from
WilhelmReichMuseum Website
Most of the following material is drawn
from “The Bibliography of Orgonomy” (1953) which was prepared at
Orgonon under Wilhelm Reich’s direction to establish and preserve an
accurate account of Reich’s life and the development of his work.
“A hundred and sixty acres of land on a
soft incline facing
south and east, six hundred meters above sea level,
covered with a young pine forest, a lake in front and
mountains on the horizon. Here truth shall be sought and
protected from the plague, here sickness and misery shall
be understood and ways discovered for conquering
them... The name of the home of life research
shall be Orgonon.”
- Wilhelm Reich, September 1942
Wilhelm Reich
house at Orgonon (Rangeley, Maine)
1996
|
Biography
|
Chronology of Reich's Scientific Development
|
Glossary of Terms
|
BIOGRAPHY
“I am well aware of the fact that
the human race has known about the existence of a universal
energy related to life for many ages. However, the basic task of
natural science consisted of making this energy usable. This is
the sole difference between my work and all preceding
knowledge.”
— Wilhelm Reich, Archives of the Orgone Institute
In the 1930s, Wilhelm Reich, M.D.—an
Austrian psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and scientist—discovered a
powerful, new biological energy, and for the next two decades
devoted his life to the investigation of its laws and properties.
Reich confirmed the existence of this energy in the human body,
verified its presence in the atmosphere, developed instrumentation
to observe and collect it, and harnessed it for a variety of
purposes from cancer treatment to motor power to weather
experimentation.
Reich called his discovery “orgone energy.” But, sadly, it was a
discovery that the world was not ready for.
REICH’S EARLY YEARS
(1897 –
1918)
“I was born in a small village
as the first son of not unprosperous parents.”
— from
Passion of Youth
Wilhelm Reich was born on March 24, 1897
in Galicia, in the easternmost part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
now Ukraine. He grew up in the Bukovina on a large farm operated by
his father. His first language was German, and until 1938 he was an
Austrian citizen.
According to The Bibliography of Orgonomy—prepared at Orgonon in
1953 under Reich’s supervision—his “interest in biology and natural
science was stimulated early by the life on the farm, close to
agriculture, cattle-farming, and breeding…Between his 8th and 12th
years, he had his own collection and breeding laboratory of
butterflies, insects and plants under the guidance of a private
teacher. The natural life functions, including the sexual function,
were familiar to him as far back as he could remember, and this may
well have determined his strong later inclination as a
bio-psychiatrist toward the biological foundation of the emotional
life of man, as well as his biophysical discoveries in the fields of
medicine, biology, and education.”
Until he was 13 years old, Reich was educated at home by tutors. His
mother, to whom he was devoted, committed suicide in 1910 after his
father discovered she had had a brief affair with one of the tutors.
Reich’s father died four years later from tuberculosis, leaving
seventeen-year old Reich to direct the farm work on his own without
interrupting his studies at the German high school he was attending.
That same year, 1914, the first World War broke out. Soon Russian
troops swept through the Bukovina. Reich narrowly escaped being sent
to Russia as a hostage, and had to flee his home. Later he wrote, “I
never saw either my homeland or my possessions again. Of a
well-to-do past, nothing was left.” (Passion of Youth) He joined the
Austrian Army in 1915, served as a lieutenant from 1916-1918, and
was at the Italian front three times, experiencing what he called
“the war as a machine.”
In 1918 the war finally ended. Germany and Austria were defeated,
the Austro-Hungarian Empire was broken up, and the Bukovina became
part of Romania. Alone, homeless and intellectually starved after
four years of war, Reich entered the Medical School at the
University of Vienna.
REICH, FREUD, AND
THE LIBIDO
(1918 – 1934)
“It is sexual energy which
governs the structure of human feeling and thinking.”
— from
The Sexual Revolution
As a war veteran, Reich was permitted to
complete the six-year course in four years, and he passed the 18 Rigorosa in 18 medical subjects and received “excellent” (ausgezeichnet)
in all the pre-medical subjects. He graduated and received his M.D.
degree in July 1922.
During his last years of medical school, Reich did post-graduate
work in Internal Medicine at the University Clinics of Ortner and
Chvostek at University Hospital, Vienna. He continued his
postgraduate education in neuro-psychiatry for two years (1922-24)
at the Neurological and Psychiatric University Clinic under
Professor Wagner-Jauregg (who would win the Nobel Prize in Medicine
in 1927). Reich also worked for one year in the disturbed wards
under Paul Schilder. Additional postgraduate studies included
attendance at polyclinic work in hypnosis and suggestive therapy at
the same University Clinic and special courses and lectures in
biology at the University of Vienna.
Most significantly, however, while still in medical school Reich
attained membership in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association in
October 1920. As an undergraduate, his recognition of the importance
of sexuality had drawn him to the work of Sigmund Freud, the father
of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis was a new discipline which had
emerged from Freud’s startling insights into the causes of mental
illness. Reich soon became one of the most active younger members of
Freud’s inner circle, and was considered one of Freud’s most
promising students.
Reich began his private psychoanalytic and psychiatric practice in
1922. He was the First Clinical Assistant at Freud’s Psychoanalytic
Polyclinic in Vienna (under the directorship of Dr. Edward Hitschmann) from its establishment in 1922 to 1928; Vice Director of
the Polyclinic, 1928-1930; and Director of the Seminar for
Psychoanalytic Therapy at the same institution. As a member of the
faculty of the Psychoanalytic Institute in Vienna (1924-1930), he
gave lectures on clinical subjects and bio-psychiatric theory. He
conducted research on the social causation of the neurosis at the
Polyclinic from 1924, and at mental hygiene consultation centers in
various districts in Vienna (Sozialistiche Gesellschaft feur
Sexualberatung und Sexualforschung), centers which he founded and
led from 1928 to 1930. Reich’s extensive clinical work and research
ultimately led to conflicts with Freud.
Freud had discovered that neuroses are caused by the conflict
between natural sexual instincts and the social denial and
frustration of those instincts. Freud had also hypothesized the
existence of a biological sexual energy in the body. He called it
“libido,” and described it as,
“something which is capable of
increase, decrease, displacement and discharge, and which extends
itself over the memory traces of an idea like an electric charge
over the surface of the body.”
But as the years passed, Freud and his followers diluted much of
this concept, reducing the libido to little more than a
psychological energy or idea. By 1925, Freud had concluded that “the
libido theory may therefore for the present be pursued only by the
path of speculation.”
Reich’s clinical work convinced him otherwise. He devoted himself to
matters of technique in an attempt to overcome the limitations of
psychoanalysis in treating neuroses. And in doing so he observed
that sexual energy is more than just an idea, and that sexual
gratification, in fact, alleviated neurotic symptoms. He discovered
that the function of the orgasm is to maintain an energy equilibrium
by discharging excess biological energy that builds up naturally in
the body. If that discharge function is disturbed—as it proved to be
in all of his patients—this energy continues to build up without
adequate release, stagnating and fueling neurotic disorders. Reich
also discovered that in psychic disturbances, this biological energy
is bound up not only in symptoms, but more importantly, in the
individual’s characterological and muscular rigidities—what he
called “armor.”
Reich’s
orgasm theory set him apart from his colleagues, because it
indicated that the libido was a real physical energy that possibly
might be measured quantitatively. Reich’s clinical work also led him
to develop new therapeutic techniques to eliminate the patient’s
character and muscular armor and allow for the flow and discharge of
this bio-energy to achieve what he called “orgastic potency,” the
capacity for total discharge of sexual excitation in the genital
embrace.
But the widespread existence of sexual misery forced Reich to
conclude that the solution to the problem of neuroses wasn’t
treatment, it was prevention.
“You have to revamp your whole way of
thinking,” Reich said, “so that you don’t think from the standpoint
of the state and the culture, but from the standpoint of what people
need and what they suffer from. Then you arrange your social
institutions accordingly.”
(Reich Speaks of Freud)
Freud, on the other hand, maintained that culture takes precedence,
that sexual instincts must be adapted to the existing social
structure. These conflicting positions would lead to an eventual
break between Reich and Freud.
Reich also devoted much of his time and money educating working
class people about the essential role of sexuality in their lives.
“I had six clinics in Vienna where people came and received advice
once or twice a week…To provide medical and educational help was its
purpose.” (Reich Speaks of Freud) To reach the greatest number of
people, he worked within the Socialist and Communist parties in
Vienna, and later in Berlin, to promote sex education, birth
control, divorce rights, and better housing. Reich recalled that in
Berlin there were about fifty thousand people in his organization in
the first year.
Reich was also very outspoken about Germany’s turbulent political
climate. Unlike most members of the Berlin Psychoanalytic
Association, Reich openly opposed the rise of the Nazi Party. But
Reich’s activities exacted a high price. In 1933 he was denounced by
the Communist Party, forced to flee from Germany when Hitler came to
power, and expelled from the International Psychoanalytic
Association in 1934. Reich called these events “catastrophes which
threatened my personal, professional and social existence.”
BIO-ELECTRICAL
EXPERIMENTS, BIONS, AND THE DISCOVERY OF ORGONE ENERGY
(1934 – 1939)
“The discovery of orgone energy
was made through consistent, thorough study of energy
functions, first in the realm of the psyche, and later in
the realm of biological functioning.”
— from
Ether, God and Devil
Reich traveled to Scandinavia where,
despite incessant bureaucratic interferences, he managed to continue
his research. In Oslo, while continuing to teach and develop his
therapeutic techniques, Reich undertook a series of laboratory
experiments to verify the existence of a physical biological energy
expressed in the emotions.
Using human subjects, Reich was able to demonstrate a charge at the
skin’s surface directly related to feelings of pleasure and anxiety.
This charge would increase when a subject felt pleasure, and
decrease during feelings of unpleasure. From this, Reich concluded
that pleasure is the movement of biological energy toward the
periphery of the organism, while anxiety is the movement of this
energy toward the center. Reich initially assumed that biological
excitation of living matter might be electrical, but the results of
these experiments indicated otherwise. For example, the biological
energy that Reich measured moved in a slow, wave-length fashion, in
contrast to electromagnetic energy which moves much faster. Reich
wondered if similar energy processes existed in more basic life
forms.
This led Reich to conduct laboratory experiments in which he used
time-lapse motion picture equipment affixed to microscopes with over
3000x magnification to record the development of protozoa. During
these experiments Reich discovered that under certain conditions,
sterilized and unsterilized substances—grass, blood, sand, charcoal
and foodstuffs—disintegrate into pulsating vesicles that often
exhibit a bluish color. Reich observed internal motility in these
vesicles, an effect of energy. He called these vesicles “bions,”
after the Greek word for “life.”
Reich’s research also revealed that certain bions exhibited a strong
radiation phenomena, and that these bions could kill bacteria and
cancer cells. This radiation confirmed the existence of an energy
that did not obey any known laws of electricity or magnetism. Reich
called this energy “orgone,” because its discovery had evolved from
his investigation of the orgasm function, and because this energy
could charge organic materials. When Reich published his findings,
the scientific and psychiatric communities responded with a vicious
year-long attack in the Norwegian press.
In the wake of this attack, and the inevitability of a second world
war, Reich began to look to America as the future home for his work.
Theodore Wolfe, M.D.—a representative of American psychosomatic
medicine who had come to Oslo to study with Reich—was instrumental
in arranging for Reich’s emigration. When Reich was invited to teach
at the New School for Social Research in New York City, the U.S.
State Department finally issued him a visa in the summer of 1939. On
August 19, Reich sailed for America on the last ship to leave Norway
before World War II broke out.
REICH’S FIRST
YEARS IN AMERICA
(1939 – 1947)
“There was no doubt of the
existence of an energy possessing extraordinarily high
biological activity. It remained only to discover what its
nature was and how it could be measured.”
— from
The Cancer Biopathy
Reich settled in the Forest Hills
section of New York City; taught courses at the New School for
Social Research in Manhattan (“Character Formation: Biological and
Sociological Aspects” and “Clinical Problems in Psychosomatic
Medicine”); began publishing his books in English; trained American
physicians in his therapeutic techniques; and pursued his
investigations of orgone energy. This research included:
-
treating cancer mice with bion
injections
-
developing a cancer serum from
bion cultures
-
finding a way to isolate and
collect orgone energy from bions in order to study its
functions and make it more usable
-
And since orgone radiation from
the bions seemed to permeate all substances, Reich was
constantly confronting questions about the origins of this
energy. Where did orgone energy come from?
The Orgone
Energy Accumulator (1940)
To isolate and collect orgone from bion cultures,
Reich relied
on the results of several laboratory experiments. These
experiments demonstrated that organic or non-metallic
materials—such as cotton, wool or plastic—attract, absorb, and
hold the energy. Metallic materials —like steel and iron—attract
the energy and quickly reflect it in both directions. On the
basis of these findings, Reich constructed small boxes with
alternating layers of organic and metallic materials, with the
inner walls lined with metal.
By looking through a specially
designed lens inserted into a wall of each box, one could
observe orgone radiation from the bions within the enclosure.
These “orgone energy accumulators” also revealed an unexpected
phenomenon: the appearance of orgone radiation inside the
enclosure even without the presence of bion cultures.
Reich now faced the daunting possibility of having discovered a
biological energy that seemed to be everywhere, while still
pondering the perplexing question of where orgone energy
originated. In Maine, he would soon find the answers.
Reich and Rangeley, Maine (1940)
In the summer of 1940, during a camping trip to New England,
Reich discovered the beautiful Rangeley Lakes region. While
staying in a small cabin on Mooselookmeguntic Lake (the largest
of the Rangeley Lakes), Reich’s observations of the night skies
verified the existence of orgone energy in the atmosphere. This
discovery of atmospheric orgone was a major thrust forward in
Reich’s research.
And with its low humidity and clean
air, Reich realized that the Rangeley region provided an ideal
environment for this work. (In contrast, since water and high
humidity absorb and hold orgone energy, the summer weather in
New York City made it difficult to carry out his
experimentation.) Later that year, Reich purchased a cabin on Mooselookmeguntic Lake where he returned in the summers to
continue his experiments.
The Accumulators and Medical Orgone
Therapy
Meanwhile,
back in New York, the accumulator quickly became an increasingly
vital tool for Reich’s research. The accumulator’s organic
layers attracted the atmospheric energy which was directed
inward by the metal layers. Any energy reflected outward by the
metal layers was immediately re-absorbed by the organic
material, attracted back to the metal, and directed toward the
inside of the box. The result was a higher concentration of orgone energy inside the box.
The more layers, the stronger the
concentration.
This accumulation of energy can be verified in a number of ways.
For example, a constant temperature difference exists between
the air above the box and the surrounding air, contradicting the
Second Law of Thermodynamics. There also exists a slower
electroscopic discharge rate in the higher orgone concentration
inside the accumulator than is demonstrated by an electroscope
outside the box.
The accumulator now allowed Reich to test the effects of orgone
radiation on cancer mice without resorting to bion injections,
by simply placing the mice inside the metal-lined enclosure.
Because his results with cancer mice were so promising, Reich
decided to test the effects of orgone radiation on humans. He
constructed accumulators large enough for a person to sit in,
and in 1941 began experimental treatments with cancer patients.
They were all terminal cases. Reich promised no cure nor charged
any money, as shown by the affidavit that his patients and/or
their family members were required to sign:
“I state herewith that I came to
see Dr. Wilhelm Reich for possibly helping the case of my
_____ who suffers from cancer. I came because I was told of
the experiments that Dr. Reich has made with cancer mice and
human beings. Dr. Reich did not promise me any cure, did not
charge any money, and told me that only during the last few
months has he tried the orgone radiation on human begins who
suffer from cancer. Death or abscesses could occur as a
consequence of the disease. I told Dr. Reich that the
physicians have given up the case of my _____ as hopeless.
Should death or abscesses occur during the time of the
experiment, it will not be because of the treatment.”
(The
Cancer Biopathy)
Over a period of time, the patients
showed marked improvement: relief of pain, healthier blood
condition, weight gain, and the shrinkage and elimination of
tumors. Despite these positive results, the patients died,
reinforcing Reich’s conviction that cancer is a bio-energetic
shrinking following emotional resignation, and that the tumors
themselves are not the disease, but merely a local manifestation
of a deeper systemic disorder. Once again, Reich’s focus became
prevention.
Orgonon – A Permanent Home for Reich’s
Work
In
November 1942, Reich purchased an old farm a few miles from his
cabin in Maine. The 160-acre property of fields, forests, and
hills bordered a small lake known as Dodge Pond, and commanded
stunning views in all directions. Reich called the property “Orgonon,”
and envisioned it as a permanent home for his work.
In 1945, a Student Laboratory was built at Orgonon. Three years
later, construction began on the Orgone Energy Observatory which
included additional laboratory facilities, Reich’s library and
study, and outdoor observation decks to observe and study
atmospheric orgone energy phenomena. Funding for these buildings
and for Reich’s research came exclusively from his own income as
a physician and teacher, and from loans and contributions from
students.
By 1947, after less than eight years in America, Reich’s work
was attracting considerable interest as orgone research expanded
into new areas of psychiatry, medicine and biophysics. One of
Reich’s most significant new developments at Orgonon was the
discovery of a motor force in orgone energy from the atmosphere,
a scientific breakthrough with enormous practical implications.
As Orgonon continued to grow, Reich’s dream for a home for his
work was slowly becoming a reality. Sadly, it was a dream that
would not be fulfilled.
THE FOOD AND DRUG
ADMINISTRATION’S CAMPAIGN AGAINST REICH
(1947 – 1957)
“The more success I have, the
more I sense that I am in mortal danger. And the more
successful I become, the less they will be inclined to spare
me. It can hit me at any place and at any time.”
— Diary entry (June 14, 1947), from
American Odyssey
In 1947 an article entitled “The Strange
Case of Wilhelm Reich” appeared in New Republic magazine. Authored
by freelance writer Mildred Edie Brady, it was filled with
distortions and innuendos about Reich’s sexual theories and orgone
research. Brady’s most inflammatory claim was that Reich was
building accumulators of orgone energy “which are rented out to
patients who presumably derived orgastic potency from it.”
Implying that Reich was a danger to the public, Brady challenged the
medical authorities to take action against him. Two months later,
the article was brought to the attention of the Food and Drug
Administration. The result was a ten-year campaign by the FDA
designed to destroy Reich’s work. The FDA focused on the orgone
energy accumulator which Reich and his physicians were using
experimentally with patients. Convinced that the accumulator was
being fraudulently promoted as a sexual and medical device, FDA
agents spent years interviewing Reich’s associates, physicians,
students and patients, looking for dissatisfied users. None were
ever found.
As the FDA’s investigation continued, so did Reich’s work.
Reich and
the Cloudbuster
Reich
continued to develop new ways to visualize, measure, and harness orgone energy from the atmosphere. The cloudbuster, for example,
was an experimental instrument that could affect weather
patterns by altering concentrations of orgone energy in the
atmosphere. It comprised a set of hollow metal pipes and cables
inserted into water, creating a stronger orgone energy system
than that in the surrounding atmosphere.
Water, which strongly attracts and
absorbs orgone, draws the atmospheric orgone through the pipes.
This movement of orgone from a lower to a higher energy system
was used by Reich to create clouds and to dissipate them.
Reich used the cloudbuster to conduct dozens of experiments
involving what he called “Cosmic Orgone Engineering (C.O.R.E.).”
One of the most notable occurred in 1953. During a long drought
that threatened the Maine blueberry crop, several farmers
offered to pay Reich if he could bring rain to the parched
region.
The weather bureau had forecast no
rain for several days when Reich began his cloudbusting
operations. Ten hours later, a light rain began to fall. Over
the next few days, close to two inches fell. The blueberry crop
was saved, and in local newspaper articles the farmers credited
Reich.
The Injunction
In February 1954, the FDA filed a Complaint for Injunction
against Reich in the Federal Court in Portland, Maine. The
Complaint declared that orgone energy does not exist, and asked
the Court to prohibit the shipment of accumulators in interstate
commerce and to ban Reich’s published literature which they
claimed was labeling for the accumulators.
After considerable thought and discussion of this matter, Reich
responded with a lengthy letter to Judge John Clifford,
explaining that he could not appear in Court, since doing so
would allow a Court of law to judge basic scientific research.
He wrote:
“Scientific matters can only be
clarified by prolonged, faithful bona fide observations in
friendly exchange of opinion, never by litigation... Man’s
right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide
errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be
safe, if the word FREEDOM should ever be more than an empty
political slogan.
Furthermore, Reich asserted, if his
painstakingly elaborated and published findings
“...over a period of 30 years
could not convince this administration, or will not be able
to convince any other administration of the true nature of
the discovery of the Life Energy, no litigation in any court
anywhere will ever help to do so. I, therefore, submit, in
the name of truth and justice that I shall not appear in
court as the ‘defendant’ against a plaintiff who by his mere
complaint already has shown his ignorance in matters of
natural science.”
Judge Clifford did not accept
Reich’s letter as a valid legal response, and on March 19, 1954,
a Decree of Injunction was issued on default as if Reich had
never responded at all. But the Injunction itself was even more
excessive than the initial Complaint:
-
it ordered orgone energy
accumulators and their parts to be destroyed
-
it ordered all materials
containing instructions for the use of the accumulator to be
destroyed
-
it banned a list of Reich’s
books containing statements about orgone energy, until such
time that all references to orgone energy were deleted
After the initial shock, Reich
continued his research, traveling to Arizona to experiment with
the cloudbuster in the dry desert environment. While he was
there, and without his knowledge, one of Reich’ students—Dr.
Michael Silvert—moved a truckload of accumulators and books from
Rangeley, Maine to New York City, a direct violation of the
Injunction.
As a result, the FDA charged Reich and Silvert with criminal
contempt of court. Following a jury trial, both men were found
guilty on May 7, 1956. Reich was sentenced to two years in
federal prison, Silvert was sentenced to a year and a day. The
Wilhelm Reich Foundation—founded in Maine in 1949 by students
and friends to preserve Reich’s Archives and to secure the
future of his discovery of the Cosmic Life Energy—was fined
$10,000.
While Reich appealed his sentence, the government carried out
the destruction of orgone accumulators and literature. In Maine,
several boxes of literature were burned, and accumulators and
accumulator materials either destroyed or dismantled. In New
York City, on August 23, 1956, the FDA supervised the burning of
several tons of Reich’s publications in one of the city’s
garbage incinerators, including titles that were only to have
been banned. Among the materials burned were:
-
Orgone Energy Bulletin
(12,189 copies)
-
International Journal of Sex
Economy and Orgone Research (6,261 copies)
-
Emotional Plague Versus
Orgone Biophysics (2,900 copies)
-
Annals of the Orgone
Institute (2976 copies)
-
The Oranur Experiment (872
copies)
-
Character Analysis
-
Cosmic Superimposition
-
Ether, God, and Devil
-
Listen, Little Man
-
People in Trouble
-
The Cancer Biopathy
-
The Function of the Orgasm
-
The Mass Psychology of
Fascism
-
The Murder of Christ
-
The Sexual Revolution
This destruction of literature
constitutes one of the most heinous examples of censorship in
United States history.
On March 8, 1957, Reich signed his Last Will and Testament.
Among its stipulations was the establishment of The Wilhelm
Reich Infant Trust Fund as the legal entity charged with
operating Orgonon as The Wilhelm Reich Museum; protecting,
preserving, and transmitting his scientific legacy to future
generations; and safeguarding Reich’s Archives.
All appeals denied, on March 12, 1957—two weeks shy of his 60th
birthday—Wilhelm Reich was temporarily incarcerated at the
Danbury Federal Penitentiary in Connecticut. On March 22, he was
taken to the Federal Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He
died there of heart failure on November 3, 1957, and was buried
at Orgonon.
|
top |
CHRONOLOGY OF
THE SCIENTIFIC
DEVELOPMENT OF
WILHELM REICH
1923-1934
1923-1934 |
Orgasm theory and technique of Character Analysis |
1928-1934 |
Respiratory block and muscular armo |
1923-1934 |
Sex-economic self-regulation of primary natural drives in their distinction from secondary, perverted drives |
1930-1934 |
The role of irrationalism and human sex-economy in the origin of dictatorship of all political denominations |
1934 |
The orgasm reflex |
1935-1936 |
The bio-electrical nature of sexuality and anxiety |
1936-1939 |
Orgone energy vesicles (bions) |
1936-1939 |
Origin of the cancer cell from bionously disintegrated animal tissue, and the organization of protozoa from bionously disintegrated moss and grass |
1937 |
T-bacilli in sarcoma |
1939 |
Discovery of the bio-energy (Orgone Energy) in sand packet (SAPA) bions |
1940 |
Discovery of Orgone Energy in the atmosphere |
1940 |
Invention of the Orgone Energy Accumulator |
1944 |
Invention of the Orgone Energy Field Meter |
1940-1945 |
Experimental orgone therapy of the cancer biopathy |
1945 |
Experimental investigation of primary biogenesis (Experiment XX) |
1945 |
Method of Orgonomic Functionalism |
1947 |
Emotional Plague of man as a disease of the bio-energetic equilibrium |
1949-1950 |
Orgonometric equations |
195
|
Hypothesis of cosmic superimposition of two orgone energy streams as the basis of hurricanes and galaxy formation |
1947-1951 |
Anti-nuclear radiation effects of Orgone Energy |
1951-1952 |
Discovery of DOR (Deadly Orgone Energy) and identification of its properties, including a specific toxicity (DOR sickness) |
1951-1954 |
Identification of Melanor, Orite, Brownite, Orene; and initial steps toward pre-atomic chemistry |
1952-1955 |
Use of “reversed” orgonomic potential in removing DOR from the atmosphere in cloudbusting and weather control |
1954-1955 |
Theory of desert formation in nature and in man (the emotional plague) and demonstration of reversibility (OROP Desert Ea and the Medical DOR-Buster) |
1954-1955 |
Theory of disease based on DOR accumulation in the tissues |
1950-1957 |
Equations of gravity and anti-gravity |
1951-1957 |
Development and practical application of Social Psychiatry |
|
|
top |
ORGONOMY
GLOSSARY OF
TERMS
A new scientific discipline must employ new terms if old ones are
inapplicable. Orgonomy introduced the following new terms:
-
ANORGONIA
The condition of diminished or lacking orgonity (q.v.).
-
ARMOR
See character armor, muscular armor
-
BIONS
Energy vesicles representing transitional stages between
non-living and living substance. They constantly form in
nature by a process of disintegration of inorganic and
organic matter, which process it has been possible to
reproduce experimentally. They are charged with orgone
energy (q.v.), i.e. Life Energy, and may develop into
protozoa and bacteria.
-
CHARACTER
An individual’s typical structure, his stereotype manner
of acting and reacting. The orgonomic concept of character
is functional and biological, and not a static,
psychological or moralistic concept.
-
CHARACTER ANALYSIS
Originally a modification of the customary
psychoanalyatic technique of symptom analysis, by the
inclusion of the character and character resistance into the
therapeutic process. However, the discovery of the muscular
armor necessitated the development of a new technique,
namely vegetotherapy. The later discovery of organismic
orgone energy (bio-energy) and the concentration of
atmospheric orgone energy with an orgone energy accumulator
necessitated the further development of character-analytic
vegetotherapy into an inclusive, biophysical orgone therapy.
(See physical orgone therapy, psychiatric orgone therapy)
-
CHARACTER ARMOR
The sum total of typical character attitudes which an
individual develops as a blocking against his emotional
excitations, resulting in rigidity of the body, lack of
emotional contact, and “deadness.” Functionally identical
with the muscular armor.
-
CHARACTER, GENITAL
The un-neurotic character structure which does not
suffer from sexual stasis, and therefore, is capable of
natural self-regulation on the basis of orgastic potency.
-
CHARACTER, NEUROTIC
The character which, due to chronic bio-energetic
stasis, operates according to the principle of compulsive
moral regulation.
-
EMOTIONAL PLAGUE
The neurotic character in destructive action on the
social scene.
-
MUSCULAR ARMOR
The sum total of the muscular attitudes (chronic
muscular spasms) which an individual develops as a block
against the breakthrough of emotions and organ sensations,
in particular anxiety, rage, and sexual excitation.
-
ORGASM
The unitary involuntary convulsions of the total
organism at the acme of the genital embrace. This reflex,
because of its involuntary character and the prevailing
orgasm anxiety, is blocked in most humans of civilizations
which repress infantile and adolescent genitality.
-
ORGASTIC IMPOTENCE
The absence of orgastic potency. It is the most
important characteristic of the average human of today,
and—by damning up biological (orgone) energy in the
organism—provides the source of energy for all kinds of
biopathic symptoms and social irrationalism.
-
ORGASTIC POTENCY
Essentially the capacity for complete surrender to the
involuntary convulsion of the organism and complete
discharge of the excitation at the acme of the genital
embrace. It is always lacking in neurotic individuals. It
presupposes the presence or establishment of the genital
character, i.e. absence of a pathological character armor
and muscular armor. Orgastic potency is usually not
distinguished from erective and ejaculative potency, both of
which are only prerequisites of orgastic potency.
-
ORGONE ENERGY
Primordial Cosmic Energy, universally present and
demonstrable visually, thermically, electroscopically, and
by means of Geiger-Mueller counters. In the living organism:
Bio-energy, Life Energy. Discovered by Wilhelm Reich between
1936 to 1940.
-
ORANUR (Orgone Energy
Against Nuclear Radiation)
Denotes orgone energy in a state of excitation induced by
nuclear energy (DOR denotes Deadly Orgone Energy).
-
ORGONE THERAPY
(See physical orgone therapy, psychiatric orgone
therapy)
-
ORGONITY
The condition of containing orgone energy; the quantity
of orgone energy contained.
-
ORGONOMETRY
Quantitative orgonomic research.
-
ORGONOMIC (‘ENERGETIC”)
FUNCTIONALISM
The functional thought technique which guides clinical and
experimental orgone research. The guiding principle is that
of the identity of variations in their common functioning
principle (CFP). This thought technique grew in the course
of the study of human character formation and led to the
discovery of the functional organismic and cosmic orgone
energy, thereby proving itself to be the correct mirroring
of both living and non-living basic natural processes.
-
ORGONOMY
The natural science of the cosmic orgone energy.
-
ORGONOTIC
Qualities concerning the orgonity of a system or a
condition.
-
PHYSICAL ORGONE THERAPY
Application of physical orgone energy concentrated in an
orgone energy accumulator to increase the natural
bio-energetic resistance of the organism against disease.
-
PSYCHIATRIC ORGONE THERAPY
Mobilization of the orgone energy in the organism, i.e.
the liberation of biophysical emotions from muscular and
character armorings with the goal of establishing, if
possible, orgastic potency.
-
SEX-ECONOMY
The body of knowledge within Orgonomy which deals with
the economy of the biological (orgone) in the organism, with
its energy household.
-
STASIS
The damming of Life Energy in the organism, thus the source
of energy for biopathy and irrationalism.
-
STASIS ANXIETY
The anxiety caused by the stasis of sexual energy in the
center of the organism when its peripheral orgastic
discharge is inhibited.
-
STASIS NEUROSIS
All somatic disturbances which are the immediate result
of the stasis of sexual energy, with stasis anxiety at its
core.
-
WORK DEMOCRACY
The functioning of the natural and intrinsically
rational work relationships between human beings. The
concept of work democracy represents the established reality
(not the ideology) of these relationships which, though
usually distorted because of prevailing armoring and
irrational political ideologies, are nevertheless at the
basis of all social achievement.
|
top |
|