Friday, 4 October 2013
Phillip Bennett, PhD. "What is Orgonomy?"
Biography and Abstract, Online Article, All Presentations
Dr. Reich addressed the science of nature, from cellular to cosmos, but orgonomy is the scientific study of orgone energy. Since orgone energy is not yet defined, this is a rather circular definition. Bennett emphasized that 50% of Reich's work was done after the discovery of orgone energy, so there is a large body of hiss work focused on social and psychological studies. After the discovery of orgone energy, Reich integrated all his work showing how the movements of the cell, the individual, society, and cosmic stellar systems all clearly demonstrated this orgastic pulsation.
Reich talked about the concept of work democracy in his early writings, but in 1942 Reich wrote "No one understands that I am the discoverer of life energy and the destroyer of mysticism." Bennett noted that some people who currently are attracted to organic crystals and jewelry should pay attention to this. The experience of orgone energy must be had, and then followed up by observations and experiments.
Double blind experiments were not a standard in Reich's time, and so are not employed in his published work. However, his work has been reproduced in at least 2 studies using double blind methods that have been submitted for advanced degrees.
Actual evidence is abundant. The Journal of Orgonomy is a good resource. Also, Bernie Siegel's Peace, Love and Healing addresses the placebo effect that must be accounted for in double blind studies. This is especially important in arranging double blind experiments investigating orgone energy, as the energy field of the experimenter always enters into the experiment.
Bennett finished his remarks with a short overview of Reich's later work with orgone energy and its impact on studies of the cosmos. When looking at this area, one cannot shy away from his's discussion of UFOs and extra-terrestrial life. It simply comes with the territory.
Conny Huthsteiner, MD. "Psychiatric Orgone Therapy"
Biography and Abstract, Article, All Presentations
Dr. Reich was instrumental in redefining sexual potency as defined in existing psychiatric work under Freud. Reich introduced the concept of orgastic potency, what he called sex economy. This moved analysis beyond the mere focus of male sexual achievement (leaving women out of the equation completely) as a mechanistic view into a more functional definition.
Reich was the first person to methodically design and carry out experiments that measured the changes in skin resistance, the galvanic skin response, in people who experienced pleasure and pain. He was especially interested in changes in skin charge during orgasm. At the time, he felt he was measuring Freud's libido energy.
This gave rise to somatic therapies in order to address the issue of the whole body during therapy. Reich viewed this flow in different areas of the body as well as developing different therapies that would allow the therapist to interact with this observed energy flow. Freedom of movement was desired, and deep breathing became an important part of the therapeutic work. This gave rise to the concept of armoring within the body in order to understand how free plasmatic movement within the individual became blocked.
Hugh Brenner, FPNP. "Opening the Eyes."
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Brenner shortened his presentation to call it "Opening the Eyes." Work on the 1st Ocular Segment is necessary for depth of emotional expression. The eyes are a two-way street, so armoring in the eyes blocks our ability to see things clearly, as well as blocking our ability to express emotion. This leaves one with a disconnect between how the world is seen and felt.
Armoring develops in childhood and often gets worse with time. The eyes become part of the mask a person chooses to wear and present to the world. Treatment of the ocular segment mobilizes aspects of vision, hearing and includes thinking aspects of the brain. Making "cracks" in the armoring allows energy to start flowing through the body.
This is Brenner's methodology:
1. Point out to the patient what the therapist sees.
2. Work on an ability to feel pleasure in the eyes. 'Feeling' gives feedback to the person.
3. Breathing. Fully and deeply.
4. Breathing and movement together. Following a finger or light source as it moves around in front of the patient.
5. Loosen the mask. Making faces and loud or strange noises.
6. Mobilize the forehead.
This requires the patient to take risks, as she has to try out seeing a new world. Sometimes there is a need to have an energy stimulus. For example, shouting a loud "No" in getting to the patient. This serves to break through the anxiety.
Closing the eyes is a retreat during therapy. It is one of the oldest of defenses. The opening of the ocular segment opens the patient's vision and thus opens her up to what is possible in life.
Roberto Maglione, MSc. "Recovering Natural Pulsation: From Reich to the Present Day."
Biography and Abstract, Article, More, Website, All Presentations
Dr. Reich was the first person to develop tools for working with live orgone energy. Maglioni gave an overview of orgone energy (OR), deadly orgone energy (DOR), cloudbusting, etc. This was one of two presentations in Italian, and my notes are not so good here. He went through many slides, all in Italian, and rather quickly presented. Sorry that I don't have better notes. This summary from the author explains this talk rather well:
Cosmic Orgone Engineering (CORE), also known as cloudbusting, is a method to restore the natural pulsation of the atmosphere, that was conceived by Wilhelm Reich at the beginning of the 1950's. A basic assumption of CORE is that the atmosphere, as well as the Cosmos, is full of a pulsatory energy whose presence was first discovered by Reich when studying the behavior of human beings, showing how it flows inside the organism; and then, by studying the origins of life, finding it everywhere in Nature. Reich decided to call it orgone energy or simply orgone, and postulated that this pulsatory energy underlies, and is responsible for, all atmospheric phenomena.
His book (in English) Methods and Procedures in Biophysical Orgonometry (2012, Self Published), ISBN: 978-88-91020-71-0, is the best, most comprehensive, and most lucid summary of Reich's original research plus summaries of all relevant research done after Reich's death. It is an essential read for anyone who wants more details on the theory, methodology, and results of experiments based on Reich's original work.
The book is not available through the usual sellers, though I have found an Italian site that sells the book. I don't know the cost of importing the book. Orgone.org is attempting to negotiate with the author rights to sell the book in the United States, as it is certainly a book that should be in the library of anyone who is in the least bit interested in the science that is the foundation of understanding Dr. Reich's discovery of orgone energy.
James DeMeo, PhD. "Field Experiments with the Reich Cloudbuster, for Drought and Desert Greening. Success and Problems."
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There are several problems with cloudbusting.
1. Biological Problem. It can be sickening to people in the vicinity because of the high levels of orgone energy.
2. People Problem. There can be reactionary political results. This can be seen in some of the current use of so called orgone bombs.
One needs training and understanding of basic orgone principles before attempting to use a cloudbuster. Improper use can actually make droughts worse. Wilhelm Reich's original theory and the physics behind it are sufficient to understand the basic principles at work.
Reich was the first writer ever to talk directly about air pollution, acid rain, high altitude air streams (now called the jet stream), and high-energy streams above that.
DeMeo talked about the need to gently work on cloudbusting, similar to gentle Reichian baby massage. One should not hammer the atmospheric system. An example of misuse of a cloudbuster was seen in Algeria, when the people there left cloudbusters aimed in the air for days and weeks constantly. This resulted in causing droughts in Greece.
The cloudbuster is a triggering device. It is used to set an initial charge and then the healthy pulsation will result as an effect of this charge. It is "like using an acupuncture needle" on the atmosphere.
DeMeo talked about his five year project in Eritrea. A very ambitious program sponsored partly by the Eritrean government. Data from the Eritrean government's meteorological division confirmed a 30% to 50% increase in rainfall after commencement of the clouldbusting operations. Because of political jealousy, the project skipped a year and rainfall diminished to drought levels. This brought about a renewed interest on the part of the government and the cloudbusting resumed the following year, again with measurable, demonstrable results.
Unfortunately, war got in the way of the completion of the five-year plan, so cloudbusting stopped. Rather than working on growing food in the new rain induced economy, Eritrean boys went off to make fixed bayonet charges into machine guns, a rather strange way to celebrate being on the cusp of dramatic and permanent climate change.
Stephen Simonian, MD. "Schizophrenia: An Orgononic Perspective."
Biography and Abstract, Website, All Presentations
From the point of view of a practicing orgonomist, bioenergy is projected by the vegetative system. Dr. Reich said there must be large centers in the autonomic nervous system from which this energy flows. This is essentially the solar plexus area of the body. When the flow of energy from the center to the periphery is disrupted as it is by armoring in a person, disease results.
One of these biopathies is schizophrenia. In schizophrenia the bioenergy breaks through into consciousness, which is not normally the way the bioenergy flows in an individual. The patient then interprets that the energy comes from outside rather than flowing within the individual.
Moreover, the patient often misinterprets his own movements so that he might then totally loose his own relationship to his own body and thus become catatonic.
Thus, schizophrenia is a disease based on a physical malfunctioning of the body and is not a mental "state." Reich in Character Analysis has a succinct discussion of this general phenomenon.
Jorgos Kavouras, MD. "Combination of Psychiatric and Physical Orgone Therapy (Orac and DORbuster)."
Biography and Abstract, About, Website, All Presentations
In 1976 Kavouras used the accumulator for the first time. He then studied medicine. During this time, he found that he had many questions. It took many years before he was able to find some answers to his questions.
In 1988 Kavouras started his first clinic. There, the accumulator was hidden away in the basement, a bit of a secret in that he did not openly discuss its use a lot. Still, when he used the accumulator with some of his patients he found he had good results.
The construction of the accumulator was based on rumors of how to build one. Likewise, when he incorporated the DOR buster into the design of the device, he was using an experimental design. (Note: Unfortunately for us, he had no pictures to show of this design.)
He now thinks that the medical DOR buster is more useful in medical applications than the accumulator. However, he has to be careful when he has patients with low energy levels, as the DOR buster can draw energy away from the individual.
This is his technique: he uses the DOR buster for five minutes and then uses the accumulator to recharge the individual for 30 minutes, all depending on the individual person's energy levels and needs. Thus the art and experience of the therapist is necessary to be able to understand what might be best for the person.
He can treat some conditions and have rather rapid results. For an example he is able to treat a pulled muscle for three weeks and have the same results as normally would take two months to exhibit. He said that other medical conditions would likewise respond by cutting in half the treatment times using this DOR/accumulator combination. There may be a good future here for treatment of sport related injuries, as this could be rather enticing to a professional athlete to regain full strength in half the time.
Peter Robbins, BSA. "Cloudbusting and the Origin of Reich's Interest in Unidentified Flying Objects – Part 1."
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There was an inherent problem in linking UFOs and orgonomy together in that it led to increased ridicule for Dr. Reich and diminished the chances of having his research taken seriously. Reich was aware of this risk, yet he courageously spoke about UFOs anyway. Source materials for this talk came from the literature of Dr. Wilhelm Reich, Scharaf, Baker, and Eva Reich as well as information published in Contact with Space.
In 1953 Reich showed his first interest in UFOs after reading Kehoe's book The Flying Saucers Are Real. The analysis of CORE offered insights into this situation that simple mechanistic thinking could not.
Reich used nocturnal time-lapse photography. He saw "stars" just disappear in some slides of the night sky. Reich believed that he had recorded this behavior frequently because of the results of his energetic work at the observatory in Maine. However, it is quite possible that any activity of UFOs could also be attributed to the recent explosions of atomic devices in the atmosphere, an event that would have clearly been recordable from outer space.
In early October 1953 Reich used his cloudbuster on a UFO for the first time. He observed the lights diminishing and then disappear from the night sky. Reich at first thought the UFOs were benign, but his thinking later changed. If the alien technology was based on a utilization of cosmic orgone energy, then the devices they used may be responsible for an increase in DOR in the atmosphere.
In 1954 Reich took his trip to Tucson. There in the desert, many UFOs were observed. When UFOs appeared, clouds disappeared. When the relative humidity of the air dropped, the frequency of observed UFOs increased. During a daylight observation, Reich was able to observe one UFO in great detail, even seeing porthole like elements on the side of the object.
Then the DOR radium arrived from Maine. It was so dangerous that Reich had arranged for it to be flown from Maine by towing it in the air at the end of a 20-meter tether. When this material arrived, a large DOR cloud developed which was finally disbursed by use of cloudbusters. This was Reich's "battle with space".
However, biographers have not treated Reich's observations with the same seriousness and thoughtfulness that has been given to other areas or Reich's work. After all, Reich observed these phenomena, and then recorded his observations. But instead of serious consideration, a biographer such as Colin Wilson in The Quest for Wilhelm Reich called this work "sheer insanity". Even A.S. Neil who was quite friendly with Reich up until the end felt the writings on UFOs to be contrary to Reich's work prior to this time. Neil said that there was no proof of the UFOs, so we should consider them "bad for the future" (of orgonomy).
On May 20th, 1956 Reich asks himself "Am I a spaceman?" He demanded his right to think that thought, and state it also, as his right and privilege as an autonomous being. "We should not fear to enter the forest because there are wild cats lurking in the trees" is how he put it.
Part 2 tomorrow.
Renata Reich Moise, CNM. "Gentle Support During Pregnancy and Birth."
Biography and Abstract, About, All Presentations
She began her talk with a few questions she is asking herself at this stage of her life. She has no answers to these questions right now, but she shared some of them. At a time when our planet is seriously overburdened with population, she has some doubts about her role as a midwife in being instrumental for adding to this overpopulation. Likewise, there is a changing role of medicine in its increased focus on money and technology that is leaving her wondering how long she will remain involved. Still, she uses her accumulator daily and especially uses an orgone blanket a great deal.
Moving on to a discussion of birth, she observed that the birth process, especially a first birth, is not the easiest thing for a woman. It is not a gentle thing as a rule, as there is a lot of work involved in giving birth. But the women (and men) who help the mother can surround the mother during this time and provide the necessary gentleness and peace to counter this strenuous work.
She used the example of Briana (not real name) as an example a person who did not have a totally natural birth – she was overweight, she smoked, her diet was not optimal – but nevertheless, she was surrounded by good support from family in her life, so she did have a good birth experience.
Tina Lindemann, MD. "The Use of the Orgone Energy Accumulator in a Medical Clinic."
Biography and Abstract, Website, All Presentations
Dr. Lindemann has used an accumulator from an early age. She went over the basic design and construction of an accumulator. She uses a five double-layered one for her medical practice, but she did not specify what exact materials she uses.
The accumulator use is an interaction between the accumulator and the energy field of the individual sitting within the device. So for a person who has a lot of blocked up energy, one has to be careful. The accumulator can exacerbate the stuck energy and thus be counter indicative for the patient.
Where does one place the accumulator in a home? One has to be careful with placement. For example, the modern energy saving bulb is not good around an accumulator. Likewise anything that might contain radioactive materials (old watches were painted with radium for example). Likewise being as far as possible from radiating sources such as televisions, fluorescent lights, and modern solid-state electronics is best. It is difficult to find a perfect placement in today's world, so one must do the best she can under these constraints.
She talked about her test for cervical cancer giving a positive result during her student years. Medical treatment then (and now) for a first positive result like that is to have the woman return after three months for a retest. She used the accumulator on a daily basis and the second test showed no cancer cells. In those days she used the accumulator for one hour a day, but now she uses it for occasional use as she feels she wants to.
She shared some anecdotal stories about some of her patients, all very good results. In general, with cancer patients, if the patient is not using chemotherapy the accumulator will provide better results. But if the accumulator is used while a patient is also undergoing chemotherapy, the accumulator can ameliorate the negative effects of the chemotherapy: less pain, less hair loss, better blood work. However, if the patient is undergoing radiation treatments, one should not use the accumulator at that time.
Peter Jones, OB. "The Reich Blood Test."
Biography and Abstract, Website, Blog, YouTube, All Presentations
This blood test is first outlined in Cancer Biopathy by Dr. Reich. It is a simple test used to measure the core vitality of a person. It is simple to perform, inexpensive (outside of the cost of a quality microscope) and has very reproducible results. Capillary blood is used, the blood is placed in normal saline solution, and then the red blood cells are observed in the microscope. They will begin to disintegrate in time in a regular pattern. The time for the disintegration is recorded. A healthy person may have a disintegration time of twenty minutes or more, whereas a sick individual may have times measured in less than a few minutes.
Jones stressed that the normal saline solution has to come from a glass container, not from plastic. This is available in the U.S., but in Great Briton where he lives, it is not possible to obtain normal saline in glass without a doctor's prescription.
The observer has to look for the identifying characteristic of the disintegration. The round, bulbous, "fatty" red blood cell will start to shrink and develop spikes on the outside membranes of the cell. This is the process that always occurs, and it occurs with all red blood cells. Numerous examples were shown, and can also be seen on Jones' site. There are some videos published on YouTube that give a good view of the process.
He discussed types of microscopes that are good for this test. One thing to note is that a phase contrast scope has to be used, as a bright field scope makes it impossible to observe the formation of the characteristic spikes.
Using a diabetic pen with lancet a blood sample is obtained. It is placed on a sterile slide that has a drop of the saline solution already on it, between two cover slips on either end of the slide. This allows a third cover slip to be placed on the sample and thus not flatten and destroy the sample red blood cells. This would be called a block out slide, but a well slide with an indention for the sample could also be used.
After this is done, one simply observes. The power of the microscope should be between 400X to 800X so as to allow observation of individual blood cells. Phase contrast has to be used, as bright light will wash out the details that one needs to observe.
Simple, fast, and elegant, the Reich blood test is a very good analytical tool for clinical use. Everyone should have access to this blood test on a regular basis.
Wendy Kohli, PhD. "Self-regulation and Education."
Biography and Abstract, All Presentations
"The children of the future will have to clean up the mess our failures have left for them." Dr. Reich felt that he had failed to significantly change society by his work in the social movements of the 1930's and 1940's in Europe. So the future was in the children. By helping them grow up in a non-armored environment, then perhaps these children will create a society that is more open to organization on work-democratic lines.
For Reich, it was important to start with what a child already is, not what we want that child to become. All molding of a child, smothering or shaping of the child is the early source of armoring in children. Since the parent and the educator all have their armor structures in place, all attempts to shape the child will result in a smothering action that thus recreates the armoring in the child which is already present in the adult.
Therefore, it is essential that one has to accept the sexuality of the child at an early age. And as the child grows, the young child needs to have the same rights that adults have. This is based on respect for the child, as well as a certain trust in the idea that the child will grow at her own rate into what she naturally wants to become.
This is the principle of self-regulation in the child, and is essential for the organic growth of new societies that these children may create. It is the inherent power of natural development that this will indeed occur if allowed to happen.
Showing of the film "The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich"
Written, directed and produced by Antonin Svoboda
Biography and Abstract, Trailer (English), Download Movie (unsure if this works or is legal)
The film was shown in English with Italian subtitles. Most discussion of this film has been in German press, as it was released in Germany in September 2013. I do not know when it will have its first showing in the U.S..
If you get a chance to view this film, by all means please do. It was well received by the people in attendance at the conference. I did not take notes, and do not consider myself a film reviewer. I can say that it is refreshing to see such an absolute first-class production. Sound was excellent, the color and focus of the film was top-notch, and the acting was entrancing. Klaus Maria Brandauer as Dr. Reich presented us with a view of Reich as a whole person, including his love for his family, his humor at times, and his intensity when focused on his work.
The film was focused on the last years of Reich's work in the U.S.. For me, as someone who has lived a few miles from Orgonon in Rangely, Maine, it was a bit disconcerting to see the images of Orgonon that did not match the reality of the observatory. But this is a small point, one that most viewers would not even recognize. I also lost track of some of the personal dynamics in the film, but again, it only makes me want to see it a second time. It is really that fine a film, that one would gain from a second viewing at a later date. I only hope that it will be available to a wider audience soon.
Here is the description of the film from the director:
comments powered by DisqusAt the end of his life, Wilhelm Reich - psychiatrist and experimental scientist searching for the fundamentals of life - finds himself on trial, charged with deception. His dream of liberating human individuality makes him a dangerous opponent of an American system that is striving after 1945 for global hegemony, using all available means. Was it madness to believe in man's liberty or was Reich simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and being a holistic global thinker, accurately observing far-reaching socio-political linkages? Ten years after his mysterious death, his writings, once burnt by the US FDA, become an important source of inspiration for a '68 generation in revolt.