#779: David Hudson

David Hudson is an Arizona cotton farmer who allegedly discovered ORMUS (Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements) in 1975, a group of substances exhibiting many miraculous properties, such as healing powers and superconductivity at room temperature. It can allegedly cure all forms of disease, correct errors in the DNA, emit gamma radiation, partially levitate in the Earth's magnetic field, read a person’s mind, have a “weigh-ability” different from mass (a property that is somewhat underdescribed), be fused into a transparent glass, and make severed cat tails grow back. Hudson has no scientific background, and although his presentations are riddled with scientific jargon, he displays no sign of actually understanding any of it, nor – come to mind – the ordinary language words inserted between the jargon.

Of course, the scientific community does not recognize the existence of ORMUS, but this is because they are close-minded. Nevertheless, his claims are popular in certain circles. One of the staunchest fans of ORMUS, Barry Carter, has attempted to explain how ORMUS is e.g. related to dead people’s souls and/or biblical manna. David Icke is a fan as well, and on Mike Adams’s site NaturalNews Mike Donkers has claimed that ORMUS is “Spiritual and Medicinal Gold With Incredible Healing Potential” (no, I won’t link to NaturalNews). It would have helped if anything corresponding to the properties ascribed to ORMUS actually existed, of course, but as it stands ORMUS is just about as effective and well-justified as homeopathy.

Diagnosis: The ORMUS people belong to the more extreme fringes of the lunacy movement and it is hard to view them as a serious threat to anything but themselves. They do serve as an illustration of how far into idiot land it is possible to fall without being committed to an institution, however.