing to put in my ham shack!

> It is, of course, completely bogus.

So sure are you, hmmm??

Try putting that rock in toxic water and drink it and we'll see what happens.

I think a rock that makes you immortal would be worth a hell of a lot more than its weight in gold..

Ach, I was joking y'all.

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