Saturday, February 08, 2020
In Defense of Wilhelm Reich: An Open Response to Nature and the Scientific /Medical Community
DeMeo J1*, Albini A2, Aronstein WS3, Bingham A4, Del Giudice E5, Haralick RM6, Herskowitz M7, Heimann M8, Hillman H9, Kavouras J10, Koblenzer J11, Maluf N12, Maglione R13, Mazzocchi A14, Müschenich S15, Odent M16, Okouma PM17, Pollack G18, Pryatel W19, Reyes A20, Salat A21, Taylor R22, Tosi M23, and Vecchietti A241 Director, Orgone Biophysical Research Lab, PO Box 1148, Ashland, Oregon 97520 USA
2 Physician, Rome, Italy
3 Physician, Glendale OH, USA
4 Psychologist, New York, NY, USA
5 Physicist (Retired), National Institute for Nuclear Physics, Milan, Italy
6 Distinguished Professor, Computer Science, Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA
7 Physician, former President, Institute for Orgonomic Science, Philadelphia, PA, USA
8 Doctoral Candidate, Psychology, Toulouse University, France
9 Director, Unity Laboratory of Applied Neurobiology, Sussex, UK
10 Physician, Podeldorf, Germany
11 Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, USA.
12 Doctoral Candidate, History of Science, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
13 Engineering Scientist, Moncrivello, Italy
14 Physician, Bergamo, Italy
15 Physician, Munster, Germany
16 Physician, Primal Health Research Centre, London, UK
17 Doctoral Candidate, Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town, South Africa
18 Professor, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
19 Physician, North Dakota State Hospital, Jamestown, ND, USA
20 Physician, Reading, PA, USA
21 Physician, Bonndorf, Germany
22 Immunologist (Retired), University of Bristol, UK.
23 Psychotherapist, Centro Studi Eva Reich, Milano, Italy.
24 Biologist, Orgonomic Consulting and Research, Corridonia, Italy
* Correspondence E-mail: demeo@mind.net
Key Words: Wilhelm Reich, Albert Einstein, psychoanalysis, bioenergy, orgone energy, orgone accumulator, interstellar medium, history of science, book burning, censorship
Received November 15th, 2012; Accepted November 16th, 2012; Published November 22nd, 2012; Available online November 30th, 2012
doi: 10.14294/WATER.2012.6
Summary
A recent technology-comment article in Nature magazine (Glausiusz 2012) exemplifies a growing problem in the sciences, in the reliance upon unfactual material sourced only to popular literature or to the "skeptic" press and generally written by prejudiced journalists, for evaluations of controversial scientific findings. There is no greater example of this than how the biography and work of the late Wilhelm Reich continues to be maliciously distorted and attacked. Reich’s writings and research on emotions, human sexuality, bioelectricity and biogenesis originally triggered a massive attack with sexual slander, in the German and Norwegian press in the 1930s lead-up to Hitlerism. These slanders were repeated and amplified in the American press after 1947, after his findings on bioenergetics and claims of a specific life-energy, the orgone energy, were publicly announced. A terribly biased US Food and Drug Administration investigation and alarming judicial reaction was triggered by the media assault, resulting in Reich’s death in prison, and the most outrageous episode of government-ordered book burning in American history. Reich’s life and research findings thereafter became a target for repeated slander and defamations. (Wolfe 1948, Baker 1972, 1973, Blasband 1972, Greenfield 1974, DeMeo 2012a, 2012b, Web Reference 1)
Nature and journalist Glausiusz (2012) repeated some of these same discredited pop-media slanders against Reich, along with inaccurate history. A rebuttal article was submitted to Nature in response, but was refused within 24 hours, the on-line submission also deleted, making appeals impossible. A subsequent short Letter to the Editor was submitted, and was also refused. While Nature did eventually print their own minimalist correction of a few of the errors in the Glausiusz article (anon. 2012), the very fact that sexual slander and falsehood could appear in Nature in the first place demonstrates how widely-believed popular fictions can undermine authentic peer review. Here, we have updated the original article submitted to Nature, and wish to sound an alarm on the dangers of combined popular media distortions, government censorship and book burning, and academic/medical scientism.
Article Outline
Wilhelm Reich, Biologist
Product Details
HARDCOVER
$43.50 • £34.95 • €39.00
ISBN 9780674736092
Publication Date: 04/06/2015
x Text
Psychoanalyst, political theorist, pioneer of body therapies, prophet of the sexual revolution—all fitting titles, but Wilhelm Reich has never been recognized as a serious laboratory scientist, despite his experimentation with bioelectricity and unicellular organisms. Wilhelm Reich, Biologist is an eye-opening reappraisal of one of twentieth-century science’s most controversial figures—perhaps the only writer whose scientific works were burned by both the Nazis and the U.S. government. Refuting allegations of “pseudoscience” that have long dogged Reich’s research, James Strick argues that Reich’s lab experiments in the mid-1930s represented the cutting edge of light microscopy and time-lapse micro-cinematography and deserve to be taken seriously as legitimate scientific contributions.
Trained in medicine and a student of Sigmund Freud, Reich took to the laboratory to determine if Freud’s concept of libido was quantitatively measurable. His electrophysiological experiments led to his “discovery” of microscopic vesicles (he called them “bions”), which Reich hypothesized were instrumental in originating life from nonliving matter. Studying Reich’s laboratory notes from recently opened archives, Strick presents a detailed account of the bion experiments, tracing how Reich eventually concluded he had discovered an unknown type of biological radiation he called “orgone.” The bion experiments were foundational to Reich’s theory of cancer and later investigations of orgone energy.
Reich’s experimental findings and interpretations were considered discredited, but not because of shoddy lab technique, as has often been claimed. Scientific opposition to Reich’s experiments, Strick contends, grew out of resistance to his unorthodox sexual theories and his Marxist political leanings.
RELATED LINKS
- Listen to James Strick discuss the life and legacy of Wilhelm Reich on the podcast New Books in Science, Technology, and Society
- Read the New York Times obituary for Mary Boyd Higgins, lifelong Reich devotee and founder and director of the Wilhelm Reich Museum in Rangeley, Maine
A Skeptical Scrutiny of the Works and Theories of WILHELM REICH
FROM A TRUE BELIEVER RAISED IN AN ORGONE FAMILY TO A RUTHLESS CRITIC OF REICH
By Roger M. Wilcox
Jump to the Introduction
Others' personal experiences with Orgone Therapy
The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety
Bions
The problems with Reich's use of the microscope
PA Bions
T-Bacilli
SAPA Bions
Orgone Radiation
The Orgonoscope
The Orgone Energy Hypotheses
The Orgone Field Meter
The Reich Blood Test(s)
Experiment XX
The problems with Reich's use of the Geiger-Müller counter
Vacuum Orgone (VACOR) Tubes
Orgone Motors
The Oranur Experiment
Melanor, Orite, Brownite, and Orene
Cosmic Superimposition
Sex Economy
Vegetative Currents (Orgonotic Streamings)
The Tension-Charge (Orgasm) Formula
The Cancer Biopathy
Psychiatric Orgone Therapy (character-analytic vegetotherapy)
My personal experiences with Orgone Therapy
Orgone Accumulators (ORACs)
Orgonomic Functionalism
The DOR Hypothesis
Cloudbusters
Medical DOR Busters
The Emotional Plague
Energy alphas
The FDA Injunction against Reich
The book burning
Reich's conviction and imprisonment
Reich's initial work was in the area of psychoanalysis. In fact, he was a protege of Sigmund Freud. His technique of Character Analysis expanded on Freud's psychoanalysis and was well-received. Some at the time even considered Reich to be Freud's successor. However, his involvement with the early Communist Party in Europe eventually got him kicked out of the psychiatric community — and ironically, his involvement with the psychiatric community got him kicked out of the Communist Party at around the same time. His relentless insistence that sexuality was central to emotional health earned him more critics than supporters, as well. Reich eventually fled Germany for Norway in 1933 for fear of the rising power of the Nazis, who showed a great deal of enmity toward members of the Communist Party (even former members).
From there on, though, Reich began to delve into areas of research for which his medical and psychiatric training left him ill-equipped. He performed bioelectrical experiments on subjects in various states of sexual arousal, somewhat reminiscent of the experiments Masters and Johnson would perform two decades later. He claimed to see microscopic bions develop from lifeless matter and organize themselves into living cells. And he eventually came to believe he had discovered a primordial energy essential for life, which he called orgone energy, and which he was obsessed with for the rest of his life. Along the way of making these various "discoveries," his works were either ignored or heavily criticized by the mainstream scientific community. Reich seemed to take every criticism of his work as a personal attack. He was convinced he had made the greatest discoveries in the history of humanity, next to which the discovery of electricity or the law of gravity or the wheel or fire were insignificant. He felt that mainstream scientists only attacked his work because his discoveries were too emotionally disturbing for them to tolerate. (Why was such obstinant resistance to Reich's "obvious truths" so prevalent? Why, because of the emotional plague, of course.) And Reich surrounded himself with people who agreed with his assessments of his discoveries' greatness, people who all lacked any formal training in the natural sciences — training which, if it had been present, might have helped Reich see the real, concrete reasons why his work was criticized.
Thus far, hardly any skeptics have seen Reich to be worth the time and energy necessary to debunk all of his claims in detail. Almost all skeptical treaments of his works focus on the more outrageous claims he made about orgone energy, or simply poo-poo his research and theories out-of-hand. This, unfortunately, lends a false air of legitimacy to the various Orgonomy groups that promulgate Reich's ideas. Modern orgonomists come across like poor, downtrodden underdogs, attacked without reason by those few obviously orgastically impotent skeptics and mainstream scientists out there who still take potshots at Orgonomy. Since the skeptics and scientists never seem to show why the Orgonomists are wrong — at least not to the satisfaction of the Orgonomist groups, who always seem to have a rebuttal up their sleeve — the Orgonomists must therefore be right, of course.
This situation might be improved if the criticisms levelled against Reich by his contemporaries were easily accessible in English today. But sadly, most of them, such as Kreyberg's criticism of bions in the 1930s, are practically lost to history. Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science contains one of the few critical treatments of Reich that has survived to this day, but even this is lacking in sufficient details to answer the rebuttals of the modern orgonomists.
My personal experiences with Orgonomy go way back. Some people are raised in a Catholic family. Some people are raised in a Jewish family. I was raised in an Orgonomy family. And despite Reich's insistence to the contrary, Orgonomy is a religion, filled with sacred truths which can never be experimentally verified, a single central theme which tries to explain everything in the universe, a Fall from Grace in the mythical past, and even a Christ figure in Reich himself. I was forced to endure years of orgone therapy the way many other children are forced to go to church. I became a "convert" to Reich's works in late puberty thanks primarily to his pro-sex attitude. I was a "true believer" until the late 1990s, when my skeptical instincts finally caught up with me, and I at last acknowledged the similarities between the writings of Reich and the ravings of various other cantankerous crackpots who were trying to hawk their own all-encompassing theories.
This collection of articles, then, is the culmination of my skepticism toward the works and theories of Wilhelm Reich. Reich's work encompassed many, many areas, not all of which he documented in the detail necessary to critique them properly. So, yes, some of my critiques involve my personal, educated guesses as to what Reich might "really" have been seeing or measuring. But enough of Reich's writings do give sufficient detail that Reich's own shortcomings as a self-proclaimed scientific researcher come through plainly. For unlike Sir Isaac Newton, Reich was not willing to stand upon the shoulders of giants. He stood only as high as his own experiences would allow, and from this low perch imagined himself to be a lone eagle soaring higher than any other man had ever reached.
A Skeptical Scrutiny of the Works and Theories of WILHELM REICH
Jump to the Introduction
Completed critiques:
Orgastic Potency as the criterion for emotional healthOthers' personal experiences with Orgone Therapy
The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety
Bions
The problems with Reich's use of the microscope
PA Bions
T-Bacilli
SAPA Bions
Orgone Radiation
The Orgonoscope
The Orgone Energy Hypotheses
The Orgone Field Meter
The Reich Blood Test(s)
Experiment XX
The problems with Reich's use of the Geiger-Müller counter
Vacuum Orgone (VACOR) Tubes
Orgone Motors
The Oranur Experiment
Melanor, Orite, Brownite, and Orene
Cosmic Superimposition
Articles written by others but hosted here
Breaking the Silence: Secrets of the Reichian Cult (.pdf file) by Marjorie BayesCritiques still under construction:
Character AnalysisSex Economy
Vegetative Currents (Orgonotic Streamings)
The Tension-Charge (Orgasm) Formula
The Cancer Biopathy
Psychiatric Orgone Therapy (character-analytic vegetotherapy)
My personal experiences with Orgone Therapy
Orgone Accumulators (ORACs)
Orgonomic Functionalism
The DOR Hypothesis
Cloudbusters
Medical DOR Busters
The Emotional Plague
Energy alphas
The FDA Injunction against Reich
The book burning
Critiques yet to be written:
The Orgasm ReflexReich's conviction and imprisonment
Introduction
Wilhelm Reich (1898-1957) is one of the most colorful characters ever to tackle the mysteries of the universe. He was charismatic, strong-willed, well-read, imaginative, and unflinchingly devoted to his ideals. And he was also, beyond doubt, a crackpot.Reich's initial work was in the area of psychoanalysis. In fact, he was a protege of Sigmund Freud. His technique of Character Analysis expanded on Freud's psychoanalysis and was well-received. Some at the time even considered Reich to be Freud's successor. However, his involvement with the early Communist Party in Europe eventually got him kicked out of the psychiatric community — and ironically, his involvement with the psychiatric community got him kicked out of the Communist Party at around the same time. His relentless insistence that sexuality was central to emotional health earned him more critics than supporters, as well. Reich eventually fled Germany for Norway in 1933 for fear of the rising power of the Nazis, who showed a great deal of enmity toward members of the Communist Party (even former members).
From there on, though, Reich began to delve into areas of research for which his medical and psychiatric training left him ill-equipped. He performed bioelectrical experiments on subjects in various states of sexual arousal, somewhat reminiscent of the experiments Masters and Johnson would perform two decades later. He claimed to see microscopic bions develop from lifeless matter and organize themselves into living cells. And he eventually came to believe he had discovered a primordial energy essential for life, which he called orgone energy, and which he was obsessed with for the rest of his life. Along the way of making these various "discoveries," his works were either ignored or heavily criticized by the mainstream scientific community. Reich seemed to take every criticism of his work as a personal attack. He was convinced he had made the greatest discoveries in the history of humanity, next to which the discovery of electricity or the law of gravity or the wheel or fire were insignificant. He felt that mainstream scientists only attacked his work because his discoveries were too emotionally disturbing for them to tolerate. (Why was such obstinant resistance to Reich's "obvious truths" so prevalent? Why, because of the emotional plague, of course.) And Reich surrounded himself with people who agreed with his assessments of his discoveries' greatness, people who all lacked any formal training in the natural sciences — training which, if it had been present, might have helped Reich see the real, concrete reasons why his work was criticized.
Thus far, hardly any skeptics have seen Reich to be worth the time and energy necessary to debunk all of his claims in detail. Almost all skeptical treaments of his works focus on the more outrageous claims he made about orgone energy, or simply poo-poo his research and theories out-of-hand. This, unfortunately, lends a false air of legitimacy to the various Orgonomy groups that promulgate Reich's ideas. Modern orgonomists come across like poor, downtrodden underdogs, attacked without reason by those few obviously orgastically impotent skeptics and mainstream scientists out there who still take potshots at Orgonomy. Since the skeptics and scientists never seem to show why the Orgonomists are wrong — at least not to the satisfaction of the Orgonomist groups, who always seem to have a rebuttal up their sleeve — the Orgonomists must therefore be right, of course.
This situation might be improved if the criticisms levelled against Reich by his contemporaries were easily accessible in English today. But sadly, most of them, such as Kreyberg's criticism of bions in the 1930s, are practically lost to history. Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science contains one of the few critical treatments of Reich that has survived to this day, but even this is lacking in sufficient details to answer the rebuttals of the modern orgonomists.
My personal experiences with Orgonomy go way back. Some people are raised in a Catholic family. Some people are raised in a Jewish family. I was raised in an Orgonomy family. And despite Reich's insistence to the contrary, Orgonomy is a religion, filled with sacred truths which can never be experimentally verified, a single central theme which tries to explain everything in the universe, a Fall from Grace in the mythical past, and even a Christ figure in Reich himself. I was forced to endure years of orgone therapy the way many other children are forced to go to church. I became a "convert" to Reich's works in late puberty thanks primarily to his pro-sex attitude. I was a "true believer" until the late 1990s, when my skeptical instincts finally caught up with me, and I at last acknowledged the similarities between the writings of Reich and the ravings of various other cantankerous crackpots who were trying to hawk their own all-encompassing theories.
This collection of articles, then, is the culmination of my skepticism toward the works and theories of Wilhelm Reich. Reich's work encompassed many, many areas, not all of which he documented in the detail necessary to critique them properly. So, yes, some of my critiques involve my personal, educated guesses as to what Reich might "really" have been seeing or measuring. But enough of Reich's writings do give sufficient detail that Reich's own shortcomings as a self-proclaimed scientific researcher come through plainly. For unlike Sir Isaac Newton, Reich was not willing to stand upon the shoulders of giants. He stood only as high as his own experiences would allow, and from this low perch imagined himself to be a lone eagle soaring higher than any other man had ever reached.
This Freud Disciple Tried To Harness The Power Of Orgasms To Cure Illnesses
Published June 12, 2018
Wilhelm Reich believed he could absorb the energy of an orgasm, and use it as an all-purpose cure for all of mankind's ailments.
Wikimedia CommonsA female patient in one of Wilhelm Reich’s orgone accumulators.
An Austrian psychoanalyst born in 1897, Wilhelm Reich had been a student of none other than Sigmund Freud himself. Freud believed that sexual repression was inherent to human nature, but his pupil took that radical idea even further.
Wilhelm Reich’s New Point Of View
The basis of Wilhelm Reich’s belief system was that the energy produced by orgasms was an all purpose cure for mankind’s ills, whether physical, mental, or societal. Perhaps if Hitler and his cronies joined in the “sexual revolution” Reich envisioned sweeping through the continent (an unpleasant image to be sure), even the war that was brewing in Europe could be prevented. Naturally, the Nazis did not take kindly to this theory (they dubbed it a “Jewish conspiracy”) and Reich was forced to flee to Denmark as his books were burned in Austria and Germany.
The zany psychoanalyst eventually found refuge in the United States during the late 1930s. It was there Reich decided to reach out to fellow refugee Albert Einstein, whom he wrote the first time in 1940 “to discuss a difficult and urgent scientific matter.”
Public DomainKurt Cobain waves from inside William S. Burroughs’s personal accumulator on a visit.
The urgent matter Reich was so eager to discuss with Einstein was an elaborate invention he had come up with, the so-called “Orgone Energy Accumulator.” The accumulator was actually nothing more than an enormous wooden box lined with metal and steel wool, but Reich believed what he had created had the power to harness “orgone energy” from the atmosphere and rid patients of all their physical and mental woes.
Einstein politely ignored Reich’s letters, but the persistent psychoanalyst kept up a deluge of correspondence until Einstein wearily agreed to meet him in Princeton. Reich considered the meeting a smashing success, noting in his journal that his earth-shattering discovery rendered Einstein’s comparatively modest work obsolete, noting “[Einstein] is simple and clear. I sensed his weaknesses . . . and was aware when his opinions were incorrect but felt not a trace of gloating.”
The renowned physicist clearly took a different view of the meeting, as Reich also noted (without irony),”When I told him, in concluding, that people considered me mad, his reply was ‘I can believe that.'” Reich kept sending absurd letters, but Einstein went back to simply ignoring them.
Not Giving Up Hope
Despite having been dismissed by one of the most brilliant scientific minds of the century, Wilhelm Reich’s orgone accumulator gained popularity amongst America’s avant-garde set in the 1940s and 1950s. JD Salinger, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Goodman, and Jack Kerouac all enthusiastically embraced Reich’s invention: it even made an appearance in Woody Allen’s Sleeper.
Kerouac was introduced to the accumulator after William S. Burroughs wrote to him claiming “After reading [Reich’s] book I built an orgone accumulator and the gimmick really works. The man is not crazy, he’s a fucking genius.”
Wikimedia CommonsReich and one of his cloudbuster machines.
Unfortunately, the popularity of his machine would actually bring about Reich’s downfall: the accumulator came to the attention of the Food and Drug Administration in the late 1940s. Its inventor then ran afoul of the government when he refused to have it tested to corroborate the results he claimed it provided.
Reich had been on the federal radar since his arrival in the states back before the start of World War II. The FBI had a file on him that was over 700 pages long and had put him under secret surveillance due to his membership in the Communist Party (which, funnily enough, had booted him because of his ideas about sexual liberation back in the early 1930s).
By the time the FDA began to crack down on Reich, his ideas had become even more outlandish. In the 1950s, Reich turned his attention from the human body to the skies, creating a “cloudbuster” (a bundle of giant tubes that shot water in the sky) that the believed could conduct orgones and use their power to control the weather. He was also convinced that UFOs were poisoning humans with radiation, which could only be combated by harnessing the power of orgones.
By this time, the FSA had had enough and a court had ordered Wilhelm Reich to stop selling his machines. Reich ignored the order and was sentenced to two years for continuing to sell accumulators in 1957. He died in prison eight months into his sentence in November of that year.
Next, read about some of the weirdest inventions created by the Nazis. Then, check out Ahnenerbe, Heinrich Himmler’s plan to prove the Aryan race was descended from Nordic gods.
Gina Dimuro
Gina Dimuro is a New York-based writer and translator.
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By Gina Dimuro
Published June 12, 2018
Wilhelm Reich believed he could absorb the energy of an orgasm, and use it as an all-purpose cure for all of mankind's ailments.
Wikimedia CommonsA female patient in one of Wilhelm Reich’s orgone accumulators.
An Austrian psychoanalyst born in 1897, Wilhelm Reich had been a student of none other than Sigmund Freud himself. Freud believed that sexual repression was inherent to human nature, but his pupil took that radical idea even further.
Wilhelm Reich’s New Point Of View
The basis of Wilhelm Reich’s belief system was that the energy produced by orgasms was an all purpose cure for mankind’s ills, whether physical, mental, or societal. Perhaps if Hitler and his cronies joined in the “sexual revolution” Reich envisioned sweeping through the continent (an unpleasant image to be sure), even the war that was brewing in Europe could be prevented. Naturally, the Nazis did not take kindly to this theory (they dubbed it a “Jewish conspiracy”) and Reich was forced to flee to Denmark as his books were burned in Austria and Germany.
The zany psychoanalyst eventually found refuge in the United States during the late 1930s. It was there Reich decided to reach out to fellow refugee Albert Einstein, whom he wrote the first time in 1940 “to discuss a difficult and urgent scientific matter.”
Public DomainKurt Cobain waves from inside William S. Burroughs’s personal accumulator on a visit.
The urgent matter Reich was so eager to discuss with Einstein was an elaborate invention he had come up with, the so-called “Orgone Energy Accumulator.” The accumulator was actually nothing more than an enormous wooden box lined with metal and steel wool, but Reich believed what he had created had the power to harness “orgone energy” from the atmosphere and rid patients of all their physical and mental woes.
Einstein politely ignored Reich’s letters, but the persistent psychoanalyst kept up a deluge of correspondence until Einstein wearily agreed to meet him in Princeton. Reich considered the meeting a smashing success, noting in his journal that his earth-shattering discovery rendered Einstein’s comparatively modest work obsolete, noting “[Einstein] is simple and clear. I sensed his weaknesses . . . and was aware when his opinions were incorrect but felt not a trace of gloating.”
The renowned physicist clearly took a different view of the meeting, as Reich also noted (without irony),”When I told him, in concluding, that people considered me mad, his reply was ‘I can believe that.'” Reich kept sending absurd letters, but Einstein went back to simply ignoring them.
Not Giving Up Hope
Despite having been dismissed by one of the most brilliant scientific minds of the century, Wilhelm Reich’s orgone accumulator gained popularity amongst America’s avant-garde set in the 1940s and 1950s. JD Salinger, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Goodman, and Jack Kerouac all enthusiastically embraced Reich’s invention: it even made an appearance in Woody Allen’s Sleeper.
Kerouac was introduced to the accumulator after William S. Burroughs wrote to him claiming “After reading [Reich’s] book I built an orgone accumulator and the gimmick really works. The man is not crazy, he’s a fucking genius.”
Wikimedia CommonsReich and one of his cloudbuster machines.
Unfortunately, the popularity of his machine would actually bring about Reich’s downfall: the accumulator came to the attention of the Food and Drug Administration in the late 1940s. Its inventor then ran afoul of the government when he refused to have it tested to corroborate the results he claimed it provided.
Reich had been on the federal radar since his arrival in the states back before the start of World War II. The FBI had a file on him that was over 700 pages long and had put him under secret surveillance due to his membership in the Communist Party (which, funnily enough, had booted him because of his ideas about sexual liberation back in the early 1930s).
By the time the FDA began to crack down on Reich, his ideas had become even more outlandish. In the 1950s, Reich turned his attention from the human body to the skies, creating a “cloudbuster” (a bundle of giant tubes that shot water in the sky) that the believed could conduct orgones and use their power to control the weather. He was also convinced that UFOs were poisoning humans with radiation, which could only be combated by harnessing the power of orgones.
By this time, the FSA had had enough and a court had ordered Wilhelm Reich to stop selling his machines. Reich ignored the order and was sentenced to two years for continuing to sell accumulators in 1957. He died in prison eight months into his sentence in November of that year.
Next, read about some of the weirdest inventions created by the Nazis. Then, check out Ahnenerbe, Heinrich Himmler’s plan to prove the Aryan race was descended from Nordic gods.
Gina Dimuro
Gina Dimuro is a New York-based writer and translator.
Previous Post
Henry Brown Was A Slave In North Carolina – Until He...Next Post
Meet Papa Legba – The Devilish Voodoo Figure Of...
MIXED MEDIA ART INSTALLATIONS CLOUDBUSTER PROJECTS
CLOUDBUSTER PROJECT Christoph Keller NY 2003
The reenactments of Cloudbuster experiments took place on the roof of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City and on the top of the Clock Tower in lower Manhattan, New York. These actions were based on the invention of Wilhelm Reich, the Austrian born psychologist and early scholar of Freud who developed a political theory of sexuality in the 1920s. Reich began initial experimentation with making changes to the atmosphere in 1952, shortly after the ORANURexperiments, which focus on the reaction of Orgone with nuclear energy. The reenactments had the aim of making rain over New York in the spring and summer of 2003. Out of the roof of the Clock Tower, the empty space of the missing World Trade Center Towers makes a distinct visual gap. The vacancy of these buildings dominated the general atmosphere in New York and had some influence on the Cloudbuster reenactments as well. It rained through the entire period of Cloudbuster operations in New York. The Cloudbuster has an uncomplicated mechanical structure, consisting of few rows of conductive metal pipes that are connected with hoses to a source of flowing water. A spacer made of organic material insulates each one of these metal conductors. According to Orgone theory, flowing water has a positive Orgone charge that can be channeled with the Cloudbuster into the sky. With activation, the apparatus attracts the Orgone present in the atmosphere, from zones of higher or lower Orgone potential. The pipes then function in channeling the relatively small attracting force of the water streaming through the base of the Cloudbuster, and direct it to a small area in the sky where it can be effective in initiating rain by conflating the unstable Orgone-potentials of negative or positive Orgone charge.
Weather Service confirms five tornadoes hit D.C. area Friday morning
Weather Service confirms five tornadoes hit D.C. area Friday morning, biggest winter event on record
3/3 SLIDES © Doug Kapustin for The Washington Post
Storm damage Friday along West Main Street in Westminster, Md.
The National Weather Service (NWS) confirmed Friday evening that at least six tornadoes touched down during this morning’s historic winter thunderstorm event in Maryland and Virginia. Five were in the local Washington area.
Previously, the Washington region had seen a maximum of just one tornado in any winter severe thunderstorm event. The five occurring in a single morning represents, by far, the biggest winter tornado event on record for this area.
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The confirmed tornadoes join at least 225 reports of wind damage logged by the National Weather Service in the Mid-Atlantic, stretching from southeast Virginia through northern New Jersey. It is the most reports on record in the Mid-Atlantic from a severe thunderstorm outbreak during the winter months.
The first of the tornadoes happened near Leesburg in Loudoun County, with two additional touchdowns in Montgomery County, another in central Carroll County in northern Maryland, and yet one more in eastern Frederick County. The sixth was in far northeast Maryland.
Leesburg tornado
Although the Leesburg tornado was relatively weak, rated EF0 on a 0 to 5 scale, maximum wind speeds of 85 mph caused some significant damage. The twister touched down at 7:20 a.m. and had an intermittent path of 3.3 miles, with a maximum width of 250 yards.
“The first damage was reported in the Greenway Farm and Linden Hill subdivision in southwest Leesburg,” according to the survey. A number of trees were uprooted at that location, in addition to numerous limbs down. In this area, damage was estimated to be caused by 65 mph winds.
After briefly lifting and sparing the historic downtown, the tornado touched back down and became stronger. In northeast Leesburg, several locations of significant damage occurred.
The survey notes that “a townhome on Ginger Square NE had its siding and underlayment completely peeled off, exposing [its] roof trusses.” A number of other houses had roof damage, as well as trees downed.
The NWS found another zone with major damage north of Battlefield Parkway NE.
“Here, fifteen to twenty 1.5-2.0 foot diameter pines were uprooted,” it wrote. The NWS continued, “Of special note was a line of 5 large pine trees in the easternmost portion of the apartment complex which were uprooted and which fell onto two unoccupied vehicles.”
Dickerson (Montgomery County) tornado
An EF1 tornado was also confirmed near Dickerson, Md., in western Montgomery County. It touched down at 7:28 a.m., with a path length of a mile and maximum wind speeds of 95 mph.
The survey indicates that damage was seen in trees near Martinsburg Road near the Potomac River. “A large barn used to house horses lost all of its roof while an adjacent open-air pole barn was flattened,” the NWS wrote. Additionally, “several small outbuildings were destroyed.”
Boyds (Montgomery County) tornado
At roughly the same time, an EF0 tornado was occurring near Boyds in Montgomery County. Maximum sustained winds of 80 mph were estimated along its 2.3-mile path.
Several trees were topped and downed power lines on Darnestown Road in Boyds. The tornado went on to destroy an outbuilding and damage several structures. “A 10 foot 2x4 impaled the side of one of the office trailers while another 2x4 impaled the roof of the second office trailer,” the NWS wrote.
Westminster (Carroll County) tornado
Later, an EF1 touched down in Carroll County to the southwest of Westminster. It had an intermittent path length of 10.3 miles and a maximum wind of 90 mph.
The tornado passed largely over rural areas, snapping and uprooted numerous trees. Some fell onto cars and homes. A military trailer and recruiting office of the National Guard were damaged as well.
Monrovia (Frederick County) tornado
The Weather Service confirmed an EF1 tornado carved a six-mile path through eastern Frederick County, with winds to 105 mph. This twister, on the ground from 7:44 to 7:50 a.m., was up to 150 yards wide as it passed in the vicinity of New Market and Monrovia.
Traveling mostly over open country, the Weather Service wrote that tree damage was “extensive.” The twister damaged several structures on a farm, “where a machine shed and barn were flattened,” as well as a silo.
These are the first tornadoes on record during meteorological winter, or December-February, in each of the counties they occurred locally. That also means they’re the earliest tornado in a calendar year on record. For instance, the touchdown in Loudoun County bests prior earliest touchdowns on April 16 in 1993 and 2011.
Another tornado was confirmed by the NWS Philadelphia/Mt. Holly office near Barksdale, Md., bringing the total in the broader region to at least six.
While the Mid-Atlantic averages about one tornado per meteorological winter, the ferocity of the broader event was unusual. It was driven by a very powerful storm system plowing northeast up the Appalachians while strengthening rapidly. It goes down as one of the largest winter tornado events on record in the Mid-Atlantic, in addition to the largest locally.
Information in this report should be considered preliminary, and additional tornado confirmations are possible.
a tree in front of a house: Storm damage Friday along
West Main Street in Westminster, Md
3/3 SLIDES © Doug Kapustin for The Washington Post
Storm damage Friday along West Main Street in Westminster, Md.
The National Weather Service (NWS) confirmed Friday evening that at least six tornadoes touched down during this morning’s historic winter thunderstorm event in Maryland and Virginia. Five were in the local Washington area.
Previously, the Washington region had seen a maximum of just one tornado in any winter severe thunderstorm event. The five occurring in a single morning represents, by far, the biggest winter tornado event on record for this area.
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The confirmed tornadoes join at least 225 reports of wind damage logged by the National Weather Service in the Mid-Atlantic, stretching from southeast Virginia through northern New Jersey. It is the most reports on record in the Mid-Atlantic from a severe thunderstorm outbreak during the winter months.
The first of the tornadoes happened near Leesburg in Loudoun County, with two additional touchdowns in Montgomery County, another in central Carroll County in northern Maryland, and yet one more in eastern Frederick County. The sixth was in far northeast Maryland.
Leesburg tornado
Although the Leesburg tornado was relatively weak, rated EF0 on a 0 to 5 scale, maximum wind speeds of 85 mph caused some significant damage. The twister touched down at 7:20 a.m. and had an intermittent path of 3.3 miles, with a maximum width of 250 yards.
“The first damage was reported in the Greenway Farm and Linden Hill subdivision in southwest Leesburg,” according to the survey. A number of trees were uprooted at that location, in addition to numerous limbs down. In this area, damage was estimated to be caused by 65 mph winds.
After briefly lifting and sparing the historic downtown, the tornado touched back down and became stronger. In northeast Leesburg, several locations of significant damage occurred.
The survey notes that “a townhome on Ginger Square NE had its siding and underlayment completely peeled off, exposing [its] roof trusses.” A number of other houses had roof damage, as well as trees downed.
The NWS found another zone with major damage north of Battlefield Parkway NE.
“Here, fifteen to twenty 1.5-2.0 foot diameter pines were uprooted,” it wrote. The NWS continued, “Of special note was a line of 5 large pine trees in the easternmost portion of the apartment complex which were uprooted and which fell onto two unoccupied vehicles.”
Dickerson (Montgomery County) tornado
An EF1 tornado was also confirmed near Dickerson, Md., in western Montgomery County. It touched down at 7:28 a.m., with a path length of a mile and maximum wind speeds of 95 mph.
The survey indicates that damage was seen in trees near Martinsburg Road near the Potomac River. “A large barn used to house horses lost all of its roof while an adjacent open-air pole barn was flattened,” the NWS wrote. Additionally, “several small outbuildings were destroyed.”
Boyds (Montgomery County) tornado
At roughly the same time, an EF0 tornado was occurring near Boyds in Montgomery County. Maximum sustained winds of 80 mph were estimated along its 2.3-mile path.
Several trees were topped and downed power lines on Darnestown Road in Boyds. The tornado went on to destroy an outbuilding and damage several structures. “A 10 foot 2x4 impaled the side of one of the office trailers while another 2x4 impaled the roof of the second office trailer,” the NWS wrote.
Westminster (Carroll County) tornado
Later, an EF1 touched down in Carroll County to the southwest of Westminster. It had an intermittent path length of 10.3 miles and a maximum wind of 90 mph.
The tornado passed largely over rural areas, snapping and uprooted numerous trees. Some fell onto cars and homes. A military trailer and recruiting office of the National Guard were damaged as well.
Monrovia (Frederick County) tornado
The Weather Service confirmed an EF1 tornado carved a six-mile path through eastern Frederick County, with winds to 105 mph. This twister, on the ground from 7:44 to 7:50 a.m., was up to 150 yards wide as it passed in the vicinity of New Market and Monrovia.
Traveling mostly over open country, the Weather Service wrote that tree damage was “extensive.” The twister damaged several structures on a farm, “where a machine shed and barn were flattened,” as well as a silo.
These are the first tornadoes on record during meteorological winter, or December-February, in each of the counties they occurred locally. That also means they’re the earliest tornado in a calendar year on record. For instance, the touchdown in Loudoun County bests prior earliest touchdowns on April 16 in 1993 and 2011.
Another tornado was confirmed by the NWS Philadelphia/Mt. Holly office near Barksdale, Md., bringing the total in the broader region to at least six.
While the Mid-Atlantic averages about one tornado per meteorological winter, the ferocity of the broader event was unusual. It was driven by a very powerful storm system plowing northeast up the Appalachians while strengthening rapidly. It goes down as one of the largest winter tornado events on record in the Mid-Atlantic, in addition to the largest locally.
Information in this report should be considered preliminary, and additional tornado confirmations are possible.
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THE WRATH OF TRUMP HIS EMOTIONAL TIRADE AND FIRINGS OVER IMPEACHMENT LED TO THIS DISRUPTION IN THE D.C. BIONSPHERE RELEASING NEGATIVE ORGONE ENERGY OF HIS PSYCHIC RAGE AS THE UBERMENSCH OF REICH'S LITTLE MAN
THE WRATH OF TRUMP HIS EMOTIONAL TIRADE AND FIRINGS OVER IMPEACHMENT LED TO THIS DISRUPTION IN THE D.C. BIONSPHERE RELEASING NEGATIVE ORGONE ENERGY OF HIS PSYCHIC RAGE AS THE UBERMENSCH OF REICH'S LITTLE MAN
PROPERTIES OF ORGONE ENERGY DEDUCED BY WILHELM REICH
1. It is mass free
2. It is omnipresent. Orgone energy fills all space in differing degrees of concentrations.
3. It is the medium for electromagnetic and gravitational phenomena.
4. It is in constant motion.
5. It “contradicts” the law of entropy. It is attracted to itself.
6. It forms units that are the foci of creative activity such as bions, clouds and galaxies.
7. Matter arises from mass-free orgone energy.
8. It is responsible for the phenomena of life and spontaneous generation of living organisms out of non-living matter.
9. Superimposition Function: separate streams of orgone energy may be attracted to each other and converge in a spiral form. This convergence of energy may be viewed in cyclonic storms and is the principle expression of mating in living nature.
10.It can be manipulated and controlled by orgone energy devices.
2. It is omnipresent. Orgone energy fills all space in differing degrees of concentrations.
3. It is the medium for electromagnetic and gravitational phenomena.
4. It is in constant motion.
5. It “contradicts” the law of entropy. It is attracted to itself.
6. It forms units that are the foci of creative activity such as bions, clouds and galaxies.
7. Matter arises from mass-free orgone energy.
8. It is responsible for the phenomena of life and spontaneous generation of living organisms out of non-living matter.
9. Superimposition Function: separate streams of orgone energy may be attracted to each other and converge in a spiral form. This convergence of energy may be viewed in cyclonic storms and is the principle expression of mating in living nature.
10.It can be manipulated and controlled by orgone energy devices.
 |
| see_wilhelm_reich_s_orgasm_powered_cloudbuster_at_his_orgonon_estate_in |
Friday, February 07, 2020
Bald eagle numbers soar to new heights in this state
The bald eagle population in Wisconsin has made a huge comeback in the last 45 years.
The bald eagle population in Wisconsin has made a huge comeback in the last 45 years.
© STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images A bald eagle sits in a nest in this stock photo.
According to new data released by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the state has shown a dramatic increase in the total number of active bald eagle nests since 1974.MORE: Researchers ask public to help find bald eagle nests in Ohio
"The success of bald eagles in Wisconsin is a comeback story fueled by the national ban on the pesticide DDT, added protections under state and federal endangered species laws, river cleanups under the Clean Water Act and public support of nest monitoring and protection efforts," the WDNR wrote on Facebook.MORE: 3 adult bald eagles watch over 3 eaglets in nest along Mississippi River
"Part of that public support includes donations to the Endangered Resources Fund via Wisconsin state income tax forms, purchases of an Endangered Resources license plate and citizen reports of bald eagle nests or nest-building activity."
According to new data released by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the state has shown a dramatic increase in the total number of active bald eagle nests since 1974.MORE: Researchers ask public to help find bald eagle nests in Ohio
"The success of bald eagles in Wisconsin is a comeback story fueled by the national ban on the pesticide DDT, added protections under state and federal endangered species laws, river cleanups under the Clean Water Act and public support of nest monitoring and protection efforts," the WDNR wrote on Facebook.MORE: 3 adult bald eagles watch over 3 eaglets in nest along Mississippi River
"Part of that public support includes donations to the Endangered Resources Fund via Wisconsin state income tax forms, purchases of an Endangered Resources license plate and citizen reports of bald eagle nests or nest-building activity."
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After Disasters, Puerto Ricans Are Left With $1.6 Billion in Unpaid Insurance Claims
When the ground shakes in Puerto Rico and it is time to head for higher ground, the people in the northwestern coastal city of Aguadilla find out the old way: the shrill of whistles.
When the ground shakes in Puerto Rico and it is time to head for higher ground, the people in the northwestern coastal city of Aguadilla find out the old way: the shrill of whistles.
© Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times A tsunami siren in Aguadilla, P.R., that broke during Hurricane Maria has yet to be repaired.
Aguadilla is one of two dozen cities on the island that do not have emergency alert sirens, even as hundreds of earthquakes have rattled Puerto Rico for weeks. The sirens were destroyed during Hurricane Maria in 2017, and insurers still have not paid long-pending claims that would allow the cities to install new warning equipment.
“I’ve seen people in town with a whistle hanging around their necks,” said Carlos Méndez Martínez, who retired as mayor last month after almost 25 years of running the city.
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More than two years after Hurricane Maria descended, destroying power poles, public buildings, homes, roads and other infrastructure from one end of the island to the other, an estimated $1.6 billion in insurance claims — particularly high-dollar claims filed by cities and condominium associations — remain unresolved.
Torres del Parque Condominium in Bayamón, P.R., is still waiting for repairs.Next Slide
Full screen
1/4 SLIDES © Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times
Torres del Parque Condominium in Bayamón, P.R., is still waiting for repairs.
Emergency facilities, hospitals, stadiums, basketball courts, convention centers and other government properties around the island are still in shambles, waiting for repair because private insurers have not paid claims.
Hurricane Maria exposed an important deficiency in the process of Puerto Rico’s disaster recovery: underfunded private insurers, who are subject to few regulations.
While blame has been directed at the federal government for not providing timely disaster relief, less attention has been paid to the private companies that had a contractual responsibility to help clients who had paid premiums, many of them for years. Two insurers went out of business after Maria, and many of those that did not collapse offered pennies on the dollar. In many cases, insurers nearly doubled premiums after the hurricane while continuing to fight what the companies described as exorbitant and fraudulent claims.
Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed.
Aguadilla was left with no compensation for more than the tsunami sirens. The city sued its insurer, MAPFRE Insurance, after the Spanish company paid out $2 million for a destroyed coliseum that experts said would cost up to $20 million to replace, the former mayor said. Also left unusable were a water park, an ice-skating arena and an oceanfront boardwalk.
“Obviously the only way to attack this is with lawyers — without that, they don’t pay,” said José Alfredo Londoño, president of the Astralis condominium association, a 210-unit complex in the Isla Verde neighborhood near San Juan. “They are not going to pay.”
His complex’s damages totaled more than $13 million, he said, but MAPFRE offered $1 million.
“Ridiculous,” Mr. Londoño said.
Out of an estimated $8.5 billion in insurance claims filed since Hurricane Maria, $6.9 billion have been paid, said Javier Rivera Ríos, who was Puerto Rico’s insurance commissioner throughout the wake of the storm. The remaining $1.6 billion, he said, were more complex cases that were taking longer to resolve.
The insurance battles on the island put a spotlight on the work of public adjusters, often hired by clients who suffer damages to help make their case to insurance companies. The nature of their job is to carefully read policies to determine everything a business, homeowner or municipality is owed. But in Puerto Rico, some of the insurance companies have accused public adjuster firms of pumping up claims in a quest for higher recoveries.
Alexis Sánchez Geigel, president of MAPFRE Puerto Rico, now the largest insurer on the island, said the company had paid more than $1 billion in claims. He said that nine of the 22 municipalities it covers have not been fully paid, and that seven of those use public adjusters.
“We have settled 99 percent of our claims,” he said, adding that company policy does not allow him to discuss pending claims. “Some of the allegations we have made are public.”
MAPFRE took an unusual and aggressive stance by suing two of its clients. The company took the cities of Cabo Rojo and Barceloneta to court, accusing them of submitting grossly inflated and fraudulent insurance claims.
MAPFRE offered Cabo Rojo $611,648 for its damages, while the city’s Mississippi-based public adjuster firm submitted a claim that surpassed $62 million, according to the lawsuit. In one multistory building, the adjuster said that every sink, toilet, urinal, soap dispenser and garbage can needed to be replaced, even though all of them, according to MAPFRE’s lawsuit, were in “perfect condition” and undamaged by the storm.
This was just one example of the kinds of inflated claims that insurers have been dealing with, Mr. Sánchez said. “Time will tell who did the right thing and if it was done properly or not.”
Cabo Rojo’s mayor, Roberto Ramírez Kurtz, said that he had not seen the claims before the public adjuster, Scott M. Favre, submitted them, and that was disturbed to learn the city’s claim was so high.
“I was bothered by that, and canceled the contract with the public adjuster,” Mr. Ramírez said. “It’s been a year with a new adjuster and we haven’t moved one inch forward. We have always acted in good faith. MAPFRE has not acted in good faith with us, and instead are punishing the people.”
Pedro Ortiz Álvarez, a lawyer who represents Barceloneta and several other cities, said insurance companies were using complaints about public adjusters as a red herring to distract from their own failure to make good on policies they wrote.
“They have used the subject of the public adjusters as an excuse,” he said.
The adjusters’ claims are often accompanied by matching estimates prepared by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he said.
Mr. Favre, the public adjuster accused in MAPFRE’s lawsuit of inflating claims, said the insurance companies that have contested his claims cannot explain why so many experts agree with his damage estimates.
“When the estimate is greater than theirs, the insurance company calls that fraud,” Mr. Favre said. “But the disparity is often 1,000 percent.”
One municipal building he handled had panels blown off the roof, was flooded and lost all its windows.
“The carrier came up with $131,000,” he said. “And then let’s say I go out there and go with experts and came up with $3.8 million, FEMA says $4.9 million and then another contractor says $4 million. The carrier says, ‘You must be committing fraud.’”
Mr. Favre’s company came under fire when it was revealed that the firm, which has secured at least 40 government contracts, used consultants closely linked to the ruling New Progressive Party.
Six complaints have been filed against Mr. Favre by both clients and insurance companies, the insurance commissioner’s office said.
Mr. Rivera, the former insurance commissioner, said in an interview before his resignation last month that the protracted claims process showed the need to reform existing insurance laws. Puerto Rico has recently adopted some measures to help consumers through the claims process, including mandatory arbitration to settle disputes.
“I think that I have to recognize it could have been a better response, and for that we have new regulations,” Mr. Rivera said. “Consumers learned a lot: They have to purchase insurance seriously and understand what they are buying. There is a mix of high expectations and bad insurance.”
But Mr. Rivera will not be overseeing any additional reforms; after a series of accusations of conflict of interest involving personal loans and other matters, he stepped down from his post last month.
In the interview, Mr. Rivera said that, on average, customers received about 60 percent of the amounts they submitted on their claims, and that the majority were settled within 10 months. Some who got nothing from their insurance had to settle for payouts from a government catastrophe fund, while others are waiting for assets of the failed insurance companies to be distributed. Every insurance company on the island was fined for some deficiency or another, Mr. Rivera said.
He said his office sued several insurers for delaying claims until after the statute of limitations for a customer to file a lawsuit, an issue that was addressed with the new legislation. Puerto Rico’s nonvoting representative in Congress, Jenniffer González-Colón, said the continuing problems and series of new disasters highlighted the need for better federal oversight over insurers.
Iraelia Pernas, executive director of the Puerto Rico Insurance Companies Association, said that some customers were not sufficiently insured, and that the companies also saw a lot of fraud, such as pictures of the same broken window that were submitted for all the units in a building.
“Condominiums have similar windows; we can compromise on that,” she said. “But it is not possible that every apartment had the same air-conditioner, the same things on the table.”
A few public adjusters were asking for more than the policy limits, and some overestimated prices, claiming that a sink cost $600, she said.
“It’s a public restroom,” she said. “We are not talking about marble.”
While the cases wind through the courts, people like Luis M. Rodríguez Rivera, a 54-year-old disabled diabetic, are left in the lurch. Hurricane Maria soaked Mr. Rodríguez’s home in Guayama, cracking the floor and leaving it covered in mold.
“It’s as if it sprouted cracks and is exploding,” he said.
Mr. Rodríguez, a former school technology specialist, now alternates between staying with his mother or — when he does not want her to see him weeping — in his car. The law firm he hired estimated that his house needed $92,000 in repairs; MAPFRE gave him an $8,000 check his lawyers told him not to cash.
“It’s like I’ve fallen into a trap,” Mr. Rodríguez said. “You don’t know when you’re going to get what is owed to you to fix your house and live with dignity.”
Edmy Ayala contributed reporting from San Juan, P.R.
Aguadilla is one of two dozen cities on the island that do not have emergency alert sirens, even as hundreds of earthquakes have rattled Puerto Rico for weeks. The sirens were destroyed during Hurricane Maria in 2017, and insurers still have not paid long-pending claims that would allow the cities to install new warning equipment.
“I’ve seen people in town with a whistle hanging around their necks,” said Carlos Méndez Martínez, who retired as mayor last month after almost 25 years of running the city.
Sign Up For the Morning Briefing Newsletter
More than two years after Hurricane Maria descended, destroying power poles, public buildings, homes, roads and other infrastructure from one end of the island to the other, an estimated $1.6 billion in insurance claims — particularly high-dollar claims filed by cities and condominium associations — remain unresolved.
Torres del Parque Condominium in Bayamón, P.R., is still waiting for repairs.Next Slide
Full screen
1/4 SLIDES © Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times
Torres del Parque Condominium in Bayamón, P.R., is still waiting for repairs.
Emergency facilities, hospitals, stadiums, basketball courts, convention centers and other government properties around the island are still in shambles, waiting for repair because private insurers have not paid claims.
Hurricane Maria exposed an important deficiency in the process of Puerto Rico’s disaster recovery: underfunded private insurers, who are subject to few regulations.
While blame has been directed at the federal government for not providing timely disaster relief, less attention has been paid to the private companies that had a contractual responsibility to help clients who had paid premiums, many of them for years. Two insurers went out of business after Maria, and many of those that did not collapse offered pennies on the dollar. In many cases, insurers nearly doubled premiums after the hurricane while continuing to fight what the companies described as exorbitant and fraudulent claims.
Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed.
Aguadilla was left with no compensation for more than the tsunami sirens. The city sued its insurer, MAPFRE Insurance, after the Spanish company paid out $2 million for a destroyed coliseum that experts said would cost up to $20 million to replace, the former mayor said. Also left unusable were a water park, an ice-skating arena and an oceanfront boardwalk.
“Obviously the only way to attack this is with lawyers — without that, they don’t pay,” said José Alfredo Londoño, president of the Astralis condominium association, a 210-unit complex in the Isla Verde neighborhood near San Juan. “They are not going to pay.”
His complex’s damages totaled more than $13 million, he said, but MAPFRE offered $1 million.
“Ridiculous,” Mr. Londoño said.
Out of an estimated $8.5 billion in insurance claims filed since Hurricane Maria, $6.9 billion have been paid, said Javier Rivera Ríos, who was Puerto Rico’s insurance commissioner throughout the wake of the storm. The remaining $1.6 billion, he said, were more complex cases that were taking longer to resolve.
The insurance battles on the island put a spotlight on the work of public adjusters, often hired by clients who suffer damages to help make their case to insurance companies. The nature of their job is to carefully read policies to determine everything a business, homeowner or municipality is owed. But in Puerto Rico, some of the insurance companies have accused public adjuster firms of pumping up claims in a quest for higher recoveries.
Alexis Sánchez Geigel, president of MAPFRE Puerto Rico, now the largest insurer on the island, said the company had paid more than $1 billion in claims. He said that nine of the 22 municipalities it covers have not been fully paid, and that seven of those use public adjusters.
“We have settled 99 percent of our claims,” he said, adding that company policy does not allow him to discuss pending claims. “Some of the allegations we have made are public.”
MAPFRE took an unusual and aggressive stance by suing two of its clients. The company took the cities of Cabo Rojo and Barceloneta to court, accusing them of submitting grossly inflated and fraudulent insurance claims.
MAPFRE offered Cabo Rojo $611,648 for its damages, while the city’s Mississippi-based public adjuster firm submitted a claim that surpassed $62 million, according to the lawsuit. In one multistory building, the adjuster said that every sink, toilet, urinal, soap dispenser and garbage can needed to be replaced, even though all of them, according to MAPFRE’s lawsuit, were in “perfect condition” and undamaged by the storm.
This was just one example of the kinds of inflated claims that insurers have been dealing with, Mr. Sánchez said. “Time will tell who did the right thing and if it was done properly or not.”
Cabo Rojo’s mayor, Roberto Ramírez Kurtz, said that he had not seen the claims before the public adjuster, Scott M. Favre, submitted them, and that was disturbed to learn the city’s claim was so high.
“I was bothered by that, and canceled the contract with the public adjuster,” Mr. Ramírez said. “It’s been a year with a new adjuster and we haven’t moved one inch forward. We have always acted in good faith. MAPFRE has not acted in good faith with us, and instead are punishing the people.”
Pedro Ortiz Álvarez, a lawyer who represents Barceloneta and several other cities, said insurance companies were using complaints about public adjusters as a red herring to distract from their own failure to make good on policies they wrote.
“They have used the subject of the public adjusters as an excuse,” he said.
The adjusters’ claims are often accompanied by matching estimates prepared by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he said.
Mr. Favre, the public adjuster accused in MAPFRE’s lawsuit of inflating claims, said the insurance companies that have contested his claims cannot explain why so many experts agree with his damage estimates.
“When the estimate is greater than theirs, the insurance company calls that fraud,” Mr. Favre said. “But the disparity is often 1,000 percent.”
One municipal building he handled had panels blown off the roof, was flooded and lost all its windows.
“The carrier came up with $131,000,” he said. “And then let’s say I go out there and go with experts and came up with $3.8 million, FEMA says $4.9 million and then another contractor says $4 million. The carrier says, ‘You must be committing fraud.’”
Mr. Favre’s company came under fire when it was revealed that the firm, which has secured at least 40 government contracts, used consultants closely linked to the ruling New Progressive Party.
Six complaints have been filed against Mr. Favre by both clients and insurance companies, the insurance commissioner’s office said.
Mr. Rivera, the former insurance commissioner, said in an interview before his resignation last month that the protracted claims process showed the need to reform existing insurance laws. Puerto Rico has recently adopted some measures to help consumers through the claims process, including mandatory arbitration to settle disputes.
“I think that I have to recognize it could have been a better response, and for that we have new regulations,” Mr. Rivera said. “Consumers learned a lot: They have to purchase insurance seriously and understand what they are buying. There is a mix of high expectations and bad insurance.”
But Mr. Rivera will not be overseeing any additional reforms; after a series of accusations of conflict of interest involving personal loans and other matters, he stepped down from his post last month.
In the interview, Mr. Rivera said that, on average, customers received about 60 percent of the amounts they submitted on their claims, and that the majority were settled within 10 months. Some who got nothing from their insurance had to settle for payouts from a government catastrophe fund, while others are waiting for assets of the failed insurance companies to be distributed. Every insurance company on the island was fined for some deficiency or another, Mr. Rivera said.
He said his office sued several insurers for delaying claims until after the statute of limitations for a customer to file a lawsuit, an issue that was addressed with the new legislation. Puerto Rico’s nonvoting representative in Congress, Jenniffer González-Colón, said the continuing problems and series of new disasters highlighted the need for better federal oversight over insurers.
Iraelia Pernas, executive director of the Puerto Rico Insurance Companies Association, said that some customers were not sufficiently insured, and that the companies also saw a lot of fraud, such as pictures of the same broken window that were submitted for all the units in a building.
“Condominiums have similar windows; we can compromise on that,” she said. “But it is not possible that every apartment had the same air-conditioner, the same things on the table.”
A few public adjusters were asking for more than the policy limits, and some overestimated prices, claiming that a sink cost $600, she said.
“It’s a public restroom,” she said. “We are not talking about marble.”
While the cases wind through the courts, people like Luis M. Rodríguez Rivera, a 54-year-old disabled diabetic, are left in the lurch. Hurricane Maria soaked Mr. Rodríguez’s home in Guayama, cracking the floor and leaving it covered in mold.
“It’s as if it sprouted cracks and is exploding,” he said.
Mr. Rodríguez, a former school technology specialist, now alternates between staying with his mother or — when he does not want her to see him weeping — in his car. The law firm he hired estimated that his house needed $92,000 in repairs; MAPFRE gave him an $8,000 check his lawyers told him not to cash.
“It’s like I’ve fallen into a trap,” Mr. Rodríguez said. “You don’t know when you’re going to get what is owed to you to fix your house and live with dignity.”
Edmy Ayala contributed reporting from San Juan, P.R.
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