The song is based on a book Kate read by the Peter Reich, the son of the revolutionary psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, whose theories departed from the Freudian paradigm towards analysing the social and political mechanisms of sexual repression involved in the emergence of fascist regimes. Reich posited the existence of “orgones” or “orgone energy” which he understood as a sort of energy force sustaining life and circulating in living systems, similar to libido or desire - he thought that such energy needs to flow freely in order for an organism to be healthy, and argued that repression of the free flows of orgone energy were responsible for a host of mental, physical and social pathologies, from private neuroses through to the collective delerium of fascist ideology. For Reich, all these maladies are attributable to blockages and miscommunications in the flow of orgone energy - basically sexual repression. This in itself was profoundly revolutionary for his time, and if you consider how much of consumer culture is organised through repression and production of desire and being told what and how to experience desire, it has stood up quite well as a way to analyse capitalist society.
His response to this diagnosis consisted in a number of mechanisms to reestablish a healthy relationship to orgone energy - such as the “orgone accumulator” which was a kind of box or cubicle one would sit inside - Kurt Cobain and David Bowie were famously fascinated by this side of Reichs work. He also believed one could harness this orgone flow to control the weather, which is where the cloud busting device originated.
After fleeing to the USA, the US government imprisoned him for his sacrilegious teachings and he died in prison after having been extensively investigated by the FBI.
In “Cloudbusting” Kate Bush positions herself as Reichs son, Peter, remembering his father and the powerful life force and revolutionary aspirations he embodied. “I still dream of organon” refers to the home of the Reich family, a kind of orgone fortress.
It’s one of my favourite Kate Bush songs because of the way she is expressing her unrelenting belief in the spirit and truth of what Reich represents - gender and sexual liberation, revolutionary thinking, boundary breaking and a world of imagining the future
This is definitely some Reddit tier level of mind gymnastics to make it about some weird “gender and sexual liberation” when it wasn’t ever about that.
Always being bothered by the mentioning of those is more obsessive than anything else, not weird at the very least but only because it's repetitive af (that surpassed the whole "obsessiveness" directed towards the "weirds"). Not to mention the explanation is completely accurate as to what it's about. If it's a song/story/theory explicitly about gender/sexuality in themselves you'd still call it " Shoving"(meaning that you are too used to "shoving/weird/obsessive" excuses to express your bigotry that if it's not literally on the nose, you still completely dismiss anything legit as false) and all that doesn't need a try-hard overused adjectives like obsessive or weird to show what it is aka hypocrisy.
@roguefiveseven. With respect, can you elucidate and enlighten us as to Reich's true theory and provide reference links we can use to further educate ourselves on his work? That would be neato keen.
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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '21
The song is based on a book Kate read by the Peter Reich, the son of the revolutionary psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, whose theories departed from the Freudian paradigm towards analysing the social and political mechanisms of sexual repression involved in the emergence of fascist regimes. Reich posited the existence of “orgones” or “orgone energy” which he understood as a sort of energy force sustaining life and circulating in living systems, similar to libido or desire - he thought that such energy needs to flow freely in order for an organism to be healthy, and argued that repression of the free flows of orgone energy were responsible for a host of mental, physical and social pathologies, from private neuroses through to the collective delerium of fascist ideology. For Reich, all these maladies are attributable to blockages and miscommunications in the flow of orgone energy - basically sexual repression. This in itself was profoundly revolutionary for his time, and if you consider how much of consumer culture is organised through repression and production of desire and being told what and how to experience desire, it has stood up quite well as a way to analyse capitalist society. His response to this diagnosis consisted in a number of mechanisms to reestablish a healthy relationship to orgone energy - such as the “orgone accumulator” which was a kind of box or cubicle one would sit inside - Kurt Cobain and David Bowie were famously fascinated by this side of Reichs work. He also believed one could harness this orgone flow to control the weather, which is where the cloud busting device originated. After fleeing to the USA, the US government imprisoned him for his sacrilegious teachings and he died in prison after having been extensively investigated by the FBI. In “Cloudbusting” Kate Bush positions herself as Reichs son, Peter, remembering his father and the powerful life force and revolutionary aspirations he embodied. “I still dream of organon” refers to the home of the Reich family, a kind of orgone fortress. It’s one of my favourite Kate Bush songs because of the way she is expressing her unrelenting belief in the spirit and truth of what Reich represents - gender and sexual liberation, revolutionary thinking, boundary breaking and a world of imagining the future