Orgonon/Organon

[Peter Byrne Manchester <PMANCHESTER@ccmail.sunysb.edu>]

lionhart@netlink.cts.com (Jackie Zucconi) writes:
> I've always noticed that in Kate's song "Cloudbusting" she opens with the 
>line "I still dream of Organon and wake up crying." Now for sometime I 
>thought perhaps this is just a "spelling" mistake of some sort. Being a 
>Medievalist I've come across an interesting fact. Medieval universities 
>often gave a type of primer for logic and philosophy to their students, this 
>primer was actually a collection of treatises by Aristotle which the 
>Medieval scholars collected together and titled "Organon." Now I wonder does 
>Kate perhaps mean some sort of reference to this "Organon" when she 
>technically shouuld be saying "Orgonon?" If she is aware of the Medieval 
>primer then I suggest a theory: She is maybe giving a little dig at those 
>respected scientists that criticised Wm. Reich by mentioning a "basic text" 
>for logic and philosophy? Ron Hill was gracious enough to Email me a 
>discussion of Reich from the archives which helped me to formulate my 
>theory. Does anyone else have a theory about Kate's "spelling mistake?" I 
>was told someone actually wrote a letter to Kate about it and recieved a 
>reply but I don't think her answer was made public. Ball is your court now 
>people....

       'Twas me.  Actually, I wrote to her with a number of observations I 
had about the relationship of the video to "A Book of Dreams," and used the 
spelling natter less as a question than as a 'hook' to catch her interest.  
It seems to have worked.

       The relevant paragraph from my letter to her (May 18, 1986):

>      I am a 43 year old professor of philosophy and speculative theology, 
>which I believe I can verify by my first remark, which is to complain 
>pedantically that Peter Reich follows his father Dr. Reich's practice of 
>spelling 'Orgonon' as I have just written it, with an 'o', from 'orgone' 
>energy, whereas your song titles and lyrics for "Cloudbusting" write 
>'Organon'.   Organon  was originally the title given to the five logical 
>treatises of Aristotle by his editor of record, Andronicus of Rhodes.  It 
>has thereafter had some currency among philosophers as a title for a general 
>methodological tractate, or an 'instrument of thought' in the sense of a 
>fundamental logical mechanism.  I would not put it past you to be aware of 
>this fact, at least subliminally, and to have perpetrated a deliberate pun. 
>But I rather suspect I have caught you in a spelling error.

       And the relevant paragraph from her reply (not dated and postmark 
illegible, but about three weeks later):

>      I'm afraid the Orgonon mis-spelling IS a mistake and we were aware of 
>this as soon as we saw the "copy".  It is very difficult to correct 
>everything and this one slipped through my hands but I find it a wonderful 
>experience when errors of this kind give birth to such fascinating 
>theories!

       In Greek 'organon' simply means 'tool'.  So an 'organ' is a tool (of 
life), an 'organism' is a system of tools.  In designating the logical 
treatises of Aristotle as an Organon, Andronicus of Rhodes interpreted them 
as a fundamental set of 'tools' for philosophical thinking (which may not 
have been Aristotle's view at all).  By the Middle Ages, as medievalist 
Lionhart observes, this view of logic as a 'primer' became official and 
finally officious, provoking the Englishman Francis Bacon to publish a "Novum 
Organum" (1620) rejecting medieval philosophy and instigating the tradition 
of critical empiricism that evolved into what today is called 'scientific 
method'.  Bacon wrote in Latin, where the form is 'organum', but in English 
translation his work is entitled "New Organon."

       Two years ago someone speculated that the revisionist and anti-
traditional aspect of Bacon's work might underlie the spelling in Kate's 
lyrics and titles for CB.  I doubt it.  I do still suppose that some sort of 
subliminal awareness of the term 'organon' on Kate's part generated the 
initial misspelling, but given her Catholic schooling, it is far more likely 
to have been Aristotle than Bacon.

       It is interesting that the word 'orgasm' does NOT derive from the same 
root, but instead from a different Indo-European root that means 'to swell'. 
Wilhelm Reich may well have wanted on good scholarly grounds to emphasize the 
difference by the innovative spelling 'orgone' for his postulated hyper-
Freudian life-energy.  The name he gave his ranch in Maine, Orgonon, is based 
on that eccentric spelling, and violates the regular linguistic laws of 
formation for the particular Greek root, though once again with the advantage 
that it makes clear that he is NOT talking about an 'organon'.

       To throw in one last twist, it could be that the Reichian spelling of 
orgone/Orgonon is behind the video's placement of the ranch with the 
cloudbusters in Oregon (instead of Maine).  In which case we have a NEW slip/ 
pun to take up with Kate.

............................................................................
                                                            Peter Manchester
"C'mon, we all sing!"                               pmanches@sbccmail.bitnet
                                               pmanchester@ccmail.sunysb.edu