GOAT CURSE

BUT WHAT IF WE TALKED ABOUT SOMETHING INTERESTING? NO.1: Cloudbusting

If you like 80s music, or if you like good music, you’re probably familiar with Kate Bush’s 1985 song “Cloudbusting”. It’s certainly my favorite song by her. Bush’s dreamlike narrative combines with mounting, anthemic instrumentation to make something that sounds melancholy yet victorious. The song involves the grounded fears of a child’s helplessness in the face of a parent being persecuted by the government, but it’s still whimsical, cinematic, and optimistic. The general sentiment of the song is that something good is going to happen – even if you aren’t sure when – simply by speaking that belief into existence. Some might view this belief as a bit naive. That might be why I love it. There’s nothing wrong with believing in a better future, even when (perhaps especially when) the current outlook isn’t good.

Recently, I became curious about the music video and decided to look into what “cloudbusting” actually is. I hoped that my research might also give me a bit more insight into the imagery that Kate Bush uses in her lyrics (a “dangerous” yo-yo buried in the garden; making rain; etc.). Went down a bit of a rabbit hole and came out with some random intel. Here goes nothing!

Wilhelm Reich & the Cloudbuster

Of course, we need to start with the inventor of the cloudbuster. Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian doctor and radical psychoanalyst who wrote several influential and controversial books, such as The Function of the Orgasm and The Mass Psychology of Fascism. In 1934, Reich coined the phrase “orgone energy”, the meaning of which is important for understanding the supposed function of his cloudbuster.

“Orgone” refers to a sort of cosmic life force which all nature (including people) is said to be imbued with. Orgone also apparently energizes the nervous system; Reich created “orgone boxes” which a person could sit in to feel more balanced and healthy. Orgone is massless, but is somehow able to organize itself into masses like galaxies and clouds. Reich argued that mental and physical diseases, including cancer, were caused by a deficit or blockage in bodily orgone.

By 1954, the Food and Drug Administration moved to obtain an injunction to stop Reich from shipping orgone-related devices (like orgone boxes) across state lines. Reich continued to distribute his inventions, which led to him being jailed. Following this, the FDA destroyed Reich’s writings, research materials, and equipment (yay censorship).

With this context in mind, we can return to the cloudbuster. He claimed his device could produce rain by attracting orgone energy in the earth’s atmosphere. By grounding the cloudbuster in water and focusing it at a point in the sky, the orgone would be drawn out, causing clouds to form and rain to fall. Reich referred to his experiments with cloudbusters as “cosmic orgone engineering.” In at least one instance, Reich was actually paid by a couple of farmers to use his cloudbuster to alleviate drought. In the morning, Reich operated his cloudbuster on their farm. By the evening, it rained. The event was reported in the Bangor Daily News on July 6, 1953. It also may be worth mentioning that the news report was based on an eyewitness account, which may have come from Reich’s son, Peter.

Peter Reich & the Yo-Yo

Daddy said I had to bury the glow-in-the-dark yo-yo because the glow stuff was deadly, just like fluorescent light. Glow-in-the-dark light was bad energy and it didn’t mix with Orgone Energy, which was good energy. Daddy was trying to kill the bad energy in the atmosphere. Bad energy came from flying saucers and bombs. (23)

– Peter Reich, A Book of Dreams (1974)

In 1974, Wilhelm Reich’s son published the memoir A Book of Dreams, in which he discusses his life with his father. A Book of Dreams was probably the main inspiration for Kate Bush’s song, since several parts of the book (including the above blurb) describe events that are retold in Bush’s dreamlike tune.

Peter Reich’s memoir is an interesting read. I read it sort of half-amazed and, admittedly, a little uncomfortable with how Peter describes his childhood. The red flags of delusion and paranoia are present in Wilhelm Reich’s actions, from the certainty that important government officials are out to get him (in all fairness, the FDA did end up destroying his shit) to the subtle rules imposed on Peter that he can’t tell others about things like orgone, UFOs, or cloudbusters because outsiders would “never believe it” or “wouldn’t understand.”

The ideas of government persecution and the pressure of keeping things secret are lines of thought that I find concerning and potentially emotionally distressing for a child. I found myself empathizing with Peter’s faith in his father’s theories and his fears about Wilhelm being arrested or even killed for those theories.

Brief interlude: Ufos?

So, I mentioned that Wilhelm Reich had some beliefs regarding UFOs earlier. I know this deviates from the subject of cloudbusting, but I’m a sucker for extraterrestrial topics, so bear with me.

In the midst of the FDA’s interference in Reich’s research, he began to believe that the earth was under attack by UFOs. He called them EAs (“Energy Alphas”). He claimed that EAs would fly over Orgonon (his property in Tucson) and would emit a sort of negative kind of orgone-related radiation. Among the other weird and interesting anecdotes featured in A Book of Dreams, Peter Reich writes about him, his sister Eva, his brother-in-law Bill, and his father being involved in some sort of intergalactic war against the EAs. If the group spotted a UFO nearby, they would bring out a cloudbuster or two and point them at the UFO to try and suck the negative energy out of it.

Sometimes we saw an EA to the southwest of Tucson. It was a pulsating red-and-green ball hovering in the sky. It came so regularly that we called it the ‘Southern Belle’. Sometimes it went back and forth, sometimes it got brighter and dimmer and sometimes it moved fast across the sky, dodging the draw of the cloudbuster. […] I figured that if the cloudbuster could sort of take the energy away or weaken it, I could make the EA sort of fall by drawing underneath it and to either side of it, weakening the energy around it. So I moved the cloudbuster slowly from one side of the EA to the other. (31-32, 34)

Besides the intriguing description of a UFO, I find this part interesting because it shows how the cloudbuster wasn’t used exclusively for attracting rain; Reich also apparently used it to try and mitigate radiation and rebalance the atmosphere.

Cloudbuster versus cloudbusting:
modern Versions

Modern cloudbusters apparently no longer need a person to direct them; they are free-standing and can be placed under a point in the sky rather than having a human operator climb up to aim the device. Although “cloudbusting” generally refers to the action that Reich’s instrument performs, it can also apparently refer to an energy practice that one can do independent from any equipment.

On the subreddit r/energywork, user @Kiddex77 describes cloudbusting as “a type of energy practice where you focus your intent on a cloud in the sky and visualize it disappearing.”
Another user, @upir117, responds: “I wonder if [cloudbusting] will work on chemtrails.”
This reply is interesting because, yeah, some people believe that cloudbusting can do that. Reich made no mention of cloudbusters being used for dissipating chemtrails. However, his belief in sickness-inducing “exhaust” left behind by UFOs could hypothetically be extended to include manmade pollutants like chemtrails. If you believe in chemtrails. Or cloudbusting. Or UFOs. Or any of this wacky stuff.
Also, while this particular Reddit thread refers to the energy practice of cloudbusting rather than Reich’s device, a Google search for “cloudbusters for chemtrails” brings up links to online shopping platforms like Ebay. There are several small but insanely expensive cloudbusters that are advertised as having the ability to cleanse or “harmonize” chemtrails from the sky.

Outro: A Book of Dreams & Kate Bush.

This was a weird little deep-dive. Not sure what to take from it (if anything). I think it’s interesting how people want to – or believe they can – control natural forces like the weather. This belief could come generally from a desire to understand the concepts that seem metaphysical or inexplicable to us. I also think that we often want to be a part of something “bigger” than our individual selves. Believing that we could influence our atmosphere, trigger real, immediate, tangible change in the state of our natural environment… well. That’s big.

Although I found Peter Reich’s A Book of Dreams a bit unsettling, it also contains a certain naive mysticism. There’s a sort of nostalgic and magical atmosphere that comes with knowing something that no one else knows. This vibe of the book comes, at least partially, from Peter’s total belief in his father’s work. Who knows if UFOs are real, or orgone, or cloudbusting. But to Peter, these things were profoundly real. Through Peter’s account of the strange events embedded in the fabric of his childhood, A Book of Dreams becomes something honest and very intriguing. Reading the book does, in fact, feel a bit like listening to Kate Bush’s song.

sources

• Wilhelm Reich biography – Britannica
• Orgone – Wikipedia
• “Cloudbuster” (1998) page on IMDB
• Cloudbuster – Wikipedia
• Modern cloudbuster – Amazon
• “Anybody heard of Cloudbusting?” – r/energywork on Reddit
• Dr. Wilhelm Reich’s Orgasm-Powered Cloudbuster – Slate
• Weatherwatch: Wilhelm Reich’s cloudbuster – The Guardian
• A Book of Dreams by Peter Reich.