Orgone chips review: New Age tech versus the scientific method
Podcast: Download
By Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 138
Orgone is a magical energy force that’s inside and outside our bodies. You can think of orgone as the Chinese culture’s “chi” or any generic “life force energy”. It permeates us and everything around us. Using special devices that manipulate orgone energies can change your life for the better.
What is orgone?
The concept of “orgone energy” was birthed by psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. While Reich’s life story itself makes for interesting reading, we’ll summarize just the parts that apply to this article: He was a respected psychiatrist and psychoanalyst for much of his life. However, his later career moved far outside the mainstream with his so-called “discovery” of orgone. He began to treat patients with “orgone accumulators”. He was treated critically and skeptically by American scientists and media, and was later jailed for contempt of court and for violating terms of an FDA lawsuit about the sale of his “orgone accumulators”. He died in jail in 1957.
What can orgone do?
In humans, orgone manipulation can mystically solve and treat a myriad of problems. This includes the ability to “destroy parasites throughout the body”, cure diseases and physical pain, and (of course) cure constipation. These are fun to read about, until you realize how people may be taking such claims seriously, like these:
Orgone can cure cancer
“Five years of anecdotal information convinces me that most Cancer can be treated in a month, even in very advanced and aggressive cases. The exceptions are when radiation and/or chemo have been used. I believe as many others do, that radiation and chemo are more often responsible for death than the cancer for which they are prescribed.”
Orgone can cure HIV / AIDS
“This seems to be one of the easiest to treat, as the virus is apparently not very resistent [sic] to electric current. I’ve never seen it fail to cure this disease,even [sic] when he [sic] patient was in late stages. An hour or so a day of [orgone] zapping is sufficient.”
So say the proponents of orgone. One can only hope that someone who takes such statements seriously is also willing to consult a specialist in cancer or HIV/AIDS.
Orgone also has super-powers in regards to technology. Specifically, it can help save on energy costs. “Orgone chips” are a supposed miracle of modern New Age engineering. Visit the website of those who sell orgone chips, and you’ll get quotes like the following:
“Reduce by 50% your electric bills! It has been reported by one customer that his energy consumption has gone down by over 50% simply by placing two cones onto of his electric meter. The power company was so perturbed that his usage had dropped over a three month time-span that they replaced his electric meter with a hi-tech digital meter. Two months later they took another reading and the usage had dropped even further, that is with running the AC and all the electrical appliances full-blast. I am looking for others to test this theory as it may be a solution to our energy shortage nationwide. If you want to participate in this Orgone Experiment, please email me. Simply place two cones or Pyramids on top of the electric meter and let it ride. Record your power usage from the last year and compare it to the next six months usage and dollar amount.”
Here’s another claim:
“My mother put a pyramid on the top of her electrical meter. Her previous bill was $155. She lives in Michigan [that's in the colder, northern United States] and during the month of August, there was a heat wave in the Midwest. But, her bill for that month was only $86!!! I have put one on my meter this month (August) and I notice that the A/C doesn’t run as much!!! …We put one on our center’s meter and see our electric bills with saving of over 30% each month!”
Can you see why such “experiments” would be worthless? There are two big reasons:
First, electric usage varies wildly from predictable factors like season and temperature to more unpredictable variables like usage of hot water heaters, refrigerators, other automatic major appliances, and the electric company itself. Since you can’t predict such variables, you can’t control them for a test.
Second, if you perform a test and know the test is intended to save energy, you yourself are a test liability. You would be more aware of your energy usage, and would be more likely to affect the test results. The test is not “blinded“, since the tester (you) can – intentionally or not – affect the test results. In order to be scientifically legitimate, such tests must be blinded.
Orgone chips testing
Luckily for those of us who want to experiment, there are very specific claims made about “orgone chips”.
We can test those claims.
I own some specialized electric monitoring equipment. I have a basic knowledge of the scientific method. I know how to perform a randomized, controlled, blinded test. And, yes, I spent $21.95 for five “orgone chips”. The marketing material provided with my order describes them as “a 50/50 mix of organic matter and metal”. Holding them in my hands, they seem mostly made up of translucent colored resin or plastic, with some metal beads and plastic shavings embedded inside. Here’s what they look like:
This article details the process and results of my randomized, controlled, blinded test of energy savings claims made by “orgone chips”. In designing the test, I had two top priorities to keep scientific legitimacy:
1) This test must be blinded, so as to ensure honest, non-partisan results
2) This test must be repeatable: If you don’t believe what I say, you can run the same test yourself to verify my results.
Before we get to the big conclusion, let’s make sure we’re clear on what we’re testing, what we expect, and what the test procedure is.
Orgone chips test description
Based on the claims above, our assumption is that the orgone chips will decrease energy consumption somewhere between 30% and 50%. The hypotheses is that the orgone chips decrease energy usage when placed physically near a power supply. This is confirmed by examining usage photos contained on the orgone chips website (or click here for an archived copy of the page). To get results, we can supposedly just place the orgone chips next to or on power strips and appliances. The apparent range of orgone chips is at least several inches.
Orgone chips testing process
Since physically placing orgone chips near an electric current is enough to create electric savings, we will do the same. We’ll place our chips within an inch of the power source we’re trying to affect. However, while doing this, we will also do the following:
We will measure the exact wattage and voltage consumption of our device.
We will use a device that consumes a relatively stable amount of electricity, decreasing measurement variations as much as possible.
We will have a “control group”: we will test the orgone chips, as well as something we know won’t affect the electric current. Because their size and weight are about the same as the orgone chips, my control group consists of dominoes.
We will make the control group and the orgone chips blinded: as I run the test, I won’t know what device I’m testing. My opinions, good or bad, won’t affect the test.
In order to blind the test, I had to pick something that would allow me to physically handle the orgone chips and the dominoes without being able to tell which was which. The material also had to be electrically neutral, or as neutral as the material of the appliances I was testing.
I took three orgone chips and three dominoes. I prepared small “test boxes” for these in the form of paper matchboxes. Since the length of the test subjects was longer than a single matchbox, I placed each subject inside two matchboxes, stuffed the remaining space with tissue paper to prevent rattling, and then I taped the two matchbox halves together. This ensured I couldn’t tell what was inside the box – all boxes felt the same weight, and all looked identical.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have our contestants:
Once I had prepared the boxes and sealed the test subjects inside, I had to make sure they were randomized – I couldn’t know what subject was in what box. So I put them on a table, and left the room. I had an assistant shuffle the boxes and label them. This randomized the test group, kept me blinded, but also gave me a way to track results. When this was done, I returned to the room and saw this:
Perfect. I now had six test subjects, and I hadn’t any idea which one was what.
Measuring the effects of the orgone chips and the control group
I wanted to run the test on two electric devices, lest someone claim that a single device wasn’t affected by the orgone chips. I chose one relatively low-wattage device – a lamp with a 75-watt light bulb. The second device was a real electric hog: a space heater. I don’t have a rating for the heater, but when turned on, the draw hovered around 1300-1400 watts.
To measure the wattage, I had the Kill-A-Watt P4460 Electricity Usage Monitor 
:
This is a special tool you plug into a wall outlet. You then plug a device into the Kill-A-Watt, and it will tell you exactly how much voltage and wattage a device is using at that second.
I decided to test multiple locations on the lamp and space heater, to make sure that the effectiveness of the orgone chips wasn’t impeded by placement.
Here’s what I did for each test subject:
Step 1) Place subject on top of the electric cord, right where it plugged into the Kill-A-Watt device. Measure the wattage and voltage use.
Step 2) Place subject on top of the middle of the electric cord. Measure the wattage and voltage use.
Step 3) Place subject on the base of the electric device, right where the electric cord enters the device. Measure the wattage and voltage use.
Perform all steps for all test subjects, using both the lamp and the space heater. That comes out to 36 data points (6 subjects X 2 devices X 3 locations). I also recorded “baseline” information so I’d know what the electric use was when the devices were plugged in, not plugged in, and turned on with no subjects nearby.
When all data points were recorded, I cracked open the matchboxes to see what subject was inside each one. I plotted all my data in a spreadsheet, and performed a few calculations to generate more helpful data, like averages and standard deviations. Then I compared the numerical results between by control group and the orgone chips.
Conclusion
For those interested, here are the detailed results of my test.
Click here for a picture of the full-size version of the results.
Download the raw data in XLS, XLSX or PDF.
The test assumption: Orgone chips will decrease energy consumption by 30% to 50%.
If Orgone chips work as advertised – if the assumption is correct – there will be a significant difference between using them and not using them. That is, the measurements for the dominoes will be statistically different than the measurements of the orgone chips, in the order of 30% to 50%.
Analysis:
Are the domino averages different from the orgone chip averages? Are there any noticable trends from any test subject? No. All averages, maximums and minimums are very close to or within standard deviation for the dataset. No measurement deviates anywhere near 30% to 50%.
There is no statistical difference in measuring dominoes, orgone chips, or using nothing at all.
Energy savings results claimed by orgone chip proponents cannot be duplicated in a blinded, randomized test.
Final conclusion: Orgone chips do not provide the energy cost savings as claimed.
Perhaps to some this news may come as a shock. An impossibility. A declaration of my own insanity and unwillingness to believe in the power of orgone in chip form. To those people I say, “Run the experiment yourself. You’ll get the same results I did. And if you don’t, make sure your test is repeatable, so I can confirm your results for myself.”
For the majority of readers here, this news will come as no surprise. That’s okay, and intended. I ran this experiment for these important reasons:
1) Many people make claims without providing proper proof or analysis. Those people have no sense of scientific honesty, or are simply running a scam. This article is my response to those people.
2) Many people don’t question such claims, perhaps being too lazy, too busy, or not knowledgeable enough to do so. This article is my response to those people.
3) There is some effort involved in these kind of tests. In order to be legitimate, testing must be performed in a specific way. This article can act as an example of how to perform a scientifically controlled, randomized, repeatable, blinded test.
4) Somebody’s gotta do it.
Podcast
Support
Email alerts
RSS
Facebook