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Wilhelm Reich: the discovery of orgone

In the 1920s Wilhelm Reich worked alongside Freud , destined to become a brilliant psychoanalyst. The psychiatrist of Ukrainian origin focused in particular on the neuroses and the stagnation of psychic energy that are found in these clinical pictures.

In the mid-1930s he experimented on airborne infections and noticed that microorganisms form from non-organic material, causing organic substances to disintegrate. Observing the inorganic substance under the microscope, he realized that they shared vesicles of matter , which assumed a pulsatile movement of a green-blue colour. He called this pulsatile motion bion .

One day by mistake, one of his assistants heated a test tube containing some bions until it was incandescent. This, rather than being eliminated, was able to produce a powerful radiant energy phenomenon . He gave the name of orgone to this energy, in honor of Freud's studies on sexuality that had influenced him a lot.

Reich was convinced that he had finally found what men have always sought: the primordial cosmic energy from which everything derives .

This concept is not entirely new: Eastern traditions are based on the conception of a universal life force , which for Hindus is called prana, for Buddhists it is known as Chi. In the West, the ancient Greeks were the first to refer to this energy as ether. And more generally, these are concepts known to cultures that consider illness as an energy distortion.

From Freud's libido to Reich's orgone energy

According to Reich, orgone energy differed from all other known energies, which derive from matter (electric, nuclear, magnetic…) and which are, for this reason, defined as secondary energies. Thanks to his studies, Reich realized that orgone is fundamental in all vital processes : from the formation of galaxies to cell formation.

The peculiarity of orgone is that it tends to accumulate and organize itself into complex structures, called orgonomas , which create a real mechanical tension. All living organisms, therefore, contain within them a certain amount of orgone , which manifests itself in biological and mechanical functions.

Energy goes in and out constantly by different routes and through various processes: respiration, nutrition, emotions, etc. The flow is permanent and its key feature is pulsation, the process of charging and discharging. Usually the charge is greater than the discharge, so that the accumulated excess energy is discharged in unicellular organisms through division and in the human animal through a self-regulating safety mechanism, namely orgasm .

This reflection was partly influenced by Freud's ideas in psychoanalysis, who had elaborated a first theory whose fundamental pillar was the pleasure principle , which hypothesizes that the human being acts under the pressure of a "positive" instinct that moves him always towards what causes him pleasure. Neuroses would originate from the clash between this primary necessity and the frustrating external world. Freud had no idea what it was or where it came from that collided with the outside world, with the fear of punishment, although he had an intuition that it was some kind of energy which he called libido .

Starting from the moment in which a conflict between the individual and society manifested itself, two paths opened up which would have marked opposite fates: on the one hand, maintaining the social order to the detriment of the individual, on the other, defending the individual and fighting for social change. Freud chose the former, Reich opted for the latter. The break between the two was inevitable.

The merit of Wilhelm Reich's discoveries on orgone energy is that he succeeded in making this energy visible, which constituted the solution to the problems he had been posing for years and the connection between the first doubts about the Freudian conception of neurosis, the concept of health and disease and the crucial importance of self-regulation in the growth of children.

Following the discoveries made, Reich believed that the formula for orgasm , whose energy key was obviously orgone, constituted the formula for life since it was traceable in all living matter and in all functions of the biological system: in respiration , in blood circulation, in the functioning of the intestines and bladder, in the movement of amoebae. A permanent flow of pulsation where contraction represents anguish and expansion pleasure.

By establishing precisely the relationship between sexual energy economy and neurotic disorders, Reich had taken a transcendent step towards the possibility of curing and, more importantly, preventing human suffering . The key lay in the interrelationship between the conflicts, of a psychic nature, and the sexual block, of a physical nature, in which the former constitute the content and the latter the energetic level. From here it was easy to understand that, working only on a psychic level, it was impossible to solve the problem. The intervention had to break the border, then sacred, constituted by the contact with the patient's body or, better, with the wall behind which he was hiding.

Reich's tragedy lies in the fact that the main practical confirmation of his ideas was precisely the constant persecution he had to suffer in all the countries where he lived - from Europe to the United States - and which he was forced to leave, since his discoveries they highlighted the roots of domination, submission and social suffering, harshly attacking the foundations of power mechanisms that are still current.

Jesus Garcia Blanca writes in this regard: “ If Reich was persecuted to the point of death, it was because his ideas endangered the status quo of the powerful, whoever they were. It is admirable how, despite the pressures to which he was subjected throughout his life, including the multiple attempts to be passed off as paranoid or schizophrenic, he managed to maintain an energy that allowed him to carry out transcendental discoveries which they proposed, and still propose , a new scientific and medical paradigm. If the acceptance of injury, suffering and injustice is a sign of mental insanity and mental health is found in the ability to rebel, there is no doubt that Reich was in excellent health and for this very reason he is an example of rebellion ” .

Biopathies: orgone energy and disease

With the new knowledge gained and the awareness that living beings have an energy metabolism that regulates biological functions, Reich also began to look at health in terms of energy .

A healthy organism is one in which the energy economy works, in which the tension-charge-discharge-relaxation process takes place in a fluid and natural way. It is not a question of a permanent equilibrium, but of a constant pulsation between equilibrium and disequilibrium by self-regulation. In this sense, imbalances are not considered "diseases" , but moments that are part of the vital play of pulsation and duality, in which the opposites are interdependent: expansion-contraction, parasympathetic-sympathetic, feminine-masculine, negative-positive, dark -light, yin-yang etc. When the imbalances become chronic, when the energy stagnates and the pulsation is distorted, profound and permanent alterations of the vital processes originate.

Reich called these alterations biopathies , referring to the pathological processes which originate in an autonomous vital organism and which presuppose a disturbance of the natural pulsation function in the whole organism, the central mechanism of which is the impairment of the discharge of bio-sexual excitation .

The most serious and global biopathy analyzed by Reich was cancer , characterized by a traumatic event experienced in the early stages of development, in the embryonic or fetal period. Other factors are added to this initial vulnerability of the bioenergetic terrain: the blockage of the diaphragm which keeps the patient in a state of chronic inspiration which facilitates a lack of oxygenation and, consequently, an energetic state of "emergency" which disturbs and limits the of the organism, as well as the integration of one's identity.

Blanca specifies that: “Reich's studies put official cancer research in check by identifying the consequence and not the cause in the cells and identifying the tumor as a symptom, which does not always occur, and not as the main target to be attacked through chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery . This evidently erroneous orientation has very serious consequences for patients, and the obstinacy to continue on this path can only be explained by reasons that have nothing to do with science or medicine, as Otto Warburg, Nobel prize winner for medicine in 1931 for the discovery of some changes in the respiration mechanism of cells, which Reich mentions in "The Biopathy of Cancer". Warburg's work represents a total change of direction from official cancer research,”.

In essence, according to Reich, cancer is nothing more than a reorganization of bions into protozoans, a regression to a primitive level of functioning: it is an accelerated version of the aging process with putrefaction in vivo. The cancer process is identical to that of biogenesis. Cancer cells are a particular type of protozoan tissue in bionic decomposition, and if the patient did not die, due to the treatments or an organic breakdown, a transformation from multicellular life to unicellular life would take place.

The causes of the state of emergency that produces the alterations of energy metabolism according to Reich are to be found in the psycho-emotional and social field : the institutions of the repressive and authoritarian society, embodied by the authoritarian patriarchal family, cause the armoring of children both on a psychic and on a muscular level, leading to loss of contact with nature and with one's own self.

Defensive isolation feeds repression and leads to a neurotic and anti-natural life which leads to profound alterations of energy metabolism or, in other words, of the self-regulated sexual economy. These alterations in turn have three types of consequences:

• weaken the organism in the face of external aggressions,
• they work in the maternal uterus by acting on the fetus and predisposing it to future disorders,
• they are the cause of the pathological processes that lead to biopathies , ultimately to the global biopathy that official medicine calls "cancer".

The orgone accumulator: how to measure orgone energy

After the accidental discovery of orgones, Reich became convinced that this energy was everywhere : he himself realized it when he realized that his skin, under his clothes, was tanned. Thinking he was exposed to some kind of radiation, he looked at the bions under a microscope but realized it was orgone and not radiation, as this form of energy was everywhere.

Intrigued, during other experiments, he also realized that in the darkness of an underground room, he himself gave off a blue light and that there was a gray-blue vapor in the room. He also noticed that this energy was absorbed by organic objects, while it was impervious to metallic ones.

As a further step, Reich attempted to measure this energy : the opportunity presented itself following the outbreak of the Second World War, when he was forced to leave Europe and take refuge in the United States. Here, in 1940 he built the first orgone accumulator : a structure of layers of organic material alternating with metal.

This tool was designed to concentrate atmospheric orgone energy, but was also used for various experiments on patients suffering from various ailments. Thanks to the orgone accumulator, Reich was able to observe orgone and verify how many and which forms it could take inside: bluish-grey, in the form of vapour, blue-violet similar to luminous dots, white shape of moving rays.

Reich conducted many therapeutic experiments with orgone accumulators for at least five years, in particular on cases, often very serious, of carcinomatous contractive biopathy, as he called cancer. In most cases, the results were very positive and encouraging, and indeed other doctors who attended Reich's courses and lectures began to use it as well. However, everyone knew that orgone therapy was in an experimental phase and above all that health problems are never only of a biological nature, but that they have sexual-economic and social components.

He continued his experiments and research to the end, despite being opposed by the American FDA, until he had to undergo a trial at the end of which he was imprisoned until his death in 1957. After his death, all his work or tools were made to disappear, while his writings were publicly destroyed.

See also

• Alexander Gurwitsch
• Animal magnetism of Franz Anton Mesmer
• Energy (spiritual)
• Energy medicine
• Fringe science
• Integratron
• List of ineffective cancer treatments
• Odic force of Carl Reichenbach
• Rupert Sheldrake
• Scientific skepticism
• Thetan
• Vitalism
• Vril

References

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External links

• Quackwatch article

• Body psychotherapy
• Energy (esotericism)
• Orgonomy
• Pseudoscience
• Vitalism
• Sexology