Glossary of Terms

Anorgonia:  The condition of diminished or lack of energy charge in the organism.

Anxiety:  The organism's perception of an uneasiness or oppression accompanied by a vague, formless worry. The emotional state that develops when an outward energetic expansion is blocked by a biophysical contraction.

Armor:   The sum total of the muscular attitudes (chronic muscular spasms) that an individual develops as a defense against the breakthrough of emotions and sensations, especially anxiety, rage, and sexual excitation. Functionally identical with character armor.

Bions:  Energy vesicles representing transitional stages between non-living and living substance. They constantly form in nature by a process of disintegration of inorganic and organic matter, a process which can be reproduced experimentally. They are charged with orgone energy (life energy) and may develop into protozoa and bacteria.

Bioenergy:  The energy in the living organism that provides the ability for functioning.

Biopsychiatry:  Psychiatry from the energetic point of view.

Biopathy:  A disease process that has its root in a disturbance of biological pulsation.

Block:  A contraction in the organism that prevents the free flow of energy or its excitation.

Character:  An individual's habitual and stereotypical manner of acting and responding. It is manifested in behavior and chronic muscular tensions.

Character Analysis:  An integral aspect of medical orgone therapy wherein typical modes of behavior and expression are brought to the individual's awareness.

Character Armor:  The sum of total of typical character attitudes that an individual develops as a defense against anxiety, resulting in character rigidity, lack of contact, or "deadness". Functionally identical with the muscular armor.

Contact:  The perception of sensation produced by the movement of energy above a certain minimal level plus excitation.

Contactlessness:  Absence of contact.

Core:  The vegetative (autonomic) nervous system from which involuntary stimuli arise to maintain functioning of the organism.

Cosmic feelings:  The sensation of being a part of nature and the universe, of belonging to it rather than an isolated entity.

Depersonalization:  The loss of self-perception. Occurs with the loss of contact between biophysical excitation and the subjective feelings of the excitation.

Emotional Plague:  The neurotic character in destructive action on the social scene. This form of human behavior is based on a biopathic character structure and makes itself felt in interpersonal (social) relationships. It becomes organized in corresponding social institutions.

Fixation:  The arrest of emotional development or desire, especially sexual desire, upon some person or object.

Functional Thinking:  Thinking that is in accord with how nature functions. A form of thought that is in contrast to mechanistic thinking (nature functioning as machine) and to mystical thinking (nature understood as communion with God or as a spiritual truth).

Genital Character:  The un-neurotic character who does not suffer from sexual stasis and is therefore capable of natural self-regulation.

Hook:  A block that for some reason, either in its development or in a particular significance to the individual, is particularly difficult if not impossible to overcome.

Libido:  The sexual energy. Energy in the organism above a certain level which is felt as sexual excitation.

Medical Orgone Therapy:  Psychotherapy based upon the energetic discoveries of Wilhelm Reich. A biopsychiatric therapy that has as its goal the reduction of elimination of armor for the purpose of mobilizing the orgone energy in the organism. The therapy frees repressed feelings and emotions from muscular and character armorings and has as its goal the establishment of orgastic potency. Also called orgone therapy and psychiatric orgone therapy.

Neurotic Character:  The character that, due to chronic sexual stasis, operates according to the principle of compulsive moral regulation.

Orgasm:  The unitary, involuntary convulsion of the total organism at the acme of the genital embrace. This reflex, because of its involuntary character and the prevailing orgasm anxiety, is blocked in most humans of civilization, which suppress infantile and adolescent genitality.

Orgasm Anxiety:  Anxiety produced by final and complete surrender of the organism giving in to its involuntary convulsion. Seen in the final stages of analysis. In the final analysis orgasm anxiety is behind all armored manifestations.

Orgasm Reflex:  The unitary involuntary contraction and expansion of the total organism seen when the organism is at rest and energy flow is uninhibited. Also seen in the acme of the sexual act, suppressed in most humans.

Orgastic Impotence:  The absence of orgastic potency. A pathologic condition that is almost universal in individuals raised in patriarchal societies. Dammed up biological energy in individuals is the cause for all kinds of psychic and somatic symptoms and for social irrationalism.

Orgastic Potency:  The capacity for complete surrender to the involuntary contraction of the organism and complete discharge of sexual excitation in the acme of the sexual act. It is always lacking in neurotic individuals.

Orgone Energy:  Primordial cosmic energy, universally present. It can be demonstrable visually, thermically, electroscopically and with the Geiger-Mueller counter. In the living organism it is biological energy. Also called bioenergy, life energy, c'hi, and prana. Discovered by Whilhelm Reich between 1936 and 1940.

Orgonometry:  Quantitative orgone research.

Orgonomy:  The natural science of orgone energy and its functions.

Orgonotic Pulsation:  The pulsation of the energy in the body which can be determined by an oscillograph.

Parasympathetic Nervous System:  That division of the nervous system where excitation produces an expansion in the organism.

Paresthesias:  Distorted sensations arising out of the blockage of energy flow through a part of the body. Felt as prickling, tingling, or creeping.

Plasmatic shrinking:  The gradual lowering of the organism's energy level through depression or disease, such as cancer.

Pleasure Streamings:  The perception of pleasant wavelike movements of energy in the body, much as a soft breeze flowing through. They produce a three-dimensional perception of the body.

Pregenital:  The development, at approximately five years of age, that occurs before genital primacy is attained.

Primary Drive:  The natural expressions that occur when there are no enforced inhibitions.

Secondary Drive:  The distorted expressions that occur as a result of armor. They are forceful and destructive.

Sex-Economy:  The body of knowledge that deals with the management of the organism's biological.

Stasis:  The damming up of sexual energy in the organism, thus the source of energy for the neuroses.

Substitute Contact:  The contact that is made when real and direct contact is wanting; contact that is stilted and artificial.

Sympathetic nervous system:  That division of the nervous system where excitation produces a contraction in the organism.

Sympatheticatonia:  A continual state of sympathetic excitation due to continuing anxiety.

Warded Off:  Prevented from expression.

Work Democracy:  The functioning of natural and intrinsically rational work relationships between human beings. The concept of work democracy represents the established reality (not the ideology) of these relationships which, though usually distorted because of prevailing armoring and irrational political ideologies, are nevertheless at the basis of all social achievement.