Cloud Busting

Popular term for controlling weather by dissipating of clouds through mental concentration or other telekinetic means. In his article "People and Weather," Les Shepard made an early comparative discussion of weather changers and techniques while reviewing the claims of Wilhelm Reich; Oscar Drummond of Reading, England; Judith L. Gee of London; and Dr. Rolf Alexander, author of the book The Power of the Mind: The System of Creative Realism (1955). Alexander, a New Zealander by birth, gave demonstrations of his claimed ability to dissipate clouds on a British television program in 1956. Alexander would stare at a chosen target of cumulus cloud and mentally concentrate on its dissipation.

Oscar Drummond was reported in the Reading Standard of October 1, 1948, as "attacking" the sky and stopping rain through mental action. He was quoted as saying, "Einstein's ideas of time, space, and relativity coincide somewhat with my own facts; that man is sealed down in a domeshaped sky, and he, being 90 percent water, is one with the wet sky, physically…. If such were not the case, I could not destroy the clouds metaphysically."

Judith L. Gee wrote, "My method is simplicity itself. It is the non-acceptance of clouds and rain…. So when I want sun shine, I just see the sun shining … the clouds parting and dispersing and blue skies triumphant."

Wilhelm Reich, an early pupil of Freud's famous for the concept of orgone energy, invented what he called a "cloudbuster"—an apparatus composed of hollow tubes connected with running water and pointed at the sky by the operator in a certain manner.

A more skeptical view of cloud busting was made by Denys Parsons in a 1956 article in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, London. He suggested that fair weather cumulus clouds normally dissipate within about fifteen minutes and account for the apparent effectiveness of paranormal cloud-busting activity.

Sources:

Alexander, Rolf. The Power of the Mind: The System of Creative Realism. London, 1955.

Parsons, Denys. "Cloud Busting: A Claim Investigated." Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 38, 690 (December 1956).

Shepard, Les. "People and Weather." Orgonomic Functionalism 2, no. 4 (July 1955).