Which student of Wilhelm Reich went on to develop a pseudo-scientific and spiritual concept called orgone, whose energy was present in the atmosphere and could be used to produce rain?
Orgone Orgone is a pseudo-scientific and spiritual concept described as an esoteric energy or hypothetical universal life force, originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich. As developed by Reich's student Charles Kelley after Reich's death in 1957, orgone was conceived as the anti-entropic principle of the universe, a creative substratum in all of nature comparable to Mesmer's animal magnetism (1779), to the Odic force (1845) of Carl Reichenbach and to Henri Bergson's "élan vital" (1907). Orgone was seen as a massless, omnipresent substance, similar to luminiferous aether, but more closely associated with living energy than with inert matter. It could allegedly coalesce to create organization on all scales, from the smallest microscopic units—called "bions" in orgone theory—to macroscopic structures like organisms, clouds, or even galaxies.
Naturphilosophie Naturphilosophie ("philosophy of nature" or "nature-philosophy" in German) is a term used in English-language philosophy to identify a current in the philosophical tradition of German idealism, as applied to the study of nature in the earlier 19th century. German speakers use the clearer term "Romantische Naturphilosophie", the philosophy of nature developed at the time of the founding of German Romanticism. It is particularly associated with the philosophical work of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, though it has some clear precursors also. More particularly it is identified with some of the initial works of Schelling during the period 1797–9, in reaction to the views of Fichte, and subsequent developments from Schelling's position. Always controversial, some of Schelling's ideas in this direction are still considered of philosophical interest, even if the subsequent development of experimental natural science had a destructive impact on the credibility of the theories of his followers in "Naturphilosophie".