The Discovery of The Orgone Energy

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TheDiscoveryoftheOrgone
THE DISCOVERY OF THE ORGONE ENERGY

1919-1939
Peter Nasselstein[1]
Reich attends the usual lectures necessary for his medical studies. Of special interest are
only the two lecture courses of biologist Paul Kammerer on "The Development of
Puberty" and on "The Continuity Principle in Biology." Reich publicly agrees with
demands to make medical studies more demanding and to prolong them considerably. He
writes that the requirements for early semesters should be increased and harder
examinations should be established. The studies should be completed by an obligatory
practical training period of five year.
His extra-curricular thirst for knowledge he quenches by reading books on science and
the humanities. Among other things he reads Schopenhauer's aphorisms, tries Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason, and goes into Otto Weininger's (1880-1903) then very popular
"Wagnerian" book Geschlecht und Charakter (Gender and Character) on the bisexuality
of man and the inferiority of Jews and females. They have no ego and therefore no
intrinsic value therefore the new man should overcome all Jewish and female elements in
himself.
In autobiographical notes on his childhood and youth with a strong psychoanalytic bias
he attaches great importance to his personal sexual development. He gets in contact with
psychoanalytic thought by joining the private "Students Seminar for Sexology." The later
psychoanalyst Otto Fenichel had initiated it in February under the auspices of the
"Academic Society of Jewish Medical Students and Physicians" and then organized it
together with Reich, Grethe Lehner, and Edward Bibring. After Fenichel is gone for a year
to Berlin, Reich is, at the end of the semester, elected new leader of the seminar.
Thereupon he reorganizes it and divides it into a biological group under Bibring and a
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psychological group under himself.

The seminar is composed of 20 students (16 medics, two law students, one philosopher,
and one high school student). In succession one of the members lectures on a sexological
theme. Reich lectures on "Basic Problems of Sexuality and Sexual Mechanism," on "A
Case of Paranoid Hermaphroditism," and on "Concepts of the 'Libido' from Forel to Jung."
In this lecture he stresses that for Sigmund Freud libido means, in the first place, energy
which gets "transformed." This aspect draws him to Freud but at the same time he has
problems with Freud's dualistic concept of the drives (sexual vs. self-preservation).
Apparently Reich tends more towards C.G. Jung's monistic drive-concept while at the
same time he is repelled by Jung's philosophical speculation about a kind of "will" in
nature and the de-sexualization involved in Jung's concept.
In the seminar he notices with disgust the intellectualization of sexuality. For him it is
the very center of man's existence while his Freudian fellow students are only concerned
about far out perversions and symbolic representations of sexual drives. Already he
names in an article on sex education the price one has to pay for one's unsatisfied
sexuality: neurasthenia and neurosis. Of special interest is how he deals with a
conservative critique of the education of enlightenment since Socrates. He agrees that
one cannot educate people but then outgrows this very standpoint by directing attention
to the wellspring of the problem. He points to something both enlightenment and
conservative counter-enlightenment ignore: education, and enlightenment in general, is
solely lacking in good sex-education.
In March he begins with the analysis of dreams. In this way he hopes to find an entry into
the application of psychoanalysis. He attends a course on psychoanalysis by Isidor Sadger
and has a short training analysis with him. In September Reich has his first
psychoanalytic patient in treatment.
First viva voce passed on March 20 with "excellent."
Reich lectures at the Seminar for Sexology on "From Autoerotism to Narcissism," "A
Pleasure-Libido Theory," "A Case of Breakthrough of the Incest Barrier in Puberty,"
"Concepts of the Libido in Ibsen's Peer Gynt," and "On the Energetics of Drives." Each
week at Otto Fenichel's home Reich and his student peers study psychoanalysis by
discussing the literature and their own experiences. Reich has circa six months of
training analysis with Paul Federn. He has two patients in psychoanalysis Freud sent to
him. On February 22 for the first time he is guest of the "Wednesdays Meeting" of the
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Viennese Psychoanalytic Association. On October 13 he reads his inaugural lecture on

Ibsen's Peer Gynt and becomes member of the Association.
For Reich, Peer Gynt represents the case of a paranoid psychosis and megalomania due to
withdrawal of libido to the narcissistic stage, facilitated by incestuous fixation on the
mother and identification with the father. This constellation prevents any bond with
reality. For example a love affair, instead of anchoring Peer in reality, only stirs up an
escape into delusions because the girl represents the mother and Peer's guilt feelings
towards the father. The death of the mother, his very last bond to real life, finally carries
him to total loss of reality. Restitution comes about through slow disintegration of the
guilt feelings by self castration, i.e., the reality-ego condemns the delusional satisfaction
of the pleasure-ego. Peer is redeemed when he comes back to the girl he left behind
because by now she has the age of his dead mother. He can be himself without any
incestuous conflict, finally.
In his lecture Reich presents himself as an experienced therapist, even undertaking a
devastating criticism of a parallel study of Ibsen's drama by veteran (although
breakaway) psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel. Reich is also very much preoccupied with
another apostate of the Freudian cause, Alfred Adler. He accuses Adler to have
suppressed sexuality from his theoretical considerations, completely. Reich especially
reproaches him for isolating one aspect of infantile development, the castration
complex, then separating it from its sexual background to make it, as "inferiority feeling"
and its overcompensations, the sole foundation of the constitution of the ego.
Accordingly for Adler therapy consists of putting an end to "inferiority feelings" by giving
the "will to power" a more realistic and attainable goal while Reich believes that the
causes should be removed. Causes, Adler in his blindness no longer sees. Nevertheless
Adler's ego-psychology is very important for the development of Reich's later character
analysis, therefore Reich's intensive study of Adler is decisive. But to what an annoying
extent Reich at this time is orthodox Freudian is exemplified by his objection against
Adler's theory of "female protest." According to Reich the female is passive and
submissive by her very inherited nature.
Friends introduce Reich to communism. He sympathizes with "world revolution" but is
more drawn to the radical individualist-anarchist Max Stirner (1806-1856) and believes
that a free society can issue from the free individual only.
Second viva voce passed on November 24 with "fair."
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Before the Seminar for Sexology is closed down in summer, in its final term Reich
lectures "Concerning the Discussion about Speech Impediment and Sexuality." In the
Viennese Psychoanalytic Association he lectures on "A Contribution on Anal Eroticism,"
"Daydreams of a Female Obsessional Neurotic," and "A Contribution on the Conversion
Hysterical Complex of Symptoms."
After Freud presented Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), the first hypothetical
psychoanalytic attempt to explain the biological background of the drives, now Reich
reads his lecture "On the Energetics of Drives" at the Association. For Reich the drive is
an expression of the pleasure's strive to repeat itself. Freud considered this the
masochistic "repetition compulsion" which led him to the theory of the "death instinct."
Reich explicitly turns against grasping the libido in terms of physics as long as the
relationship between the quantitative motoric and the qualitative "mnemic" portions of
the drives are not determined exactly. Specifically, Reich's starting point is the theory of
the zoologist Richard Wolfgang Semon (1859-1918) about psycho-physiological
parallelism according to which every psychological state corresponds to alterations in
the nerves. While Reich dissociates himself from Semon by referring to Henri Bergson, he
nevertheless accepts Semon's concepts as a reasonable working hypothesis. Reich's
provisional solution of the mind-body-problem consists of considering the drive as the
motor aspect of the pleasurable sensation experienced in onto- and phylogenesis, while
psychologically it is an expression of the memory of past pleasure.
In his article on "The Coitus and the Sexes" his tremendous sexual experience comes
through. By referring to the different courses of excitation of the sexes during coitus
Reich for the first time differentiates between "biologically natural" and "humanly
normal." At the explanation of the discrepancy between biological useful vs. evident in
human life he insists upon a causal explanation instead of uncritically and teleologically
"explaining" the given facts. In his article he writes that disturbances stem from the
socially caused split between affectionate and sexual strivings. Harmony between these
strivings lead to a fulfilling simultaneous climax of female and male. The coincidence of
climaxes offer the best conditions for conception and, at the same time, is the best
prerequisite for a healthy child.
Already Reich's orientation is less psychoanalytic but more bioenergetic which even
includes first bio-electrical model images about the "sharpened" erogenity of the male as
compared to the "diffused" erogenity of the female.
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Third viva voce passed with "fair" on June 30. On July 10 he gets his M.D. Enters medical
specialized training and occupation as intern at the university hospital under Julius
Wagner von Jauregg's assistant medical director Paul Schilder (1886-1940). Schilder's
orientation is energetical. For example he speaks about a "fluidum" which issues from
stimulus sources such as psychological problems. It fills up a biological "energy
reservoir," producing symptoms when it overruns. Thus, according to Schilder, there is a
"psychic energy." The brain is only a "switch apparatus" of this energy and furthermore
its structure is nothing but "frozen psychic energy." Since, in this way, it becomes
possible to grasp the functioning of the brain Freud's findings may, according to Schilder,
lead to a "general theory of nature."
On May 22 the Viennese Psychoanalytic Outpatients Clinic for the Impoverished is
established. It is led by Eduard Hitschmann, Reich is his assistant. Following a suggestion
by Reich in September 1922 the Viennese Seminar for Psychoanalytic Therapy is
established at the Clinic. Reich's fundamental technical considerations look as follows:
Just as vestigial organs cannot regress back to the original organs also in the
psychological realm one cannot simply penetrate to the primal repressed by reversing
the formation process of the cover memories superimposing that core. One can only
make conscious one after the other these representatives of the primal repressed and
thus slowly reconstruct that core.
In his paper on "Two Narcissistic Types" Reich objects to Franz Alexander's opinion that
the neurotic character, with his "diffuse symptoms," is based on too little libido stasis or
lacking repression and therefore is nearer to health than the neurosis with its obvious,
"localized symptoms." For Reich the difference is the disturbance of ego-libido, i.e., the
narcissistic seclusion of the neurotic character versus the disturbance of object-libido as
it shows itself in the transference. So neurosis, which is, although disturbed, open to the
world, is nearer to health than the secluded neurotic character. Particularly the
symptoms of the former are associated with a corresponding insight into the disorder.
The neurotic character lacks this insight and his "narcissistic armor" is the biggest
therapeutic problem. Reich elucidates this by presenting two neurotic characters. This is
Reich's first step into a systematic characterology.
Reich lectures at the Viennese Psychoanalytic Association "On the Specificity of Forms of
Masturbation." While psychoanalysis had cleared up all psychological concomitants of
masturbation a "little" loophole had to be filled, still: the manner of masturbation - thus
the very essential.... In contrast to his colleagues Reich approaches the sexual expression
of adults directly, instead of delving evasively into the history of infantile fantasies.
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Freud's The Ego and the Id is the second hypothetical attempt to grasp the biological
foundations of the psychological apparatus. Interestingly in the same year we can fix the
actual beginning of the orgasm theory and its character-analytic application. According
to Reich's paper "On Genitality from the Standpoint of Psychoanalytic Prognosis and
Therapy" in order to assess the case the psychoanalyst has to determine whether and
where fixations occurred in the development from pre-genitality to genitality. Reich
stresses that therapy is a biological process and therefore proceeds according to
biological laws, i.e., inexplicably even a superficial analysis can lead to health while, on
the other side, the most careful analysis may not change the patient a bit as long as the
biological factor, which led in the former case to health, is not taken into consideration.
This biological factor is activated by uncovering genital libido. The genital development
in childhood is decisive for prognosis. If genitality was already reached repression has to
be removed only, otherwise genital eroticism has to be developed supplementary which
is extremely difficult if one cannot hook up with anything genital from childhood.
Analysis is finished only when the patient has freed her or his genitality from guilt
feelings and from pre-genital contributions and withdrew it from the incest object.
In detailed ego-psychological considerations which, nevertheless, remain always
embedded in the libido theory, Reich speaks about the dichotomy of life-positive selfaffirmation by narcissistic libido on the one hand and self-negating guilt feelings on the
other hand. It is important at which time in the libidinous development the guilt feeling
counters narcissism and whether the genital phase is reached uninfluenced. This is so
important because genital libido, respectively the genital-narcissistic striving, is the
most powerful opponent of the guilt feeling. In this connection Reich underlines the
necessity of a happy childhood.
Publicly Reich speaks out against wrong applications of psychoanalysis which exclude
the very essential (infantile drives), aggravated by distorted new creations and false
claims of priority. At the same time he opposes the epistemological and methodological
criticisms of psychoanalysis ("Interpretation is not scientific!"). He demands that, first,
these critics must gather first-hand psychoanalytic experience instead of following
abstract methodological axioms. The scientific nature of interpretation becomes evident
when the reconstruction of childhood experiences is confirmed by the objective case
history provided by the parents and other witnesses.
At the Viennese Psychoanalytic Outpatients Clinic Reich becomes first assistant
physician. Forced by circumstances he tries to shorten the long-drawn-out
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psychoanalytic therapy by utilizing suggestion. This shortened analysis matches with his
theory of the healing function of uncovered genital libido. For example he presents a
case of the healing of a tic by release of genital masturbation. At the same time Reich's
psycho-somatic work begins, e.g., he criticizes that inside psychoanalysis many still
underestimate to what extent organo-genic ailments are used by psychological factors.
In this way he corroborates Georg Groddeck's findings although he wished Groddeck had
presented them in a clearer manner.
Reich is elected head of the Viennese Seminar for Psychoanalytic Therapy. In the
manuscript of his book Der triebhafte Charakter he demonstrates that symptomanalysis has to be extended into character analysis. Seen from the new ego-psychology
the relationship between ego and the developing superego is the basis of characterology.
Character formation takes place by annexation of the parents either as an affirmative or a
negating ego ideal and is also determined by the libidinal stage this occurs as well as by
what both environment and primitive pleasure ego say to the realization of the demands
of the ego ideal. It is perfect if gratification and denial of the drive are balanced.
Predominant denial leads to an inhibited character. On the other hand the impulsive
character was allowed extensive drive gratification but then, out of the blue, came a
traumatic denial from the same parents, leading to a sharp conflict between a very
infantile ego and a harsh "repressed" superego. Thus the impulsive character is torn apart
between strong uncontrollable drives and a brutal superego, breaking through from time
to time with the might of a repressed drive.
The isolated superego also means a schizophrenic disposition because in order to ease
the burden from the conflict with both the superego and the id they can be projected by
the ego into the outside world very easily. This delusional projection corresponds to the
hysterical split. The difference is that in this state of "multiple personality" it comes to
an alternating identification with one of the opponents, at a time, with respective
amnesia. In a detailed case history Reich describes a case of sexual child abuse.
Subsequently it came to a hysterical split respectively multiple personality.
At the Psychoanalytical Congress he introduces the term "orgastic potency" he
differentiates from erective and ejaculative potency. According to Freud's theory there
would be no neurosis without the sexual conflict. Reich specifies: "No neurosis without
disturbance of the genital function." Neurosis is a "sexual illness" due to genitalorgastical impotence. In the process of recovery sublimation and satisfied genitality
supplement each other. Although he states that sublimation is not enough and remain
unstable, as long as the somatic libido stasis continues, he cannot preclude that there are
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maybe also sexual abstinent individuals with a very low libido level who are "healthy"
(social performance and subjective well-being). But he can rule out this for recovered
neurotics since they fell sick precisely because of the strength of their libido. Dwindling
or persistence of symptoms makes no difference for healing although dwindling of the
symptoms naturally is part of it in the long run. He believes that the drives function like
communicating tubes. Therefore it is not necessary to approach the complexes
separately rather due to the libido discharge in one place, the symptom can vanish in
another place. Healing, in Reich's sense, means reaching the genital-libidinous stage
which active use guards against relapse into neurosis and leads finally to the
disappearance of persisting symptoms. More important than symptoms is the
transformation of complete personality, i.e., an actual change of character.
Simultaneously with Reich's presentation of Der triebhafte Charakter, Theodor Reik in
his book Gestndniszwang und Strafbedrfnis (Compulsive Confession and
Punishment Need) reduces psychoanalysis to a libido-free ego-psychology which he
chains to Freud's death instinct. Reik as well as Reich plead for mediation between
superego and ego. But for Reich this has to be the first step only, followed by mediation
between ego and id so that it comes to an actual satisfaction of the drive (particularly
since the strength of the superego depends on the erogenous fixation). Reik reduces all
libidinal functioning to "signals" between psychic entities. Reich objects to this primitive
idea of a play between "persons" and insists that the neurotic conflict occurs between
outer world and pleasure ego.
He formulates the various types of orgastic impotence. Chronic hypochondric
neurasthenia is a bad prognostic sign because it is based on oral and anal erotization of
urethrally emphasized genitals. It is characterized by genital asthenia, i.e., a pregenital
fixation with bad impairment of erective, ejaculative, and orgastic potency. In
masturbation the genital is treated in a pregenital way only and the body is flooded by
unprocessed excitation. The more the neurasthenic approaches the syndrome of acute
neurasthenia, and other forms of impotence based on castration anxiety, the more
remains of genitality are there to be used therapeutically.
Reich looks into the epileptic seizure. His question is neither what causes seizures, nor
the secondary benefit of the illness, and not, at all, how the illness develops, rather he
wants to disclose the specific mechanism of the seizure. He points to the correlation
between sexual stasis and the beginning respectively increase of seizures. After there is a
damming up of libidinous excitation in the vegetative system, with an "anxiety aura"
caused by stasis, the organism tries to discharge it epileptically via the muscular
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apparatus. The seizure is therefore a stasis-neurotic symptom and an "extragenital

muscular orgasm." The seizure begins with a climax with holding of breath and a cramp
lasting for seconds, subsiding in convulsions. But, while in normal orgasm convulsions
are mainly in the lower part of the body, in the epileptic seizure it is the upper part. In
contrast to the genital orgasm the extragenital orgasm does not discharge the stasis. This
explains the sadistic character of the epileptic and his compassionate and religious
reaction formations.
Reich goes into Eugen Bleuler's book Die Psychoide als Prinzip der organischen
Entwicklung (The Psychoide as the Principle of Organic Development). The "psychoide" is
responsible for structure and functioning of the living protoplasm. This, "the formative
soul of the living," had developed in the course of evolution and is no teleological
entelechy but a natural scientific entity functioning causally. Reich does not agree fully
with the concept of the psychoide because the vitalistic creeps in when, in fact, Bleuler
describes the evolution of the animals correctly in Lamarckistic terms - that is not by
chance and selection but as reaction to outer stimuli - but cannot explain how
experience is stored and by what it is activated again. For Reich the psychoide is further
evidence for the soundness of the theory of the unconscious which via the psychoide
imperceptible reaches down into the "organic-living." He agrees with Bleuler in his
radical rejection of mechanistic as well as vitalistic theories of the living.
Reich coins the term "genital-narcissistic character" which becomes part of official
psychoanalytic terminology.
His report on the Seminar for Psychoanalytic Therapy shows that not until Reich a
scientific-clinical approach was introduced into psychoanalysis by using clear patterns of
presentation and by insisting upon limiting questions to the essential, avoiding
speculations and mere opinions. The seminar develops that in many failing cases
negative transference is the main factor but, on the other hand, making conscious its
infantile origins is a potent tool of therapy because in this way therapy touches the
characterological basis of the symptoms directly. In order not to get lost in detail
resistances one constantly has to go back to the "character resistance." One must not
follow the patient with symbolic interpretations but the neurosis has to be systematically
reconstructed from the present to its infantile origin. It comes to an argument with Freud
who insists that the material has to be interpreted in the sequence of its appearance.
According to Freud's Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety anxiety is a mere warning
signal of the ego and therefore the cause of repression. Independently Reich formulates
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similar thoughts on the difference of signal-anxiety and stasis-anxiety in the manuscript

of Die Funktion des Orgasmus and is able to clear up the relationship between fear and
anxiety, but for him the crucial point is that the ego's fear depends on the libidinal stasis.
For example a fear of castration causes the repression of genital libido, actual anxiety
results from this repression and gives the affect to the fear of castration, i.e., only via
somatic excitation a psychological idea can cause an affect. Therefore every "character
neurosis" has an actual neurotic core which activates the pathogenic fantasies. This
vegetative stasis of undischarged genital libido expresses itself directly in
vasoconstriction, high pressure, heart troubles, enlarged pupils, dry mouth, cold sweat,
dizziness, diarrhea, etc. Unprocessed genital libido can also flow into the muscular
system and, in this way, is responsible for the "destructive drives." During the sexual act
excitation flows from the vegetative into the sensitive nervous system and during the
climax into the motoric nervous system to ebb away in the body.
Education has to be about prevention of neurosis not about compliance to an "objective"
morality, behind which just hides the "educational compulsion." This is an ordinary
neurotic compulsion with repressed hate feelings and defiance. The defiance coming
from the side of the parents as well as coming from the side of the children reinforce
each other mutually. The educational compulsion shows up especially in the suppression
of infantile masturbation. It is based on the sexual repression of the adults they have to
maintain by the suppression of their children. But, at the same time, the adults, with
their repressed sexual wishes, sexually stimulate the child with plays and washings.
Reich is influenced by Siegfried Bernfeld's book Psychologie des Suglings (The
Psychology of the Infant) where Bernfeld sees the unconscious motivation of nursing in
the hate directed at the baby. Bernfeld considers the development of the child as the
overcoming of the trauma of birth by "progressive sexual drives," replacing "regressive
drives" which result from the trauma. Yet, Bernfeld does not consider this trauma in
psychological terms like Otto Rank, but, thus Reich in his review, "energetical
(libidinal)." In the wake of Bernfeld, Reich emphasizes that later anxiety fits are
connected with "birth anxiety," surely, but that only the movement of energy is identical
while one cannot, like Rank, speak about remembering the birth trauma, particularly
since one cannot know whether the baby experiences anxiety really.
Reich is elected into the board of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Association.
At the Psychoanalytic Congress he presents his character analysis. It is analysis of the
patient's behavior, expression, look, facial play, handshake, etc. Like any single symptom
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one can trace these character traits back to infantile experiences, too. The difference
between symptom and trait is that the latter is very well rationalized. Unlike the
symptom it is no alien element but worked into the personality organically. Character
analysis consists of isolating the main character trait like a symptom and then to treat it
accordingly.
Reich's book Die Funktion des Orgasmus, i.e., the clinical foundation of sex-economics
is published. At the same time he reviews Friedrich Kraus' book Allgemeine und
spezielle Pathologie der Person (General and Special Pathology of the Person). It is the
first successful attempt on the basis of experimental findings to confront the functional
nature of the nervous system with mechanistic concepts. For Reich the central idea of the
book is the concept of the "depth person" which is the "spontaneous urging creative" core
of man. It is represented by the "vegetative streaming" one can observe in the streaming
of the protoplasma of the amoeba directly. Therefore, writes Reich in his review, Freud's
somatic libido is identical with bioelectrical charge of the membranes of the body and
their electrolytic equalization which is accompanied by mechanical movement of liquids.
Freud suggests to emancipate psychoanalysis from medicine in order to preserve its
humanistic and psychological character. Reich objects that therapy and theory are
intimately linked. Therefore the theory is in the best hands with physicians only. Freud
himself had said that psychoanalysis once would be put upon an physiological
foundation. Furthermore the actual-neurotic core of the neurosis is something somatic
and almost all neurotics are suffering from physical symptoms. Reich also asks why the
alleged "somatic prejudice" of physicians should carry more weight than the
"philosophical prejudice" of the scholar of the humanities. But also Reich wants to avoid
a complete restriction to physicians and aspires to a "Psychoanalytical Faculty" in the
future.
Reich reviews an attack on mechanistic and commercialized medicine by the spiritus
rector of the romantic youth movement "Wandervogel," the homosexual and anti-Semite
Hans Blher. Based on his correct observations Blher unfortunately praises an esotericoccult "priest medicine" as an alternative. The depths of the soul only a religious
approach can fathom while somatic medicine, including psychoanalysis, leaves the self
untouched, the essence of man. Illness just expresses itself in the psychological and
somatic realm while always only the inner being is ill. For this reason, according to
Blher, science never touches true life and is restricted to the mere surface while Blher
himself, writes Reich, obviously trusts in the "evident nature of intuitive experience
(Bergson)." Reich agrees with this, he too feels these depths, but he misses a concrete
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path into these depths. Blher maintains that science had only touched the surface of the
problems and took it for the whole. As an example he mentions the investigation of
sexuality which is governed by higher powers science is unable to investigate, ever. Reich
is absolutely aware that science operates with unrealistic concepts but in this way one is
able to tackle with reality practically. He does not reject Blher's approach completely
but exhorts to a certain scientific humility.
Reich begins with the study of dialectical materialism.
Reich begins to compile and summarize his papers on the technique of psychoanalysis.
He believes that for any given situation in therapy there is only one single optimal
answer. In good analyses there are few but consistent interpretations and a progress from
the current to the infantile, each time starting from the most important ego-resistance.
When the present-day material links itself to the infantile the character resistance
dissolves by itself. After dissolution of narcissistic and sadistic strivings the libido freed
concentrates in various pregenital positions. From these fixations the libido has to be
liberated again to finally flow to the genital stage. By this the old oedipal situation
becomes newly activated in the transference. At this point the ego-defense takes the
form of castration-anxiety which drives the libido back to old fixations, from which it has
to be freed again, just to be newly repelled by castration-anxiety, etc. Slowly but surely
castration-anxiety is replaced by genital transference-fantasy and it comes, at last, to a
true positive transference. Now this genital object-libido has to be redirected to an
appropriate love-object. But here the societal rejection of sexuality hinders the
conclusion of the analysis or makes it even impossible.
At the Association Reich reads on "Where does Nudist Education Lead to?" With his
characteristic radicality Reich draws a straight line from nudist education to the
overthrow of bourgeois society. It becomes obvious that behind Reich's political
extremism is something one could call "the revolutionary uncompromising nature of the
sexual drive." Once one has chosen to affirm sexuality, the very nature of the sexual drive
forces one to the logical end if one does not want to fall prey to the old negation of
sexuality, not without before having brought down one's child in additional conflicts by
the back and forth of pseudo-liberal compromises. A change of sexual life is possible by a
radical change of social order only. But Reich also stresses that one cannot praise a free
sexuality as condition of a liberated mankind because sexuality is not a way to a better
life but an end in itself.
Reich writes his paper on "Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis." There can be no
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contradiction between Marxism and psychoanalysis because they both are sciences, the
only difference being their fields. Since psychoanalysis is restricted to the individual it
could not develop an independent sociology and thus become a competitor of Marxism
just as Marxism could not explain the genesis of neuroses. But what distinguishes
Marxism from psychoanalysis principally is the fact that the former has discovered the
methodology which is the foundation of all science and formulated it to a
weltanschauung, dialectical materialism. By translating psychoanalysis into dialectical
nomenclature Reich can prove that psychoanalysis reflects the objective-dialectical
natural processes correctly. He opposes the assertion that psychoanalysis is "idealistic"
and argues that, quite to the contrary, it can, e.g., explain how the economic substructure
is connected with the ideological superstructure concretely and how the ideology of
society anchors itself in the individual - via the superego formed inside the patriarchical
family. Thus down to the last detail Reich can explain exactly how the ideology of the
ruling class settles down in every single member of class society.
Together with Communist physician Marie Frischauf-Pappenheim (born 1882) and six
other colleagues Reich founds the "Socialist Association for Sex Counseling and Sex
Research" with its six sex-hygienic advice centers. For the first time the problem of
neurosis is dealt with as a problem of the masses.
Reich defines "character" in terms of the typical reactions of the ego towards id and outer
world (and thus towards the later superego). The character serves the avoidance of realanxiety and the absorption of stasis-anxiety. Health and sickness as well as kind of
character are determined by the drives which are spend in the formation of the character
- in distinction to those which are available for drive satisfaction. The historical,
qualitative formation of the character determines the current, quantitative: either the
stasis is genital-orgastically discharged, if there is a genital character structure, or the
character is pre-genitally determined and stasis continues. In contrast to the neurotic
character, the genital character has his armor free at his disposal, i.e., in one situation he
can surrender completely while in another he can just as well close his heart and mind.
The neurotic character has an unchanging rigid armor because his ego has to defend
itself against the constantly unsatisfied id and against the brutal moralistic superego. In
the genital character orgastic satisfaction and sublimation complement each other
because, temporarily, sexual images are not charged libidinously. In the neurotic
character this corresponds to reaction formation which absorbs the libido stasis. At the
bottom of the neurotic character is the "neurotic reaction basis," i.e., the totality of all
character traits which shall use up libido stasis and absorb stasis anxiety. If this fails it
comes to neurotic symptoms. Reich stresses that one cannot infer the character from
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neurotic symptoms since they can correspond to a defense against "surplus" anxiety from
other libido stages than those which form the basis of the character traits.
In his description Reich refers to the armor of inorganic material of certain protozoa, like
radiolaria, which protects the plasma against the outer world. At the same time he also
speaks about "imperialistic wars and class struggles" as the social wellspring of realanxiety. This signifies the two fields, biology and sociology, into which Reich wants to
extend psychoanalysis.
Sexualerregung und Sexualbefriedigung, Reich's sex education brochure for the
youth, appears. It provides a direct impression of his sex-political consultation work in
Viennese working-class areas. He attacks the suppression of juvenile sexuality, double
standards, and compulsive marriage and shows that sexual suppression arises from the
interests of the propertied classes to domesticate the working people. Sexual misery and
capitalist economics are linked inseparably. Compulsive marriage shall prevent the
splintering of the control over the means of production, shall protect the breeding
woman, and as an "ideology factory" shall form the character of the children. The
prerequisite of marriage is suppression of extra- and premarital sexual life from infancy
to youth. This is the background of sexual suppression issued by the propertied classes.
For Reich sex education has mainly a political function, i.e., it is instrumental in
destabilizing the capitalist system. Only then, after the barrier is removed, one can start
to work as a physician according to the true duties of the medical profession. Therefore
Reich at this time is a "politician," even forming the subversive Communist pressure
group "Committee of Revolutionary Social Democratic Workers" inside the SocialDemocratic Party of Austria, not although but because he is a physician! For him the
"socialist physician" is nothing but the responsible physician whom the restrictions of
individual therapy force into political commitment.
He undertakes a study tour to the Soviet Union.
Reich believes he can answer Freud's question exactly how repressed infantile material
survives: by the infantile kind of reaction which has become chronic and therefore is still
functioning. Even when the contents, e.g., the oedipal complex, no longer exist one can
reconstruct them from the form of the reaction. In this manner Reich makes the illusive
unconscious tangible scientifically. Freud found that the oedipal complex perishes of the
castration anxiety. Now Reich believes that it newly arises in form of characterological
reactions which continue it in disguise, or which are reaction formations against it, while
in the genital character it is finished by energy withdrawal. Therefore any character
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formation is the result of the perishing of the oedipal complex. Armoring of the ego takes
place due to punishment anxiety. Aggression turns against the ego itself and the
aggression thus bound inhibits somatic motor activity. The armor gets its meaningful
content by identification of the ego with the refusing parent. The circumstances of
coming to terms with the oedipal complex determine the kind of character.
At the Vienna congress of the "World League for Sexual Reform" Reich describes his work
in the sex counseling centers. At the beginning he criticizes that in the announcement of
the congress the scientific foundation of sexual reform was emphasized as if this is no
matter of course. Obviously they wanted to stress the contrast to the political. But, Reich
argues, one has to act according to the scientific results and so comes about the question
whether sexual reform is possible under current social circumstances. The very nature of
sexual reform leads into politics directly - if one takes science seriously. For example the
prophylaxis of neurosis begins by replacing parental by collectivist education.
His book Geschlechtsreife, Enthaltsamkeit, Ehemoral appears. It is the first attempt
to draw on psychoanalysis for Marxist criticism of bourgeois sexual order. Just as the
sharpening economic conflicts are breaking up class society the same occurs with the
sexual conflicts. Marxism and sexology are each the ideological expression of these
crises. In this respect bourgeois sexual reform has failed miserably, e.g., it has never
freed itself from the confines of marital morality. The assessment of family is absolutely
the ideological criterion. To the efforts of ideologically correct sexual reformers like Max
Hodann, Magnus Hirschfeld, Fritz Brupbacher, and Friedrich Wolff, who pay attention to
housing problems, abortion, and matrimonial law Reich has, according to his own
declaration, hardly anything to add. Original is his view from the psychoanalytic clinic,
revolving around sexual needs and the psychological and ideological consequences of
their suppression.
In autumn Reich moves to Berlin where he has psychoanalysis with Sandor Rado. As in
Vienna also in Berlin, Reich organizes a Technical Seminar. In November Reich reads
Malinowski's The Sexual Life of Savages. Malinowski could prove that without sexual
restriction there are no neuroses and perversions. This becomes, e.g., evident by the fact
that with the spread of Christian mission symptoms like homosexuality occur. Reich
stresses Malinowski's in-depth analysis of the economics of matriarchal society, i.e., of
the "substructure" with which Malinowski explains the morals and customs of the
primitives. In this manner his work is a direct continuation and confirmation of L.H.
Morgan's Ancient Society and Friedrich Engel's The Origin of the Family. According to
Reich Malinowski's approach stands out pleasantly against other psychoanalytically
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influenced ethnology where pure interpretation technique predominates without

consideration of economic circumstances.
Reich deals with masochism. Originally the organism only knows the one striving of
discharging inner excitations. Therefore the basic conflict between pleasure ego and
outer world. Its psychological reflection is the contrast between sexual excitation and
anxiety. With the formation of musculature there also occurs flight from as well as
destruction of the hazard. Since the outer world does not only suppress libidinous
strivings but destructive strivings as well the "destructive impulse" can turn against
itself, too. In this way Reich reduces masochism to the basic conflict mentioned instead
of the contrast of "eros vs. death instinct." Some analysts try to explain the death instinct
by referring to life restricting products of assimilating life processes but Reich replies
that here is no drive but only inhibition.
Within the pleasure principle Freud had no answer to the problem how a drive for pain is
possible and therefore spoke of "primary masochism" as an expression of the death
instinct. Reich found that self-abasement is a protective mechanism against the
castration treat, self-torture has the function of putting a milder punishment against the
feared castration, and in the fantasy of being beaten up not pain is the goal but being
freed from inner excitation caught up in spastic armoring. Achieving relaxation would
activate unbearable guilt feelings. Violence from without shall bring the masochist to a
"bursting." This bursting is feared as well as yearned for. The masochist strives for
pleasure but always meets pain. For the observer this looks as if he strives for pain.
Reich writes the manuscript of Der Einbruch der Sexualmoral about the Trobriand
Islanders as an example of a genital people. What happens apart from a secure sexeconomy is insignificant for Reich, but all other investigators had concentrated on that
exclusively. Reich concedes that also the Trobriand Islanders suffer from psychological
conflicts but they are restricted, e.g., unhappy infatuation does occur yet does not last
long. Trobriand society is not the perfect example for health, anyway, because it is a
society in transition from matriarchy to patriarchy. This revolves around the economic
mechanism of dowry given by the relatives of the wife to the husband. Therefore the
male has, in contrast to the female, an economic interest in compulsive marriage and a
contradiction develops between passing sexual and lasting economical interests. The
chief is polygamous and correspondingly gets more dowry. To be able to accumulate it he
marries his son to the daughter of his sister in a "cross-cousin marriage." Due to his
economic power constantly increasing he had only to make his son his legal heir and
matriarchy would finally change into patriarchy. To secure the economically lucrative
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marriage the children concerned are brought up for pre-marital chastity. Reich tries to
prove that the dowry-mechanism is an universal phenomenon. With this he corrects
Engel's theory about the transition from primal matriarchy to patriarchy, i.e., the
accumulation of wealth by tributes to the chief already begins before the formal
introduction of patriarchy.
Reich establishes the German "Sexpol." This "Unified Association for Proletarian Sexual
Reform" he sets up under the auspices of cultural front organizations of the Communist
Party of Germany. In his work with the masses he tries to dodge neurotic resistance and
counter individual moralistic inhibition by the collective atmosphere of sexual
affirmation in mass meetings. Thus, in a way, he is the very founder of group therapy.
From his previous articles and lectures on character analysis Reich compiles his long
announced book Charakteranalyse. The only new part is his rudimentary
characterology. The specific relationships between outer appearance, inner structure,
and genesis are shown for the hysteric, the compulsive, and the phallic-narcissistic
characters each. Typical for the hysterical character is importunate sexuality which
contrasts with marked timidity. This is based on genital-incestuous fixation. In the
oedipal phase genitality developed but was connected with anxiety. Facial expression
and pace of the compulsive character are the very opposite of the hysteric, i.e., heavy and
oppressive. His hesitation, doubt, and brooding derive from infantile anal erotism
respectively is a reaction formation against it. In the genesis of this character the phallic
phase was activated but due to harsh parents it came to a regression to the anal stage.
The phallic-narcissistic character is a formation between the hysteric and the compulsive
character. He is arrogant and often sadistic. The ego identifies with the erected phallus
which becomes an instrument of revenge for the disappointment he suffered from his
mother at the phallic stage. The aggressive behavior is a defense against a threatening
regression to the passive and anal.
In the wake of biologist Max Hartmann, Reich describes the biological origins of the
drives as follows: The disturbance of the physio-chemical equilibrium is the motor of
acting and "trial acting," i.e., thinking. There are two kinds of this disturbance, leading to
the drives of hunger or sexuality. The loss of tissue fluid leads to shrinking and reduction
of surface tension. This imbalance causes unpleasure undone by the intake of substances
while the increase of tissue fluid leads to an increase of surface tension, turning into
pleasure by the expulsion of substances. This explains the productive and sublimable
nature of the sexual drive in contrast to the hunger drive.
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In a neurological journal W. Misch and K. Misch-Frankl publish a paper influenced by

Reich's work. Kthe Misch was a student of Reich's and worked in his sex-counseling
centers. Anxiety neurosis, psychologically hardly accessible, one can approach with a
somatic therapy because states of anxiety are characterized by sympatethicotonic
excitation and peripheral vascular contraction against which one can apply choline
preparations. It is decisive that with its application also psychological anxiety feelings
suddenly disappear. According to the Mischs this observation confirms Reich's theory
brought forward in 1927 in Die Funktion des Orgasmus about anxiety based on somatic
libido stasis. Correspondingly in some of their cases they were able to remove anxiety
lastingly by changing sexual behavior, e.g., coitus interruptus. For states of anxiety,
which are deeper anchored psychologically, choline can contribute to make the patient
accessible for psychotherapy.
Reich works on the manuscript of Die Massenpsychologie des Faschismus. The
national-socialist rebellion gets its reactionary contents from the influence of the petty
bourgeois family. This becomes evident, e.g., in its central ideology about the nordic, the
"pure," and asexual in contrast to the sensuous-animalic foreign, "lower" races. His
political activism Reich tallies with his scientific conscience as follows: Gaining
knowledge has to be free from ideological guidelines whereas this knowledge has to be
converted into political practice according to the pleasure-unpleasure principle. In
contrast to this, the conservative ideologue, right from the start, ties the process of
gaining knowledge to a supernatural "world of objective values." Bourgeois liberalism
refuses to draw any connections between science and value judgements, at all.
Early in March Reich escapes to Vienna and in early May to Copenhagen where he
publishes Charakteranalyse. Like in epidemic control such studies are, he says,
indispensable prerequisites for a systematic prophylaxis of neuroses. Therefore
individual therapy is, in the first place, an instrument of research like the microscope of
the bacteriologist.
But by now Reich's main concern is not the psychological but the biological functioning
of man. He begins with a criticism of the mechanical theory of sexual tension and
postulates an electrolytic current between the surfaces of penis and vagina. The
involuntary muscle contractions accompanying the frictions Reich links with the "closing
and opening convulsions" of Galvanic stimulation. The contact of the mucous
membranes brings partial relaxation, their separation new tension. When these
successive electrical stimulations become faster it finally comes to a tetanus, ebbing
away in muscle clonisms which discharge the energy, built up by frictions. This
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constitutes the four beat of mechanical tension - electrical charge - electrical discharge mechanical relaxation. Reich reasons that this formula may be the fundamental law of
the living.
In October he publishes his Massenpsychologie des Faschismus. He attacks "vulgar
Marxism" which does not think dialectic-materialistically when it infers the ideological
superstructure straight from the economic substructure. It denies the gap between an
economic development, pushing to the left, and the orientation to the right of big masses
and thus leaves the "subjective factor" to the forces of reaction. According to sexeconomic insight, while material need drives into rebellion, sexual misery hinders any
kind of rebellion. One can explain rational behavior in socio-economic terms while a
missing class consciousness one can explain sex-economically, only. For example one
cannot undo religion by taking all power away from the church and by natural-scientific
education alone but one also has to target the emotions which feed mysticism. In a new
sex-economic order they will find an appropriate expression. A first step is the sexpolitical approach propagated by Reich. He created a "mass atmosphere" which bypasses
the individual defense. The anti-sexual propaganda of the reactionary forces functions
only as long as the hidden sex affirmation in the masses is not clearly crystallized.
Against such a sex-political work, which also attracts groups otherwise closed to
communist education, the reactionaries can accomplish nothing because they have
nothing to offer in this field except suppression.
The Danish minister of justice denies the renewal of Reich's six-month tourist visa. At a
protest meeting Reich explains that science does not float above reality, e.g., scientists
are harassed by big and little politicians like those Danish colleagues who went to the
police to have him expelled. The enemies of science, Reich equates with the enemies of
the living. There are two sciences, the academic science lagging behind as, e.g., orthodox
psychiatry and the science moving forward as, e.g., psychoanalysis. Reich's associates
turn to Ernest Jones and Freud for statements to submit to the Danish authorities.
Thereupon, while confirming Reich's status as a psychoanalyst, Freud criticizes Reich's
ideological fixation which impedes his scientific work. Therefore he rejects any public
backing of Reich. Early in December Reich has to leave Copenhagen. Searching for a new
exile he travels through Europe.
At the beginning of the year Reich settles in the Swedish small town Malm where he can
treat his Danish students. Under the pseudonym Ernst Parell he edits the Zeitschrift fr
Politische Psychologie und Sexualkonomie. By publishing scientific and political
articles jointly, the reader shall get used to make connections between scientific and
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political problems. In Malm Reich draws up his theory of the living by combining his
orgasm theory with the work of internist Friedrich Kraus, physiologist L.R. Mller, and
others. According to Kraus at the interfaces between circulating salt electrolytes and
stationary colloid electrolytes electrical tensions develop. By their equalization electrical
energy is transformed into mechanical energy. OH-ions lead to hydration and correspond
to the parasympathetic, potassium, choline, lecithin reaction; H-ions lead to
dehydration, corresponding to the sympathetic, calcium, adrenaline. Seen from the
totality of the organism parasympathetic and sympathetic, including their equivalents,
are functionally identical with expansion respectively contraction.
At the end of May, Reich's Swedish tourist visa expires. Again Freud refuses to speak up
for Reich. Reich spends the summer illegally in Sletten, Denmark, giving lessons in
character analysis. Early in August the German Psychoanalytic Society informs him that
he is no longer a member but this is, they say, only a formal issue since he can become a
member of the Scandinavian group. At the 13. International Psychoanalytic Congress in
Lucerne, Switzerland, end of August, Reich is told that he was already expelled one year
ago, indeed. Reich's followers give lectures in which they advocate Reich's theories
without mentioning his name, initiating a tradition lasting until today. Reich is allowed
to read his paper "Psychic Contact and Vegetative Streaming" as a guest.
The repressed and the defense form "a functional identity with simultaneous
antagonism." Initially the defensive function of the drive has to be destroyed so that the
drive can flow freely again. Only by this procedure one can reach the vegetative
streaming. It comes to states of excitation and tension, to sensations of streaming and
muscle twitches. Unfortunately treatment is more complex since the defense is
interlocked, i.e., any warded off drive is again a defense against a deeper drive. After
breaking up the functioning fabric of repressed and repressing a seemingly indissoluble
portion remains of vegetative energy not freed, the psychological contactlessness. In
between the repressing defense forces and the repressed demands forms a "psychological
structural layer" of inner unconnectedness, explained by the equilibrium between the
repressing and repressed forces stifling any motion. Therefore not only the change of
function of the drive is part of the neurosis but also contactlessness. Vegetative contact
is replaced by substitute contact which any fairly sensitive person recognizes by its
falseness. It does not fit into the totality of the personality organically and strikes as
disturbing.
Repression is functionally identical to muscular spasms which function to hinder the
emotions of pleasure, anxiety, and rage, corresponding to energy streaming to the
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periphery, to the center, and to the skeletal musculature respectively. Every neurotic is
muscularly distonic and each character type has its specific muscular armor.
From Lucerne Reich goes to Copenhagen. At the end of October professor Harold
Schjelderup, a student of Reich's, enables him to move to Oslo, Norway. There Reich
lectures at the university about "The Theory of Drives and Character Analysis."
Sex-economy is not a synthesis of Freud and Marx since its core, the theory of the
orgasm as the "primary function of the vegetative apparatus," lies outside of the domains
of both Marxism and psychoanalysis. From Marxism sex-economy took the dialectic
materialistic method of inquiry but for its application to the psychological and
physiological realms it had to be remodeled by the formulation of simultaneous identity
and antithesis. The psychoanalytical method had to be drastically transformed into
"character-analytic vegetotherapy." Similar to the old character-analytic procedure
inhibitions of the excitation are made conscious and unmasked as defenses. In this way
infantile recollections appear spontaneously, making the inhibitions understandable
psychologically. Therefore the unconscious has no longer to be reconstructed but
becomes directly accessible since it is concretely tangible by way of the "unconscious"
muscular spasms. They are dissolved systematically, starting with the "respiratory block."
The contraction of abdomen, diaphragm, and pelvic floor jointly restrict the plexus
solaris, the central generator of vegetative energy. In the course of the systematic
removal of muscular armoring the single convulsions of de-armored body segments
finally unite to a total convulsion, Reich calls the "orgasm reflex" because it also appears
during orgasm.
The unity of organismic functioning in the orgasm reflex suggests that the vegetative
nervous system does not only pass information about sympathetic contraction and
parasympathetic expansion but is itself of pulsatile nature, representing the "amoeba in
the metazoon." Reich's bio-electric experiments indicate to him that he can trust his
subjective sensations on that score. The experiments show a correspondence between
subjective sensations and objective measurements of vegetative functioning. The skin of
a test person is scratched and an electrode is fixed which is connected with the amplifier
tube of an oscillograph, the second electrode than can take measurements of the
potential between the underside of the skin and its surface at any part of the body. The
non-erogenous zones have a steady resting potential while at the erogenous zones the
potential rise when pleasurably stimulated and drop when unpleasure is felt,
corresponding to the charging respectively discharging of the periphery of the body.
Particularly clear are the results Reich achieves by stimulating the tongue with sugar
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(pleasure) and salt (unpleasure). Here he finds that pleasure reactions proceed wavy
while in unpleasure the curve sags evenly. The wave form corresponds to tension in the
center preceding the further charging of the periphery of the organism. With getting
used to the stimulation by the solutions the reactions become weaker. If one gives at first
salt and then sugar also the later solution causes a sagging potential in a
"disappointment reaction." A positive reaction to sugar occurs again only after about 30
to 60 minutes but it is still weak. In general Reich's experiments show that the bioelectric reactions not only depend on outer stimulation but also crucially on the
emotional disposition of the organism.
To investigate orgastic excitation, i.e., the core of his theory, Reich develops an indirect
kind of measurement since direct application of electrodes during genital intercourse is
mechanically impossible. With this indirect measurement he can document friction
fluctuations of a couple caressing and kissing each other. Yet the major experiment does
not take place.
By pointing out tension-charge processes in the three kinds of reproduction, Reich tries
to prove that reproduction is just a function of sexuality. According to Max Hartmann's
theory of "relative sexuality" morphologically identical but sexually differentiated
gametes (e.g., of certain algae) have different "strengths" of female respectively male
sexuality so that, e.g., "very female" and "less female" gametes mutually react like
gametes of opposite sex. Reich explains this behavior with their opposite electrical
charge, striving for reduction of electrical tension. A reduction of mechanical tension
Reich describes for both budding and cell division where surface tension is reduced by
distributing it between two bodies. This split of one organism into two occurs with
orgastic convulsions.
Reich investigates the tension-charge formula by studying the reaction of protozoa to
electrical currents after Hartmann. Besides investigating electrical charge, Reich also
studies mechanical tension by soaking various substances with fluids. At first he observes
exactly how protozoa develop in grass infusions. Vesicles separate from the grass fibers
and form heaps surrounded by a membrane. If these inner vesicles get into circular
motion and smaller vesicles organize to bigger vesicles the vesicular heap develops into a
paramaecium; resting heaps, where the vesicles dissolve into a homogeneous mass,
develop into amoeba limax; while vorticellae maintain the vesicular character.
Then Reich swells soil, coal, and soot in water, later in potassium chloride. After a few
days he observes also, e.g., in the earth crystals a vesicular disintegration and the
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formation of plasma-like moving structures. To exclude spores he sterilizes the

preparations by cooking, later by autoclavation at 120C. He adds diluted gelatin by
which groups of the vesicles become united to "pseudo amoebae" which can divide and
"eat" by sucking in free floating vesicles. Yet, compared with the fluent motion of real
amoebae, they move only jerky and also they have no inner plasma streaming. Therefore
he adds to the original preparation substances representing the vegetative primary
antithesis: lecithin (representing expansion) and cholesterin (representing contraction).
Now the preparation is, due to the lecithin, full of hose-like figures changing form
slowly. They become thicker, longer, they bend, budding and branching out occur.
Clearly this is no organic but a purely mechanical motion. In the next step Reich adds egg
white. It forms dividing and budding cells with nuclei. Then he adds gelatin after which
amoeboid structures occur which are, compared with "pseudo amoebae," more delicately
structuralized, show inner streamings, and move organically.
In this way Reich develops the final mixture "Preparation 6": to Ringer's solution and
potassium chloride solution, diluted red gelatin is added, then coal dust and cholesterin
crystals as well as egg white, milk, and egg yolk (later he foregoes milk and replaces
Ringer's solution by meat bouillon). If one adds lecithin solution to this mixture life-like
structures develop suddenly: circular nucleus-like vesicles, moving long rods, circular
cells with nuclei, and crawling amoeboide structures. Reich calls these life-like entities
"bions." He can show that these bions have an electrical charge, coming full circle with
the beginning of his bion experiments.
Electrically charged bions of Preparation 6 turn out to be culturable in various culture
media. Weakly charged preparations grow worse than stronger charged ones while
preparations without any electrical charge render no cultures. Later generations render
much easier a growth which is more differentiated and alive. The culture media influence
the kind of cultures, e.g., in bouillon rod-structures predominate, on agar cocci. After the
cultivation of Preparation 6, Reich succeeds, although to a lesser extent, also in the
cultivation of "un-mixed" bion preparations: To refute the theory of spores, once for all,
he heats the materials used at 180C in a dry sterilizer. If the thus obtained potassium
chloride solution is colloid, if there is an electrical charge, and if the bions do appear
alive under the microscope, he inoculates from the boiling solution into meat bouillon
which is, after becoming turbid, further inoculated on agar culture medium, rendering a
growth. Microscopic investigation show initially spore-like, later amoeboid structures.
Finally it occurs to Reich to put incandescent coal and earth crystals into autoclaved
bouillon and potassium chloride solution and thus to rule out any possibility of spores
once for all, really. When the bouillon solution becomes cloudy he inoculates it on an
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egg-containing culture medium, after growths have formed he inoculates further on

blood agar and agar where cultures develop likewise. He also succeeds in the cultivation
of bions from sterilized blood charcoal.
Reich's cancer research starts as a branch of bion research. He examines cancerous tissue
and comes to the conclusion that the cocci and rods, which one observes in cancerous
tissue, are due to autoinfection and are the essential deadly agents of the disease.
According to Reich cancer cells develop like protozoa in dried grass: at first the tissue
looses tumescence, then it swells again, which leads to bionous disintegration and the
subsequent formation of cancer cells. In autumn Reich discovers "T-bacilli" in sarcoma.
They are particularly small, lance-shaped bions, showing zigzag movements. In contrast
to the blue "PA-bions," which result from the vesicular disintegration of swelling matter,
the T-bacilli appear black. The biological gram coloring reaction is negative (red) for Tbacilli, positive (blue) for PA-bions. He calls them "death-bacilli" (Todes-Bazillen) since
he believes that they cause cancer, but then he finds them also in healthy blood. T-bacilli
injected into lab mice make the mice either die after a day or they develop a carcinoma
after approximately ten days. T-bacilli injected into the peritoneum subcutaneously
cause destructive inflammations. By intravenous injection carcinoma can develop in any
part of the body. As a control Reich injects bions made of incandescent soot which also
causes cancer after approximately ten days. This is explainable since he finds that Tbacilli not only develop from the putrid decay of protein but also in preparations of coal
bions. In vitro Reich demonstrates that carbon generates T-bacilli in blood. If one adds
T-bacilli to filtrated blood serum, PA-bions form in an immunological reaction. Under
the microscope he observes how PA-bions immobilize T-bacilli and destroy cancer-cells.
In the following period he gives lab mice injections of PA-bions and T-bacilli, confirming
in vivo his in vitro-observations. Mice injected with T-bacilli do not die when PA-bions
are injected afterwards.
Reich turns away from politics and formulates a concept of social self-regulation, socalled "work democracy," which functions without a political superstructure. He does no
longer distinguish between capitalists and workers because also representatives of the
former group may be absolutely essential for the process of work. Vital work has to be
freed from non-vital unproductive work. Today the needs function for private profitinterests as well as for politics but, contrary to this, the needs should govern the
economic system and politics should be determined by those who work for the
satisfaction of those needs. For this purpose all professionals should get together in
autonomous organizations. Actually some of these professional organizations are
existing already. But the citizens are not conscious of the natural work connections of
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which they are an integral part. This has to be made conscious and brought to the surface
of the social process in organized form, replacing politics. Professional work shall govern
the social process, no longer mere political opinion. While today high politics and
diplomacy are esteemed highly the practical vital work of the common man is despised.
This grotesque relation has to be reversed. The professional workers are connected by
their mutual professional dependence, only the politician stands outside of this network.
But he of all people wants to govern everything from above while the professional worker
knows from experience that he can judge only his own professional field. Just as Reich
accepts in research only unbiased direct perception, for the social scene he also insists
that only that person, who is an active part of the working process, can judge this process
and therefore can also govern it. If all professional workers would take the work in their
respective field seriously this would break up the current political system. Life has to be
freed from politics. Love, work, and knowledge should be activated as the natural
foundations of society, instead.
Reich is increasingly preoccupied with psychosomatic diseases he attributes to muscular
armoring, like hypertension, muscular rheumatism, asthma, peptic ulcer, etc. The central
focus of his attention is, of course, cancer. He believes that shallow breathing combined
with the armoring of the respective part of the body leads to a local lack of oxygen and
surplus of carbon in the tissue. The tissue disintegrates whereupon T-bacilli are formed.
Then the actual cancer process sets in since now the tissue regenerates in a pathological
manner which brings about the tumor. The T-bacilli are also responsible for metastases.
In his cancer mice Reich finds five stages in the development of cancer disease. Ca I:
directly by T-bacilli, or indirectly by traumas or carcinogens - which secondarily cause
the formation of T-bacilli by putrid tissue disintegration - swelling and bionous
disintegration occurs as a defensive reaction of the tissue. Already in this pre-cancerous
stage early diagnosis is possible. Ca II: a further pre-cancerous stage is acutely inflamed
granulation tissue. Ca III: a cancerous stage is reached when there are chronically
inflamed growths in which isolated club-shaped cells with flagellae appear. Ca IV:
mature cancer cells are freely moving amoeboid cells which are short-lived and easily
disintegrate into T-bacilli. Ca V: the final stage is putrid decay of cancer tissue and Tintoxication of the complete organism.
By the corresponding movement of, e.g., colpidia, which motion is an expression of the
inner plasma-movement, Reich stumbles upon the problem of the spinning wave.
Because of the origin of those colpidia in the (bionous) break up of matter Reich believes
that their spinning wave motion through the solution represents Einstein's E = m c2. He
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reasons that his spinning wave theory solves many contradictions in physics.
Early this year Reich discovers "orgone radiation" in "SAPA-bions" made from sea sand.
Initially Reich believes the radiation is radioactivity. His eyes get inflamed from
microscoping these bions. The radiation tickles the skin and reddens it within a few
minutes. Within two weeks Reich develops a painful inflammation at a spot of his skin
exposed to the radiation. He finds that the radiation blackens photographic plates
through their wrapping. Under the microscope he observes how SAPA-bions kill cancer
cells immediately as well as bacteria and T-bacilli. Lab mice and guinea pigs become
irritated in the presence of SAPA-bion cultures. SAPA-bions make the air oppressive.
Reich's oscillograph stops functioning suddenly and batteries loose their charge more
rapidly. In a dark room he discovers in horror that his body emits a blue colored
radiation. When the cultures are present one sees in the air of the dark room surging
grey-blue clouds and blue-violet points with a spinning wave flight path. Hands, cotton,
porcelain, and glass are surrounded by a pale grey-blue halo.
Reich experiments with the electroscope. The apparatus discharges more slowly in an
atmosphere charged by SAPA-bions. If one brings the preparation very near to the
receiving plate of the electroscope this causes a discharge, after removing the
preparation the original charge returns. Highly charged hands render the same effect.
During his experiments with the electroscope he realizes that the radiation is neither
electricity nor magnetism. Sure, his instruments become magnetic when exposed to
SAPA-cultures and rubber becomes charged, i.e., it reacts at the electroscope like being
electrostatically charged, but on the other hand an electrical charge weakens an
"orgonotic" charge and vice versa. In addition he finds that electrical isolators soak up
orgone while metals repulse it immediately.
Reich believes that with the SAPA-bions he had freed solar energy. To check this he lays
pieces of rubber into the sun which charges it just like SAPA-bions do. Using rubber he
now tries to determine the orgonotic state of his patients. He lays pieces of rubber on the
lower abdomen and the genitalia. Rubber from patients, who have good breathing and
are vegetatively alive, charge up the electroscope. For irradiation he places all of his
students and patients into a Faraday cage which is filled with SAPA-bion cultures. There
they get giddy and sensations of electrical tension and headache occur. They all develop
a "sun tan," in time.
In August Reich leaves Oslo and emigrates to New York. One month later he resumes his
laboratory work in his new home in Forest Hills. Here he makes the first orgone therapy
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experiments on cancer mice by subcutaneous injections of SAPA-bions. He finds that the

SAPA-bions charge up the blood orgonotically and that this blood is the actual healing
agent of cancer. Accordingly in the Reich blood test (a) blood is tested to determine
whether cultures of T-Bacilli form in bouillon; (b) blood is autoclaved by which healthy
blood disintegrates into bions, sick blood into t-bacilli; and (c) the bionous break-down
of blood in physiological salt solution is observed, the faster the blood disintegrates the
biological weaker it is.
Links
1. https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=PKHFN@t-online.de
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The Discovery of The Orgone Energy

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THE DISCOVERY OF THE ORGONE ENERGY

psychological group under himself.

Viennese Psychoanalytic Association. On October 13 he reads his inaugural lecture on

apparatus. The seizure is therefore a stasis-neurotic symptom and an "extragenital

similar thoughts on the difference of signal-anxiety and stasis-anxiety in the manuscript

influenced ethnology where pure interpretation technique predominates without

In a neurological journal W. Misch and K. Misch-Frankl publish a paper influenced by

formation of plasma-like moving structures. To exclude spores he sterilizes the

egg-containing culture medium, after growths have formed he inoculates further on

experiments on cancer mice by subcutaneous injections of SAPA-bions. He finds that the

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