The fanasy of the omnipotence of thought is universal in early childhood, but most people outgrow it by the age of puberty. Those who do not are called "mystics". Mysticism, or "magic", is the idea that mere wishful thinking can cause physical results. This is behind Christian Science, for example, as well as the instances you cited.
It is possible to affect certain energy systems by focusing ones own energy system on it. This is why it is possible to break up small cumulus clouds by staring at them. The human body responds well to focused attention also, which is why so many people are convinced prayer works to heal illnesses.
But these are examples of the orgone energy of the body interacting with other orgone energy fields. It has nothing to do with the more general claim made by the mystics that there is a general principal that thinking on a physical object can alter it. The real facts are, as is typical with mystics, mystified into something quite different from what is actually observed.
In the case at hand, cloudbusting, the body energy field of the operator might be able to break up a target cloud without the cloudbuster being involved, but the cloudbuster can break up clouds without any operator too. I once saw this very dramaticly demonstrated when I was doing some cloudbusting in a field where cattle were pastured. I had to leave the cloudbuster set up and drawing while I went into town. ( This is not usually a good idea, but it was a very isolated place and I had no choice since I needed groceries. ) When I got back, it had been moved to a new point of aim, and the clouds were moving in accordance with that new direction of draw, not the way they would have if the cloudbuster was still pointed where it was when I left.
But no human hand had touched it. The cloudbusters point of aim had been shifted by cows bumping up against it. Now I do not think the cows had any intention other than possibly to scratch an itch. I do not think they were intending to alter the weather. And I am the only other organism to know which direction it was pointing when I left it. And my intent was to draw from the direction I left it pointing in.
So I conclude the intent of the operator is not relevant. What counts is the direction the pipes are pointing.
Dr. Blasband wrote in the Journal of Orgonomy that the "concious intent" of the operator is the operative factor in the operation of the cloudbuster "independent of the physical motion of the pipes". My experience with cattle moving my cloudbuster convinces me otherwise.
But the theories people develop are a result of their history and experience; Blasband was convinced of the ability of the so-called "mind" to influence mass by his friendship with a Princeton University physicist, Robert Johns, who did research on the ability of test subjects to influence the numbers generated by an electrical device called a "random number generator". His research showed a clear mathamatical difference in the numbers produced by the machine when someone was "thinking at it" compared to when it was working on its own.
This finding caused a lot of fuss in the physics community, and Johns was subjected to some ridicule and ostracism, so Blasband considered the same situation as the rejection of orgone energy by that same physics establishment, and was predisposed to think Johns was right.
I would not have been fooled because I once saw George Alexander, a San Francisco Rock musician, stop a clock by concentrating on it. There was no doubt he could do it, but therewas nothing mysterious about it. Among the first orgone phenomena discovered by Reich was that orgone was tangible mainly as a disturbance of electrical currents. All George was doing was directing his own orgone field, which was more highly charged than most peoples, to envelope the clock. He flooded it with so much of his own body energy that the flow of current was jammed.
But if neither of us had known about orgone, it would have been possible for us to have been fooled into thinking it was a mental phenomena of some kind.
And that is the difference beteen orgonomy and mysticism: Orgonomy got started by Reich trying to place psychoanalysis on a firm basis in physical science. To the Freudians, libido was a metaphor, a mental construct, while to Reich it was a tangible physical force. And so is psychokinesis.
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