Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Reich and Gurdjieff, Sexuality and The Evolution of Consciousness
Reich and Gurdjieff, Sexuality and The Evolution of Consciousness
David M. Brahinsky
Copyright © 2011 by David M. Brahinsky.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011902825
ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4568-7257-1
ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4568-7256-4
ISBN: Ebook 978-1-4568-7258-8
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the copyright owner.
Part I
Gurdjieff’s Conception of the Evolution of Consciousness
Chapter One Waking Up
Chapter Two Etherokrilno
Chapter Three Some Symbols
Chapter Four Self-Remembering and Self-Observation
Chapter Five The First and Second Conscious Shocks
Chapter Six Relativity
Part II
Sex
Part III
Reich’s Discovery of the Prime-Source Biological Life Energy
Part IV
The Fundamental Laws of World Creation and World Maintenance
Chapter One Development of Reich’s Theory of Cosmic Superimposition
Chapter Two The Highest Laws
Part V
The Evolution and Involution of Consciousness
Part VI
The Food of Impressions and the Crystallization of the Higher-Being Bodies
Part VII
Sexuality and Evolution
Abbreviations
Selected Bibliography
For my family: my wife Naomi, a woman of deep love and understanding; my son, Joshua, whose warm light makes all he
touches glow; my daughter, Rachel, whose openhearted love brings peace and happiness to all who know her.
REICH AND GURDJIEFF: SEXUALITY AND THE
EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
D avid Brahinsky has been a student of the Fourth Way and the work of Wilhelm Reich since the mid-1960s. Akhaldan II,
his school for Fourth Way studies, opened in the early 1970s. He received a PhD in Philosophy in 1976 from the State
University of New York at Binghamton and has been teaching philosophy and comparative religion at various colleges since
1969, currently at Bucks County Community College, in Newtown, Pennsylvania.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks goes to Blanche Anderson, without whose help this book would not have seen the light, and to all my
current and former students whose work on themselves, for others, and for the Work helps keep the ever-burning light from
going out. I would also like to thank Jacob Needelman, Arthur Waskow, and Neil Selden who read the manuscript in its early
phases and offered significant commentary.
PREFACE TO THE XLIBRIS EDITION
Since the initial completion and private distribution of this manuscript a number of books relating to Gurdjieff’s teachings
have appeared. None of them, as far as I can tell, deal with the subject of healthy sexuality and the evolution of
consciousness. The only places where this subject is addressed are in Gurdjieff’s own writings and in the books where he is
quoted on the subject, and the references tend to be indirect and incomplete. The feedback that I’ve gotten from students
who have had access to this manuscript, the only one that addresses the subject directly and relatively completely, has
indicated to me that it should be made widely available to the public, which is the function of this edition.
INTRODUCTION
The main subject of this book is the relationship between sexual health and spiritual evolution. Specifically, the book
focuses on Wilhelm Reich’s discoveries regarding sexual health and G. I. Gurdjieff’s concept of spiritual evolution. The
thesis is that spiritual evolution, in Gurdjieff’s sense, is not possible apart from sexual health as Reich determined it.
Although contemporaries, there is no reason to believe that Reich and Gurdjieff knew each other or of each other’s work.
Reich was a natural scientist, a student and colleague of Freud who began his career in 1919. He made more discoveries of
a revolutionary nature than seems possible for one man to realize in a lifetime, the most significant achievement being the
discovery of a biological and cosmic energy he called “orgone energy.”
Beginning in his childhood and continuing throughout his life, Gurdjieff (1880-1949) studied psychology, religion (both
exoteric and esoteric), philosophy, mysticism, and occultism. He came in contact with schools of philosophy and science that
had been, and continue to be, mostly esoteric. In these schools he learned of ideas and principles concerning the nature of
consciousness that are deeply rooted in antiquity, ideas which have been transmitted orally (for the most part) from teacher
to student for thousands of years. He eventually became a transmitter himself through personal contact with students and
through his writings.
Reich and Gurdjieff were giants in their fields—Reich in the area of natural science, Gurdjieff as a teacher of ancient
esoteric ideas. A lifetime could be spent trying to comprehend the work of each without succeeding. In choosing to write of
their work and to show how they are related, I have thus undertaken an impossible task—to explicate their ideas without
disfiguring them beyond recognition. In attempting to do so, however, I hope to accomplish a number of things: to bring to
students of Gurdjieff’s ideas and to esotericism in general discoveries that make these ideas more comprehensible and to
thus increase the likelihood of achieving success through work on oneself; to bring to students of Reich’s work ideas
connecting his discoveries and theories to ancient knowledge, which I believe are based on real understanding; and to
bring to those with an aim to develop his or herself a perspective anchored in the merger of Reich’s discoveries and
Gurdjieff’s teachings, which I think would be of great help in fulfilling such an aim.
Gurdjieff’s teaching focused on ideas and practices he found necessary for awakening from sleep. Full awakening, for
him, meant development or “crystallization” of what he called “higher-being bodies,” spiritual bodies made of finer energy-
matter than the physical body that can survive its death (although it is not clear whether such bodies are to be understood
literally or merely psychologically—an interpretation problem that is examined throughout the text). He claimed that healthy
sexuality is a vital part of this process but did not specifically or clearly characterize it.
Reich’s early work centered on the nature of psychological health and disease; it was he who discovered the function of
the orgasm in relation to the emotions and the psyche. Reich was not concerned with spiritual development in Gurdjieff’s
sense. He did, however, determine the nature of sexual health or orgastic potency and that sexual health is fundamental for
psychological health. Because Gurdjieff claimed that sexual health is vital for spiritual evolution but did not describe sexual
health, and because Reich is the only researcher who has determined its nature, it seems natural to merge them to form an
understanding of the relationship between sexuality and the evolution of consciousness.
Many of the categories Gurdjieff utilized to describe the human organism are psychological in nature and thus have
something in common with the categories of established psychology. Yet he also postulated the existence of a universal
energy-matter that functions as the ground of all of being, including the psyche. Furthermore, he claimed that stimulation of
this energy-matter within the human organism is the fundamental role his method of work plays in placing one in a position
to form a spiritual or higher-being body.
During his psychoanalytical period, Reich also utilized psychological concepts, but after discovering the biological basis
of the psyche, the energy, which he called “orgone energy,” out of which the psyche and all of being is formed, and after he
determined that the free pulsation and flow of this energy within the person constitutes complete psychological and physical
health, his level of discourse and analysis changed. I hope to show a profound correspondence between the levels of
discourse and understanding in Gurdjieff and Reich, and further to show that Reich discovered, via natural scientific method,
the energy that Gurdjieff postulated to exist.
It appears to me that Reich’s discovery grounds and concretizes Gurdjieff’s teaching in a way that makes it more
accessible and understandable. It takes it out of the realm of philosophy or mysticism and brings it into the realm in which
Gurdjieff claimed it belonged—that of objective science. At the same time, Gurdjieff’s teaching expresses the possibility that
Reich’s discoveries have implications regarding spiritual evolution with which Reich was not concerned.
I have presented Gurdjieff’s ideas as clearly and concisely as possible, although the complexity and the symbolic and
allegorical manner of their presentation makes clarity a goal not easily achieved. I have attempted to express the depth and
understanding contained in the ideas, but some simplification was necessary, and certain ideas were left out entirely.
Reich’s work is also difficult to present, as a number of his students have remarked—he discovered too much, his theories
are relevant to nearly every area of inquiry, and they are very revolutionary. His research is extensive, and thus only a
condensed summary of some parts of it was possible. This presentation of Gurdjieff’s ideas and Reich’s theories, therefore,
cannot be taken as anything close to being definitive. Because their work is so profound, no summary, analysis,
interpretation, or criticism can hope to capture their voices or to replace a study of their own writings. It is hoped that this
book will stimulate such a study in individuals who have yet to do so and who consider themselves genuinely interested in
awakening.
For it is my thesis that awakening, in Gurdjieff’s sense, requires full capacity of what he called the “sexual center”—sexual
health, in other words. To understand the nature of sexual health, however, I maintain, requires Reich. Gurdjieff did not
explain it, nor has anyone else but Reich.
I cannot prove these assertions, of course, for we do not as yet know how to measure awakening, nor is it easy to
measure sexual health. But there are ways of determining more or less what Reich called “orgastic potency”—Reich’s term
for sexual health, which I hope to explain in the text. My own experience working with individuals and groups for the past
forty years has made me a believer, and I feel moved to share those insights with those interested.
PART I
Gurdjieff’s Conception of the Evolution of
Consciousness
Such is the nature of man,
that for your first gift—he prostrates himself;
for your second—kisses your hand;
for the third—fawns;
for the fourth—just nods his head once;
for the fifth—becomes too familiar;
for the sixth—insults you;
and for the seventh—sues you because he was not given enough.
The essence of the teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff is the notion that humanity is asleep but that individual men and women
have the potential and, indeed, the duty, to awaken. For him, humans are unique members of the animal kingdom in that we
are complete cosmoses, “three-brained beings” made in the image of the “Great Megalocosmos,” or the universe as a
whole. We are born with the potential to evolve in consciousness, that is to say, psychologically or spiritually, and thus are
capable of reaching a higher level of understanding, which he calls “objective reason.”1
We are put to sleep, says Gurdjieff, by culture or society. Because of this, and because cultural influences keep us in
sleep, we must work if we wish to awaken; we must struggle against the influences both outside and within us that keep us in
sleep. He implies that if such cultural influences did not prevail, we would awaken naturally, simply via maturation. In
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, the first series of his three-part work All and Everything, he calls the process of
awakening simply by the flow of time—“the sacred Antkooano”—a process that occurs when everyone in a particular society
comes to understand (in the deepest sense of the word, a sense to be elucidated throughout) the fundamental laws of world
creation and maintenance.2
An Ancient Idea
According to Gurdjieff, his teaching is a modern transmission of an ancient idea, one that can be found (often hidden in
allegory, myth, or symbol) in many ancient teachings, philosophies, and religions. One well-known presentation occurs in
Plato’s Republic in the section on the “Allegory of the Cave.”3 Plato, using the voice of Socrates, pictures humanity chained
to a cave wall where all that can be seen or known of reality are shadows thrown upon the wall in front of them by the light of
a fire burning further up the cave. We have been in this cave from “childhood,” he tells us, chained by the neck and legs so
that we cannot turn around or to the side and so therefore can know nothing of ourselves, of one another, or of reality except
the shadows. He then goes on to define a plan that will free us from the chains and bring us to enlightenment, conceived as
comprehension of the true nature of reality via the Forms—the essence of Truth, Beauty, Justice, Goodness, and so on.
Other traditions transmit such an idea,4 and something similar can even be found in psychoanalysis, where it is believed
that we are, for the most part, unconscious of our true feelings and that through analysis the unconscious can be made
conscious. Great differences prevail in the various belief systems, of course, particularly in terms of the conceptions of the
unconscious, of how to bring the unconscious into the light of consciousness, and the consequences of the process as a
whole.
The I’s
Gurdjieff refers to ordinary waking consciousness as “waking-sleep,” implying by the term that he believes the state we
normally think of as “being awake” is a much sleepier state of consciousness than we realize.5 In waking-sleep, according to
him, we have no center of consciousness, no single “I” with which to assimilate and comprehend impressions. Indeed,
human beings embody numerous I’s, one of which we are said to be “identified” with at any or every moment.6
When we are identified with an I, we take one manifestation of ourselves as I while remaining more or less unaware of the
other I’s that, at other moments, we take as I. The I’s we are not conscious of nevertheless exert a profound influence on our
lives, for although we believe we are the I manifesting at the moment, we unconsciously function out of the entire corpus of
I’s. Later, a different I comes to the surface, and we become identified with that one—and this process goes on continuously
throughout our lives as long as we remain oblivious to our true condition.
Each of us in waking-sleep suffers from this condition, according to Gurdjieff, but not to the same extent. There are also
times when we are more awake than usual—which is to say that there are levels of consciousness within waking-sleep as
well as above (and below) it. The more divided we are, the more we tend to identify with the separate I’s as they arise, and
the less they know of one another, the more asleep we are. Generally speaking, however, we think we are unified, we call
ourselves I; an illusion fostered by the fact that we have one name and one body, when in fact, psychologically speaking, we
are divided.
The Buffers
How is it that the many I’s are not in contact with one another? How is it that we can be so divided and yet think we are
one? To explain this circumstance, Gurdjieff introduces the concept of “buffers,”11 aspects of the psyche that, metaphorically
speaking, stand between the I’s, preventing them from making contact with one another. When I am identified with the I that
says I am a ‘philosopher interested only in the truth,’for example, my buffers keep me from feeling the I’s in me that lie, the I’s
that require praise rather than truthful criticism, the I’s that need to feel they know when they really don’t, the I’s that are
afraid, weak, timid.
Buffers keep us in sleep, and they are reinforced by contemporary culture. To begin the awakening process means to
become aware of them, thereby weakening their power over us. The very nature and function of buffers implies that
awareness of their existence makes them incapable of carrying out their function—which is to put us to sleep. When buffers
weaken, however, the I’s make contact with one another, and we can no longer be deceived when only one of them
dominates, which is to say we become awake to the fact that we are more than one I.
Higher-Being Bodies
According to Gurdjieff, evolution of awareness can lead to something more than simply becoming more conscious. He
implies that very definite entities can be created when buffers weaken, false personality melts, and essence is stimulated to
its full potential. He teaches that work on oneself via his method can lead to the development or “crystallization” of what he
calls “higher-being bodies,”12 actual material or energy bodies that, when fully formed, survive the death of the physical body
and exist off the planetary surface.
He claims that three such bodies are possible for human beings, each representing a finer form of essence as it matures
and evolves. The first of the higher-being bodies he calls the “Higher Emotional Body”, the second, the “Higher Mental
Body,” and the third, the “Fourth Body,” or the “soul” proper (the first body, per se, is, of course, the physical body). We are
born with the matter out of which a soul can be created, that is, the essence. We are not, however, born with a soul,
according to him, and to become fully conscious, to fulfill our inborn potential, is to crystallize a soul, a body Gurdjieff claims
is constituted by an extremely fine form of energy or matter.13
Because of the allegorical and symbolic nature of Gurdjieff’s presentation, however, it is not clear whether he meant that
such bodies should be taken literally or symbolically, i.e., as actual material crystallizations, as psychological states of mind
or consciousness, or as both. In this book I try to show what the implications are for either possibility and that, in the end, the
same work and the same principles are implicated whether the higher-being bodies are seen as literal, as just
psychological, or as both.
Notes
(See page 247 for Abbreviations)
Along with his psychological analysis, Gurdjieff utilizes an energetic analysis of reality and of the human organism. The
entire universe, according to him, is a manifestation of a prime-source substance, an energy or energy-matter that in
Beelzebub’s Tales he calls “etherokrilno.”1 Every “thing,” every “cosmic concentration”—for instance, rocks, muscles, tissues,
organs, bones, people, planets, stars, galaxies, and so on—are said to consist of concentrations of “etherokrilno.” Although
material, etherokrilno is also the basis of mind or consciousness. Differences between things are said to be due to
differences in the density of this energy-matter.
Each of the psychological entities or functions Gurdjieff discriminates or identifies, therefore, are forms of etherokrilno at
various energetic densities—such entities or functions for example as essence, personality, false personality, the buffers, the
I’s. This would also be true for such entities or functions as the higher-being bodies and what Gurdjieff calls our “centers” or
“brains.”
The Centers
Gurdjieff identifies three centers or brains—the physical brain, centered in the spinal column; the emotional brain, located
throughout the trunk of the body in a number of connected concentrations (which apparently refer to the vegetative ganglia
or nerve centers); and the intellectual brain, situated in the cerebral cortex. In Beelzebub’s Tales, we are called “three-
brained beings,” and Beelzebub, the protagonist, defines the brains as “separate concentrations that function to receive
impressions and express manifestations.”2
The brains, for Gurdjieff, are divided into a number of different functions (or parts) that are thought of in terms of higher
and lower functioning. The physical center, emotional center, and intellectual center constitute a kind of lower “story,” and
the higher emotional and higher intellectual centers an upper “story.”
The lower centers are lower because they regulate our everyday existence as planetary beings. The higher centers are
higher because they connect us with cosmic truth—the higher emotional center by feeling it, the higher intellect by
conceiving it. The higher centers also help to produce the fine energy necessary for crystallization of the higher-being
bodies. The lower centers play their role in this evolutionary task, particularly the sex center, which is considered a part of
the physical center but is said to work with a much finer energy than the rest of the physical center.
The most important thing to remember with regard to the function of the lower centers in spiritual evolution is that,
according to Gurdjieff, for the higher centers to function correctly, the lower centers must be fully functioning or healthy.
When impressions from the higher centers fall on a person who is fully balanced and properly functioning in their lower
centers, they are then capable of assimilating and utilizing the impressions for evolutionary purposes. In others words,
genuine understanding and the higher-being bodies can then evolve.3
The Centers
Higher Intellect
Higher Emotional
Intellectual Center
Intellectual Part
Emotional Part
Physical (Moving) Part (The Formatory Apparatus)
Emotional Center
Intellectual Part
Emotional Part
Physical (Moving) Part
Physical Center
Sex Center
Moving Center
Instinctive Center
Each center and each part utilizes its own form or density of energy and has its own precise function.[1] When each part
functions correctly, that is, when each part functions with its own energy, the organism is said to be in balance.
Levels of Consciousness
All of the functions discussed thus far are intimately related to Gurdjieff’s concept of the levels of consciousness. He
distinguishes seven such levels: sleep, waking-sleep, awake, consciousness, self-consciousness, objective consciousness,
and absolute consciousness. In terms of the centers, each of these levels of consciousness is a function of the way the
centers function individually and together. As a person more fully utilizes his or her centers and becomes more balanced in
their usage, he or she can be said to rise on the scale of consciousness. The average person today, according to Gurdjieff,
spends most of his or her waking life in waking-sleep. But as we learn to use our centers more fully and more harmoniously,
we become more and more awake. As we awaken, we transform the energy we use into finer and finer forms, and it is the
finest forms of this energy that is said to be the energetic foundation of the higher-being bodies.4
Waking-Sleep
In waking-sleep we function mainly in the moving parts of the emotional, intellectual, and physical centers; these parts are
the least conscious thus use the denser forms of energy. With respect to the intellect, this is the part that is said to record and
categorize impressions, the so-called “formatory apparatus.”5 Although this part of the intellect has a natural function, when
we think with it alone, we do not ponder or think with great perspective.
Because in waking-sleep we function in the lower, less conscious or moving part of the emotional center; the kinds of
emotions we feel are what we might call narcissistic, that is, the emotions center on the perspective of I and mine—for
example, “my lover,” “my child,” “my career,” “my country,” “my political party,” “my book.” These kinds of emotions, when they
dominate the consciousness of an adult, from Gurdjieff’s point of view, are symptomatic of an immature essence. Emotions of
the higher emotional center, on the other hand, are involved with more universal matters such as ecology, planetary
concerns, or, generally, cosmic matters where our I is felt in relation to other cosmic concentrations of a higher scale.
Because we are not in contact with impressions of the higher centers when we are in waking-sleep, however, such
impressions do not play a large part in our lives.
In waking-sleep, furthermore, the sex center is said to function “improperly.” This means that the sex center utilizes energy
not “proper” to it, energy that is coarser or denser than it would use when functioning properly. The lower centers are said to
“borrow” energy from the sex center and thus function with energy improper to them, and likewise the sex center borrows
energy from the other centers. In sum, therefore, for Gurdjieff, we in waking-sleep are incomplete human beings, “women”
and “men” rather than Women and Men. Beelzebub’s grandson, Hassein, calls us “slugs,” or poor specimens of the species
known throughout the universe as “three-brained beings.”6
Impressions as Food
The food of impressions, third-being food according to Gurdjieff, enters the process of food intake and transformation at
the relatively fine energetic level of intellectual energy. Third-being food stimulates the energy already within the organism to
produce the even finer energies used by the emotional center, the sex center, and the higher centers. For Gurdjieff,
impressions are as important to our survival as physical food and air, and, he says, if the organism were somehow deprived
of impressions, it would not survive even for a moment.10
When Gurdjieff speaks of impressions he means, first of all, sense perception—what philosophers sometimes call “sense-
data,” or immediate impressions, such as colors, odors, tastes, sounds, sensations of weight, and so on. Secondly, he
means the way we assimilate such data via our brains or centers and how the centers coordinate all the data, feelings or
emotions via memory, comparison, contrast, and so on. Along with this, Gurdjieff adds the functions he calls “self-
observation” and “self-remembering,” which he believes add greatly to the value of impressions.
Speaking generally, we can say that, for Gurdjieff, as we become more awake, more conscious, impressions are
assimilated in such a way that their value as food, their value as producers of energy-matter, increases. For Gurdjieff, this
means they are taken in less “mechanically”—we notice them more, we see them in relation to other impressions with
greater understanding, we feel them more deeply, and so on. Working on oneself, for Gurdjieff, functions to make
impressions more conscious. This process is extremely significant, from Gurdjieff’s point of view, for, as we shall see, it is the
process that creates the requisite conditions for formation of the higher-being bodies.
G urdjieff illustrates the relationship between the centers and the various energetic densities they utilize via a number of
symbols, e.g., the Symbol of Hydrogens, where energetic density is explained in terms of specific numerical relations. As
applied to the organism’s energy metabolism, the symbol is based on the (above mentioned) ideas that energy-matter
enters the organism as food and that food prevails at different energetic densities.
Via the Symbol of Hydrogens, first-being food is represented, in terms of energetic density, by the “hydrogen number” H-
768. The H represents the fact that the food is a form of energy-matter, called “hydrogen”; the number 768 represents the
relative density of this food as compared with other kinds of food and other kinds of substances (other concentrations of
energy-matter). We can leave out the H and represent the various densities simply by use of the numbers, as long as we
remember that the numbers represent energetic densities.2
Air, or second-being food, is represented by the number 192, meaning that it is defined as a quarter the density of first-
being food, thus vibrates four times as fast, so to speak, as first-being food. Impressions, or third-being food, are represented
by the number 48, meaning that impressions are conceived of as vibrating at a rate that is four times as fast as air and
sixteen times as fast as first-being food.
Energy-matter even finer or faster in vibration than third-being food, which when taken in as food can be called “fourth-
being food,” is represented at energetic density 12. This energy is said to be utilized by the sex center when it works properly
and by the higher emotional center. Energy even finer enters via the higher intellectual center, at energetic density 6.
The process of food-energy intake and digestion or transformation is pictured thusly: Parts of the physical center (the
digestive system) take in first-being food at energetic density 768, digest it, and transform it to energy 384, called “chyme,”
liquid or partially broken down first-being food. The digestive system continues to work on this food until it becomes
energetic density 192, called “cellular energy.” At this point in the process of food-energy intake and transformation,
according to Gurdjieff, another part of the physical center, the respiratory system, “eats” or takes in second-being food or air
at energetic density 192. The 192 of air meets and merges with the 192 from digestion of first-being food (cellular energy),
and the merger produces the required impetus for energy 192 to pass on and become energy 96, a form of energy said to be
used by parts of the physical center in its functioning.
Some of energy 96 is used up by the physical center, and some is further transformed to energetic density 48, the energy
that the intellectual center uses. We are now in the realm of psychology, of what we speak of as the mind. The food of
impressions, third-being food, at energetic density 48, enters the organism and merges with the energy 48 already within the
organism. The merger serves as an impetus to stimulate energy 48 to become energy 24, the energy of the emotional center
and other parts of the physical center; then energy 12, the energy of the sex center and the higher emotional center; and
finally, energy 6, the energy of the higher intellectual center. This completes the process of taking in food and producing
energy for use by the organism.
Conscious Impressions
As mentioned, for Gurdjieff, individuals take in food-energy with more or less consciousness, and the more consciously
we eat, the greater the effect the food has on production of the finer energies used by the psychic centers, the emotional
center, the sensory apparatus, the thinking center, the sex center, and the two higher centers. With respect to third-being
food or impressions, this means that the more consciously we take them in, the more deeply we feel emotions, the better we
think, the more correctly the sex center works, and the better the higher centers function.
Thus when third-being food is taken in more consciously, on this theory, more energy is taken in, and the centers have
more energy with which to work. When we think, therefore, we can do so with more than just the moving part, the formatory
apparatus; when we feel, we can feel with the higher parts of the emotional center as well as with the more mechanical
moving part; our sensations become more vivid; sexual sensations are more total and felt more deeply; and we can be
aware of the impressions taken in by the higher centers.
Differences in levels of consciousness can thus be considered a function of variations in how consciously we take in
third-being food or impressions. Buffers can be conceived of as apparatus that inhibit taking in third-being food with full
attentiveness, false personality as a manifestation of the fact that we take in third-being food without a great deal of
awareness. To melt personality and expand essence would be to bring more sensitive (finer) energy into operation for use
by the psychological centers so that they can take in third-being food or impressions with greater awareness.
· ·· ·
· ·· ·
· ·· ·
*
Food First-being food H-768
*
Chyme H-384
*
Cellular energy H-192
*
Air Second-being food H-192
*
Physical energy (I) H-96
**
Thoughts H-48
**
Impressions Third-being food H-48
****
Emotions, Physical energy (II) H-24
****
Sex energy, Higher Emotional energy H-12
****
Higher Impressions (I) Fourth-being food H-12
*****
Higher Intellectual energy H-6
· · ·
· · ·
· · ·
*
Physical Center
**
Lower Intellect
***
Lower Emotions
****
Higher Emotional Center, Sex Center
****
Higher Intellectual Center
Gurdjieff presents the Law of the Octave in terms of the major scale of Western musical notation, viz, as the sequence DO,
RE, MI, semitone, FA, SOL, LA, SI, semitone, DO . . . The semitones are called “intervals” by Gurdjieff and represent places in
the octave where “resistance” is said to occur, where the octave is said to lose the momentum generated by the do and
would run down if not stimulated by what is called a “shock.” Examples of how this functions are given from time to time
throughout the remainder of this book.
DO
RE
MI semitone—shock point
FA
SOL
LA
SI semitone—interval—shock point
DO
·
·
·
The Symbol of the Octave
Figure 3
Combining the Symbol of the Octave
and the Symbol of Hydrogens
Chyme RE-384
Figure 4
The Symbol of Hydrogens is combined with that of the octave as they pertain to the process of food intake and
transformation as follows: First-being food, symbolized at relative energetic density 768, is given the note DO. Chyme, or
transformed first-being food, at energetic density 384 is given the note RE. Cellular energy, further transformed first-being
food, at energetic density 192 is given the note MI. The octave of first-being food thus begins as follows: DO-768, RE-384,
MI-192. Once it reaches the note MI, it has reached its first interval or resistance point.
At this point in the process as represented by the symbol, air, or second-being food, enters. Like DO-768, the note that
represents the entrance of first-being food, the entrance of air is represented by the note DO, since, on this symbol,
whenever food or energy enters from outside the organism, a new octave is said to begin. Air is symbolized as being at
energetic density 192, and so its entrance is represented by the note DO-192. We saw that, for Gurdjieff, air acts as a
stimulus to cellular energy (192), that it merges with it to produce the next level of energy, energy 96. This merger is thus a
merger of energy 192 within the organism (cellular energy) with energy 192 entering from without (air).
The merger occurs at the place in the octave of first-being food where its first interval falls, indicating that air, or second-
being food, serves as the shock needed to move the octave of first-being food past the interval so that it can produce energy
96. When the shock is given—when, in other words, we breathe—air enters as DO-192 and merges with MI-192 from the
first-being food octave. This merger produces a “child,” energy 96, symbolized by two notes, one from the octave of first-
being food, FA-96, and one from the octave of air, RE-96. This “child” or result of the merger of air and cellular energy
evolves into energy 48, represented by the notes SOL-48 from the octave of first-being food and MI-48 from the octave of air.
Further evolution of the energy, however, can occur without further assistance only with respect to the octave of first-being
food since the octave of air has reached its first interval (its MI-FA interval) or resistance point through which, according to
the Symbol of the Octave, it cannot pass without being further stimulated or shocked. According to the Symbol of the Octave,
the octave of first-being food can continue through its notes LA and SI, where it would then reach its second interval or
resistance point. In terms of energy, the notes represent LA-24 and SI-12.
The air octave is said to be shocked or stimulated past its first resistance point by the entrance of third-being food, the
food of impressions, represented on this symbol as DO-48. The food of impressions is represented by the note DO because,
like DO-768 and DO-192, it represents the entrance of new food-energy from outside the organism, thus the beginning of a
new octave. DO-48 merges with energy 48 already present within the organism, and the merger produces more energy for
the psychological functions. Besides energy 48 for the thinking center as DO-48, the merger produces more energy 24 for
the emotions and parts of the physical center as RE-24 from the impressions octave and FA-24 from the air octave, and more
energy 12 for the sex center and the higher emotional center as MI-12 from the impressions octave and SOL-12 from the air
octave.
The merger of DO-48 with the energy 48 present within the organism from the first two octaves also produces the note LA-
6 from the air octave, energy for the higher intellect, and theoretically SI-3 from the air octave. No more can come from the
impressions octave after the note MI-12 without a shock since, at this point, it has reached its first interval. The required
shock in this place (discussed below) is what is called the Second Conscious Shock.5
This rendition of the combination of the Symbol of Hydrogens with the Symbol of the Octave, though apparently quite
complex and perhaps confusing for new readers, is a simplified rendition of what can be pieced together from Gurdjieff’s
own writings and those of some of his students and followers. It expresses the idea that intake of each of the three foods
functions to fill an interval, to provide a shock that allows an octave (or a process) to continue past the point where, based on
its own momentum—momentum generated by its beginning, its DO—it would run down. First-being food fills the interval
between SI of the octave begun prior to its entrance, one that represents formation of the digestive system itself, and DO of
the food octave. Second-being food fills the first interval of the food octave, and third-being food the first interval of the air
octave.
But impressions, or third-being food, for Gurdjieff, as mentioned, can be taken in more or less consciously. The more
consciously impressions are taken in, the greater the effect they have as a shock in producing the psychological energies.
The shock of third-being food, then, can be more or less powerful (which is also true for the two other foods: healthy versus
unhealthy food, polluted versus unpolluted air, etc.). When impressions are taken in mechanically and not consciously, the
shock of third-being food is not as vivid, and in fact, says Gurdjieff, it does not function as a genuine shock. Only when
impressions are taken in consciously, for him, do they actually function as a shock, as a genuine DO. He calls this shock the
“First Conscious Shock.”6
The Enneagram
The Symbol of the Octave and that of Hydrogens are combined with another symbol, the symbol of the Enneagram,7 and
via this combination, Gurdjieff further develops these ideas. Aspects of the symbol of the Enneagram, according to Gurdjieff,
have been transmitted via various esoteric traditions, but the entire symbol and its meaning are said by him to have been
understood and transmitted by only a certain school with roots deep in the past, the identity of which, as far as I know, he did
not make public.8 When used to illustrate the process of food intake and transformation, the Enneagram becomes the Food
Enneagram. Via use of this symbol, a new perspective emerges.
The Enneagram is represented as a circle divided into nine equal parts. Nine points are identified via numbers, with the
number 9 placed at the top of the circle and the numbers 1-8 following clockwise around the perimeter. Points 9, 3, and 6 fall
around the circle in such a way that an equilateral triangle can be drawn within the circle, connecting them. The numbers 1,
2, 4, 5, 7, and 8 are connected by a series of lines that form a unique pattern. The logic of this pattern is based on division of
the number 7 by any number, which always form the sequence 1-4-2-8-5-7-1-4 . . . 9 These two elements, the connection of
the numbers 9, 3, and 6 via the triangle and the pattern based on the number 7, are used in the symbol to combine the Law
of Three and the Law of Seven. An analysis of all the ramifications of the Enneagram is beyond the scope of this book (not
that I could provide them even if I wanted to!); thus I will focus on certain aspects of how the symbol pertains to the process of
food intake and energy transformation.
The Enneagram
Figure 5
The Food Enneagram
The process of food intake and energy transformation is plotted on the Food Enneagram in the following way: DO-768,
representing the entrance of first-being food, is plotted at place 9. The following note, RE-384, is plotted at place 1, and the
note MI-192 of this octave at place 2. The first interval of the octave is plotted at place 3, the note FA-96 at place 4, SOL-48 at
place 5, LA-24 at place 7 (place 6 is “mysteriously” skipped—see below), and SI-12 at place 8. The second interval of this
octave, its SI-DO interval, falls at place 9 of what would be a second Enneagram (which would be best represented, as far as
I can tell, in three-dimensional form as rising spiral-like from the first Enneagram).
Place 3 represents the first interval of this octave as well as the place where second-being food or air enters the organism
as the note DO-192. The second note of the air octave, RE-96, is plotted at place 4, and the third note, MI-48, at place 5. Its
first interval falls at place 6, its note FA-24 at place 7, SOL-12 at place 8, LA-6 at place 1 of the second Enneagram (it
“mysteriously” skips place 9 of the second Enneagram), and SI-3 at place 2 of the second Enneagram. Its second interval, its
SI-DO interval, falls at place 3 of the second Enneagram.
Place 6 represents the first interval of the air octave as well as the place where third-being food, the food of impressions,
enters the organism as DO-48. Its second note, RE-24, is plotted at place 7, its third note, MI-12, at place 8. Its first interval is
plotted at place 9 of the second Enneagram, and its fourth note, FA-6, is plotted at place 1 of the second Enneagram. Its fifth
note, SOL-3, is plotted at place 2 of the second Enneagram, its sixth, LA-1, at place 4 (it “mysteriously” skips place 3 of the
second Enneagram), and its seventh note, SI-0, at place 5 of the second Enneagram. Its second interval falls at place 6 of
the second Enneagram.
Places 3, 6, and 9—the places connected by the inner triangle—represent intervals or shock points, places where food
enters from without. Place 9 of the first Enneagram is where the shock of first-being food occurs, place 3 where the shock of
air occurs. Place 6 represents the shock of impressions and is called the “First Conscious Shock,” when the impressions are
taken in consciously (see below). Place 9 of the second Enneagram represents the place where the shock of higher
emotional impressions (fourth-being food) enters, the shock called the “Second Conscious Shock” (see below). Place 3 of
the second Enneagram represents the place where the shock of higher intellectual impressions enters, the shock that can
be called the “Third Conscious Shock.”
Food Enneagram
Plus Relative Energetic Densities
Figure 6
*
Usually called “chyme.”
**
Certain parts of the physical center are said to use energy 96; other parts, energy 24.
The Mysterious Intervals
There is an anomalous aspect to the presentation of the process of food intake and transformation as it is presented on
the Food Enneagram that does not show itself when pictured via the Symbol of the Octave and the Symbol of Hydrogens
alone. It is that the octaves skip places on the Enneagram that, according to the other symbols, do not represent interval
points. The octave of first-being food begun as DO-768, for example, skips places 3 and 6. That it skips place 3 is explained,
in terms of the Law of the Octave as Gurdjieff represents it, by the fact that place 3 represents the first interval of the octave,
the place where air enters as this octave’s first proper shock. But it also skips place 6, and place 6 falls between its notes
SOL and LA, not between its note SI and DO, the place on the Symbol of the Octave where its proper second interval
supposedly falls. The same “out-of-place” plotting occurs with the other two octaves: the air octave “mysteriously” skips place
9 of the second Enneagram, a place where its second interval should not occur, and the impressions octave skips place 3 of
the second Enneagram, a place where its second interval should not occur.
DO
RE
MI
interval DO
FA RE
SOL MI
LA FA RE
SI SOL MI
LA FA
SI SOL
LA
SI
interval
Figure 7
Given that the symbol qua symbol is intended to provide information of a sort that transcends words or the basic language
of the intellect, which, to put it another way, enters via the higher centers, can we, by use of words, explain this anomaly? We
can try, although in so doing we may lose some of the meaning of the symbol, meaning that can only be felt or higher-felt
and higher-thought. If we keep this in mind, though, our “crime” is lessened.
The key to understanding this anomaly lies in the following: each of the “mysterious” intervals functions as a correct
interval for a higher octave. Place 6, for example, functions as the correct MI-FA interval of the air octave while it functions as
the “mysterious” interval of the food octave. To try and fathom the meaning of the mystery, let us review what, symbolically
speaking, happens at this place.
Energy 48, the food of impressions, enters the organism here (place 6) and merges with energy 48 already present
within. As such it functions to shock the air octave to produce energy 24 (as the fourth note of the air octave, FA-24). But
energy 48 is also produced from the food octave, as the note SOL-48. This seems to imply that the entering energy 48, the
entering impressions, merges with both notes, both MI-48 from the air octave and SOL-48 from the food octave, indicating
that neither octave can pass this place without accepting the shock of impressions-48. The enigma, however, is that the note
SOL-48 is supposedly able to pass on to its notes LA-24 and SI-12 without having to be shocked along its way, simply by the
momentum generated by the shock that occurs at its MI-FA interval (DO-192).
In other words, it appeared that merely by eating and breathing we produce energy for the psychological functions,
energy 24 and 12, but this mysterious plotting informs us that this is not the case, that in order to produce energy for the
psychological functions, we must take in impressions. Thus, as we study the symbol more deeply, we realize that we need
impressions to have any energy to think with at all. This is revealed when we realize that energy is produced at shock points
only when mergers occur between food-energy entering from outside the organism and energy present within.
This is most clearly seen on the Food Enneagram in the case of air, for if no energy 192 is present from the digestion of
first-being food—if no cellular energy is present—incoming air has nothing to merge with and could not be assimilated,
could not become the energy of second-being food, which is to say that it would not function as food. The same is true in the
case of first-being food. If no energy 768 is present for the incoming first-being food to merge with—no stomach, for example
—the taking of first-being food would not lead to production of any energy. Thus the essence of the mystery has to do with
merger, with fusion of energy.
A significant fact represented by the enigma is thus the requirement of merger or fusion of energy. Energy 48 entering
from without produces no energy for thought (48), emotions (24), sexuality (12), and higher emotions (12) until or unless it
merges with energy 48 already present within the organism. This expresses what Gurdjieff takes to be a fundamental truth:
that impressions, or third-being food, is necessary for life, just as necessary as first—and second-being food. Gurdjieff, as
mentioned, claims that we can live for weeks without first-being food, or if we count liquids, for days (depending on external
conditions); that we can live without air for one or two minutes; but that we cannot live for a moment without impressions.10
On his concept of food, if somehow—although it is hard to imagine how (and isn’t this the point?)—all impressions (internal
as well as external) were cut off even for a moment, for a “twinkling of an eye,” we would die.
Self-Remembering
When we sustain awareness of incoming impressions as they enter—when we focus our attention on whatever we
perceive at a particular moment—we take in impressions consciously. However, there is another dimension to taking in
impressions consciously that Gurdjieff calls “self-remembering,” and it is the concept or practice of self-remembering that he
claims separates his system from the systems of conventional psychology.
Generally speaking, self-remembering is the state of being aware of oneself as one takes in impressions from the world.2
Gurdjieff claims that we in waking-sleep, no matter how attentively we may be focusing on the world, rarely, if ever,
remember ourselves while taking in impressions; and to learn to do so, he says, requires a great deal of practice.
Impressions entering while we are in a state of self-remembering have a higher energetic quality than impressions that enter
during waking-sleep. Self-remembering, in fact, is said to be the process by which the value of third-being food is increased
to such an extent that the energy needed for full use of the centers is produced.
Gurdjieff refers to the stimulation produced when we remember ourselves as the “First Conscious Shock.”3 When this
shock is triggered, we gain sufficient energy so that we have more vivid sensory impressions than otherwise, more deeply
felt emotions, more intense sexual impressions of the right kind (in connection with the proper working of the sex center),
more vivid impressions via the higher emotional center, and more energy for use by the higher intellect. And, for Gurdjieff, it
is due to the proper working of these centers that formation of the first higher-being body, and later, the formation of the other
higher-being bodies, can occur.
What is self-remembering, this apparently mighty function that changes everything, this first of the alchemical functions
that “in a trice, Life’s leaden metal into Gold transmute”? 4 Self-remembering, says Ouspensky, is the attempt to be aware of
oneself as a whole.5 It is the feeling of I—of one’s own person as a whole. It means feeling and knowing—or understanding,
in the full sense of the word—who and what I am, which is to say that it is self-awareness in the deepest sense.
As with consciousness in general, however, for Gurdjieff, there is not one state or experience of self-remembering but
levels of it. One can, in other words, go more and more deeply into it, become more and more aware of who one is and that
one is. The First Conscious Shock, in other words, can be triggered to a greater or lesser extent; thus greater or lesser
amounts of the finer energies can be produced. The distinction between mechanical and conscious impressions, therefore,
is not sharply drawn but is a matter of degree. Still, it is apparently only when self-remembering deepens to fullness that a
sufficient amount of the finer energies needed for crystallization of the higher-being bodies can be produced.
Knowledge
To attempt self-remembering, to try and be aware of oneself as a whole while taking in impressions from the world, is not
necessarily to succeed, i.e., it is not necessarily equivalent to remembering oneself as one truly is. Complete self-awareness
thus depends not only on experiencing oneself as present, but also on knowledge of who one is, which is to say that it
depends, for Gurdjieff, on knowledge as well as on being.6
To know who one is implies many things, including knowing what it means to be a human being in general. And to know
this necessitates knowing the nature of the universe. Gurdjieff refers to this kind of knowledge as an understanding of the
laws of world creation and world maintenance, and he illustrates the need for it in Beelzebub’s Tales when he portrays
Beelzebub explaining such laws to his grandson so that the boy can have the requisite knowledge to serve as a basis for his
personal work on himself.7 In that, as seems likely, the grandson represents the youthful but eager essence of humans who
are sincerely interested in their own evolution, this advice of Beelzebub can be viewed as being given directly to us. If we
take this advice seriously, we will attempt to gain as much knowledge as we can, from every source possible, including, of
course, the theories transmitted to us by Gurdjieff himself (but not Gurdjieff’s ideas alone—which is to say that it is not as it is
often seen in strictly orthodox religion where “knowledge” can mean, primarily or even solely, knowledge of the sacred
texts).
Self-Observation
The being side of self-remembering has to do with the practice of feeling ourselves as a whole as we take in impressions
of the world. But, says Gurdjieff, even if we study the sciences, even if we study the laws of the universe that he transmits in
his writings, we rarely, if ever, remember ourselves. And we do not know that we do not remember ourselves. The first step
toward learning how to practice self-remembering, therefore, is to come to the realization that we do not remember
ourselves. How can we come to such awareness? We can do so, he says, by developing the practice of consistently,
objectively, or impartially observing ourselves.8
At first glance, self-observation may not appear as mysterious as self-remembering. We do not need any great knowledge
to begin the practice of self-observation. All we need do is focus some of our attention on what is going on within us while we
take in impressions from without. On the other hand, knowledge, or a theoretical framework, is necessary if we ever wish to
come to understand what we observe.
What is required for self-observation to begin, according to Gurdjieff, is a dividing of attention between the impressions
entering from outside and the responses of our own organism.9 We can attempt this anywhere, anytime. Even the most
mundane situation will do. I am standing in line at the supermarket. I observe the people in front of me, those behind me, the
children sitting in the wagons, one crying, another staring up at me. The mother of the crying child snaps at her to shut her
up. The woman behind the counter looks bored but is intent on efficiency. The florescent lighting makes all these stand out—
no shadows, no nuances. Then there are pictures of half-naked women on the magazines, stacks of cigarettes, anxious
faces pushing carts, looking for the shortest line.
Meanwhile I’m observing myself. I, too, am anxious. I have appointments. I’m hungry and want to go home. The woman in
front has a pile of coupons and pulls out her credit card—more time for me to wait. My chest is tight. I’m not breathing. But the
child’s face interests me. I feel loving toward him and deep sadness for the child who cries, rage toward the mother who
snaps at her insensitively, a slight sensation of sexual arousal from the pictures on the magazines. And I see that I’m
observing myself—remembering who I am, where I am, on planet Earth, in the solar system, the galaxy, the universe, that I
am mortal and will die . . . All these and so much more—inside, outside—impressions all and each informing the others,
creating a synthesis of awareness that is hard to name except to say, this is I.
In waking-sleep, our attention is focused on what fascinates us in the world. The practice of self-observation requires us
to pay attention as well to the I that we are identified with at the moment or the center out of which we are responding. As we
become more able to do this, we begin to form a unique structure within us. We form what Gurdjieff calls the “observing I,” an
I that can see what is happening within while we take in impressions from outside.
Gurdjieff says that we rarely practice objective self-observation. This is not to say that we do not normally notice ourselves
or sense our separateness with greater intensity than dogs, rocks, or worms. Because we automatically notice ourselves, we
think we observe ourselves. For Gurdjieff, however, the kind of awareness we usually have of ourselves is a pale imitation of
what is meant by self-observation. By this he means a conscious, directed study of one’s I’s and the manifestations of the
centers. To observe oneself in this sense is to be like a specimen to the observing I as scientist.
Self-observation and self-remembering function as two sides of a single process that we have identified as the “First
Conscious Shock.” Self-observation divides attention, divides the psyche into observing I and the I (or I’s) observed, a
process that creates a necessary tension in which we come to see ourselves. The tension is reconciled in self-remembering
as we attempt to feel ourselves as a whole or, in other words, come to be ourselves.
It cannot be merely by seeing ourselves that the movement of evolution occurs—when practiced in isolation, this
stimulates much to think or talk about but does not necessarily lead to a change in being. And it cannot be merely by being
ourselves that evolution is stimulated either, for if that were the case, we could remain as false or unconscious as we like
and still evolve. Actual movement in the work requires both an increase of tension and a discharge of tension, a movement
very much like breathing and other natural biological processes such as movement of the blood (which requires systole and
diastole) or of the urine (filling and emptying of the bladder).
Dissolution of Buffers
This characterization of the First Conscious Shock as an increase-of—tension/discharge-of-tension function shows it to
be a remarkably natural function in that, as mentioned, it mirrors the pulsational nature of all other life processes. On the
other hand, it seems that we need to be reminded over and over again to practice it, as if we had to force something that by
itself, or naturally, would not occur. And yet, as all who have tried to observe/remember themselves on a consistent basis
know, it does take practice; we don’t observe or remember ourselves automatically.
According to the way Gurdjieff presents the issue in his allegorical work, if we were healthy or normal three-brained
beings, we would naturally observe and remember ourselves (practice the “Sacred Antkooano”) for this practice would be
taught to us by our culture. But we are not healthy or normal “three-brained beings,” for our culture is not normal or healthy,
and so we have not been brought up properly, so to speak. Thus we have buffers or, as Gurdjieff puts it, the “dirt” and “rust”
of long-accumulated “sins” that clog up the organism and slow down the work of the centers.2 With buffers in place, we think
we already are unified, that there’s nothing more to do, that this level of consciousness is all there is.
To get the First Conscious Shock moving, then, we need to begin the process of dissolution of the buffers and learn the
value of self-observation and self-remembering. As buffers dissolve, new energy is pumped into the system, and we have
the force to continue to carry out the practice. As the experience is triggered and we come to see and be ourselves more
clearly, even more buffers can dissolve, even more energy can be put into our systems, and we can trigger the experience
better and more consistently. This, it seems, is what is meant by Gurdjieff’s notion that self-remembering deepens when we
have more of a self to remember.
The expressions “As above, so below” and “Every stick always has two ends” 1
transmit the Principle of Relativity as it is
expressed in Gurdjieff’s system, a principle that expresses, to my mind, the very essence of his teaching. Each expression
involves three elements. In the first, there is above, below, and what they have in common, the scale, of which above
represents above and below represents below. In the second there are the two ends of the stick—which can be thought of as
positive and negative or, as in the Chinese version of the principle, the yang and yin—and the common third, the stick, in the
Chinese version, tao.
Gurdjieff’s concept of relativity is another way of expressing his concept of the Law of Three—that every situation, every
thing, every process involves three forces: “first force,” “second force,” and “third force.”2 To think according to this law is to
think in threes rather than in twos, to think in terms of what opposites have in common rather than only in terms of how they
differ. Such thinking, for Gurdjieff, transcends calculative or binary logic, the logic of either-or of the formatory apparatus and
computers.
Heidegger, near the end of his career, called such thinking “meditative thinking”—thinking that seeks to reconcile
apparent paradoxes or contradictions in a third that identifies what the contradictions or opposites have in common and
provides the ground of their difference. To apply this kind of thinking to the mind/body problem, for instance, would be to
seek out what mind and body have in common that accounts for their difference. Heidegger, in his inimitable way, defines
such thinking as “indwelling in releasement to that-which-regions,” or “expanding into the nearness of distance.”3 Put more
simply, thinking via the Law of Three is thinking analogically, a form of thinking akin to Reich’s concept of “functional
thinking,” which means, for him, understanding differences in terms of a common root or common functioning principle. 4
One center’s self-remembering, of course, does not cause us to remember ourselves, since we, psychologically
speaking, are the entire psyche. For our self-remembering to occur, all the psychic centers must become involved, must
remember themselves, something that happens when the intellect as a whole remembers itself and triggers the First
Conscious Shock, the expansive transformation of energy into densities the other centers can remember themselves with.
Feeling of the Whole and the Impressions of the Second Conscious Shock
Self-remembering, as mentioned, says Ouspensky, is the feeling of the whole. On the Principle of Relativity, this implies
that whenever and however food-energy-impressions are taken, in that a form of self-remembering occurs, a feeling of the
whole occurs. The First Conscious Shock is the model or archetype of this feeling, but the Second Conscious Shock, in that it
functions to bring in food-energy-impressions and is thus a form of self-remembering, functions as a feeling of the whole as
well.
In this respect, the First and Second Conscious Shocks are similar. They differ in that in terms of the symbols, the First
utilizes energy 48 and transforms it into energies 24 and 12 and the Second utilizes energy 12 and transforms it into
energies 6 and 3.
As one moves up the scale of functions, from the digestive system to the respiratory system through the lower
psychological centers to the higher centers, the feeling of the whole triggered by the functioning of the centers becomes finer
(more subtle) because the energies involved become less dense. The feeling of the whole triggered by the Second
Conscious Shock, theoretically speaking, should thus be more profound, more total, involve more of the whole, than the
feeling of the whole produced by the centers alone and by the First Conscious Shock.
What kind of food-energy-impressions is brought in via the Second Conscious Shock? To know what such food is like, of
course, is to taste it, but it is not as if we must remain totally in the dark even if we have yet to partake of such a fine repast.
First of all, merely by eating, breathing, and taking in impressions mechanically, some energy 12 is produced, and since the
Second Conscious Shock utilizes this energy and the impressions it brings in are of this density, we can have some idea of
what such impressions—impressions of the higher emotional center and the sex center—are like. If we remember ourselves
consistently, we produce more energy 12 and so can gain a better idea of what such impressions are like.
Many have reported their impressions of what seems to have been such an experience. Rodney Collin, a student of
Ouspensky who studied with Gurdjieff for a time, for example, refers to such impressions as expressive of “ecstatic love.”5
Gurdjieff says they involve “the feeling of religiousness,” an awareness of the sacredness and divinity of everything existing,
impressions he says occur with the awakening of conscience.6 Dhiravamsa, a contemporary Buddhist, characterizes the
highest point of sexuality as awareness of the very essence of the movement of the universe.”7 Such an awareness means,
for him, loss of all identification and the feeling of separateness and a feeling of unity with the cosmos, an idea echoed down
through the ages by lovers and poets of all kinds.
Such a feeling of unity with the cosmos appears related to what is variously described as satori, nirvana, samadhily,
awakening the Atman, becoming the Christ, reaching one of the Higher Heavens, and so on, in that these experiences are
described in terms of unification or merger with the All (however it is conceived), loss of all identification and separateness.
Theoretically speaking, the Second Conscious Shock brings in impressions like these, which means that when it occurs we
literally experience this kind of reality—this is the kind of feeling of the whole it triggers. As a form of self-remembering, it
connects our self with the greater Self, the Being of the universe, of the All or the Absolute, as Gurdjieff sometimes calls it.
When we have such an experience, when we remember ourselves in this way, we know that we are not merely our body,
mind, or emotions, not to speak of any one of the I’s that we tend to identify with, but that, in an important respect, we also are
the All. The traditions from which the above-mentioned notions come agree that what we really are is not just our separate
selves but what is variously called Cosmic Energy, Universal Mind, Tao, Brahman, God, the Subtle World, and so on. The
impressions of the Second Conscious Shock bring us the feeling of this, what I take to be a reality.
In that the shock awakens conscience, it can lead to impressions of “remorse of conscience” when we do something that
is objectively, or in the light of conscience, wrong.8 The feeling of unity with everything is thus, for Gurdjieff, at the root of
conscience, at the root of our understanding of right and wrong. Rightness and wrongness, what Gurdjieff calls “objective
morality,” is thus a function of feeling everything as sacred, which implies feeling the essence of things. Whether or not what
we do is objectively right or wrong, then, when understood from the point of view of the impressions brought in by the
Second Conscious Shock, is whether or not what we do pertains to essence or is essential.
The symbol systems we are using express that the Second Conscious Shock functions not only to bring in impressions at
energetic density 12 (impressions of the sex center and the higher emotional center) but also to fill the MI-FA interval of the
impressions or third-being food octave in production of energy 6 and energy 3. In this respect, the shock provides a strong
flavor or taste of another level of being, viz, what self-remembering is like when triggered by the Third Conscious Shock, a
feeling of the whole said to bring in knowledge or thought-impressions of the All. In learning to regularly trigger the Second
Conscious Shock, then, we prepare for the Third Conscious Shock, thus a deeper awareness of who we really are.9
Gurdjieff’s Model
For Gurdjieff, the symbol of the Ray of Creation begins with the Absolute, under one law or complete unification. From it,
so to speak, comes “All Worlds,” said to exist under three laws. From this comes “All Suns” (or a particular galaxy), said to
exist under six laws. Out of this emanates the Sun (any sun), under twelve laws; then the Solar System (any solar system),
under twenty-four laws; the Planet (any planet), under forty-eight laws; and the Moon (any moon), under ninety-six laws. In
that from All Suns on down, the reference is to any particular galaxy, sun, planet, and moon, there are many rays of creation
—we on our planet live and are products of only one of them.
In Beelzebub’s Tales, the Absolute is characterized as a kind of sun (the “Holy Sun Absolute”21) and, as such, would have
many “rays.” The symbol of the Ray of Creation, like that of the Enneagram, has many ramifications, only one of which will be
focused on here—how it relates to the Principle of Relativity as it functions regarding the evolution of human consciousness.
Absolute 1
All Worlds 3
All Suns 6
Sun 12
Solar System 24
Planet 48
Moon 96
Figure 8
According to Gurdjieff, we can raise our level of being and our level of consciousness to that of the planet and beyond.
Should we crystallize a Higher Emotional Body, according to him, our level of being would be raised from that of the
biosphere to that of the planet as a whole (which includes the various atmospheric levels and emanations of the planet—its
psyche or consciousness). Should we crystallize a Higher Mental Body, our level of being would reach that of the solar
system, and should we crystallize a Fourth Body or Soul, it would reach the level of the sun.
On this concept of being, then, each being has consciousness. We normally do not think of planets, stars, and galaxies as
having consciousness and believe that human beings have the highest form of consciousness. Gurdjieff’s perspective is
representative of another kind of what could be called a “Copernican Revolution,” one that teaches that humanity is rather
low in terms of level of being and consciousness with respect to everything that exists in the universe.
Being level, for Gurdjieff, though it evolves along with level of consciousness, is not equivalent to it. He says, for example,
that the Soul can reach the level of understanding of All Suns (a galaxy, under six laws) but only the level of being of a sun
(under twelve laws).2 3 As one moves down the scale of bodies from the Soul, the relationship is maintained: The Higher
Mental Body understands at the level of the sun while its level of being is that of the solar system; the Higher Emotional Body
understands at the level of the solar system while its level of being is that of a planet as a whole; the physical body can
understand at the level of a planet as a whole while its being level remains as the highest form of the biosphere.
Level of being and level of consciousness are defined in terms of the range of food-energy-impressions necessary for, in
the case of being, survival of the body and, in the case of consciousness, impressions taken in by the psyche. The physical
body requires food at energetic density 768, air at density 192, and impressions at density 48 for survival, while its level of
consciousness depends upon how many impressions at higher densities, how many of and how fine are the psychological
impressions, it takes in. The range of energetic densities 768 to 48 defines the body as a biospherical being, as a body that
can survive only on the surface of a planet that has a biosphere. The range of impressions 48 to 6 defines its level of
consciousness.
Being level and consciousness level are intimately connected, and in differentiating them we are speaking relatively. As
biospherical beings, we take in food that is higher than the level of the biosphere per se. Air is not biospherical food but
atmospheric food. Impressions at density 48 can be linked via the Symbol of Hydrogens and the Ray of Creation to planetary
food (under forty-eight laws). Rodney Collin points out, in this connection, that we could not have impressions-48 if it were
not for the influence of planetary forces on our centers.24 Impressions-24, according to Collin and via the symbols, are at the
level of the solar system (under twenty-four laws). Impressions of the higher emotional center and the sex center (when it
functions properly), which enter as energy 12, are impressions at the level of the sun (under twelve laws); and impressions
of the higher intellect, which enter as energy 6, are impressions at the level of a galaxy (under six laws).
Levels of being interact in that each level depends on those lower and higher for survival. The biosphere requires the
geosphere and the atmosphere for its survival as well as the solar system and the sun. Humans require the biosphere,
which depends on the geosphere, and humans depend on the atmosphere, the solar system, and the sun as well. The solar
system depends on the sun and the sun on the galaxy . . . and the galaxy on All Worlds and All Worlds on the Absolute. Even
the Absolute is said to be dependent: it depends on the evolution of three-brained beings—who depend on the biosphere,
which depends on the geosphere, which is, in effect, at the level of being of the moon. This means that everything depends
on everything else for its survival, what Gurdjieff calls the “Trogoautoegocratic Process,” or the “Law of Reciprocal Feeding
and World Maintenance.”25
Everything eats, and everything is eaten by something.26 Level of being and level of consciousness are defined in terms
of the range of energetic densities a cosmic concentration eats and is eaten by. Hay eats minerals, cows eat hay, humans
eat cows (some humans anyway).
But within the biosphere, overlapping occurs: hay “eats” water, cows “eat” water, humans “eat” water, and they all “eat”
air. Humans eat vegetation, cows eat vegetation, insects eat vegetation. In terms of the psyche, differences in being and
consciousness level can be illustrated thusly: hay doesn’t feel in the same way that animals feel; animals don’t think in the
way waking-sleeping humans think; waking-sleeping humans don’t think, feel, or sense the way awake humans think, feel,
and sense.
Absolute (1)
atmosphere
Figure 9
A Simple Idea
Although complex when spelled out (and I have only touched a few of the highlights), the Ray of Creation and the
Principle of Relativity in relation to being and consciousness is based on a simple idea: one thing happens in the universe,
and everything else is a manifestation of it. Uranium and lead; rocks and earth; protozoa, insects, plants, animals, and
humans; gases, planetary atmospheres, and planets as a whole; solar systems, suns, and galaxies; thoughts, emotions, and
sensations—all are manifestations of one thing, an all-pervasive, ubiquitous function called the One Law of the Absolute.
From the point of view of waking-sleep it is, of course, most difficult, for, symbolically speaking, we have little energy 12
with which to feel higher perspectives, and depending on how asleep we are, we have none or a minuscule amount of
energy 6 with which to think from such higher perspectives. How much energy 6 we have available would depend on
whether we observe ourselves at all. If we are only a bit more observant than we have to be to survive within the biosphere,
we trigger some form of First Conscious Shock and produce some energy 6 with which to think from the point of view of
higher worlds. Yet even when in waking-sleep, we have a greater ability to comprehend higher perspectives than beings
with fewer brains, for the level of impressions such beings are capable of assimilating or understanding is lower than ours,
even when we take impressions-48 purely mechanically.
Within waking-sleep, depending how contemplative we are (in Aristotle’s and Confucius’s sense of the term perhaps?),
how much time and energy we spend remembering ourselves and feeling and thinking beyond the confines of our personal
I’s, we can gain some impressions of higher levels of being.
We see this exhibited in some philosophers, artists, scientists, poets, and others, who, though perhaps mostly asleep,
sometimes become more contemplative than the average person and think and/or feel from higher points of view. It is
probable that some of them awaken, if only for a short time, and that the most profound philosophy, art, poetry, and science
reflects this more awakened state. According to Gurdjieff, however, the vast majority of even our most exalted philosophers,
artists, poets, and scientists are, mostly, in waking-sleep. He appears to reserve higher levels of understanding for such as
Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Krishna, Buddha, Socrates, and the like.27
Sometimes a First Conscious Shock can be triggered more or less by accident, although to be in a position to utilize,
assimilate, or understand the impressions, one would have to be prepared or more generally interested in wider
perspectives than one’s own I’s. As an example of how this can occur, we can cite the case of Edgar Mitchell, the American
astronaut.28 When Mitchell first saw planet Earth from space, he says that he had an overwhelming, emotionally intense
experience in which he saw the absurdity of sleeping humanity’s predilection for nationalism, sectarianism, and war—for, in
other words, separateness. Such a perspective strikes one as ecological, in the full sense of the word; his level of
understanding had merged with or become the point of view of the planet as a whole. Whether or not his understanding
remained at that level would depend on whether or not he developed it or worked on himself.
Within waking-sleep, certain relationships are seen naturally or automatically, such as the sense of unity one has with
members of one’s family, town, state, country, and so on, that is, those who share one’s religion, cultural background, race,
political viewpoints, general interests, occupation. To feel such relationships requires, apparently, sufficient psychic energy
to take impressions in mechanically and to understand them with the moving part of the intellect. To go higher, to feel all
humans as brothers and sisters, the earth as one’s mother, is to become more conscious—to see things from a higher
perspective than is automatic to the formatory apparatus.
Such considerations indicate the general direction understanding takes as it evolves toward higher consciousness.
Higher means more general, more unified—we see things more in relation, less in opposition. From the point of view of deep
waking-sleep, the world prevails in small barely related atoms: me (or the me that’s present at the moment), my body, my
soul, my mind, my family, my possessions, my living, my town, my state, my country, my allies, my enemies.
That we admit of relations at all shows that even in this state of consciousness, certain kinds of unities are
comprehended. As we go lower on the scale of consciousness, we see less relatedness. When we die, our body
disintegrates into smaller pieces, and human consciousness becomes impossible. First our body as a whole disintegrates
into protozoa, thus our level of being and consciousness. Eventually the protozoa die and become earth, and our level of
being follows. Once the matter becomes rock, coal, etc., we have, it seems, reached the end of the Ray of Creation (or close
to it!).
That’s one direction we can go. As we go in the other direction and approach the level of being awake, relations become
more important. We may become more concerned with the survival of the biosphere, for example, than with the comfort of
some of our I’s, and since survival of the biosphere depends, in large measure, on how its highest species behaves, we
would become concerned with the sleepy way our species carries on.
The concern, if it is a manifestation of genuine awakeness, is not a function of one center alone—merely an intellectual
concern, for example, or a matter of strong feelings alone. It would encompass the entire organism. When it does, we gain
an understanding of how to express our concern, of what to do about it. Given that, theoretically speaking, it means
awakening other human beings, we have to, first of all, make sure that we continue to work on ourselves, for if we should fall
back to sleep and not know it, then our actions would come from sleep and would not, except by chance, be evolutionary.
The point of view of waking-sleep, being more or less atomistic, reflects the energetic and psychological state of the false
personality. We are not unified but consist of many I’s. Our energy is blocked by buffers and so does not flow throughout our
organism and fill all parts of the centers with the proper energetic densities. Therefore, we take in impressions with
unconnected I’s and think, feel, and sense the world in unconnected atoms. As the I’s melt, the buffers dissolve, and our
organism becomes more unified because the flow of energy into the centers is more unified. We thus see, feel, and think of
reality as more related.
The key to becoming and staying awake, then, is melting the buffers. Should we have impressions of higher perspectives,
should impressions from the higher centers enter, and yet we remain buffered, we will not be able to assimilate the
impressions; we will not be able to understand them. For this reason, what we would do, how we would act, even if we think
our actions are based on higher awareness, would not and could not actually be based on it. This is why, from Gurdjieff’s
point of view, so many would-be reformers of the human race fail to achieve their aims even though they may have, as it is
said, good intentions.
The person with good intentions but with buffers still in place takes action based on impressions of greater relatedness
but, because of the buffers, doesn’t see that his or her actions may be leading to precisely the reverse of what is intended.
The octave, in other words, is not shocked by conscious impressions, turns at the interval, and goes off in a different direction
while we remain oblivious of this change.
How often do the actions of inspired social reformers, for example, lead to consequences directly opposed to what they
had intended? How often do the published works of writers and the products of artists of all kinds lead to involutionary
consequences even though the producer had lofty ideals? As we study biographies of those whose research led to the
discovery of nuclear power, for example, we discover that among them were good people, idealists who loved science and
tried to live by its precepts of objectivity, close observation of phenomena, investigation, open-mindedness, etc. Yet like a
child who had the wonderful idea to climb the tree but didn’t consider how he would get down and fell on his head in the
process, these scientists, as they now peruse the consequences of their research, must look up from the ground and cry out,
“My God, what have I wrought!” unless they are so buffered as to fail to see what they have wrought or to feel responsibility
for their actions. (These days, one wonders in a similar vein about another recent and powerful tool/weapon, the “liberating”
computer and its “child,” the Internet.)
A Fly in the Ointment
From Gurdjieff’s point of view, we in waking-sleep would do better and would better serve the world (all worlds) if we first
worked on ourselves to dissolve the buffers before trying anything grander. Yet we have to make a living, and we have our
talents, our inclinations. Can we be expected to refrain from utilizing them until the buffers have been removed? Can a
filmmaker be expected to refrain from making films, a novelist from writing novels, a painter from painting pictures, a teacher
from teaching, a scientist from doing research until the buffers are removed? Does this mean that our efforts, with all our
good intentions, will continue to cement “the consequences of the organ Kundabuffer”?
We could try to find a way to dissolve the buffers, and if we were successful even to a small degree, our understanding
would evolve, and the products of our labor would become less involutionary, less of a factor in the continued buildup of the
said “consequences.” They might even become evolutionary, if we persist, or at least they might become harmless. The
question then becomes how do we go about this? How do we begin the process of buffer dissolution? Is it strictly a matter of
beginning to observe oneself? Maybe so, but there is the thorny problem that as long as buffers are firmly in place, we barely
have sufficient energy to make a living, to keep from completely alienating our children, to stay sober, etc., no less to take
time and energy to practice self-observation.
So there it is, another apparently unsolvable dilemma: we need to observe ourselves to melt the buffers, but because of
the buffers, we have not the energy to observe ourselves. We need, then, a push. We need individuals who are not buffered
(or as buffered) to help us see the manifestations of our buffers and then help us begin the process of dissolution. Because
of the metaphorical nature of the concept of buffers, however, it becomes largely a matter of opinion as to precisely what they
are. This means we have no concrete way of determining who still has them and who does not.
One sees this, for example, in the field of psychology, where different schools of thought have different ideas as to what
constitutes psychological health and therefore what changes need to be made and how to stimulate them. Because he could
not discover what defense mechanisms are in a concrete sense, Freud, for example, as we shall see, continued to alter his
concept of psychological health throughout his career, and this has continued in the field of psychology ever since.
Psychological health remains a poorly understood concept and a matter of debate among psychologists and psychiatrists
because, I think (my thinking is based on Reich’s research, of course), it is not grounded in a concrete understanding.
Similar problems prevail in the various esoteric traditions where different teachers and gurus claim to have reached higher
consciousness, yet the would-be student has no way to determine the validity of the claims. From Gurdjieff’s point of view,
this is not a good situation. Psychological health (and disease), for him, is a matter of fact, not opinion, and the Fourth Way is
supposed to be a way of knowledge, not belief.
Gurdjieff, however, is dead, and so whatever personal help he may have provided his students is no longer available.
Can we gain such knowledge from his writings and the writings of his students alone? But Gurdjieff taught in allegories and
symbols, and we, in our sleepiness, are supposed to understand what he meant? He doesn’t say much in his writings what
buffers are in a concrete sense. Are there other sources that can inform us as to what buffers are in a way that the notion can
be grounded in concrete, experimental proof that even sleepy beings like ourselves can comprehend? We will explore this
further in part 2 and passim.
Absolute Consciousness
Formation of higher-being bodies within the physical body, for Gurdjieff, is not the end of possible evolution. The higher
bodies, it is said, can continue to work on themselves after the death of the physical body to eventually reach the level of
being of the Absolute. In Beelzebub’s Tales, Gurdjieff portrays souls, apparently crystallized on planets by three-brained
beings like ourselves, abiding on what is called the “Holy Planet Purgatory,” where they must continue to practice the work if
they wish to evolve beyond the level of being of a sun.29
Whether this should be taken literally or not at present is not our concern. Gurdjieff transmits this idea, to begin with, so
that he can (at least) provide a perspective on creation in general and show us what is possible in terms of evolution. At the
same time, via this idea, we are told that we are not as close to the perspective of the Absolute or God as we sometimes like
to think. The message is that before we can hope to reach a level of understanding that is anywhere near that of absolute
understanding, we’ve got to first learn to “dig a good ditch”—to see out sleepiness.
Let us take some examples. An airplane is designed to fly through the atmosphere. Its desire (in a manner of speaking) is
to fly. It must move through the atmosphere and against gravity (resistances). If there were no resistances, no second force, it
would simply . . . take off! But then if it could take off, there would be no need to design the airplane in any particular way, for
everything would just take off, which means there would be no need for the desire to fly (first force). This, we would say, is
“magic.” Magic (Gurdjieff is quoted on this somewhere) means not under law—or if no resistance, no need for impetus, and
is the stuff of dreams and fantasies. In real life, second force exists, laws exist, obstacles exist, thus desire exists, or first
force.
A seed (we could say) desires to sprout. To do so, it must move through the earth (second force). A planet (we could say)
desires to rotate in space, and space (or whatever forces prevail as obstacles to the rotation) resists it. A lover desires to
mate but must overcome the resistance of the other. Every desire, every impetus, has its resistance—that which it must go
through or overcome to achieve its aim.
To speak of airplanes, seeds, planets, etc., as having desires and aims, of course, is to speak metaphorically or
anthropomorphically. All that is meant is that first, second, and third force prevail everywhere. On the other hand, via the
Principle of Relativity, desires and aims, as we know them, are functions rooted in the common functioning principle of, for
Gurdjieff, etherokrilno, which means that they occur, in some form, on every level of being or with respect to every cosmos.
Speaking anthropomorphically, then, although considered a faux pas in science—but not in literature, poetry, etc.—is
expressive of a fundamental truth: the Principle of Relativity.
The relativity of the three forces is exhibited when we consider the same situation from a different perspective: from the
atmosphere’s and gravity’s point of view (we could say), the airplane resists their desires, in the case of atmospheric current,
to flow as it flows and, in the case of gravity (how should we put it?), to pull as it pulls. In order to maintain its desire, the
atmosphere (so to speak) must work its way around the moving airplane, whereas gravity, to achieve its aim, must yield to
the airplane’s push. From the point of view of the earth, the seed is the resisting force, for its desire (we could say) is to settle
comfortably, but the seed’s desire to sprout resists its desire and forces it to separate or move over. From the point of view of
the other, the lover’s desire is its resistance, which is not to say that what functions as resistance or second force always
fights, argues, or . . . resists! Resistances sometimes yield. Still the relationship of the forces is relative and depends upon
point of view. My desire can be your obstacle, and your desire my obstacle.
Third force can be thought of as the vehicle, method, strategy, or, in Gurdjieff’s terms, “apparatus” that serves to overcome
resistance and satisfy desire.35 Third force, regarding the airplane’s desire to fly, can be seen as the design of the airplane,
which we can symbolize as the wings. As is evident in this example, the wings use the atmosphere to satisfy the airplane’s
desire to fly. (Gravity is also used in the design of the airplane in terms of necessary speed and angle of takeoff, etc.) The
general truth exhibited is the relationship between the three forces: third force uses second force to satisfy first force.
In the case of the sprouting seed, third force can be conceived of as the design of the roots and stalk that enables them to
work their way through the earth and use it to gain nourishment. In this case, the design is Nature’s/God’s (as Spinoza would
say). In the case of the lovers, the one with the impetus to mate must devise a strategy or an apparatus to overcome the
resistance of the other (which, like all resistances, as mentioned, may be more or less intense). This example of third force,
we could say, is the oldest game in the book (or is it world, I forget).
To begin to write a poem (to sound the note DO in the writing of the poem), a would-be poet must figure out a way to use
what resists the poem’s simply appearing in the world magically, as it were. He or she may simply require a pen and paper,
a simple problem for most poets today. Ancient would-be poets may have had to make a chisel and hammer out of resisting
forces such as rock, metal, wood, etc., and then carve the poem on a cave wall. Or perhaps they had to peel bark from a tree,
dry it, etc., and find or create a writing medium to transcribe the poem.
The modern poet has other problems. Let us say he or she wishes to publish the poems. Obstacles to this desire prevail
in the form of the publishing industry, editors, etc. Third force might be an agent, the poet periodically sending out poems,
and so on. Each step along the octave of getting the poems published is another note and requires impetus, is made in the
face of resistances, and requires a method of use of the resistances, guided by the desire to become actualized, to bear fruit.
It is in this sense that every actualization is a result of three forces.
Reminding Factors
To say that culture keeps us asleep is to identify the general prevalence of culture as second force in relation to the desire
to work on oneself and evolve in consciousness. The power that society’s sleepiness has on anyone’s interest in awakening
is immense and cannot be appreciated unless one attempts to awaken. Third force to overcome this obstacle is provided by
ourselves when we remember the ideas of the work and our aim to awaken. Waking-sleeping culture, like second force
generally, can be used in developing third force for the work. Every sleeping face one sees (especially one’s own) and every
manifestation of humanity’s blindness or lack of contact with the essential (including one’s own) can act as a shock to the
octave of one’s work on oneself, as, in other words, a reminding factor.39
For culture to serve this function, we must see it clearly for what it is, which means paying attention to it and to ourselves
beyond what is necessary for survival and enjoyment, beyond what is habitual for us—beyond what is needed to purchase
the correct food, do our jobs properly, drive a car without accident, and even beyond what we normally consider in the
interests of culture. It means being contemplative while being practical, thinking from the higher parts of the intellect and
feeling from the higher parts of the emotional center while thinking and feeling automatically. It means, as it is sometimes
put, being in the world but not of it.
To overcome the resistances of cultural sleepiness and one’s own sleepiness requires a great deal of first and third force.
We need a strong wish to awaken 40 and methods of overcoming the many I’s, buffers, and what Gurdjieff calls “A” influences,
the influences of social life that lull us to sleep. The tools of the work can serve this function, tools such as self-observation,
self-remembering, the practice of nonidentification, and so on. To keep the wish is not easy, for the desires of sleeping
humanity and those of our own I’s resist such a wish. Thus we must regularly remember our aims and shock the wish-octave
into continuing.
Accidents sometimes help as when we sleepily create a mess and become disgusted at or ashamed (feel what Gurdjieff
calls “remorse”) of our state of sleepiness. But we will soon go back to sleep once the mess is rectified if we have no other
apparatuses available. Accidents, in other words, cannot be counted on to take us very far. They may kindle a new octave of
work practice, but if, when it reaches its interval, another accident does not occur at the right time, the octave dies.
Formation of an observing or working I is formation of a consistent source of first and third force, a consistent reminding
factor for the aim of the work. Formation of a Higher Emotional Body (and any of the higher-being bodies), understood
literally or merely psychologically, is crystallization or structuralization of such a reminding factor that functions more or less
automatically to provide third force for the work since it brings in impressions of unity that consistently remind us who we
really are. To say that it functions more or less automatically is merely to indicate what happens when structures form—the
digestive system, for example, more or less automatically takes care of the function of digestion just as the respiratory system
takes care of respiration. We must say “more or less automatically,” however, since something can go wrong with the
structure—the digestive or respiratory systems can break down from misuse as can, presumably, a Higher Emotional Body.
Maintenance and care, in other words, are needed to keep a function working properly.
Gurdjieff makes it clear that he believes a healthy sex life is of fundamental importance for the process of spiritual
evolution. He is quoted as having said, for example, that those whose sexual lives are governed by “constantly working
buffers, fears, and strange tastes” must eliminate them if they wish to get far in the work.1
Regarding the function of the sex center, Gurdjieff says that it plays a crucial role in creating a “general equilibrium,” a
balanced working of the centers, a condition that can occur only when the centers work with the energetic density proper to
them. The sex center, for Gurdjieff, also plays a central part in forming a “permanent center of gravity,” a notion that refers to
a permanent I, a function of a unified psyche.
But a “general equilibrium” and a “permanent center of gravity” are the very “tsimis” or essence of what it means to be
awake and thus are necessary for any of the higher-being bodies to become crystallized. This is why Gurdjieff can say that
when the sex center works properly, it represents the chief possibility of liberation.2
According to Gurdjieff, when the sex center works properly, all the other centers are able to work with their own energy.
The sex center, he says, is as important for evolution as the higher emotional center and utilizes energy at the same density
as this center, and when healthy sexually, a person is already at a relatively high level of consciousness.3 Regarding the
way the sex center works, he says that it is stronger and quicker than the other centers. Regarding its relationship to the
buffers, he says that buffers can stop the normal manifestation of the sex center but they cannot destroy its energy.4
Buffers, in other words, can prevent a person, on one hand, from feeling sexually excited or, on the other, from
experiencing sexual gratification in complete orgasm, a notion to be further explored via Reich. But the energy that is utilized
by the sex center, even if not excited or released, remains within the body, becoming energy that actually bolsters or
strengthens the buffers. Our study of Reich will show that this is the energy out of which the buffers—in Reich’s terms, the
“armor”—are actually created.
When we are in waking-sleep, our sex center does not work properly—our buffers prevent this. Our sexual lives are
characterized by what Gurdjieff calls a “misuse” of sex. The sex center then utilizes energy of the other centers—it “borrows”
this energy—and the other centers utilize the energy of the sex center. Such a misuse of sex energy for Gurdjieff is a kind of
sexual perversion. For example, he says that when we congregate at parties, in church, at political conventions, and so on,
the unspoken, underlying purpose is for sexual “titillation”—that is, we seek excitation without gratification, which ultimately
leads to frustration. Most social intercourse (among sleeping humans), according to Gurdjieff, actually functions in this way.
Sex Energy
Gurdjieff does not elucidate, in concrete, biophysical, or bioenergetic terms, the nature of sex energy. In Beelzebub’s
Tales, there are symbolic references to it.5
What can be said is that, in Gurdjieff’s system, sex energy, or the form of energy that vibrates at the energetic density that
is properly utilized by the sex center, is a relatively fine form of energy. In other words, sex energy (energy 12) is an energy
that exists at a relatively excited state; it is conceived of as vibrating twice as fast as the energy of the moving center (energy
24) and four times as fast as the energy of the intellect (energy 48).6 Because of its high vibrational quality, this energy has
the potential to bring in very subtle impressions, impressions of the same density as those of the higher emotional center.7 It
can, in other words, attract an extremely rarefied form of food.
As mentioned earlier, for Gurdjieff, each of the foods functions to stimulate energy already present within the organism
and transform it into finer energies. The foods function as “shocks.” They are said to mix with energy within the organism at
the same level of energetic density as the foods themselves. For example, physical food mixes with certain digestive juices
at the same energetic density as the food, air mixes with “cellular energy” at the same energetic density as it is, and
impressions-48 mix with intellectual energy at its level. This “mixing,” for Gurdjieff, functions as a stimulus to further evolution
of the energies.
The discoveries of Wilhelm Reich are rooted in the discoveries and theories of Sigmund Freud. Because of this, a short
summary of the aspects of Freud’s work that are most relevant to Reich’s is necessary:
Freud began analyzing patients in the 1880s, and by 1905 his theories of emotional illness were well grounded in clinical
experience.1 His fundamental discovery was the sexual etiology of the neuroses, that neuroses are due to disturbances in
sexual functioning. His formation of this hypothesis by 1892 was due to clinical experiences in which he had found that
patients who had suffered from neuresthenia and analogous neuroses always suffered from disturbances in their sexuality.2
Earlier in his career, Freud had believed that those who had claimed that hysteria was caused by sexual disturbances had
overestimated the role of sexuality.3 Even at that time, however, he had recognized that sexual dysfunction played an
important part in the etiology of hysteria.4 By 1892, Freud had come to the conclusion that interference in healthy sexuality
was the most important etiological factor in cerebral neurasthenia 5 and in anxiety neurosis.6
Hysteria in women, Freud concluded, was due to their having to hold back sexual excitation when their men were
impotent during intercourse.7 Anxiety neuroses in general, he believed, were due to damming up of psychical sexual
tension. He viewed the symptoms as expressions of the transformation of the accumulated sexual tension.8 At the same time,
he postulated that psychoses and epilepsy were due to sexual abuse of infants prior to fifteen to eighteen months old.9
As Reich points out,1 0 these theories of Freud’s were based on the theories of Josef Breuer, who had claimed, before
Freud, that sexual disturbance is the cause of all neuroses.11 Breuer had believed that the sexual instinct is the most
powerful source of the neuroses,12 that neuroses were due to an accumulation of tension,13 and that the great majority of
severe neuroses in women originate in the marriage bed.14
Freud theorized that sexual disturbances were due to impediments in the free circulation of a sexual substance or energy
(“Sexualstoffe”). He first referred to such a substance in 1892 15 and had even postulated that migraine was caused by the
toxic effect of unreleased Sexualstoffe.16 He believed that psychological illnesses were organic in origin, due to disturbances
in the energy that he imagined must circulate physically within the organism. When this substance was not released
genitally, he thought, it would reach the cerebral cortex and have a toxic effect. An analogy Freud used to picture this
process was that of a stream that meets an obstacle, becomes dammed up, and must flow into other channels.17
The notion that sexual energy is physical remained with Freud for many years, although he was never able to fulfill his
hope of discovering its chemical properties. In 1895, he said that an indispensable hypothesis regarding the nature of
sexual release was that it involves chemical products.18 In a paper written in 1905 and revised in 1924, Freud criticized Jung
for watering down the theory of the sexual instincts into a general instinctive force and said that sexuality is governed by a
specific sexual force indicative of a special chemistry.19 In 1924, Freud expressed his hope that the chemistry of the sexual
force would someday be discovered and as late as 1930 revealed that he had not completely abandoned this hope.20
Freud’s early theory evolved into a theory of instinctual energies known as the Libido Theory. In this theory, he postulated
the existence of two basic instincts, the Self-Preservation Instinct and the Sexual Instinct, the force behind that he termed
“libido.”21 The term “libido” first appeared in 1895 in a paper on anxiety neurosis where it was defined as “psychical desire.”22
Although manifested as psychic symptoms, libido was originally thought of as a physical energy, thus a development of the
earlier concept of Sexualstoffe. Freud speaks of “libidinal impulses”23 and says that neurosis is caused by a deflection of
somatic sexual excitation from the physical sphere. He thought that when a person becomes sexually excited and the
excitation is not released genitally, it reaches the cerebral cortex and supplies ideas with sexual energy (a concept
obviously connected to his previous theory of the dynamics of migraine).24 As late as 1915, Freud said that the libido theory
was part of a theory of a chemical basis to sexuality. Libido was thought of as a quantitative force behind sexual excitation
distinguished from the Self-Preservation Instinct or nutritive forces by its chemistry.25
Neurotic symptoms, on this theory, were conceived to be a function of what Freud called “libido cathexis,” a process in
which libido was said to “attach” itself to nonsexual ideas or “objects” and become “object libido.”26 This view is clearly an
outgrowth of his earlier theory that neurotic symptoms are caused by the transformation of dammed-up, accumulated sexual
tension due to disturbances in natural or genital release of sexual substances. The concept of “cathexis,” like that of sexual
energy, was originally taken in a purely physiological sense, as a physiological displacement of energy.27 It was used in a
psychological sense for the first time in Freud’s description of a case of hysterical paralysis,28 and in 1905, he claimed that
cathexis should be understood psychologically29 although tacitly expressing his belief in the ultimate physiological nature of
the process by use of expressions like “cathected with energy.”30
Libidinal cathexis, for Freud, constituted a misplacement of libido, an abnormal employment of sexual excitation.31
Neuroses were seen as an outgrowth of an absence of normal coition,3 2 and neurotics as people crippled in their sexual
function.33 Freud thought that to reestablish psychological health required restoration of the capacity for healthy genitality. He
implied that civilized sexuality leads to neurosis34 and that the sexual behavior of human beings lays down the fundamental
pattern for all other modes of reacting to life. A sexually energetic person, for Freud, will be energetic in all other modes of
life, and one not energetic sexually will not be energetic in other respects.35 Since neurotic symptoms were viewed as
expressions of misplaced sex energy, the symptoms were seen as the way a neurotic expresses his or her sexual needs
(albeit without gratification).36
Freud argued that physicians should ask patients questions concerning their sexual lives and thought that when they do
not, they completely miss the fact that all neurotics are genitally disturbed.37 This view, in the context of the time, was quite
revolutionary and courageous, for physicians felt that such questioning was an invasion of privacy not to be breached. Freud
implied, however, that physicians failed to inquire into the sexual lives of their patients not for this reason but because the
physicians were afraid to, that they suffered from sexual disturbances themselves that interfered with objective
examination.38
Eventually, however, Freud abandoned his theory that direct or genital expression of libido was required for restoration of
emotional health. He turned instead to the theory of “sublimation” of libido, a theory that entailed that health would result
when libido was redirected to nonsexual activities.39 Sublimation was thought of as a process in which sexual energy was
diverted to “higher” aims, and Freud thought that this process was the source of energy for a great number of cultural
achievements such as great art and music.40 The desire to look at the sexual organs of another, which are hidden by
clothing, for example, he thought could be sublimated in the direction of art.41 He believed that sublimation could be more or
less complete and that when complete would lead to emotional health.42 Even so, he continued to believe in the importance
of genitality and said, for example, that a certain amount of sexual satisfaction is necessary for most people and that a
deficiency leads to illness.43
One of Freud’s most important discoveries was that sexuality functions in infants and children. As early as 1892, he had
said that children experience sexual release from many parts of the body, what he called the “erotogenic zones.”44 Children,
for Freud, were “polymorphously perverse,”45 in that any part of their skin surface could serve as an erogenous area.46 His
concept of erotogenic zones evolved to the theory that three basic erotogenic zones exist—the oral, anal, and genital—and
that as infants and children mature, sexual energy changes in focus from the oral, to the anal, and then to the genital zone.47
Neurosis, Freud believed, could be caused by lack of satisfaction during any of these states.
Originally Freud had believed that neuroses were caused by overt sexual abuse of infants and children (by adults). Later
he came to think that it more often was a case of sexual fantasies on the part of the children regarding their own sexual
activity, infantile and childhood masturbation.48 In the context of his revised theory, the concept of sublimation now made
more sense, for if it was fantasy that was at the root of neuroses and not overt sexual suppression or abuse; then there
seemed no reason why successful sublimation would not lead to emotional health.49
In “Three Essays on Sexuality,” Freud defined the instincts as psychical representations of an endosomatic
(physiological) excitation but added that he was still ignorant as to what sexual excitation really was.50 Nineteen years later,
he added a footnote to this essay (1924), saying that although the theory of the instincts was the most important aspect of
psychoanalytical theory, it also was the least complete portion, that the actual nature or somatic basis of the instincts was
unknown.51 Given that the concept of the instincts was the ground of psychoanalytic theory and practice and that the nature
of them was unknown, it is not surprising that serious difficulties would emerge in terms of therapeutic technique. Therapy
was being carried out in ignorance of the fundamental processes that the theory behind therapeutic technique was based
on.
The two major difficulties were what were called the “negative therapeutic reaction” (that many patients became worse
even when correctly analyzed) and the inability of many patients to follow the “basic psychoanalytical rule” (to freely
associate and communicate with the analysts). Because of the first difficulty, that some patients whose analysis was
assumed to have been correct became worse, Freud believed that there must be a force at work within the organism that
pulled people away from health and toward destruction. He first mentioned this as the “compulsion to retreat” in a paper
entitled “The Uncanny,” published in 1919.52
A year later, he presented the hypothesis that there is an instinct for death, for a return to what he thought was the original
state of matter, the inorganic state.53 In The Ego and the Id, he distinguished two classes of instincts: “Eros,” which included
the sexual and self-preservation instincts, and the “Death Instinct” (or “Thanatos”), which he believed accounted for the
negative therapeutic reaction and was most clearly exhibited in sadism.54 In one of his final essays, he claimed that the
Death Instinct represents that in humans which is destructive and that it becomes actually destructive when directed outward
onto objects as in war.55 When directed inwardly, he thought, it destroys us; when directed outwardly, it destroys others;
when sublimated, it could be rendered harmless. Freud admitted, however, that this theory was speculative.56 Although this
idea was discriminated as a way of accounting for the negative therapeutic reaction, Freud had anticipated it before this
reaction had become a generally known therapeutic problem, as early as 1905 when he had speculated on the possibility of
an instinct for cruelty, which he had connected to anal eroticism.57
Reich, a student and colleague of Freud, like the other analysts, was confronted by the negative therapeutic reaction. In
his clinical experience, however, he found that there was a way to overcome it and that when this way could be
implemented, the reaction did not occur. This indicated to him that the negative therapeutic reaction was not rooted in an
instinct—for if it was, he reasoned, then there would be no way to overcome it—but to an improper understanding of
neuroses and so improper therapeutic technique.58 Given that the problem had been considered so resistant to
psychoanalytical technique that Freud had had to develop the theory that it was rooted in an instinct, Reich’s discovery
should have been considered a significant advance in the understanding of the neuroses.
What was Reich’s discovery? He found that when patients were able to form satisfying sexual relationships and engage
in periodic, gratifying sexual intercourse, no negative therapeutic reaction occurred.59 This simple if profound discovery was
in accord with Freud’s early theory of the etiology of the neuroses and the means of overcoming them: that they were due to
a damming up of unsatisfied sexual energy and could be overcome when patients could release sexual energy in coitus.
Because of his success in overcoming the negative therapeutic reaction by helping his patients regain the capacity for
genital gratification, Reich developed the hypothesis that neurotic symptoms were manifestations of sexual energy in a state
o f stasis and that this sexual-energy-in-stasis was the source of neurosis. On this theory, the therapeutic goal became to
stimulate the energy that was in stasis to begin moving again and then for the patients to find suitable partners for periodic,
gratifying release of the now-moving energy. The source for the symptoms would no longer exist, and the symptoms would
disappear.60
It had been Freud’s formulation of the negative therapeutic reaction, says Reich, that had enabled him to overcome it.61
But by the time Reich had come to this understanding (the findings were first published in 1927),62 Freud had abandoned his
earlier theory for the concepts of sublimation and the Death Instinct. Together, these concepts exhibit a different attitude
toward sexuality and culture than Freud had expressed earlier in his career. He now believed that neurotics were those who
poorly adapted to society in that they had failed to properly sublimate their instincts. Neurotics were viewed as those in
whom Thanatos had triumphed over Eros. Freud’s earlier attitude had been that culture was the root cause of neurosis
because it represses natural genitality,6 3 and, as we have seen, he had chastised others who had ignored the sexual
etiology of the neurosis. He now believed, as he said to Reich in 1929, that culture takes precedence.64
By the 1920s, Freud conceived of psychoanalysis as a discipline that took the “middle road,” that its function was to help
patients adjust to society through sumblimation.65 Psychoanalysis, in other words, for Freud, should not be aimed at
restoration of genital health but to serve societal repression through sublimation of sexuality. The instincts had to be
sublimated because they contained impulses that if fulfilled, he thought, would lead to dissolution of society (sexual
impulses and the Death Instinct). When Reich presented Freud with his clinical evidence that contradicted this perspective,
Freud rejected the evidence without investigating it.
The chronic traits Reich had discovered functioned as a protection against such feelings and thoughts, as, in other words,
a kind of armor, which Reich eventually called “character armor.”68 Reich, via the technique of character analysis, had found
a unique way to penetrate the “Freudian unconscious.”
This discovery revealed that neuroses were not simply expressed in neurotic symptoms—such as hysteria, phobias,
irrational outbursts, an inability to concentrate, specific sexual dysfunctions, and so on—but were expressed in the character
as a whole. The individual traits, in other words, functioned together to form a “character,” a personality (to use the term
Gurdjieff was partial to), and it was the character that was neurotic. As a whole, the person was seen as armored against
feelings and thoughts that he or she could not consciously experience. Thus the armor itself was the basis for the neurotic
symptoms. The symptoms, Reich says, would disappear with dissolution of the armor.
Character Armor
Over time, Reich found that character armor consists of chronic contractions, a chronic holding of the muscles of the
body.69 He learned that people are forced to contract various muscles and muscle groups in order to suppress impulses,
emotions, and thoughts that are not allowed free expression by parents, teachers, clergymen, siblings, or friends.
If you want to get an idea of what’s involved, stop for a moment and make believe you are sad and are about to cry, and
then try and stop the expression. What did you do with your body? When I try this, I find myself tightening my neck, my mouth,
my jaw, holding my chest still and rigid, tightening my stomach, holding my pelvis still, and holding my breath. Attempt this
with expressions of rage, reaching out longingly for affection, reaching out with your mouth to suckle or kiss, touching your
genitals, and so on, and I think you’ll begin to understand how much of the body’s muscles are involved when we are forced
to suppress such impulses and feelings.
Such suppression and the subsequent muscular rigidity, Reich found, occurs spontaneously and unconsciously in
reaction to what the outside world is requiring at the moment, begins in infancy and childhood, and thus, most significantly,
becomes habitual and chronic, meaning that we could not let go of it even if we wished to. For this reason, people are not
aware that they are armored. The postures and expressions that are symptomatic of characterological rigidity are considered
“normal,” as how we are supposed to hold ourselves and behave in society.
Reich says that armor develops in layers, with the earliest suppressed material at the bottom, so to speak. The first
impulses suppressed—those that emerge during the final stages of therapy—are impulses Freud called “libidinal impulses,”
such as impulses of love, sexual impulses (oral, anal, genital), a finding in accord with Freud’s original theory as to the
sexual etiology of the neuroses.
Emotions such as sadness, rage, anxiety, longing for love emerge earlier in therapy and were found to have been
suppressed later. According to Reich, they function as responses to suppression of the earliest impulses. They, like the
“libidinal” impulses, also were not allowed full expression and so had to be suppressed. Generally speaking, Reich found
that impulses, emotions, and thoughts suppressed latest—those utilized by us to keep the rest of the suppressed material
buried—emerge in therapy first.
One finding that was momentous in terms of psychoanalytic theory and practice was that the impulses Freud had
identified as due to the so-called “death instinct”—violent rage and other destructive impulses that lay behind the negative
therapeutic reaction and resistance to therapy in general—are, like other impulses and emotions, held in by the armor.
Reich found that they could be released harmlessly during therapy and would then dissolve—evidence that Freud’s theory
that such impulses are due to an instinct, to something that, by definition, or by its very nature, could not be removed, was
false.70
The Orgasm
Reich’s most important discovery during this period was the nature and function of the orgasm, a discovery that, to this
day, remains relatively unknown and unheeded by traditional psychiatry and psychology. He says that he found that patients
judged sexually healthy according to the standards of psychoanalysis and medicine in general—that they could have
erections, ejaculations, experience clitoral orgasm, or, in general, that they could “perform” adequately—nevertheless
suffered from severe genital disturbances.74 He found that those thought orgastically potent reported that they often
experienced little or no pleasure during coitus but felt disgust and other unpleasant sensations instead. Through analysis of
emotional expressions, discussions, and analysis of fantasies, Reich found that armored men and women felt a great deal of
violent emotions (mostly the men), passivity (mostly the women), and other nonsexual emotions during intercourse. Reich
eventually came to the conclusion that every neurotic person is orgastically impotent, that they are unable to experience
complete gratification in the genital embrace.
On the other hand, he found that when armor dissolved through therapy, patients no longer experienced unpleasant
sensations but only pleasurable ones and that relatively unarmored patients no longer felt violence, passivity, and other
nonsexual feelings during intercourse. Previously neurotic people became emotionally healthy and sexually healthy at the
same time, and the latter seemed directly related to the former. Because he was able to help patients become sexually
healthy, he learned, through close questioning of them, what the sexual experiences of sexually healthy people are like,
gaining access to a realm of human experience that had been virtually closed off to others.
Orgastic Potency
He found that orgastic potency is characterized by the following traits: when a man becomes sexually excited and the
penis becomes erect (fills with blood), he experiences an erection that is pleasurable and not painful. The penis, says Reich,
is not overexcited as it is with men who suffer from premature ejaculation. When a woman becomes sexually excited, the
vaginal walls become hyperemic (fill with blood) and moist, but in a specific way. He found that the secretion has chemical
and physical properties not present in sexually disturbed women.75
Both women and men are spontaneously gentle with no sadistic impulses in men or passivity in women. Reich says that
men and women act no differently from one another during intercourse, indicating that typical role differences are neurotic,
caused by character armor. Pleasurable excitation developed during the preliminary stages, Reich found, remains at about
the same level. The man feels an urge to penetrate but with no sadistic impulses to “pierce” the woman. Nor does the
healthy woman wish to be “pierced.” There are no rape fantasies in healthy women.
With penetration of the penis, excitation suddenly increases in both the man and the woman. Reich says that the man has
a sensation of being “sucked in,” and the woman, of “sucking in” the penis. Mutual, slow, spontaneous, and effortless
movements and friction lead to a buildup of excitation that Reich says is concentrated on the surface and the glans of the
penis and on the posterior parts of the vaginal mucous membrane.
At this point, says Reich, the body is less excited than the genitals, and consciousness is completely concentrated on the
sensations of pleasure, something that with the orgastically impotent does not happen. Both partners, he says, continue to
gently exhaust all possibilities of pleasure and reach a state of maximum sexual tension before yielding at acme to the
release of the tension. Sexually healthy partners, Reich determined, are sensitive to one another’s feelings and sensations.
Talking or laughing does not occur, he says, except for words of tenderness.
Interruption of friction is pleasurable and can prolong the sexual act. As friction continues, the excitation increases and
begins to spread throughout the whole body, while excitation at the genitals remains more or less the same. There then
occurs a sudden increase of genital excitation, and voluntary control is no longer possible. The increase produces rapid
heartbeats, deep expirations, and excitation becomes more concentrated on the genitals.
A sensation of “melting” sets in, a sensation of radiation of excitation from the genitals to the rest of the body. Acme then
occurs with involuntary contractions of the musculature of the genitals and the pelvic floor, which occur in waves, with the
crests occurring at penetration and the troughs at retraction of the penis. This leads to ejaculation in the male.
At this point, there occurs a more or less intense clouding of consciousness, friction becomes spontaneously more
intense, the man feels the urge to penetrate completely, and the woman to receive completely. The whole body is then taken
over by the orgastic excitation, and the entire body musculature expands and contracts in what became known as the
“orgasm reflex.” Excitation flows back from the genitals to the body, and a sudden decrease in tension is experienced. Acme,
says Reich, is the point where excitation changes direction from toward the genital to back toward the body. It is the
complete flowing of excitation back to the body, he says, that constitutes complete gratification. Excitation then gently tapers
off and is followed by pleasurable relaxation and a tender, loving attitude toward the partner. Reich found that in both sexes,
orgasm is more intense and gratification more complete when peaks of genital excitation coincide.
Orgastic Impotence
As one studies Reich’s description of a complete orgasm and compares it with what is usually thought of as normal
sexual experience, the magnitude of Reich’s discovery becomes apparent. When any of the properties described by Reich
are missing, an orgastic disturbance exists. Of course, with prolonged forced abstinence, even the orgastically potent
individual may experience absence of complete orgasm, for the genitals might become overexcited and premature
ejaculation could occur in the male. It is also true that, for various reasons, orgastically potent individuals do not always
experience complete orgasm. For instance, sometimes the partners do not harmonize in their rhythms. As Reich says, it
takes a long time to get to know one’s love partner in the body, which means that experience with a particular individual can
increase the capacity for complete gratification.76
Orgastic impotence is characterized by experiences of what Reich calls “leaden” exhaustion, disgust, repulsion,
indifference, and occasionally hatred toward the partner. During the excitation phase, men often experience unpleasurable
erections, and women, lack of pleasurable sensations in the vagina. As tension increases, the orgastically impotent person
does not let go of voluntary control, and the involuntary convulsions of the body musculature do not occur. This entails lack
of complete discharge of the tension and no concomitant sensation of release or gratification.
The other psychoanalysts were skeptical when Reich proposed his theory that not one neurotic person was orgastically
potent and that orgastic potency is the condition of psychic health. But Reich was apparently the only analyst who
questioned his patients so extensively regarding their sexual experiences and feelings. In this way, he was able to follow
their progress in their sexual lives as their armor dissolved and could conclude that as armor dissolves, orgastic potency and
sexual gratification improves. Furthermore, Reich’s technique evolved so that he was able to view patients in his office in a
way that he could see any improvements in their capacity to experience an orgasm reflex, a discovery to be further
explained in the following chapter.
The other analysts did not have Reich’s experience or understanding of the orgasm and its relation to the chronic
character traits or armoring that functioned as the foundation of their neurosis, and most of them rejected his concepts out of
hand. They could have taken a more liberal or open view of Reich’s theory simply on the basis of proper scientific method: a
true scientist doesn’t reject a theory without studying the evidence. It seems to me that had the analysts been more
conscientious, scientifically speaking, they would have reserved judgment and tested the hypothesis before condemning it.77
Notes
1. Freud, vol. I, p. 50; see also “On Psychotherapy,” vol. VIII, p. 243.
2. Ibid., vol. I, p. 142 (“Extracts from the Fliess Papers”).
3. Ibid., p. 50.
4. Ibid., p. 51.
5. Ibid., p. 142 (“Footnotes to Charcot”).
6. Ibid., p. 178.
7. Ibid., p. 181.
8. Ibid., pp. 191-3.
9. Ibid., p. 240.
10. RSF, p. 121, note 2.
11. Freud, vol. II, p. xxvi.
12. Ibid., pp. 200, 246-7.
13. Ibid., pp. 257-8.
14. Ibid., p. 246.
15. Ibid., vol. I, p. 191.
16. Ibid., p. 214.
17. Ibid., p. 345. Reich used the same analogy sixty years later to picture how armor derives from the blockage of the flow
of orgone energy. See RSF, pp. 42-3.
18. Ibid., p. 321 (“Project for a Scientific Psychology”).
19. Ibid., vol. VII, p. 217 (“Three Essays on Sexuality”).
20. RSF, p. 120, note 9.
21. Freud, vol. XVIII, p. 255; see also Ola Rakness, OEB, vol. 4, no. 1 (January 1952): pp. 13-18.
22. Freud, vol. III, p. 107.
23. Ibid., p. 281.
24. Ibid., p. 108.
25. Ibid., vol. VII, p. 215. The resemblance of this theory to Gurdjieff’s notion of sex energy as H-12 in relation to nutritive
energies as H-768 to H-96 is interesting.
26. Ibid., vol. III, p. 108.
27. Ibid., vol. II, p. xxii.
28. Ibid., p. 89.
29. Ibid., pp. xxiv-xxv.
30. Ibid., vol. III, p. 174.
31. Ibid., p. 108.
32. Ibid., p. 109.
33. Ibid., p. 274.
34. Ibid., vol. IX, pp. 161ff.
35. Ibid., p. 198. See also vol. VII, p. 272.
36. Ibid., vol. VII, p. 278. The resemblance of this theory to Gurdjieff’s theory of the “borrowing” of sex energy by the other
centers is obvious.
37. Ibid., vol. III, p. 264.
38. Ibid., pp. 264ff. According to Reich, in the 1920s Freud continued to hold such an opinion regarding most of his
disciples, the psychoanalysts. See RSF, p. 67.
39. Ibid., vol. VII, p. 238.
40. Ibid., p. 178.
41. Ibid., p. 279.
42. Ibid., p. 238.
43. Ibid., vol. IX, p. 188.
44. Ibid., vol. I, 239.
45. Ibid., vol. VII, pp. 191ff.
46. Ibid., pp. 183-4, 201.
47. Ibid., p. 274.
48. Ibid., p. 274.
49. Ibid., vol. XVIII, p. 256.
50. Ibid., vol. VII, p. 216.
51. Ibid., p. 168.
52. Ibid., vol. XVIII, pp. 3-4.
53. Ibid., p. 38, 49-57, 60-3, 102, 258-9; see also vol. XXII, p. 107.
54. Ibid., vol. XIX, p. 40.
55. Ibid., vol. XXII, “Why War?”
56. Ibid., vol. XXIII, p. 41; vol. XXII, p. 211. See also RSF, p. 72.
57. Ibid., vol. VII, p. 199ff.
58. Raknes, op. cit.
59. EW, pp. 158ff.
60 G, pp. 7ff; FO, pp. 87ff.
61. RSF, p. 72. (Reich had apparently let his colleagues know prior to publication. See Myron Sharaf, Fury on Earth [New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983], pp. 86ff.)
62. G (originally entitled “Die Funktion des Orgasmus”).
63. Freud, vol. IX, “Civilized Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness,” passim.
64. RSF, pp. 44-5.
65. Ibid., p. 52.
66. CA, p. 54.
67. Though Reich is not always given credit for this. In RSF, for example, it is reported that in the book The History of
Psychiatry, by Franz Alexander and H. G. Selznick, MD (1966), there is not a single reference to Reich, the man known
as “Freud’s pet,” whom Freud called “the best head” of his students. See Sharaf, op. cit., pp. 102ff.
68. FO, p. 360.
69. CA, pp. 53, 323, 364-5, and passim.
70. Ibid., pp. 249-98, 310-30, 367-73.
71. RSF, pp. 42-51, 80, and passim; PT, passim.
72. RSF, p. xi.
73. Ibid., p. xi. Reich was expelled. He did not resign as E. Jones reports in his History of Psychoanalysis. See also Sharaf,
op. cit., pp. 5, 84, 186-8.
7 4 . FO, p. 77. Sharaf, op. cit., pp. 86ff, reports that Reich also analyzed the case histories of hundreds of other patients
besides his own regarding their sexual lives.
75. See IC, p. 126. Everything else reported in this section comes from FO, pp. 79-87.
76. TMC, Chapter 3.
77. Reich says the basic reason his theory was rejected without investigation is that most of the analysts, like most people,
were genitally disturbed (RSF, pp. 17, 106). This is not mere speculation or sour grapes, for if they had not been
disturbed, their reaction would have been scientifically rational, i.e., they would have reserved judgment and tested the
hypothesis. Instead, some reverted to slander (RSF, p. 8), spreading false rumors concerning Reich’s mental state that
persist to this day, invective, and ridicule.
See also Beyond Psychology, by Reich, edited with a wonderful introduction by Mary Boyd Higgins, published by Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, New York, 1994.
CHAPTER THREE
Armoring
Basic Character Types
Character armor, according to Reich, generally speaking, is the product of the interaction of a threatening, hostile world
with the innocent, vulnerable organism. Chronic muscular rigidity develops because, as infants, children, adolescents, and
adults, we are forced to suppress core or basic biological impulses and emotions—in Gurdjieff’s terms, our essences—and
the impulses and emotions that result from this suppression.
To suppress such impulses and emotions, we are forced to unconsciously and chronically contract certain muscles and
inhibit our breathing. In this way, impulses and emotions are blocked before being expressed. In an environment
consistently suppressive of core emotions and impulses—the environment of most societies known to recorded history—
people become chronically armored. Our world is a world of armored men and women, a planet of people out of contact with
our basic or essential nature.
Reich discriminated a number of character types, each distinguished by a pattern of armoring.1 The two most fundamental
types, for Reich, are the Neurotic Character Type and the Genital Character Type. According to Reich, these two types are
defined by the rigidity of the armoring. The Neurotic Character Type is characterized as having rigid armoring to the extent
that the person cannot change or eliminate it. The Genital Character Type also has armor, but it is not rigid, and the person is
therefore capable of dropping the armor when it is not needed. In other words, the person is able to respond flexibly to
different situations.2
Although each person and each type exhibits different character traits, Reich presented a general picture of the Neurotic
Character Type as one where the organism holds back. The shoulders are pulled back, the chest thrust out, the chin rigid,
the breathing superficial and suppressed, the pelvis retracted, and the legs rigidly stretched out—a posture expressive, says
Reich, of total restraint.3 The armored person is incapable of breaking down his or her own armor or of expressing his or her
biological (core or essence) emotions; is incapable of expressing a sigh of pleasure, which Reich says comes out as a
groan, a suppressed, pent-up roar, or possibly an impulse to vomit; cannot vent anger by banging a fist; cannot breathe out
fully due to constriction of the diaphragm.4
The armored organism is incapable of moving the pelvis forward and when asked to do so will not understand or will
actually retract it. The peripheral muscles are acutely sensitive to pressure because they are chronically contracted. Reich
says that when he would touch certain parts of the bodies of particular patients, his touch caused acute anxiety or
nervousness.
Each individual character structure is unique. Sometimes it is anger that is suppressed, sometimes mainly expressions of
sadness, longing for affection, or the desire to explore one’s genitals. Parents may use physical violence to suppress their
children or some form of psychological violence such as mocking the child or berating it. Some parents suppress emotions
consistently, day after day, while others do so only intermittently. In some families, suppression is carried out by only one
parent, while in others, both parents may be involved, or other siblings, grandparents, boyfriends or girlfriends, and so on.
The influence of teachers or religious leaders add to this picture, although it seems that the parents influence is most
important, and during the first few months or years, the mother counts the most.5
As armor begins to dissolve, spastic muscles begin to shiver involuntarily, indicating they are beginning to break down or
give in.8 This can lead to further contractions as the organism “fights” to maintain the armoring. For example, when oral
armoring is loosened prior to the freeing of neck and chest armor, an expression of sadness may emerge on the mouth,
which is then transformed into a hateful grin as neck and chest armor clamps down against the feeling and expression of
sadness. Reich found generally that when an impulse to surrender is obstructed by armor, it turns into destructive rage.
Elimination of muscular rigidity throughout the organism leads to development of the orgasm reflex, says Reich, which
develops as a matter of course when the armor is broken down. This means that the armor functions, not merely to hold
down emotions suppressed in infancy and childhood, but, just as essentially, to prevent the orgasm reflex from occurring.
Although the variables of armor formation are numerous, Reich found that he could grasp the essence of his patients’
characters rather quickly by asking them not to speak. Speech often functioned as a defense, but when his patients were
silent, Reich soon learned to comprehend their most conspicuous character traits because it was in the body expression that
emotional expressions were most easily comprehended. Reich says, for example, that a friendly laugh might turn into an
empty grin, reserved seriousness into an expression of suppressed anger as it appeared on the chin and neck during
silence. Body expression, Reich learned, is a language, and he learned to read it and work with it.9
When people are armored, says Reich, it is not as if they are handicapped in a mechanical way but that inhibition sets in
when the body movements are expressive of emotions. An example Reich gave is the armoring of the chest and arms. A
person may be capable of moving the arms mechanically, but when emotions such as yearning or longing arise, the arms
suddenly become immobile, incapable of expressing these emotions.10 Eventually Reich learned to sense the emotional
expression behind the body expression, not merely to read it. He says the expressive movements of his patients involuntarily
caused him to imitate the movement and personally experience the emotions behind it.
Thus Reich learned to put himself in his patient’s shoes, to almost feel their feelings, thus to better understand what they
were going through. This idea is also found in Gurdjieff and is an aspect of what he called “external considering,” or the
ability to adapt to others, to their understanding.11 The kinds of imitation Reich learned to do is one powerful way of
becoming intimately acquainted with the inner lives of others, an important prerequisite to right external considering.
Adolescence
By the time we reach adolescence, our character structure has become a many-layered labyrinth. At the “bottom” are the
core or essence drives, which continue to pulse. On top of them or surrounding them, the armor used to inhibit these drives,
layered according to the time the various impulses were suppressed and the intensity of the suppression. This layer is
covered over by the facade, the “face” we present to the world and to ourselves.
To speak of armor as a labyrinth is to imply that it is not neatly layered but that the combination of core drives, suppressed
emotions and impulses, anxiety, and the facade intertwine in ways that are often confusing. The nature of the labyrinth
depends on the timing and the severity of the suppression, but generally, according to Reich, as mentioned, the earlier the
suppression occurs, the deeper will be the armoring.15 It develops differently if repression occurs when the impulse is at its
peak of intensity or if it occurs when it is weaker. These and other factors determine the type of labyrinth that develops, the
“character type.”16
Is it any wonder that adolescence is a difficult time? During this period, sexual impulses become organized around the
genitals, and the urge to superimpose or mate with a lover begins to surface. The labyrinth of armor is already well formed,
and added to the tension this produces is the fact that these genital impulses are not allowed free expression.
Teenagers are not told that this is a wonderful time to explore their sexuality. Parents don’t offer their homes for
uninhibited, guilt-free sexual activity—condoms provided. This sounds ridiculous or horrible to most of us—immoral. Thus
the damage done by sexual suppression in childhood is intensified in adolescence, and the armoring needed to deal with
such suppression can only evolve and rigidify. In Gurdjieff’s terms, false personality and the buffers gain in strength at the
expense of the essence.
Suppression of sexuality in teenagers increases inner tension and leads to the kind of symptoms adolescence is famous
for: drug and alcohol addiction, an inability or unwillingness to concentrate in school, so-called adolescent rebelliousness
(considered normal in many cultures), and so on. But are these symptoms inevitable? Would unarmored adolescents who
were free to explore their emerging sexuality develop them? Reich’s study of Malinowski’s research into the lives of the
Trobriand Islanders, where adolescent sexuality was allowed free expression, indicates that they wouldn’t, that unarmored,
sexually free adolescents are not rebellious and do not develop neurotic symptoms.17
Adolescent neurotic symptoms, like adult neurotic symptoms, are expressions of the conflict between the core and the
armor.18 Symptoms, therefore, are distorted core impulses, impulses that, before emerging, must make their way through the
labyrinth of the armor and are shaped by it. Adolescents often become overtly hostile, pick fights, commit crimes, drive
recklessly, and so on. Sometimes they become extremely shy or run away from home. They may have difficulty making
contact with others, in studying, need to sleep overlong and yet always feel tired, feel terribly lonely, and feel the need to
move in packs to cover the loneliness. They are prone to deep depressions that often lead to attempts at suicide. Many get
bored easily and turn to excessive drug and alcohol use to liven things up. Adolescents, as William James pointed out, are
particularly prone to religious conversion,1 9 which is considered a more acceptable adjustment in many cultures. These
days, however, this inclination often takes the form of joining various religious or pseudoreligious movements promising
instant relief from their suffering (we call them “cults” these days, a rather poor use of a term used in anthropology to name
any apparently religious belief system), an alternative (speaking of the so-called cults) not as pleasing to most parents yet
caused by their own “policy.”
Some teenagers adjust to the conditions of repressive society in ways considered healthy by society, by competing in
sports, for example. Competitiveness is highly esteemed, and so teenagers who become involved in competitive sports or
who become socially or intellectually competitive are considered the cream of the crop. Yet is the main focus on
competitiveness really healthy? Would unarmored, sexually free adolescents become focused on competitiveness, or would
they learn to cooperate for the purpose of helping others, the biosphere, and so on?
Adolescence is often an angry time. The anger can be seen on many adolescents’ faces as they hang around, bored,
with nothing to do, no place to go. Nothing interests them because the source of their interest, their essence impulses, are
suppressed by their own character armor, and that which they are most intensely interested in, genitality, is denied free, non-
guilt-ridden expression. You can hear it in their music: “All I ever hear is no, you can’t do that . . . you can’t do that.”
Of course not all teenagers are angry. Some are just scared, suffering from anxiety about grades, their social lives, guilt
about masturbation, and so on. Others give up gratification of their own desires and become resigned to conforming out of
deep-seated fear, while others keep as stoned as they can, finding emotional oblivion the best solution. Adults sometimes
take adolescent drug use, alcoholism, reckless driving, sexual interest and behavior as symptoms of their fundamental evil
nature and as confirmation of their own deep-seated hate of the living (“I told you we never should have had children. Look
at the grief he is causing us.”). That their desire for sexual contact can be seen in the same light as antisocial behavior,
criminal behavior, reckless driving, and so on is symptomatic of the adult world’s armored, perverse comprehension of
sexuality.
Psychologists, educators, social workers, and other professionals appear baffled by the so-called adolescent problem.
Numerous articles and books are written on the subject; it is discussed incessantly on talk radio and television, and many
“answers” are provided: “Adolescence is a difficult time,” “It’s natural for teenagers to feel awkward with the opposite sex,”
“We should put them to work or in the army, that’ll cure them, take their minds off sex and drugs,” “They shouldn’t be allowed
to drink or drive until they reach the age of twenty-one,” “They should be treated more like adults,” “There is no one reason
for adolescent alcoholism or drug abuse,” “It all starts in the home,” and so on. Each “answer” contains a bit of truth, but few
professionals face the problem directly: adolescents are sexually suppressed at a time when genital urges are powerful.
This leads to anger, anxiety, deep frustration, heartbreaking sadness, resignation, aching longing, and the need to escape.
The fact that many teenagers make it through this period without exhibiting severe or overt symptoms is testimony to the
power of the life force, not to “civilized” suppression.
This is not to imply that all problems of adolescence can be solved via sexual intercourse. Sex is not a panacea. But
we’ve “tried” the opposite approach for a long time now, and the adolescent problem has not gone away. Might we take a
cue from the Trobrianders and learn from Reich’s discoveries that our approach perhaps has been misguided? It is not as if
we have no evidence within our midst of the value of sex-positive upbringing. There are those who have loving, sex-positive
parents and so develop relatively unarmored regarding their own sexuality. It cannot be easy for them, seeing as they must
seek gratifying relationships and meaningful work in an armored, hostile, and resigned world. But at least they have their
core intact and may be able to find some satisfaction in life.20
Destructiveness
Why does the layer of destructiveness form? Reich says that it took him years to understand this process for it takes many
forms, not the least of which is the character’s resistance to attempts to melt the armor. Reich found that people reacted with
intense hatred whenever he attempted to disturb the neurotic equilibrium maintained by the armor. Destructiveness bound in
the armor, Reich learned, is anger about frustration of core emotions and needs in general and a denial of sexual
gratification in particular.22 It is an expression of disappointment in love or to loss of love that has become anchored in the
personality through repression of core rage. Reich says that he found that when impulses of rage are allowed full expression
and dealt with in a life-positive manner, they do not lead to muscular armoring and so do not develop into destructive
impulses. The unarmored organism, Reich found, does not have them; Thanatos exists exclusively in the armored.
Only the impulsive character type, says Reich, expresses the secondary layer in a direct way.23 This is the person we
think of as a sociopath or psychopath, the person without scruples, who has no control of his or her destructiveness. The rest
of us manage to keep most of our destructive hate hidden beneath a veil that forms the surface of the character structure. In
the process, however, we present a false face to the world and to ourselves. We are afraid to drop that face because we are
unconsciously afraid that our inner hate will show itself, not to mention the sadness, longing, anxiety, and love trapped
beneath the hate. Insincerity, then, is our way, and we are afraid of behavior that is not calculated, of what is truly
spontaneous and alive.24
Natural Aggression
The destructiveness that forms the secondary layer of armoring is not equivalent, for Reich, to core rage, which is the
organism’s natural response to chronic disappointment in gratification of its vital needs. It is not, therefore, a primary
biological phenomenon but a property of armoring and must be distinguished, says Reich, from natural aggression. The
literal meaning of “aggression,” he points out, is “approaching,” and, as he says, all life manifestations are aggressive in this
sense.25 Natural aggression, says Reich, is the living manifestation of the musculature, the system of motion and locomotion,
and its goal is to make possible gratification of vital needs.26
Suppression of core drives is suppression of primary desire or natural aggression and leads to the development of
relatively passive adults whose prevalence, according to Reich, allows for the mass psychology of fascism.27 People in
whom natural aggression has been suppressed have not the energy or power to struggle against those who use their
political or economic position to dominate society. Nations of sheep then develop who meekly support or go along with the
various führers of the world. In political democracies, the fact that only a minority of citizens even vote is indicative of this
general passivity, which is exhibited in many other ways as well.
In The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Reich points out how and why people in whom primary desire or natural aggression
is suppressed want their leaders to dominate them—for they unconsciously realize their impotence and prefer to leave the
tackling of society’s problems to others. As Reich points out in Listen Little Man! we have only sufficient natural aggression
left to raise our arms and say, “Sig Heil!” before going back to sleep again.28 Suppression of natural genitality and core
impulses and emotions in general, then, does not merely affect us in terms of our ability to find personal happiness and
satisfaction in life but functions to provide the perfect fodder for those who would dominate and fill their pockets on the
suffering of everyone else.
There are those who struggle. They struggle for human rights, for better working conditions, to abolish the ultimate
expression of humanity’s underlying hate for life, war, what Gurdjieff, in Beelzebub’s Tales, calls the most terrible of all the
horrors that can possibly exist in the whole of the universe.29 That some still stand up against those who would totally
dominate them and destroy the biosphere is an indication that the life force is still strong. But where are those who fight for
the right of infants, children, and adolescents to fully experience the love they feel in their bodies?
Why We Hate
Removal of armoring involves dissolution of all the layers, the peripheral layer—the face that hides the secondary layer—
and the deeper layers that cover destructiveness, deep-seated anxiety, heartbreaking sadness, frustrated longing, and so
on. As the peripheral layer begins to dissolve, breakthroughs from the deeper layers occur, and we experience impulses
and emotions repressed throughout the course of our lives. This can be a painful and difficult process, says Reich, which is
why we usually prefer to forgo it and remain false.
But if Reich is correct that the great majority of humankind is armored and if armored organisms cannot love fully, work
wholeheartedly, or work to maximum capacity, how is it that so much has been accomplished in terms of scientific and
technological advance? First of all, a case can be made that those who lead humanity’s advance, such as it is, those few
individuals whose lives and work account for much of the progress we like to attribute to “mankind” and so, via identification,
to ourselves, are and were the least armored and most awake of their time.30
But the few great people aside, one needs only reflect on the number of examples of what Gurdjieff calls “the process of
the periodic reciprocal destruction”31 that have riddled human history and on the current state of affairs where our creations
threaten to annihilate us and the biosphere as a whole and have made our species an endangered species,32 and questions
concerning the wonders of armored humanity come quickly into perspective. We create, we work, but we end up using our
creations to make war and so destroy our very creations, ourselves, and our fellows on planet Earth. Gurdjieff points out that
the fact that recorded history only goes back a few thousand years, and that we have little evidence of what actually
happened even then, is attributable to our “strange predilection,” as he calls it, for war, for wars not only destroy people, they
also destroy libraries, buildings, institutions, and so on, i.e., history.33 Better we should sit on the spot like an Indian fakir, for
then we would at least be less dangerous. From Reich’s point of view, armored humans create, not due to the armor, but to
the force of life, which has remained stronger. The soft little blade of grass still manages to find its way through cracks in the
cement.
Will the latest wonders, including the computer, be used to further humanity’s life-positive goals or to make destruction
even easier and more impersonal? Because of Reich’s work, the answer seems ominous if obvious, for he has made us
aware that underneath the false personality, the facade of civilization, is a deep-seated hatred. We hate because we have
been denied gratification of our essential needs, of that which is truly ours, and so deep down we do not care for people of
other races and nationalities; we do not care for the preservation of the land, the water, and the air, or our common mother,
the Earth; we do not care about how we manipulate lovely children into becoming as hard as ourselves as we transmit “the
consequences of the organ Kundabuffer” from generation to generation.
Notes
1. See CA, pp. 215-98, for a discussion of various character types.
2. CA, pp. 400-1.
3. Ibid., p. 401.
4. Reich viewed such constriction via X-rays. Ibid., p. 402.
5. Reich determined that the fetus is affected by armoring in the mother. RSF, p. 30. See also Rodney Collin, The Theory of
Eternal Life, for a Gurdjieffian perspective on the importance of the fetal period.
6. CA, p. 408.
7. Ibid., pp. 407-30.
8. See FO, p. 242, for further discussion of somatic traits of armor dissolution.
9. CA, pp. 398-9 and 315ff; FO, pp. 266ff; OEB, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 22-31; vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 71-3; vol. 4, nos. 1 and 2, pp. 71-84.
10. CA, p. 415.
11. ISM, pp. 153-4.
12. FO, pp. 275, 292-303.
13. CA, pp. 53, 172, 189.
14. See Maurice Sendak’s Pierre, a story for children.
15. CA, pp. 178-9.
16. Ibid., pp. 179, 195.
17. See ICSM, pp. 83-6.
18. CA, p. 172.
19. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 160ff.
2 0 . RSF, p. 26; OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 63-7; no. 4, pp. 194-206; vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 121-38; OM, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 65-72; AOI,
no. 1.
21. FO, p. 122.
22. Ibid., p. 124.
23. IC, passim; OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 49-62.
24. FO, p. 124.
25. Ibid., p. 131.
26. Ibid.
27. MPF, passim.
28. BT, p. 107, 1056, and passim.
29. LLM.
30. Walter Hoppe, “Great Men in Conflict with the Emotional Plague,” OEB, vol. 3, no.1 (January 1951): pp. 4-22; and vol. 3,
no. 2 (April 1951): pp. 99-105.
31. BT, pp. 1055-1118 and passim.
32. See Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth (New York: Knopf, 1982).
33. BT, pp. 1055-1118.
CHAPTER FOUR
Melting Buffers
Buffers and Armoring
Both Gurdjieff and Reich concluded that something blocks free movement and expression of energy in the organism.
Gurdjieff calls the blocks buffers and says for example, that before we can safely go on to higher forms of work—triggering of
the Second Conscious Shock, transmutation of negative emotions and formation of higher-being bodies1—we must, as he
puts it, “destroy the crust of vices long accumulated” and “correct old sins,”2 which means, for him, destruction of the buffers.
Early in his career, Reich believed that armor and neurosis have their source in a stasis of energy. Later he determined
that psychological blocks or defense mechanisms are rooted in biophysical, chronic muscular contractions. Merging Reich’s
and Gurdjieff’s concepts, we form the following perspective: buffers are manifestations of chronic muscular armoring. To
destroy them, as Gurdjieff would have us do, is, in Reich’s terms, to melt or dissolve the armoring.
Gurdjieff says that essence is ours by birthright but that false personality is not. Reich concluded that core impulses and
emotions are ours by birthright whereas character armor is “given” to us by a world that hates and fears the core. Gurdjieff
says that negative, destructive emotions have no center, are not a function of the essence. Reich learned that such emotions
are a function of the armor, not the core. Gurdjieff teaches that false personality operates with utter mechanicalness, that we
are unconscious of its existence, its motivation, and its source. Reich has shown why this is the case, with respect to armor,
for he has shown how it is formed in infancy and childhood for the most part when we have no control or understanding of
what is happening to us. By the time we have become adults, false personality, armor, is completely habitual or automatic.
Gurdjieff points out that the greatest stumbling block to beginning work on oneself is our inability to realize how
mechanical we are, a function, for him, of the buffers. Reich has shown why we cling tenaciously to the armor—or why it
clings tenaciously to us—how terrified we are of losing it because of the fear of unleashing the secondary layer of
destructiveness, expressing the primary emotions, and experiencing complete surrender in orgasm.3 We in waking-sleep
may be ignorant fools or “slugs” for maintaining our false faces (as Beelzebub’s grandson says), but our false faces protect
us from powerful, destructive impulses that are terrifying to ourselves and to others (we can’t expect kids like the grandkid to
understand the pain, can we?). This is the rational basis for our fear of losing the buffers.
Gurdjieff points out that if we attempt higher work before destroying the buffers, we evolve, if anything other than a life of
fantasy, on what he calls a wrong foundation.4 What crystallizes is the crust—false personality—and this can lead to
crystallization of what he calls a “Hasnamuss,”5 characterized as a person who has lost contact with his or her conscience
(this compares well with what Reich defines as an “Emotional Plague Character”6). If we wish to evolve, in Gurdjieff’s sense,
it seems to me that we must undergo the process of, in Reich’s terms, dissolution of character armor.
Nonidentification
A central teaching of the Gurdjieff Work is the practice of nonidentifying. As we have seen, for Gurdjieff we normally are in
a state of identification with various I’s that we take as I. We identify with small problems and forget great aims, we identify
with one thought and forget others, we identify with one feeling or mood and forget wider thoughts, emotions, or moods.7
To practice nonidentifying is, first of all, to practice self-observation: to observe the various I’s, moods, thoughts, and
feelings and recognize them for what they are—small individual aspects of our total person that are not the whole. Here we
separate ourselves from these small parts. We also can remember ourselves, remember and feel the observing I in
connection with the other I’s. Such a feeling is of the whole of ourselves—a feeling of that reunites us, that unifies what has
been separated.
The hypothesis that some form of bioelectricity, apparently different from electromagnetism, functions in human beings
led Reich to consider the possibility that it functions in all living organisms. He decided to approach this question by first
studying single-celled organisms and obtained a sample of protozoa—paramecia and amoeba—contained in an infusion of
hay and water for this purpose.1
Reich tested for a bioelectric response in these organisms by applying a current to them and found that the paramecia
reacted to the current. This interested him, but something of even greater importance occurred, although Reich did not
understand it at the time.
During the experiment, he noticed that the swelling hay appeared to disintegrate into organisms similar in structure to the
amoebae. The original protozoa, it was assumed, had entered the infusion from the air, yet here was an observation to the
effect that some of them seemed to emerge from a breakdown of the plant fiber. Living organisms, in other words, appeared
to have emerged from dead matter, which, according to the basic tenets of biology, simply could not be the case.2
Reich claims that he replicated this phenomena many times. Vesicles that took on characteristics very much like those of
single-celled organisms—they stretched out, elongated, contracted, or, in a word, pulsated—appeared to emerge from the
swelled and disintegrating plant fiber.3 After devising a way to apply time-lapse photography so that the entire process could
be recorded—it could take days, weeks, or months—Reich conducted experiments that he claims validated the original
observations: when plant material was placed in water, where it swelled, amoeba and other protozoa were generated.4
Those of us not in science probably cannot appreciate what a revolutionary phenomena Reich appeared to be
witnessing. This was biogenesis, the creation of life out of nonliving matter, and was something that wasn’t supposed to
occur anymore. Evolutionary theory had it that it occurred eons ago—but not now and not over and over again in relatively
simple laboratory experiments and, presumably, all over the planet when conditions were right. And let no one think that
Reich simply or naively accepted what he saw. He couldn’t believe it, or at least he questioned his senses as any biologist
would, for his findings were impossible, at least according to established biological belief. Reich tried the same procedure
with other material besides dead plant fiber—with earth, for example, and found that it, too, produced vesicles that later
emerged from it as independent organisms.5
He tells us that he boiled some preparations while observing strict sterilization techniques, reasoning that boiling would
destroy any organisms that may have entered from the air. The boiled preparations, says Reich, exhibited more active
vesicular forms than unboiled preparations,6 an indication that the boiling had a stimulating effect on production of the motile
organisms. Here was another odd and totally unexpected result, one that puzzled him greatly. But it appeared to prove that
the organisms could not have come from the air since, he reasoned, boiling would have killed any that had. Control
preparations that he used did not produce the same effect.
Eventually, Reich used water immersion lenses at a magnification of 2300x to 3000x in order to view the preparations in
their live state, and use of these lenses enabled him to make another extremely important observation, namely, he saw
pulsation in the newly created entities.7 Reich reports that the vesicles appeared to be alive, for they stretched out,
elongated, moved around, exhibited forms of division reminiscent of cellular mitosis, and a form of eating or ingestion of
other vesicles. Still, he says, they appeared to move differently than fully alive cells—their movements were abrupt, slow,
tremulous, and, in general, mechanical. Reich hypothesized that these vesicles were not fully alive protozoa but represented
a preliminary stage of life, a transitionary form between the nonliving and the living, and named them “bions.”
Reich had also seen protozoa emerge from the disintegrating matter but had not observed them developing directly from
the bions. Reich reports that he eventually was able to culture protozoa from bions, evidence that bions are transitionary
forms of life.8
Overall, Reich found that organic matter such as wood, coal, dust, metal, dead plant matter, and so on when grated into
small enough particles and placed in a solution that caused swelling of the particles would break down into microscopic
vesicles composed of a membrane and a fluid content. The vesicles moved as a whole, exhibited internal movements,
sometimes divided and ingested other vesicles, and protozoa could be cultured from them, which did not come from
unnoticed spores already present.9
The vesicles pulsed, indicating, to Reich, that they might be governed by bioelectric processes. Reich subjected the
vesicles to electric current, and the bions, like the protozoa tested earlier, reacted to the current. Later Reich says that he
observed the same pulsation and bioelectric response in protozoa of all kinds.
He did not conclude at this time that life is a function of bioelectricity. Yet he had made a number of observations with
provocative implications. His investigation into the nature of sexuality and anxiety had resulted in the discovery of bioelectric
functions within people and led to his formulation of the orgasm formula (the tension-charge formula). Utilization of these
ideas on the microscopic level had led him to the discovery that microorganisms emerge from the swelling and
disintegration of dead matter and that they function bioelectrically, that is, via the same general principles as human
sexuality and emotion. Here were a series of observations and realizations that would blow anyone’s mind—and Reich tells
us that he was flabbergasted and frightened by what he had observed. But he was like a bulldog once he got going on a
project and had the courage to continue to follow what he later would call the “red thread” of scientific logic, moving
progressively from one step to the next even if what he was finding was frighteningly new and revolutionary.
What does all this have to do with Gurdjieff, sexuality, and the evolution of consciousness? Patience, dear, would be an
unidentified student of the evolution of consciousness. We are here following the slow, painstaking process of scientific
discovery. Gurdjieff gives us the concept of a universal cosmic energy, although getting it out of Gurdjieff is not easy, as
anyone who has tried to read Beelzebub’s Tales knows. But still, he gives us the concept without providing us with the
details of how it was discovered, which presumably took hundreds and even thousands of years of experimentation by
numerous three-brained beings. Here we are following the logic of one contemporary scientist who discovered, without
Gurdjieff’s background or knowledge, a universal cosmic energy. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let us go on to review
Reich’s experiments that helped him isolate and even control the energy so to better understand it and use it therapeutically.
Notes
1. TBE, pp. 19.
2. Chester M. Raphael, MD, “On the Air Germ Dogma,” OM, vol. 1, no. 2 (November 1955): pp. 159-61.
3. TBE, pp. 33-7.
4. Ibid., p. 38.
5. Ibid., p. 45-6.
6. Ibid., p. 49.
7. Ibid., p. 50.
8 . CB, pp. 14-15. See TBE, pp. 64-83, for descriptions of further experiments and 84-98 for descriptions of experiments
conducted by an independent researcher confirming Reich’s findings.
9. TBE, pp. 100-4. See chapter 6 for descriptions of control experiments and instructions for replication.
10. SW, p. 195
11. Ibid., p. 196.
12. Ibid., p. 197.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., pp. 197-8.
16. Ibid., p. 198.
17. Ibid., p. 199.
18. Cf., G, a compilation of some of Reich’s early papers.
19. SW, pp. 198ff.
20. Ibid., p. 199.
21. Ibid., pp. 200-1.
22. See OEB, vol. 2, no. 3, p. 117; vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 144-62.
23. SW, pp. 199-200.
24. Ibid., p. 202.
25. SW, p. 203.
CHAPTER THREE
Experiments with the Orgone Energy Accumulator
Initial Experiments with Sand Bion Cultures
Many people who know little or nothing about Wilhelm Reich have heard of the Orgone Energy Accumulator,
colloquially, and with more than a touch of derision, known as the “orgone box.” Norman Mailer is known to have built one,
and William Burroughs mentions it in Naked Lunch. The Accumulator, however, should not be viewed as a plaything, a cure-
all, or the product of a deranged mind. It was developed as a scientific instrument for use in experiments with the newly
discovered orgone energy. Later it became useful as a therapeutic tool.
As we have seen, prior experimentation had left little doubt in Reich’s mind that organic material absorbed the energy
and that metal reflected it. With this in mind, he constructed a box made of organic material on the outside and sheet metal
lining the inner walls. He planned to place the sand bion cultures within the enclosure and thought that the metal might
reflect the energy radiating from them and keep it within the confines of the box. Because he thought the metal might reflect
the energy toward the outside of the box as well, he placed organic material on the outside in the hope that it would absorb
some of the energy reflected by the metal. He hypothesized that the metal would reabsorb the energy from the material and
reflect some of it back into the box. In this way, he hoped that the box would accumulate the energy in a concentrated form
so that it could be isolated for experimental purposes. In order to observe what went on inside the box, he placed an
eyepiece and a device for viewing film—for magnification purposes—in a wall of the enclosure.
Reich then proceeded to place sand bion cultures within the box and began to observe through the eyepiece. Eventually,
he says he was able to observe phenomena very much like what he had seen in the dark basement: blue moving vapors,
yellow white streaks, and dots of light. He repeated the experiment many times and brought in independent observers who
confirmed his observations.1
This result was of great significance to Reich, for it proved the efficacy of the accumulation box—he had not as yet begun
to call it the Orgone Energy Accumulator—in concentrating and isolating the radiation effects of the energy. Of even greater
significance, however, was what happened afterward. He removed the cultures from the box and glanced through the
eyepiece. Not expecting to see anything since the sand bions, the supposed source of the energy, were now absent, he was
shocked, he says, when he observed that the light phenomena were still present.
Thinking that this could only mean that the enclosure had somehow retained the radiation, he took it completely apart,
cleaned and aired it out, and then put it back together. He then looked into the box before placing any cultures within. The
same light phenomena, however, appeared again. Reich says that, at the time, he was at a loss as to why he could not
remove the radiation phenomena from the enclosure.
That the point of greatest shadowing on the film occurred between the palms added evidence to the hypothesis that
orgone energy fields excite one another, a hypothesis previously implied by the fact that the point of greatest luminescence
of the florescent tube had been between the metal plates of the orgone energy field meter. The fact that the shadowing
occurred when the subject reported sensations of elasticity and attraction between the palms and that no shadowing
occurred when no such sensations were reported was further evidence for the theory that orgone energy becomes more
concentrated when excited and that subjective sensations of orgone energy functions can be verified objectively, in this case
via X-ray photography (in the case of the bioelectric experiments, via measurement of bioelectric skin potential). The results
of these experiments added to the store of objective confirmation of the existence of orgone energy that Reich was
accumulating.
Weather-Control Experiments
Reich eventually applied the principles of orgone energy functioning or orgonotic potential in weather-control
experiments and to affect the accumulation of noxious clouds in the atmosphere. I will mention certain aspects of the
experiments and refer the reader to the literature.
Reich’s observations of the atmosphere indicated the existence of a planetary orgone energy field or envelope that
moved in characteristic ways under various atmospheric conditions (as mentioned, the west-to-east movement reversed or
ceased when a storm was forming to the west of the observer, for example). Reich developed techniques and devices to
influence the movement of this envelope in such a way that clouds could be formed and rain produced when none had been
predicted.28 The results of these weather-control experiments were successful to the extent that they provided evidence
confirming Reich’s theories.
Via these techniques, he was also able to disperse clouds, something that became necessary when noxious clouds that
Reich eventually identified as DOR-clouds, clouds consisting of orgone energy in its dead or deadly form, were observed
over Orgonon.29 One of the most distressing properties of these clouds according to Reich (and of DOR in the atmosphere in
general) is that they dehydrate the land as well as living organisms. An excessive amount of this energy in the atmosphere
leads to drought conditions and eventual desertification of the land.
Later, the knowledge Reich gained via these experiments was utilized in confrontation with unidentified flying objects that
had appeared over Orgonon and in Tucson, Arizona, where Reich conducted weather-control operations as or more
successful than those he had conducted in the East.30 Weather-control experiments based on Reich’s discoveries have
been conducted in more recent times and are in progress to this day.31
Motor Properties
One final area of experimentation should be mentioned. Reich reports in The Cancer Biopathy that by using several
accumulators or a specially built orgone energy room, a high concentration of atmospheric orgone energy was obtained.
This was demonstrated, says Reich, by use of Geiger-Müller counters.32 The counters were kept in this highly charged
orgone atmosphere for several weeks, and the counter tubes apparently absorbed the orgone from the atmosphere of the
accumulator, for when removed, the counters produced impulses apart from any other source of energy, electric or
otherwise. The counters, in other words, worked without being plugged in to another source of power. This indicated that
orgone energy can develop the capacity to drive a motor, which, Reich says, would account for the capacity of living
organisms to move.
Later Reich reports on other experiments in which he was able to utilize orgone energy to drive a motor. The report,
however, was left purposely incomplete, and one imagines that a full report is contained in Reich’s archives, which, on
Reich’s instructions, were only recently opened to qualified scientists.33
Notes
1. SW, p. 204.
2. Ibid., p. 206.
3. Ibid., p. 207.
4. See Jim Swan, PhD, “Visual Perception of Life Energy Fields: A Research Hypothesis,” International Journal of Life
Energy, vol. 2, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 1980): pp. 49-58. Also OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 74-83; vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 143-59; vol. 4,
no. 4, pp. 215-16.
5. SW, p. 203.
6. Ibid., 213.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., pp. 218-19.
9. CB, p. 109.
10. Ibid., pp. 112-13.
11. Ibid., pp. 119-20.
12. OEB, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 53-8. See also Charles Konia, MD, “An Investigation of the Thermal Properties of the ORAC,” JO,
vol. 8, no. 1 (May 1974), and part 2 of the same article, same journal, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 244-52.
13. See History of the Discovery of the Life Energy; The Einstein Affair, OIP, 1953, Boadella, op. cit., pp. 185-88, 267-9,
Sharaf, op. cit., 280ff, and RSF, pp. 39, 183.
14. CB, pp. 126-7.
15. CB, pp. 126-7.
16. Ibid., pp. 143-5.
17. See Swan, op. cit.; and Courtney F. Baker, “The Pendulum Experiment,” The Journal of Orgonomy, vol. 11, no. 2
(November 1977): pp. 176-87.
18. CB, pp. 145-6.
19. OEB, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 3-6. See also Orgonomic Functionalism, vol. 51 (Summer 1994): pp. 20-44.
20. OEB, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 97-9.
21. See Wilhelm Reich, Contact with Space (New York: Core Pilot Press, 1957), esp. pp. 111ff, 143ff, 212ff, and passim;
“The Storm of November 25th and 26th, 1950,” OEB, vol. 3, no. 2 (April 1951): pp. 72-5; “DOR Removal and Cloud
Busting,” OEB, vol. 4, no. 4 (October 1952): pp. 171-82; Chester M. Raphael, MD, “DOR Sickness: A Review of Reich’s
Findings,” OM, vol. 1, no. 2, (June 1955): pp. 18-40; “OROP DESERT,” CORE, vol. 4, nos. 1-4 (July 1954): pp. 1-139;
CORE, vol. 7, nos. 1-4 (March and December 1955); see also “CORE Progress Reports,” in The Journal of Orgonomy,
vols. 5-12 and 15 for recent weather-control experiments; also James DeMeo, “Preliminary Analysis of Changes in
Kansas Weather Coincidental to Experimental Operations with a Reich Cloudbuster,” International Journal of Life
Energy, vol. 2, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 1980): pp. 35-48 (an MA thesis also available from University Microfilms, Ann
Arbor, Michigan); and Jerome Eden, “UFOs, DOR, and Drought in the Northwest,” The Journal of Orgonomy, vol. 7, no.
2 (November 1973): pp. 249-53.
22. See Werner Grossman, “Observations of Orgone Energy Lumination,” OEB, vol. 4, no. 1 (January 1952): pp. 59-60.
23. CB, pp. 147-50.
24. OEB, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 49-50.
25. See photograph, ibid., p. 50.
26. OEB, vol. 1, no. 2, 50-1.
27. The experiments predate photographs reportedly taken by the Russian Kirlian.
28. SW, pp. 435-47; see also Reich, “DOR Removal and Cloud Busting,” op. cit., and Contact with Space, op. cit.
29. SW, pp. 435ff. The concept of DOR was eventually expanded by Reich when he realized that DOR exists within human
beings as immobile orgone energy contained or bound by the armor. See Reich, “Reemergence of Freud’s ‘Death
Instinct’ as ‘DOR,’” OM, vol. 2, no. 1 (April 1956): pp. 2-11; and SW, pp. 455ff.
30. See Contact with Space, op. cit.
31. Reich, “Meteorological Functions in Orgone-Charged Vacuum Tubes,” OEB, vol. 2, no. 4 (October 1950): pp. 184-93, a
report of experiments confirming the orgone absorption property of water. See also Reich, “Reemergence of Freud’s
‘Death Instinct’ as ‘DOR,’” op. cit., and the above-mentioned articles on weather-control and DOR-busting experiments.
See also “CORE Progress Reports,” op. cit.
32. OEB, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 7-11.
33. The Archives were opened in 2007. Contact Orgonon, the Wilhelm Reich Museum in Rangely, Maine, for further
details.
PART IV
The Fundamental Laws of World Creation and
World Maintenance
What we are doing here is no more than flying high above a vast territory, the exploration of which will require painstaking,
detailed efforts. We are free later to abandon parts of it or the whole aspect, should it resist strictest observational and
experimental as well as orgonometric scrutiny.
Rig-Veda
CHAPTER ONE
Development of Reich’s Theory
of Cosmic Superimposition
Reich’s Experiments, Regarding Creation: Experiment XX
R eich conducted a series of experiments on the cellular level, indicating that living organisms develop not merely from
nonliving, organic matter—which is what the bion experiments had shown—but from orgone energy in its mass-free,
preatomic state. In carrying out these experiments, known as Experiment XX, Reich utilized a technique he developed for
measuring the luminescence effect of liquids that contained orgone energy. He had hypothesized that liquids apparently
stronger in orgonotic charge would luminate more strongly, given the luminescent property of orgone energy, but he needed
a way to objectively measure such differences.
He acquired a fluorophotometer that gave a quantitative measurement of the fluorescence of liquids, and he
hypothesized that the intensity of fluorescence of fluids would reflect the extent of orgonotic luminescence of these fluids. In
his laboratory were samples of bion cultures that, based on observation, he hypothesized contained orgone energy. He
proceeded to measure the fluorophotometric intensity of some of these samples—fluids that had contained earth bions for
months, and some, years—as well as ordinary water and discovered that the bion liquids showed a much higher
fluorophotometric value than the ordinary water. This initial finding indicated that fluids containing a higher concentration of
orgone energy than other fluids luminate more strongly. This finding also showed that orgonotic luminescence could be
measured with the fluorophotometer and meant that he would now be able to quantify this phenomenon.1
Reich says that he proceeded to develop an efficient procedure for forming water with a high orgonotic charge. He added
distilled water to ordinary garden soil that had been sieved free of stones and lumps of clay and that on microscopic
examination had revealed no motility. The soil-water preparation was then boiled for an hour or autoclaved for half an hour
at 120°C and 15 lbs. pressure (a dry sterilization technique). The water was then filtered from the soil to the point where it
was crystal clear.
Immediately after boiling and filtering, the water, now yellow in color, was measured fluorophotometrically. Reich found
that its value, on the average, was forty-five times stronger than ordinary water (and that it had been prior to boiling),
indicating that the boiling had produced orgone energy vesicles from the combination of the water and soil, a result Reich
had expected based on numerous experiments of the identical type he had carried out previously. The difference this time
was that he was able to quantify the orgone energy via the fluorophotometer.
The numerical value, in this case 45, was determined by comparing the bion water with distilled water. Distilled water was
measured, and the reaction it gave on the fluorophotometer, its level of fluorescence, was assigned the value 1 OP
(orgonotic potency). Reich then measured other fluids and scaled their reactions according to this base. Rainwater was
tested, for example, in which an OP value of 3 was obtained, meaning that rainwater was three times stronger in level of
fluorescence than distilled water. Other values obtained were OP-4 for tap water, OP-8 for seawater, OP-73 for honey, OP-
100+ for unpasteurized milk, OP-55 for pasteurized milk, and so on.2
In utilizing the fluorophotometer, Reich once again had recourse to the use of electrical measurement to test for orgone
energy functions. In the bioelectrical experiments, orgonotic charge and discharge (orgonotic potential) had been measured
in terms of millivolts (although at the time the experiments had been conducted, he had not known of the existence of orgone
energy but had only suspected that some form of bioelectricity was at work within the organism). In the fluorophotometric
measurements, the photoelectric cell of the meter reacted to the luminescence of liquids and transformed it into electrical
energy, which moved the needle of the instrument. In both cases, Reich believed that the devices could not accurately reflect
the actual orgone energy values since the electrical measurements could record only a small fraction of their real orgonotic
value.3 Still, he had found a way to measure the luminescent effect of orgone energy relatively and thus had developed an
objective test for orgone energy light effects.
Like the discovery of orgone energy from the sand bion cultures, the experiment Reich labeled Experiment XX was
triggered by an accident. A tube of particle-free bion water—water that had been sieved and autoclaved and upon
microscopic examination had indicated the existence of no organisms of any kind, including bions—was accidentally left
outside where it froze. Reich examined the water and found frozen, condensed flakes in the water, which, prior to freezing,
had been completely clear. On microscopic examination, says Reich, the flakes were observed to be composed of intensely
radiating particles of bionous matter and pulsating bions. Reich had every reason to believe that the bions had developed
out of the orgone energy and water solely because of the freezing process, since the water, prior to freezing, had apparently
contained no matter of any kind and no organisms. He had been culturing bions for years, but always from the disintegration
of matter, and had not even considered the possibility that bions—which Reich believed are transitional forms between
nonliving matter and living organisms (seen in numerous experiments in which fully alive protozoa had been observed to
develop from the merger of bions)—would form if no matter was present.
This totally unexpected finding caused Reich to devise a series of experiments to determine what had occurred.4 He
utilized the method he had developed to obtain highly charged bion water and measured it fluorophotometrically. As
mentioned, the water measured, on the average, at an OP rating of 45. He then autoclaved the water for thirty minutes to
make sure that no living cells, particles, or bions remained alive in the liquid. The particle-free water was then sealed tight
and placed into the freezer compartment of a refrigerator. For control purposes, Reich placed vials of the water in an
Accumulator, left some standing in the laboratory, and stored vials of ordinary water with each group.5
After two to eight days, says Reich, the frozen, particle-free bion water was removed. Reich observed that the yellow color
had concentrated in the center of the ice in an opaque brown yellow spot. When the ice liquified, whitish and brownish flakes
were observed in the previously clear liquid. Reich reports that the controls, the bion water left in the laboratory and that was
put in the Accumulator, developed flakes but over three to eight weeks, and the plain water put in the Accumulator did also,
but only after several months. These flakes, says Reich, were less dense and less perfectly formed than those formed from
bion water. The plain water left in the laboratory and put in the freezer developed no flakes.
Reich examined the flakes microscopically and found vesicles present. The vesicles, he says, were smooth, plasmatic,
and well defined. Also found were heaps of bions with an intense blue glimmer and a sharp margin, indicating that they
contained a quantum of orgone energy. After two to three weeks, the flakes were observed to grow and divide. To further
explore their nature, Reich prepared a culture of them under sterile conditions by using sterile bion water. Over the course of
several months, he says that blue bions could be observed emerging from some of the flakes, which measured two to three
microns in diameter and were observed to gradually stretch out to a bean shape. Sometimes they prematurely disintegrated
and resulted in what he at the time called “T-bacilli,” but when they didn’t, they evolved into contractile (pulsating) protozoa,
which Reich says moved in a rapid, jerky manner. He called these forms “orgonomia.” Premature disintegration, says Reich,
could be stopped and the T-bacilli killed by repeated freezing.6
Reich had taken liquid that he had determined to be high in orgone energy content via an objective method of
measurement of fluorescence level and that had had no particles and had found that merely by freezing it, living organisms
had emerged. This meant that living organisms can originate from mass-free orgone energy. Biology prior to Reich (and still
to this day) assumed that living organisms can come only from other living organisms. The original bion experiments
showed that this is not the case, that living organisms evolve from the swelling and disintegration of organic, nonliving
matter. Experiment XX showed that biogenesis, or the creation of biologically alive organisms, results from the condensation
(freezing) of mass-free orgone energy, indicating that orgone energy is the life energy per se.
Reich’s theory explains the results of Experiment XX as follows: Soil apparently contains orgone energy, which is
released from it when it is boiled in water. Water, as had been determined previously, attracts orgone energy (and vice
versa). When boiled, the orgone was released from the soil as bions and in the mass-free state (in the same state it is in the
atmosphere except that in the bion water it is mixed with water). When the water was frozen, the orgone in the water
contracted along with the water. From the contraction of orgone and water, the flakes formed via coalescence or
condensation.
Reich was not merely speculating regarding the pulsatory properties of orgone energy when he hypothesized that the
orgone in the water had contracted, for he had observed this property of orgone energy in other contexts, and he had
hypothesized that it contracts in human beings and forms character armor. In the latter case, the orgone contracts due to
external hostility, which produces the contractive emotion we call “fear” or “anxiety,” while in the former case contraction
occurred due to freezing. The bions formed, Reich hypothesized, because the freezing or condensation process initiated
formation of a membrane around a quantum of orgone energy. Protozoa evolved from the bions via lumination and attraction
of bions and their consequent merger or superimposition.
The control experiments also proved interesting. That plain water placed in an Accumulator developed flakes after a
longer period of time once again exhibited water’s attraction for orgone energy, and that the plain water left in the laboratory
did not develop flakes added evidence to the theory of the capacity of the Accumulator to concentrate orgone energy. That
bion water placed in the laboratory developed flakes added evidence that the water did have a higher orgone energy
content than the plain water that did not develop flakes even when frozen. Reich’s theory of the relationship between water
and orgone energy implies that even plain water has an orgone energy content, and this was verified fluorophotometrically,
but its content is apparently not high enough to cause flakes to develop if not placed in an atmosphere of highly
concentrated orgone energy (like that in an Accumulator). That bion water left in the laboratory and in an Accumulator and
plain water left in an Accumulator developed flakes over a longer period of time than the bion water that had been frozen
indicates that the condensation process occurs even without the extreme environmental factor of freezing. That the flakes
were much less lively and poorly formed, however, indicates that the freezing process facilitates the condensation process.
The results of Experiment XX indicate that Reich had discovered what many ancient scientists and philosophers, esoteric
thinkers and vitalists have assumed or postulated, and what Gurdjieff apparently teaches—that there is a mass-free,
ubiquitous energy that functions as the ground of life. If Reich’s experiments are valid, Anaximenes the Miletian, who
postulated that the basic stuff is “air” and that things form from its condensation (fire, from its rarefaction), it turns out, had
been very close to the truth (his teacher and predecessor, Thales, had said the same about his candidate for the prime
source substance, water). And Chuang Tzu, the Chinese philosopher who lived around 350 BCE, had been profoundly
correct in his assumption that water plus “chi” (his name for the life force) yields organisms.7
The Orgonome
The results of Experiment XX, when viewed in conjunction with Reich’s other research, opened the door to an
understanding of creation that took Reich far beyond anything he could ever had imagined beforehand. Observations made
during this and other experiments shed light on some of the most perplexing questions confronting science—namely, why
living organisms have their shape or form, why they develop organs and limbs, why human beings seek knowledge, or,
generally speaking, why living organisms evolve. The first question concerns the basis of organic form, something scientists,
philosophers, and even mathematicians have wondered about for centuries.8
The organisms that developed from the condensation of mass-free orgone energy in numerous experiments conducted
over a period of many years, says Reich, revealed characteristic shapes that, since the results were so consistent, could not
be arbitrary. Generally speaking, the form they took was that of the bean or egg.
Reich called this form the “orgonome,” the shape of numerous organic forms including plant seeds, plant bulbs, animal
sperm cells, animal eggs (particularly bird’s eggs), unicellular organisms, whole animal and plant bodies, animal embryos,
all organs of the human body, trees, leaves, blossoms, pollen and pistils of plants, arms, legs, fins, wings, the heads of
snakes, lizards, foxes, fish, claws and beaks of birds, air bladders of fish, horns of cattle, rams and stags, shells of snails and
muscles, among others.9 (A recent study shows that this form is also characteristic of the human skull, ribcage, pelvis, ear,
and, says the writer, most perfectly in the human rib, which was found to be an almost-perfect segment of a logarhythmic
spiral,10 a finding that readers of Rodney Collins’s Theory of Eternal Life should find interesting since he hypothesized that
formation of higher-being bodies occurs logarhythmically.) The orgonome form, of course, is an abstraction, and actual forms
vary in length, width, thickness, and, says Reich, may appear as subdivisions of the same form as in worms.
Since the organisms formed in Experiment XX all had the orgonome shape, and since they formed via development of a
membrane around a quantum of orgone energy and water because of condensation of the mass-free orgone, Reich
reasoned that the orgonome shape was based on the way orgone energy moves when in its mass-free state. Reich could
think in this way because he had already observed mass-free orgone energy in motion in darkrooms, Accumulators, and
Accumulator rooms. Along with pulsation movements, he had observed the orgone moving in spinning waves.11
Movement in the form of a single spinning wave, however, could not account for the orgonome shape. The orgonome is
the shape of organisms, and organisms form from the merger of entities, as in the case of the sperm and the egg. Merger of
two organisms, Reich reasoned (from experience and experimentation), involves the orgastic convulsion, a function natural
to orgone energy beings of all types (including cells during mitosis).12 Two orgone energy beings come in contact with one
another and if mutually excited via lumination and attraction are driven to superimpose. Reich notes that it is important to
remember, when considering how the form of the orgastic convulsion relates to the orgonome shape, that in the realm of the
unarmored, or nature generally, mutual excitation and superimposition occurs spontaneously and involuntarily. That it
doesn’t in armored humans, and that most humans are armored, is the most significant indication of humanity’s lack of
contact with nature or essence.
Reich says that at the time he wrote Cosmic Superimposition, reasoned evidence existed to the effect that two spinning
waves of excited, mass-free orgone energy can become (1) attracted to one another, (2) approach one another, until they (3)
superimpose:13 It is what occurs at the point of merger, says Reich, that is the determining factor of the orgonome shape. At
this point, the crucial form to consider, he says, is not of one individual wave, because at superimposition, two such waves
meet and merge, which when placed together form an ellipse.14
Reich reasoned that if at the point of superimposition an orgastic convulsion occurs, the form of the movement of the
mass-free orgone energy would be a mass-free version of the orgasm reflex where the mouth and genital ends strive to
come together. In humans, and metazoans generally, although the two ends strive to come together, complete bending is
obviated by the skeletal structure, a consideration obviously not relevant with respect to mass-free spinning waves.15
Based on his observations and experiments, Reich came to the hypothesis that mass-free orgone energy, when in the
process of superimposition, moves in the form of an orgastic convulsion. Since matter that forms from this movement is
condensed orgone energy, Reich reasoned that it would take the shape of this movement, but in condensed form. The
shape typical of organic organisms, then, is explained by Reich as a product of the superimposition in the form of an orgastic
convulsion of two waves of mass-free orgone energy. The orgonome thus represents a frozen orgasm reflex.16
This accounts for the fact that a complete merger of bioenergetic organisms of opposite polarity is more gratifying than the
release of tension experienced in masturbation, even if one is capable of a complete orgasm reflex during masturbation. In
this case, since there is no other organism of opposite polarity to attract or draw out the energy, the expanding energy
cannot be released fully. And since there is no other organism to fuse with, gratification will be incomplete since it is a
function of the neutralization effect of the merger. This indicates that when organisms are not oppositely charged, attraction
is not as strong, and bioenergetic merger (and consequent gratification) will be less complete.
Growth
The tension between the energy’s tendency toward expansion and the resistance of the membrane, according to Reich,
explains the phenomenon of growth and evolution.24 Membranes are not so rigid that they cannot expand (a biologist
pointed out to me that under a microscope, the membranes of bions and protozoa appear quite soft and yielding and are not
so drastically different than the contents they enclose). As the energy expands, the membrane stretches. Over the course of
time, Reich hypothesized, this process leads to new formations or elaborations of the membrane, new body parts, organs,
etc. (such as pseudopods and cilia in single-celled organisms). Carried out over eons, this process leads to formation of
more complex structures such as limbs, antennae, ears, the snout of animals, breasts, and so on (all forms of the orgonome
shape). That the energy moves from the tail end, over the back, and toward the head and that it expands along the front of
the body at various points explains why organisms develop or evolve in their fashion, for all the structures that evolve are
products of the movement of mass-free orgone energy as it expands and stretches the membrane.
Via this theory, Reich is able to explain why organisms and their parts have the shape they have, how the structure or
parts develop, the function of the orgasm and the orgasm reflex, the experience of gratification, and even the function of
knowledge, which, on Reich’s theory, is a function of the same process of orgone energy expanding within and beyond the
confines of the membrane.25 This subject is explored in greater detail later, but we should note at this point that Reich
explains these functions—each of which remains a mystery to mechanistic science—via the use of one principle, the
common functioning principle of creation, the functioning of orgone energy.
Orgonotic Potential
After superimposition and formation of a material particle, on Reich’s theory, the particle, now the stronger system
orgonotically, attracts and absorbs mass-free orgone energy from the surrounding atmosphere, a process that mirrors what
was observed on a cellular level. This function represents, on a galactic scale, the tension-charge function (T-C function),
i.e., the orgasm formula, which, after the discovery of mass-free orgone energy, came to be understood as the function of
“orgonotic potential,” the strictly orgone energy relationship by which stronger orgonotic systems—those with a higher
charge—attract weaker ones. It is due to this function, for example, that, as Reich found, the nucleus of cells attract orgone
energy from the cell plasm, red blood cells attract orgone energy from bions, and cell plasm attracts orgone energy from the
red blood cells (see below).
Orgonotic potential involves the flow of orgone energy from lower potential to higher potential and represents the charge
phase of the T-C function, corresponding to sexual excitation. Once the stronger system reaches a point of maximum charge,
the discharge phase of the T-C function occurs, and excess energy is released (as in orgasm, cellular mitosis, movement of
organisms, formation of the orgone energy field, etc.). As organized orgone energy beings, humans exhibit the charge
phase when we take in orgone energy in the form of food and air (and, as we shall see, in the form of impressions). Physical
food and air can be absorbed by humans because they have a lower orgonotic charge relative to us (until we are near death
when our charge becomes lower than the charge in the surrounding atmosphere, and we can no longer absorb the energy).
With growing galaxies, the growing galactic core or nucleus of the galaxy, being the stronger orgonotic system, attracts
the mass-free orgone energy in its atmosphere. This, says Reich, leads to formation of an orgone energy field, which
surrounds the core and forms a separate stream in the orgone energy ocean. The existence of such a field surrounding
galaxies is difficult to verify directly given current limitations of astronomical technique.33 With respect to planets, however,
Reich points out that growing astronomical research abounds to the effect that all planets have an energy field as does the
sun (the corona).34
Gases, which consist of particles such as atoms and molecules, Reich hypothesized, form in the atmosphere of planets
from superimposition of mass-free orgone streams within planetary envelopes. Concentration and condensation continues
to increase toward the center of the forming core (here Reich is speaking of planetary formation) with the heavier elements
located near the center and the lighter elements at the periphery (helium, hydrogen, neon, etc.) via the principle of orgonotic
potential.
Formation of galaxies, individual stars, solar systems, individual planets, moons; formation of bions, protozoa, and living
organisms of all kinds—and even formation of a new “self” in bioenergetic merger (which is discussed in detail below as it
relates to Gurdjieff’s ideas)—on Reich’s theory, are all products of orgone energy, the basic “stuff” of creation as such.36
Every created entity is created from the superimposition of oppositely charged streams of this energy; thus cosmic
superimposition is the common functioning principle of all creation.
On this theory, matter is continuously being created in the universe as streams of orgone energy approach one another,
luminate or become excited, and merge bioenergetically in an orgastic convulsion. Bioenergetic merger, therefore, is not
something that happens only with humans, animals, or biologically alive organisms. It happens wherever anything is created
by the superimposition of luminated orgone energy systems. This knowledge adds another dimension to the function of the
orgasm. Not only does it provide pleasure and release excess orgone energy that would form armoring and lead to
pathological cellular mitosis (see below) or lead to the experience of bioenergetic merger. It turns out that the orgasm is a
ubiquitous function and is the basis for the very shape of things as well as for the growth and evolution of everything existing.
This discovery, if correct, places on a scientific foundation something mystics, poets, philosophers, artists, and lovers have
known from personal experience but which mechanistic science and philosophy deny, that at the root of all of being is love.
Gravity
The existence and convergence of orgone energy streams and their function with regard to planetary motion implies a
theory of gravity that removes this notion from its current status as a mystico-mathematical postulate.45 Gravity, of course, has
intrigued philosophers and scientists ever since it was recognized. Einstein explained it via his theory of curved space. This
theory, though perhaps mathematically workable, is difficult to comprehend in model form for it appears to defy our basic
sense of reality (those who favor the theory claim that this is not the fault of the theory, of course, but of our limited
perspective). The difficulty lies in the concept that something empty—in this case, empty space—is curved. We can imagine
a physical body or even an energy stream curved, but it is hard to understand what the notion of curved space means. In this
respect, this theory is like that of the current theories of light, that it consists of massless particles or waves in empty space,
each notion an apparent contradiction in terms.46
Reich’s theory may suffer defects or leave questions unanswered, but it does not suffer the defect of unintelligibility.
Space, on his theory, is conceived of as not empty but filled with cosmic orgone energy. Celestial motion is explained as a
function of the movement of streams of this energy that carry the heavenly bodies through the cosmic orgone ocean. Gravity
is seen as a function of the convergence of these streams.
Newton pictured the motion of the moon around the earth in terms of his concept of gravity, that the moon moved as if it
were falling toward the center of the earth without, however, reaching it. On Reich’s model of what moves celestial bodies,
the moon is carried on an orgone energy stream like the other bodies. If it seems to fall toward the center of the earth without
ever reaching it, this is because the streams that carry the moon and the earth cross at certain regular intervals. This
indicates that the orbits of the moon and the earth, like all celestial bodies, are open rather than circular (Copernicus) or
elliptical (Kepler). Their open paths have the form of the spinning wave.47
Stellar and planetary bodies, on this model, do not necessarily pull one another, causing their orbits, but orbits occur
because the bodies are carried by their streams, which periodically cross one another (like the Equatorial and Galactic
streams that, in Reich’s theory, cause hurricane formation). The streams are older than the bodies, of course, since the
bodies were created from their superimposition. This means that gravity, as the term that identifies the phenomenon of
attraction between celestial bodies, for Reich, is a secondary phenomenon, the primary phenomenon being the movement
of the mass-free streams within the ocean.
Gravity, then, on Reich’s theory, represents condensed or frozen orgonotic potential of mass-free orgone energy streams.
The streams that carry the planets “attracted gravitationally” have a common direction of movement, a common plane of
motion, and are coordinated in terms of the speed at which they move. The heavenly bodies that they carry, therefore, also
have a common direction of movement, a common plane of motion, their centers mutually approach one another as the
streams carrying them approach one another, and they are mutually coordinated in terms of the speed of their spinning
motion.
Kepler, Reich points out, believed that behind celestial motion was a prime mover, a living force or “vis animalis,” an idea
of Kepler’s that is usually ignored by science (just as it ignores Newton’s interest in mysticism and Einstein’s belief in God).
Reich, if his theory is correct, has discovered this force and not via mystical intuition. Orgone energy streams are the prime
movers of the heavenly bodies.
Notes
1. CB, p. 63.
2. Ibid., p. 64. A Table of many liquids tested can be found here.
3. Ibid., p. 65.
4. Ibid., p. 65.
5. Ibid., p. 68.
6. Ibid., p. 70.
7. See Reginald E. Allen (ed.), Greek Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle (New York: The Free Press, 1966), pp. 28ff. On
Chuang Tzu, see Wing-Tsit Chan, op. cit., p. 204.
8. See, for example, L. L. Whyte, Aspects of Form (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1966).
9. CS, pp. 198-9.
10. In Offshoots of Orgonomy, no. 5 (Autumn 1982): pp. 32-9.
11. CS, p. 185.
12. Ibid., p. 183.
13. Ibid., p. 186.
14. Ibid., p. 202.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., pp. 202ff.
17. Ibid., p. 210.
18. Ibid., p. 211.
19. Ibid., p. 206. “It is clear that the empirically observable interconnectedness of nature is but a corner of the vast ‘jeweled
net’ which moves from without to within. The spiral (think of nebulae) and spiral conch (vulva/womb) is a symbol of the
Great Goddess. It is charming to note that physical properties of spiral conches approximate the Indian notion of the
world-expanding dance, ‘expanding form’ . . . The maze dances, spiral processions, cats cradles, Micronesian string
star charts, mandalas and symbolic journeys of the old wild world are with us still in the universally distributed children’s
game hopscotch. Let poetry and bushmen lead the way in a great hop forward” (Gary Snyder, Great Earth Household
[New Direction, 1969]).
20. CS, pp. 214-19.
21. Ibid., p. 235.
22. Ibid., p. 216.
23. Ibid., pp. 217-18.
24. Ibid., pp. 214ff.
25. Ibid., pp. 277ff.
26. Ibid., pp. 185ff.
27. Ibid., p. 225.
28. Ibid., p. 227.
29. Ibid., p. 229.
30. Ibid., p. 230.
31. Ibid., p. 231.
32. Ibid., p. 228.
33. Learned at a lecture at Kitt Peak, Arizona, in December 1982.
34. As recent satellite photographs of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune indicate more than ever.
35. Swami Satchindananda, on Alice Coltraine’s Wing’s of Fire (Impulse Records).
36. CS, pp. 237-8.
37. Reported in the NY Times Magazine (December 12, 1982), in an article by Bruce Brown.
38. The photographs accompanying Brown’s article (see note 37) confirm these observations.
39. CS, pp. 240-1.
40. Ibid., pp. 242-4.
41. Ibid., p. 245.
42. Ibid., p. 252.
43. Ibid., pp. 249ff.
44. Ibid., pp. 258-72.
45. Ibid., pp. 273ff.
46. See The End of Physics, David Lindley (New York: Basic Books, 1993), for an in-depth study of current mathematics-
mystical ideas at the basis of contemporary cosmology and physics. See also “The Trouble with Physics,” a recent
investigation of string theory, by Lee Smolin.
47. CS., p. 274.
CHAPTER TWO
The Highest Laws
The Unity of Creation
We are now in a position to attempt to discriminate the nature of the most general laws of the universe based on
Gurdjieff’s model of creation and Reich’s theory of cosmic superimposition. Doing so will afford us more data with which to
better understand what is involved in the evolution of our consciousness.
Gurdjieff expresses his concept of creation in Beelzebub’s Tales in the form of a myth or allegory. Elsewhere he presents
it in the form of the symbol of the Ray of Creation. One assumes there is a meaning hidden in the allegory and the symbol,
but precisely what it is may be impossible to say. Still, on Gurdjieff’s model of creation, we gain an impression of the
profound unity of the cosmos, that the myriad phenomena and laws we experience here on the surface of our planet are all
manifestations of one law—that, in other words, there is a common functioning principle that governs all of being. There is
also the impression that should we come to understand this law, we could better live our lives for we would then understand
the function, meaning, and purpose of our existence and, indeed, of all existence. Beelzebub makes it clear that he thinks
such an understanding is essential for three-brained beings who wish to evolve in consciousness.
The unity of creation is represented, for Gurdjieff, by the concept or symbol of the Absolute. Out of itself—out of this utterly
simple something-or-other—emanates the “Great Megalocosmos,” or All Worlds, functionally identified as the cosmos under
three laws.1
What this means, of course, is very difficult to say. There is no attempt, on Gurdjieff’s part, to point to a means of proof.
There is nothing we can do to test the ideas except to think about them, feel them, and attempt to evolve so we can
experience something that forces us to see, directly, what they mean. I find the ideas compelling and believe that with them
and Reich’s scientific hypotheses, one can gain a sense of the meaning of the Absolute and the Great Megalocosmos found
via no other perspective.
Gurdjieff does tell us what he thinks two of the three laws of the Great Megalocosmos are. He says that there are two laws
that are universally applicable within the Great Megalocosmos, within, in other words, everything existing. These two laws
are “Triamazikamno,” or the Law of Three, and “Heptaparaparshinokh,” the Law of Seven.2
The Law of Seven refers to processes and expresses the notion that all processes require periodic stimulation or “shocks”
from outside to continue in the direction they began.3 As we have seen, the process of food digestion and energy
transformation is an example of the functioning of this law. The Law of Three refers to existence of entities, or “things” in the
most general sense of the term, and, as we have seen, expresses the notion that every entity is a product of three forces, an
impetus (“first force”), a resistance (“second force”), and a neutralizing force (“third force”) or “apparatus” that enables first
force to achieve its aim through second force.4
Given that the Law of Seven and the Law of Three are two of the three most important laws, what is the third law in the
Great Megalocosmos? And does it bear any relation to the One Law of the Absolute? I think it does. I think, in fact, that the
third law we are looking for is the One Law of the Absolute as it is manifested in the Great Megalocosmos. I reason thusly:
the Law of Three is clearly represented in the Great Megalocosmos in that this is the cosmos that is said to function under
three laws. The Law of Seven is represented in the cosmos in that processes of creation of individual galaxies, the cosmos
said to emanate out of this cosmos, begin here, and the Law of Seven is the law of process. Neither the Law of Three nor the
Law of Seven could be found separately within the Absolute since no separation prevails there, no specific processes or
entities. Only one law functions in the Absolute, and the laws of Three and Seven are two laws. These laws thus represent
what is new in the Great Megalocosmos, what distinguishes it from the Absolute most clearly. The third law represents what
is old. It represents the Absolute itself within the Great Megalocosmos. As such, it represents third force in the cosmos, or the
apparatus by which entities are created via processes. This third law of the Great Megalocosmos is sometimes spoken of as
the “Will of the Absolute,” or Divine Will.5
Gurdjieff says that the Absolute directly created only the Great Megalocosmos and could have created only this cosmos,
that in other words, there is a necessity to creation that transcends any acts based on Divine Will. The Absolute could no
more have created the world of a planet, under forty-eight laws, directly from the one law, for example, than a man can
create a microbe or a chair just by wishing it. There are steps that must be taken, on this model, inexorable processes that
must be passed through.
When viewed in terms of energy, the world of the one law represents the finest or most conscious energy, and that of
three laws, a level directly below it in terms of consciousness and material density. To say we move “down” the Ray of
Creation, in other words, means that energy is becoming more and more materially dense, less and less vibratory and
conscious. The various laws that pertain to denser cosmos represent how the various entities and processes, or “cosmic
concentrations” created out of the original energy form, interrelate and function.
On Reich’s theory, as we have seen, galaxies are created out of the primordial cosmic orgone energy ocean, specifically
as a result of the superimposition of two or more streams of mass-free orgone energy that come together and merge in an
orgastic convulsion producing mass at the point of merger. Prior to galactic formation, for Reich, all that exists are streams of
orgone energy, a state of being that appears equivalent in scale at least to Gurdjieff’s Great Megalocosmos or All Worlds.
Merging Reich and Gurdjieff, we can form the following hypothesis: streams of mass-free orgone energy function according
to the three laws of the Great Megalocosmos.
Reich’s theory of mass-free streams of orgone energy can be put in terms of the Law of Three in the same way that any
three aspects of anything is put: first force represents the impetus of the streams, second force the obstacles that impede
their movement, and third force the apparatus by which their impetus overcomes the obstacles and allows the streams to
merge in formation of the next cosmos, a galaxy. Reich’s theory can be put in terms of the Law of Seven in that the streams
themselves are processes and, as such, would function according to this law. This would have to be verified, of course,
before we can say it is the case. To test for this hypothesis would be to observe how streams get started, the first “shock,” and
what acts on them from the outside to keep them going, the other “shocks.” Gurdjieff’s model could serve as a hypothetical
scientific model for scientists who found it compelling and fruitful in terms of guiding research.
If the analysis is correct, the two laws interact to originate the streams via an impetus that overcomes resistances, and the
streams continue in motion as further stimuli or shocks are provided. In one sense the Law of Seven represents the
movement of the streams; the Law of Three, how the streams relate to one another.
We can hypothesize then that out of the pulsation of the primordial orgone energy ocean emerge the opposite streams of
orgone energy, which we can call Yin and Yang. The streams, once formed, continue to pulsate. They pulsationally spin and
move, connecting them to Gurdjieff’s law of process (seven); they pulsationally become attracted, luminate, come together,
and fuse in the pulsational function known as the orgastic convulsion, connecting them to Gurdjieff’s law of entity (three). If
not for the original pulsation, no streams would form—no Yin, no Yang—and there would be no merger. Nothing would
emerge, and the nature of being would be as some Chinese philosophers maintain it was before there was anything,
namely, “Wu Chi,” or absolute nothingness, forever.8
The One Law of the Absolute, on this analysis, is pulsation. But as far as I can tell and for Reich and Gurdjieff as well,
pulsation cannot occur in a vacuum; there must be something pulsating. Orgone energy, in its mass-free state, can be
observed pulsating, and if Reich is correct, everything is created out of it. For Gurdjieff, what exists when nothing else does is
pure, undifferentiated etherokrilno. It seems reasonable to say, then, that the Absolute itself can be nothing other than
etherokrilno, or unformed, mass-free, undifferentiated orgone energy. All it does alone is pulse.
(This assumes that mass-free, undifferentiated orgone energy ever is actually “alone,” that it can exist without its
“creations” at some point/s in time. I have my doubts about this. It seems to me that the One and the Many exist or prevail
together, that the One cannot exist without the Many and vice versa, and that this, in fact, is the very essence and meaning of
the One! If this is true, this means that speaking of the Absolute as alone is simply a way of speaking or an abstraction that
prevails only in thought and not in fact.)
The Absolute
Wu Chi
The Primordial Cosmic Orgone Energy Ocean
Etherokrilno
(Pulsation)
All Worlds
Seven (Pulsation) Three
Movement Relation
Orgastic
Convulsion
All Suns
Seven (Pulsation) Three
(1)(2) (3)(4) (5)(6)
Figure 10
Notes
1. BT, p. 753.
2. BT, pp. 748ff.
3. BT, pp. 750ff, 813-70, and passim.
4. BT, pp. 138-9, 751, and passim.
5. Ibid., p. 756.
6. Ibid., pp. 137ff.
7. See Jou Tsung Hwa, The Tao of Tai-Chi Chuan (Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle), pp. 77ff.
8. Ibid.
PART V
The Evolution and Involution
of Consciousness
CHAPTER ONE
Consciousness and Evolution
Consciousness means, literally, “knowing-together.” A development of consciousness would therefore mean knowing “more together,” and so it would bring about a new
relationship to everything previously known. For to know more always means to see things differently.1
Immortality
E soteric traditions usually picture consciousness expanding or evolving in stages or levels, and they claim that
ultimately, as one evolves, one transcends the limits of physical existence and becomes, in some sense, immortal. The
physical body dies, but if consciousness has developed sufficiently, what evolves does not die with it. Various traditions
name the goal differently, as, for example, “awakening the Atman,” “entering nirvana,” “becoming one with Tao,” “preparing
for the coming of the Meshiach,” “retrieving the ‘sparks,’” “becoming the Christ,” “moving toward the One,” “reaching the level
of the Absolute,” “climbing Jacob’s Ladder,” “ascending the Ray of Creation,”2 and so on. The levels are referred to as, for
example, “opening the lower ‘chakras’ and then the higher ones and developing ‘spirit bodies,’”3; “entering ‘realms’ such as
‘the infinity of space,’ ‘the infinity of consciousness,’ ‘the realm of nothingness,’”4; “ascending through the Four Worlds”5; and
so on. Though the names differ, and perhaps the meaning and understanding as well, there appears to remain something
essential that these ideas have in common—the notion that if consciousness is developed sufficiently, something other than
simple physical death awaits us, either immediately upon the death of the physical body or some time later, as, for example,
in the idea of the resurrection of the bodies of the “just” at the end of time.6
Gurdjieff employs the concept of higher-being bodies: higher levels of consciousness become crystallized in the form of
finer bodies each corresponding to a higher level of consciousness. The idea, when taken literally, is that actual bodies
survive the death of the physical body. Because of the nature of Gurdjieff’s method of transmission, however, it is impossible
to say with absolute certainty if he meant his teachings regarding these bodies to be taken literally. In the following, we shall
make a leap and go on the assumption that the concept of the higher-being bodies can be taken literally and attempt to
explain how, when so taken, it can reasonably be understood.
The physical body, said to be under forty-eight laws (when we are awake, when in waking-sleep we are under more than
forty-eight laws), is said to return to its origins, the earth, when it dies (it is also said that certain emanations of it feed the
moon).7 The Higher Emotional Body, said to be composed of the matter of the planetary world, is also said to be able to
survive the death of the physical body. The Higher Mental Body is said to be able to survive the death of the Higher
Emotional Body, while the Fourth Body, the Soul, said to be made of material so fine that nothing within the solar system can
destroy it, is thus said to be immortal within its limits.8 The Soul, however, in Gurdjieff’s teaching, is not immortal in an
absolute sense. Whatever is a “cosmic concentration,” whatever is born out of the prime-source substance, etherokrilno, for
Gurdjieff, eventually dies. Immortality, for him, is thus relative. We are relatively immortal as compared to a cell of our body;
the sun is relatively immortal as compared to us; All Worlds as compared to the sun; the Absolute as compared to All Worlds.
Each of the higher-being bodies is relatively immortal as compared to the ones below it in scale.
In Beelzebub’s Tales, even the Absolute—called “The Holy Sun Absolute”—is spoken of as a cosmic concentration and
so something that is born and dies.9 It is not said whether or not etherokrilno is born and dies. Not being a cosmic
concentration as such but the material from which all such concentrations originate, etherokrilno could be conceived of as
Being Itself, which, logically speaking at least, could not be born and so could not die. Gurdjieff says nothing about this,
however, and makes it clear that when he speaks of immortality, he means relative immortality and implies that those who
like to think of immortality as if it were absolute, as life eternal, are deluding themselves.
Contemporary science remains in the dark concerning the nature of consciousness. Biochemistry and neuroscience
focus on the brain cells and the chemical and molecular processes involved. Psychiatry uses chemicals to influence
consciousness, but it remains unknown how they work or even whether, as, for example, in the case of depression,
depressive thoughts cause chemical changes in the brain, or chemical changes cause depressing thoughts.15 Present-day
research in the biochemistry and neuroscience of learning focus on, among other things, primitive forms of learning, but how
the results of this work will eventually be found to be related to human consciousness remains a mystery.16
To physicists, research into the biochemistry of consciousness is not fundamental, for chemical processes are thought to
be rooted in the interaction of particles on the atomic and subatomic level. These interactions are conceived of in
mechanical or mathematical terms as functions of blind forces spinning and smashing together in empty space (from the
point of view of particle physics, living organisms are well over 99 percent empty space, although recent theories concerning
“dark matter” and “dark energy” may change things). The discovery that the position of subatomic particles cannot be
determined with precision when the velocity can, and vice-versa, a discovery known as the “Heisenberg uncertainty
principle,” has been taken by some to indicate that freedom of choice or consciousness is rooted in the subatomic realm.17 If
everything is ultimately a product of such interactions and if consciousness exists, then, ipso facto, consciousness is a
product of such interactions. The current state of our knowledge of subatomic processes, however, is not such that any
secure conclusions regarding consciousness can be drawn from it.
Furthermore, ascription of the roots of consciousness to the quantum mechanical realm does not necessarily remove the
age-old dilemma of relating mind and body, for if subatomic processes consist in interaction of blind forces and particles,
how consciousness—or that which is, by definition, not blind—emerges from them remains problematic. That mind and body
appear irreconcilable if thought of as distinct entities has led to materialism, on the one hand, where mind is reduced to body
—conceived of as a result of chemical or physical interactions or, as with behaviorism, as a way of speaking about behavior
—and, on the other hand, to idealism, where body is reduced to mind.18
Gurdjieff’s solution of the mind/body problem, as mentioned, is based on his concept that everything in the universe is the
same stuff at various densities. Consciousness, for him, is everywhere: the densest energy-matter is the densest
consciousness, the finest energy-matter is the finest consciousness (the most conscious consciousness), and all differences
in consciousness equal differences in energy-matter density.19 Because Gurdjieff says everything is material, some might
take him to be a materialist, but since he also conceives of material as consciousness, he can be taken as an idealist. It is
not fair to call him a materialist, however, not if this is taken to mean that he thinks consciousness can be reduced to blind
interactions of material forces, for he says that material is not blind; and it is not fair to call him an idealist, not if this is taken
to mean that he thinks matter can be reduced to unsubstantial mind, for he says that matter is substantial.
Gurdjieff’s ideas do not fit neatly into either category for they take into account a third factor and express the notion that
mind and body are grounded in a common third, variously called matter, energy, matter-energy, matter-energy-impressions,
etherokrilno, and so on. Still, Gurdjieff has provided no clear-cut demonstration of the existence of this common ground of
mind and body, and so, from the point of view of contemporary experimental science, it is a solution of the mind/body
problem by fiat, a form of mysticism, in Reich’s sense of the word (i.e., in the sense of either scientifically unverifiable or,
perhaps more precisely, as yet unverified).
Until we’ve crystallized a higher-being body, we apparently cannot verify its existence. But on the understanding of the
nature of consciousness and its evolution provided by Reich, the nature, function, and existence of higher-being bodies
becomes theoretically comprehensible. To form one and so to put oneself in a position to verify the hypothesis would require
bringing one’s orgone energy pulsation to the required level of excitation in such a way that the organ or body would
crystallize out of this highly luminated energy. This, presumably, is the function of the Second Conscious Shock.
Desire
The expansion of orgone energy within our bodies can be experienced in a variety of ways. The burning urge to know,
says Reich, can be experienced as a stretching out of our senses beyond the framework of our body, as if we were mere
tools of this yearning.22 Gurdjieff describes what sounds like a similar experience when he speaks of the “wish” to
understand, to evolve beyond the consciousness of waking-sleep.23 Such a yearning, on Reich’s theory, is a function of an
excited, all-encompassing lumination of the mass-free orgone energy within. The wish itself is an expression, on a psychic
level, of the energy’s expansion out of the membrane toward the world.
Every desire, not just this intense yearning to know, is an expression of the expansion of orgone energy within the
membrane. The wish to understand, to consciously evolve, then, at its root is no different from the movements of an amoeba,
the emergence of a blade of grass from the ground, the turning of a leaf toward the sun, the interest of a cat in the
movements of a mouse, the curiosity of an infant, the fascination of a child with its toys, the intense desire of an adolescent to
be with a person of the opposite sex, the desire of a householder to provide for his or her family, the interest of parents in
their children, etc. Even such desire as the wish to become rich or famous, to dominate others or to be dominated, and so on
are functions of energy expansion, although in these cases, the desires are “mixed blessings,” products of orgonotic
expansion as it mixes with armoring.
Differences among desires are a function of a number of factors. First, there is organ development or, in Gurdjieff’s terms,
development of brain systems. Each organ, each brain, has, in a manner of speaking, its own desires or interests, which are
defined in terms of the impressions it takes in and the manifestations it expresses.24 For this reason, one-brained beings
(protozoa, worms, plants, etc.), two brained beings (animals), and three-brained beings have different desires. Within
organisms higher on the evolutionary scale are included desires of the lower or more primitive brains along with those of the
higher or more evolved brains.
A second factor is maturity. Infant three-brained beings differ in their desires from adolescent three-brained beings and
adult three-brained beings. These two factors, organ development and maturity, are aspects of the same process, evolution
of consciousness. A third factor, armoring, however, is not. Suppression of core impulses and emotions that leads to chronic
armoring functionally keeps us immature. It prevents the natural evolution of desire by keeping infantile and childhood
desires buried in the character structure of the adult. Armored, we remain infants and children in the bodies of adults. What is
adult in us, what the adult in us desires, is colored by what the infant and child was denied and so continues to crave.
What are the desires of mature human beings? As Gurdjieff would say, on the level of waking-sleeping humanity, in the
Tower of Babel, everyone has his or her own idea, and no one can prove that his or her view is correct to anyone else, as
with desire, so with morality, with concepts of beauty, with values in general. In waking-sleep, we have different ideas
concerning the nature of right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, maturity, and so on, because, as Plato would say, we haven’t
ascended to the Realm of Ideas, where direct contact with truth can be made and knowledge gained. The Hindu/Yoga
tradition indicates that maturity of desire is exhibited in the desire for liberation and that this desire evolves naturally if the
person is allowed to satisfy all infantile, childhood, adolescent, and adult desires without inhibition,25 a philosophy that most
Indians, like most other people, no doubt have trouble living up to.
The Buddhists say that maturity of desire is exhibited in the extinguishing of desire, or in the desire for nirvana; some
mystical Jews in the desire for cleaving or merger with Ein Sof;26 esoteric Christians in the desire to be as Christ. Esotericism
generally says that maturity of desire is exhibited in the desire to evolve in consciousness; Gurdjieff implies that it is
exhibited in the desire to understand, to develop higher-being bodies, and to help God. Reich says that the mature human
being desires love, work, and knowledge. Each of us, I suppose, has to try and figure out what it means for ourselves. If
Reich and Gurdjieff are correct, the best approach to begin to discover what maturity brings in terms of desire is to begin a
process of buffer or armor dissolution: free the bound, immature desires; vent them in safety; and then watch closely and
enjoy as the free essence pulses its way toward maturity.
This distinction helps Gurdjieff transmit the idea that work on all centers is necessary for the evolution of consciousness.
Some prefer to gather knowledge, some to develop capacities or being. If we wish to evolve, however, those of us who
prefer gathering knowledge should develop capacities (with respect to that knowledge), and those who prefer to develop
capacities should study or gather knowledge as well. When knowledge gets too far ahead of being or being too far ahead of
knowledge, says Gurdjieff, the evolution of consciousness reaches a plateau (interval) and must wait for a shock from the
other side.
Reich speaks of the “yearning to know,” but by this term he does not mean mere intellectual knowledge. He speaks of it in
terms of the stretching out of the senses, by which he means all the senses—the physical senses, emotional sense, and
intellectual sense. He, as well as Gurdjieff, understood the difference between knowledge and understanding (even if he did
not always use the terms in the same way). He was always concerned to comprehend intellectually what he could carry out
clinically or experimentally and to develop capacities regarding the knowledge he gained, such as helping patients become
orgastically potent and dissolving DOR clouds via his knowledge of atmospheric orgone energy functions. This is to say that
Reich sought understanding (in Gurdjieff’s terms): to know what he could do and to do what he knew.
From Reich’s and Gurdjieff’s point of view, to focus on development of knowledge at the expense of being or on being at
the expense of knowledge, or to focus on development of one center or function and to ignore the others, is expressive of a
divided consciousness. This is precisely what is tacitly or openly called for by contemporary science, philosophy, and
religion, however. Scientists and philosophers are trained to develop the intellect and value knowledge; religion focuses on
practices and beliefs. Each is one-sided, and from Gurdjieff’s and Reich’s points of view, such one-sidedness does not lead
to evolution of consciousness.
As armored organisms, it is natural that we would tend to develop forms of science and philosophy that are devoid of
emotion and sensation, which focus on the intellect and not on the whole, and religions that discourage investigation and
sensuality. Because we are divided by the armor, our sensations, emotions, and thoughts are separated and relatively
unrelated to one another. One’s outlook, of course, mirrors one’s impressions; we can look only for what we conceive can be
seen. When our thoughts are cut off from our emotions, our emotions from our sensations, and when our everyday
experience is divided from our scientific theories, we have no way of comprehending the whole of life under one unified
perspective.
For this reason, for example, a pediatrician can have children of her own that react hyperactively when served an excess
amount of sugar and a husband who notices this and stops serving it to them, and yet the pediatrician can continue to deny
that diet or nutrition has anything to do with hyperactivity because she is not aware of any research that proves it.28 A priest,
to take another example, can deny himself sexual gratification, develop cancer of the prostate, and suffer prolonged bouts of
depression and yet continue to advise his parishioners against natural genitality—and our example could continue with the
physicians who examined him, failing to connect his shriveled prostate with lack of sexual activity.29
The divisions that currently prevail in the sciences, philosophy, and religion appear chaotic when viewed from the
perspective of orgonomic functionalism and Gurdjieff’s teachings. From the point of view of the Ray of Creation, for example,
such divisions are expressions of denser being, of a lower level of consciousness than would exist if the sciences,
philosophy, and religion were characterized by relatedness. As one climbs up the Ray, up Jacob’s Ladder, if you will, one
begins to see relatedness as opposed to division, that all fields of inquiry study the same thing from different sides and that
the impressions of each necessarily reflect on the others.
Gurdjieff called his perspective “objective science” on the one hand and “esoteric religion” on the other,3 0 ways of
speaking expressive of an understanding that when inquiry involves the whole organism, specific disciplines merge.
Science becomes religious and artistic, religion becomes artistic and scientific, philosophy includes impressions of
sensation and emotion, art transmits objective knowledge.31 If this implies that certain distinctive traits are lost by the
individual disciplines, it is no different than what happens when a person awakens from the sleep of false personality. Lost
are the manifestations associated with the armor; gained is an appreciation of the essential.
This is not to say that there is no need for different areas of inquiry. Impressions come in different forms, in different
energetic densities, and require various media for transmission. There is a need to transmit understanding through ritual,
pictorial art, sculpture, functional technique, dance, music, and so on, as well as through words and experimentation. As one
twentieth-century philosopher puts it, impressions cannot be transmitted via assertion alone. Active and exhibitive forms of
transmission are just as important.32
Gurdjieff’s system provides a unified perspective from which to view all of reality. The discovery of orgone energy does
the same. As a discovery that provides a perspective that brings the sciences, religion, philosophy, art, mechanics, etc.,
under one general framework, the discovery of orgone energy is itself a step forward in the evolution of human
consciousness.33 Should we learn from Reich and Gurdjieff, we will no longer view the universe as if it exists in unrelated
pieces such as emotions vs. sensations vs. thoughts vs. physical forces, minds vs. bodies, astronomical phenomena vs.
cellular phenomena, nature vs. nurture, science vs. religion, facts vs. values, men vs. women, children vs. adults, the needs
of the rich vs. the needs of the poor, and so on.
Though this perspective is highly general, it is not merely mathematical, metaphysical, or abstract. We cannot understand
it simply with the intellect; to understand it requires more of us than merely following ideas. We need to use the full
compliment of the senses and the emotions as well. To understand reality from this perspective, in other words, is to know
the concepts, to be open to the mass-free orgone energy flow and pulsation within our bodies, and to live our lives in
accordance with our knowledge: knowledge plus being equals understanding. To understand reality from this perspective
means making contact with impressions of all kinds and with beings on the levels of existence we can reach. It means loving
them, luminating with them, something we can do because we all are made of the same stuff.
At some point, the orgone within developed further and became able to perceive its own flow—it developed orgonotic
sensation (primitive consciousness). Over eons, organisms became more and more complex as the orgone contained within
the membrane continued to stretch and grow, developing more and more elaborate structures. On the principle that
orgonotic functioning precedes material structure—that structure represents mass-free functioning in frozen form—the
complex organs such as the brain formed out of the functioning of mass-free energy along the lines that the structure
eventually took. Later the complex orgone energy system known as Homo sapiens began to think about its own functioning.
This thinking apparently led to impressions that frightened them and led to them involuntarily turning against themselves.39
Armor developed as a protection against their own frightening sensations.
Earlier, Reich had developed a theory based on the takeover of sex-positive matrifocal culture by repressive patrifocal
culture.40 Whatever the reason, human beings began interfering with their own energy metabolism, and armor formed. This
interference has undoubtedly led to a terror of the impulses, sensations, emotions, and thoughts caused by freely pulsating
orgone energy in our bodies—a terror, in other words, of ourselves.41
Notes
1. Maurice Nicoll, Living Time (London: Watkins, 1976), p. 22.
2. As in Yoga, Buddhism, Taoism, Hasidism, Gnostic Christianity, Sufism, Transcendental Philosophy, The Gurdjieff Work,
etc., I do not mean to imply that each of these ideas is equivalent but only that a common direction is involved.
3. See, for example, Richard Wilhelm (trans.), The Secret of the Golden Flower (New York: Causeway Books, 1975).
4. Lucien Stryk (ed.), The World of the Buddha (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969), pp. 45-6.
5. See, for example, Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi, Adam and the Kabbalistic Tree (New York: Weiser, 1974).
6. An idea found, for example, in Judaism.
7. BT, pp. 1105-7.
8. ISM, p. 94.
9. BT, pp. 52, 136, 749.
10. See EGD, passim.
11. See, for example, BT, pp. 510-12; VFRW, pp. 93, 211, 242-3.
12. Plato, The Republic, op. cit.
13. Plotinus, The Enneads, op. cit.
14. Descartes, Meditations; Gilbert Ryle, “The Ghost in the Machine,” from The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinson’s
University Library, 1949), chapter 1. Both are found in Melvin Rader (ed.), The Enduring Questions, 4th ed. (New York:
Hold, Rinehart and Winston, 1980), pp. 197-227.
15. Said by the president of the American Psychological Association as of January 13, 1983, and heard over WWDB-FM,
Philadelphia, on a regular newscast.
16. See Robert Pollie, “The Educated Nervous System,” in Science News, vol. 123, no. 5 (January 29, 1983): pp. 74-5.
17. See, for example, Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics (Boulder, Colorado: Shambala, 1975); Gary Zukov, The Dancing
Wu Li Masters (New York: William Morrow, 1979).
18. As with Berkeley, Shopenhauer, and others.
19. VFRW, pp. 205-9.
20. Technically speaking, at least from the perspective of Gurdjieff’s teachings, we should say “extremely dense
consciousness exists.” For Reich, however, consciousness means experience, and experience is a product of the
movement of mass-free orgone energy within membranes, i.e., of a biologically alive organism.
21. CS, p. 279.
22. Ibid., p. 286.
23. TS, p. 2ff.
24. VFRW, p. 129; C, pp. 408ff.
25. Houston Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), pp. 14-89.
26. See David S. Ariel, The Mystic Quest (New York: Schocken, 1988), pp. 140, 142, 178, 191-4, and passim.
27. ISM, pp. 67-8. Nicoll says, “A man is his understanding” (C, p. 407).
28. An example similar to this was reported by Gary Null over WBAI-FM, New York City, on January 24, 1983.
29. Recent research into prostate cancer indicates that the connection between it and sexual abstinence or illness is
becoming noticed by the research and medical community. See, for example, Science News, vol. 121, p. 215.
3 0 . ISM, p. 102. He used the expression “esoteric Christianity” when speaking of the function of the New Testament. See
Nicoll’s The New Man.
31. BT, pp. 449-523; VFRW, pp. 180-2.
32. Justus Buchler, Toward a General Theory of Human Judgment (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), passim.
33. CS, p. 286.
34. BT, pp. 85-121, 1046-1213.
35. BT, pp. 918-1054.
36. CS, pp. 286-7.
37. Ibid., pp. 87ff, 287.
38. Ibid., p. 291ff.
39. Ibid., p. 293.
40. ICSM.
41. CS, 294.
CHAPTER TWO
Biopathic Illness
The Concept of Biopathy
We, like everything else, pulse, or pulsate—in every part, every organ, muscle, tissue, and cell. In our sexual
functioning, we can experience a complete pulsation of our entire body in one unified movement. But an impediment to this
pulsation has been created, armoring, and when the natural pulsation of our organism is impeded, illness can develop. This
is Reich’s concept of “biopathy”: a disease process caused by a basic dysfunction in the autonomic life apparatus, in the
overall pulsation of the organism.1
Prior to Reich, as we have seen, Breuer and Freud had believed that sexual dysfunction causes emotional illness. Freud
went further and indicated that he believed a relationship existed between sexual disturbances and certain physical
problems such as cardiac malfunction, migraines, and diabetes.
Over time, Reich’s comprehension of the relationship between sexual dysfunction and physical diseases evolved. First of
all, he came to understand that a disturbance in the capacity for full charge and discharge in the orgasm, whether or not
accompanied by other symptoms, is a disease in itself, namely, “orgastic impotence,” and that it leads to other diseases.
From this understanding came his concept of “biopathy,” where because of a lack of complete pulsation, disturbances occur
that result in distortions in the natural modes of expression and functioning of the organism.2 In this respect, neurotic and
psychotic symptoms are expressions of a biopathic process.
From Reich’s point of view, armor prevents complete sexual gratification, for it can be enjoyed only when we are capable
of the complete release of sexually excited energy in a full orgasm. Armoring prevents the involuntary muscular convulsions,
thus preventing full orgasm, complete release of energy and gratification. But armor has other consequences. Chronic, long-
term constriction of the chest, for example, though originally formed as a way of inhibiting certain impulses and emotions,
puts excess pressure on the cardiovascular system and can lead to cardiovascular disease. Armoring in the upper segments
can lead to chronic headaches, neck problems, the tendency to suffer from throat infections, ocular difficulties, and so on.
Biopathies, Reich found, take different forms depending on where and on how severe the armoring is. Severe armoring in
the ocular segment, for example, on Reich’s analysis, can be the most significant factor in the development of the biopathy
known as schizophrenia,3 while other forms of armoring can lead to the carcinomatous shrinking biopathy (cancer), angina
pectoris, asthma, cardiovascular hypertension, anxiety neurosis, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, chorea, chronic alcoholism,
and so on.4 In the remainder of this chapter, we will focus on Reich’s research into one of these biopathies, the cancer
biopathy, for examination of this biopathy most clearly reveals the connection between sexuality and the direction one can
go in life—in Gurdjieff’s terms, “up” the Ray of Creation in an evolutionary direction or “down” it in an involutionary direction,
i.e., on one hand, toward unity, toward the One, or on the other, toward chaos, toward the “moon.”
T-bacilli Poisoning
Reich learned that when more T-bacilli are present, more bions tend to be produced as a defense, and when more bions
are present, they tend to organize into cancer cells and other protozoa. He observed that cancer cells also break down into
T-bacilli so that by the time a person has a tumor, which consists of great numbers of cancer cells, numerous T-bacilli are
constantly being formed from the continued breakdown of weakened tissue and disintegration of the cancer cells
themselves. At this point, says Reich, the organism is deeply poisoned by great numbers of T-bacilli that spread throughout
the organism via the blood and lymph systems.
Dissection of cancerous mice confirmed this, says Reich, for the blood and lymph systems of these mice were found to be
clogged by T-bacilli. They also had developed enlarged livers and spleens, apparently due to the necessity to eliminate the
poison. Reich came to believe that the mice had died from what he called “T-intoxication”—the clogging of the blood and
lymph systems with T-bacilli and the effects of this clogging on the organs of elimination rather than from the tumors
themselves.27
Notes
1 . ISM, 181ff; CF also John G. Bennett, Food (Sherbourne, Gloucestershire, G154 3DZ, England: Coombe Springs Press,
Sherbourne House).
2. See CB, p. 40; Contact with Space, op. cit., p. 148ff.
3. EGD, chapter 1 and passim.
4. See, for example, Orson Bean, Me and the Orgone (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Crest, 1971), and the various case histories
reported in Reich’s books and most recent journals listed in the bibliography.
5. BT, pp. 124, 139-40, 764, 850-1, 856, 886-7.
6. ISM, p. 199.
CHAPTER TWO
Impressions of the Higher Emotional Body
The First Conscious Shock and Armor Dissolution
Let us now see if we can come to some understanding of what it might take to form, or “crystallize,” as Gurdjieff puts it, a
Higher Emotional Body. We have already indicated that it is a function of the Second Conscious Shock and that it involves a
very fine form of energy, at the energetic density level of sex energy. Before exploring this further, let us go back a bit and
discuss the First Conscious Shock, the prerequisite to the Second Conscious Shock, so to better prepare us for exploration
of the latter.
The First Conscious Shock means, for Gurdjieff, consistent practice of self-observation and self-remembering. This
functions to increase the vivifyingness of the impressions of the intellect and the emotions. Our analysis of how impressions
function as food indicates that the greater the pulsation and flow of orgone energy in the body, the more there will be energy
available to carry out such a practice. Since increased orgone energy pulsation is a function of dissolution of armoring or
destruction of buffers, the formation of a “working I”—an I that can consistently trigger the First Conscious Shock—involves
elimination of some of the buffers or dissolution of some of the armoring. In this way more unbound, free energy becomes
available for self-observation and self-remembering, for the working I, and less identification takes place.
Armor dissolution or buffer destruction are, of course, gradual processes just as impression intensity is a matter of degree.
The capacity to trigger the First Conscious Shock, then, is also a matter of degree. The less chronic the armoring, the fewer
or weaker the buffers, the more unified the working I, the more intense or vivid the impressions of the self, the more valuable
the First Conscious Shock becomes in terms of fine-energy production and use. And when there is more of the finer energy
available, the higher centers and the sex center have more energy to carry out their work, since they utilize finer energies
than the emotional and intellectual centers.
Thus the First Conscious Shock prepares us for the Second Conscious Shock by producing energy of the requisite
density for the Second Conscious Shock to be triggered. This process is simply a continuation of the process of digestion or
assimilation of food, for each time food is taken in, it functions as a “shock,” a stimulus, a trigger for production of finer
energy, and enables even finer food to be taken in. The digestion of physical food allows for the digestion of air, and this
allows for the digestion of impressions. Self-observation and self-remembering, the First Conscious Shock, create even finer
energies and prepare us to take in an even finer food via the Second Conscious Shock. These shocks are called
“conscious” because they don’t happen automatically as does the assimilation of physical food, air, and impressions that
require no self-observation or self-remembering to be ingested, impressions that are taken in, for the most part, in waking-
sleep.
Quarks . . . are notorious for traveling about in pairs consisting of a quark and an antiquark. The net result of such a union is
that the one quark neutralizes the other’s presence, much as a base neutralizes an acid, its chemical opposite.
The role of the sex center in creating . . . a permanent center of gravity can be very big . . . if it uses its own energy, the sex
center stands on a level with the higher emotional center. This alone would indicate a comparatively high level of being.
The preorgastic body movements and especially the orgastic convulsions represent extreme attempts of the mass-free
orgone of both organisms to fuse with each other, to reach into the other.
We are now ready to merge all that has been said about Gurdjieff’s teachings and Reich’s scientific theories to form as
complete a picture as we can of the relationship of sexuality to the evolution of consciousness. It is, of course, Gurdjieff that
presents us with the idea: when the sex center works properly—in other words, with its own energy—it represents the chief
possibility of liberation, and liberation begins with creation of a Higher Emotional Body, the first of the higher-being bodies.
This body, he says, crystallizes or forms when the cells of the physical body become “saturated” with energy at the energetic
density of sex energy that has been transformed or “transmuted.” This same energetic density is said to be the energy of the
Second Conscious Shock, a shock that brings to the person a fine form of impressions. Thus the impressions of the Second
Conscious Shock function as the food-energy-matter of the Higher Emotional Body.
What are the impressions of healthy sexuality, of the sex center when it uses its own energy? As with all impressions, we
cannot know what they are like until we have them, and since the bulk of humanity suffers from orgastic impotence, the taste
of such impressions cannot be very well known. Most people experience sexual feelings, thus have some sexual
impressions, although, from both Reich’s and Gurdjieff’s perspectives, the impressions of sexuality when the sex center
does not function to capacity, when people are orgastically impotent, are very different than the impressions of sexuality
when it does function properly.
Can we at least gain a theoretical idea of what these impressions are like? We can, but, as I have said, we cannot
discover much from Gurdjieff’s writings or from those of his students and followers. Nor can we gain much from other
sources, for very little research has ever been done on such impressions except for Reich’s.
As we have seen, Reich learned that during the excitation phase, the mass-free energy within each person becomes
highly excited via mutual excitation or lumination. As the excitation continues to build, it begins to flow throughout each
person, coming in contact with the muscles, tissues, and cells. The energy itself, in fact, is the excess energy of the body’s
cells. Eventually the flowing energy excites the genitals, causing them to become turgid and to erect. After physical union of
the genital organs, the excitation eventually reaches a peak that triggers the orgasm reflex in which the bodies involuntarily
convulse in a unitary series of contractions, releasing the highly excited energy from each person into the other. At this
stage, the highly excited energy of the two persons (the open orgonomes) fuse or merge, and the two systems become one
pulsating mass-free orgone energy system. After merger at acme, excitation drops, and the energy flows back into the
individuals, and they feel a sense of deep gratification.
What impressions are triggered during this experience? What stands out immediately in the merger of the two energy
systems is an absence of the sense of “self,” a loss of all identification. In a complete merger of “selves,” there cannot be any
of the I’s we normally are identified with, such as the roles we play and the various images we have of ourselves. There can
no longer be even any male and female, no more you and I, no more separateness, for you and I, male and female, have
become one.
Loss of identification means gaining impressions of unification. Such impressions enter during the complete genital
merger in a number of ways: as impressions of unification that occur as our own excited orgone energy flows throughout our
own body, unifying it during the charge phase; as impressions of unification that occur as our entire body convulses as a
whole in a unified orgasm reflex; and as impressions of unification that accrue to the bioenergetic merger of the two energy
systems.
Over the centuries, seekers of truth and individuals who saw through the maze of armored civilization have no doubt
existed. According to Gurdjieff, most of the traditions that were built from their work, however, are forever lost to historical
investigation, and only a few of the individuals are remembered.1 One of Gurdjieff’s most important contributions was his
attempt to discover and then communicate ideas and practices of such traditions and individuals that have not been
completely lost. Apart from his investigations, a number of ideas and practices that have reached us can be studied via the
literature and in other ways. Many of these traditions communicate the idea that evolution of consciousness takes the form of
the formation of entities very much like Gurdjieff’s higher-being bodies, and many also recognize a fundamental relationship
between sexuality and the evolution of consciousness, although the nature of this relationship is not always clear and
remains in dispute.
Most esoteric literature available today, in fact, transmits the idea that natural genitality must be suppressed or
abandoned for the evolution of consciousness to occur, as a review of the literature will easily show. Generally speaking, the
claim is that spiritual development happens when sex energy is transmuted but that this cannot occur if the energy is
“wasted” in sexual intercourse.
Reich’s work provides evidence that such a point of view is fundamentally misguided and, furthermore, that it has its
source in orgasm anxiety, rooted in chronic armoring. Gurdjieff, too, appears to disagree with such an attitude.
Apart from their work, recent research into the history of Tantra, a form of Yoga and Buddhist practice originally
developed, at the least, over a thousand years ago in India and Tibet, indicates that the idea that natural genitality must be
suppressed in the interest of the evolution of consciousness is a perversion of the original idea. The original idea was that
development of higher levels of consciousness could be accomplished via natural genitality in which lovers went all the way
to complete orgastic release and bioenergetic merger.2 The original practice, called the “Left-handed Way,” was referred to
as the “supreme practice of obtaining enlightenment” and was thought to be the most natural and efficient method for
transforming sex energy, an idea in accord with Gurdjieff’s teaching that the sex center represents the chief possibility of
liberation. It was regarded as the Tantric practice, and one researcher, Agehananda Bharati, points out that what eventually
replaced it was considered not central by the original practitioners.3
On Bharati’s investigations, it appears that the original practice was abandoned due to the pressures of sex-negative
culture, not to any perceived failure of the practice on the part of practitioners. Left-handed practice came to be regarded as
scandalous, and practitioners were ostracized and sometimes severely persecuted. It became impossible for them to choose
a mate at will, a difficulty that became insurmountable in that success via the practice necessitated that the lovers be of what
they understand to be the correct polarity for only then could the energy be sufficiently excited.
This lead, according to the research, to the necessity of changing the method to retention of sperm rather than surrender
to the orgasm reflex, a change that allowed adepts to “save” their sperm for what was now considered a “higher” purpose.
Such a change was apparently more acceptable to the culture at the time for the adept could claim he was not doing
anything immoral, not having any pleasure, but was instead inhibiting his pleasure for religious purposes. To further justify
this, various rituals and meditative exercises were included. That a simple, gratifying orgastic convulsion could be “holy” or
have spiritual implications apparently did not seem possible to the armored populace. The most ancient references to
Tantra, however, do not indicate the necessity of retaining sperm.4 Originally, says Bharati, nothing was held back.
Later, other practices developed. The original ingredients were replaced by substitutes, and evolution of consciousness
was viewed in terms of raising what was called “kundalini” up the “susumna,” or yogic duct from the base of the spinal
column through the “thousand-petaled lotus” thought to be at the top of the head.5 This form of Tantra was considered less
risky in that adepts were not persecuted as long as they avoided sex. A few courageous souls apparently continued to
practice in the original way but had to hide in the mountains and jungles of India and Tibet.6
Being-Partkdolg-Duty
I n Beelzebub’s Tales, Gurdjieff tells of adepts who tried to patch together knowledge of the proper method for
transforming sex energy from fragments that had survived the cataclysm he calls “the sinking of the continent Atlantis,” an
indication (assuming the references are meant to be understood historically as well as psychologically) that Gurdjieff
believed that knowledge of proper transformation methods had, at one time, existed. These adepts, it is said, decided that
self-perfection could be achieved by nonejection of sperm but that only the second generation succeeded via the method
and that all future generations did not.12 Success via this method, says Beelzebub, was predicated on ceaseless practice of
“conscious labors and intentional suffering,” or “being-Partkdolg-duty,” a practice that, on our analysis, would have to
function to luminate the orgone energy within the practitioners to the required degree after which they would have to merge
with energy of equal luminosity from others.
“Conscious labors,” as I understand it, means taking on tasks with the aim of evolving and carrying them out with full
attentiveness, with, in other words, a fully unified organism in which all the centers function via the guidance of a healthy
working I. “Intentional suffering” means, I believe, accepting one’s burdens—“second force”—and giving up mechanical
suffering, or moaning and bitching about one’s fate.13 We take up the practice of being-Partkdolg-duty, for example, when
learning to endure the negative manifestations of others toward ourselves without complaining, either outwardly or inwardly,
a task Beelzebub says was given to his disciples by the Buddha.14
Such a practice is clearly difficult and could result in illness if not practiced correctly if only because it appears to call for a
tremendous amount of self-control, which could easily be taken to mean suppression of sensations, feelings, and thoughts,
which could only be actualized via development of armoring. Gurdjieff implies that this is the case with most practitioners.15
When practiced correctly, however, the suffering of intentional suffering is not to be loved for its own sake but for the sake of
our aim to evolve. Our working I knows that the other I’s moan and bitch or suffer mechanically, and the practice is aimed at
dissolving these I’s while strengthening the working I.
As a chosen way, intentional suffering is not at all like mechanical suffering—it doesn’t feel like it. The suffering or pain is
experienced, a function of orgonotic contraction, but the notion that the task producing it is chosen for a loved aim indicates
that the contraction is reversed by an expansion, for the memory of the aim that is loved causes an expansion of the orgone
since, for Reich, love is the expansion of orgone energy in the body. The practice is thus pulsational, like all natural
functions. When “third force” is taken from cultural or societal values (that, at least in the West, these days glorifies people
who can make as much money as possible while doing the least amount of work and does not look with favor on work
generally but prefers mindless play), the suffering is mechanical, which is to say that the contractive side predominates
because work is a pain. When it is taken from the Work, as the aim to awaken, the expansive side predominates. Such
practice can stimulate growth because it changes the direction of our responses to life from a tendency toward contraction as
we suffer mechanically to a tendency toward expansion as we suffer intentionally. As Reich has shown, growth per se,
including growth of consciousness, is a function of the tendency toward expansion of orgone energy within the body.
To become able to endure the negative manifestations of others without suffering mechanically, then, means to reverse
the automatic contraction, to take in the impressions of negativity with more than just the lower emotions and intellect, thus to
understand them. Such understanding results not in complaining or dislike but in love—“conscious love” or “genuine being-
love,” love based not on polarity or on compatibility of personalities but on consciously considering and feeling the position
of another.16
Sexual Abstinence
In the context of Gurdjieff’s teaching regarding proper working of the sex center, one of his quoted remarks to the effect
that some would-be workers may have to practice sexual abstinence for a period of time appears paradoxical. He does not
say that abstinence is necessary for evolution but that it may be so for some types for transmutation to begin. For others, he
says abstinence is not at all necessary, for some that it develops by itself when transmutation begins—with such types he
says that transmutation takes the whole of the organism’s energy and puts an end to normal sexual life—and for others he
says that an increase in sexual activity is necessary.17 When abstinence is necessary, he says it is valuable only when it
occurs in all centers, that if there is abstinence only in the sex center but full liberty of imagination in the others, there could
be nothing worse. This requirement is obviously a key ingredient in the notion that for abstinent workers to evolve, their
practice of being-Partkdolg-duty must be ceaseless.
From my point of view, the key to understanding this teaching lies in the long-term worldwide prevalence of sex-negative
culture and its “fruit,” character armor and orgastic impotence. Because of this, nearly everyone reaches adulthood armored
and more or less orgastically impotent. Some character types utilize sex to prove their manhood or womanhood, to catch the
interest of others, and so on. They do so, in other words, for reasons that have nothing to do with essence excitation or love.
Since evolution is a function of full lumination of orgone energy, when people have sex without such lumination, the
possibility that transmutation of sex energy can even begin in them is vitiated, hence the need, for some, to abstain for a
period before returning to a life of natural genitality. With others, the possibility of a normal sex life may be impeded by
physical or cultural factors to the extent that the only avenue open to them is a form of monastic practice.
Notes
1. BT, 298ff, 329, 455, and passim.
2. See Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition (New York: Garden City, Doubleday, 1970).
3. Ibid., p. 265.
4. Ibid., p. 236.
5. Ibid., p. 228.
6. For contemporary examples of revised practice, see, for example, Lu K’uan Yu, Taoist Yoga (New York: Weiser, 1970);
Dhiravamsa, op. cit.; Richard Wilhelm, The Secret of the Golden Flower (see bibliography); Gopi Krishna, The Secret of
Yoga (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); Omar Garrison, Tantra: The Yoga of Sex (New York: The Julian Press, 1971);
Robert K. Moffet, Tantric Sex (New York: Berkeley, 1974). For a recent discussion of some of the issues involved, see
“Kiss of the Yogini” by David Gordon White (University of Chicago Press, 2003).
7. See for example, Stephen C. Pepper, “Aesthetic Design,” in John Hospers (ed.), Introductory Readings in Aesthetics
(New York: The Free Press, 1969), pp. 66-77.
8. BT, pp. 250, 808-10.
9. ISM, p. 220.
10. BT, pp. 806-9.
11. BT, 809-10 and passim.
12. BT, 806-8.
13. BT, pp. 104, 179, 243, 409, 738, 792.
14. Ibid., pp. 274, 372, 802.
15. Ibid., pp. 241-3.
16. Ibid., pp. 809-10.
17. Ibid., pp. 124, 357-8, 370, 1163.
CHAPTER THREE
Conclusion
Loving One, Loving All
Throughout Beelzebub’s Tales, Beelzebub condemns and chastises us for failing to practice being-Partkdolg-duty,
treating this failure as a sickness, as if the practice of conscious labor and intentional suffering is a natural, healthy function
of mature three-brained beings. Why, if natural, do we hate it? Why do we dislike a process required for evolution of our
being?
Our study of Reich’s research provides an answer: We hate doing what is necessary for continued growth because when
we are infants, children, and adolescents, the very same function, as it pertained to us at those ages, was repressed. We
were made afraid of creative evolution, of the expansion of orgone energy within our bodies, and from this fear came the
armor. The armor makes us lazy, divides us into different I’s, and prevents us from assimilating impressions related to
evolution. When such impressions are available, they fall on a divided, lazy, angry, resentful, frightened, suppressed, bored
organism, an organism still encumbered with childish desires that reject the ideas of the Work. The key element in this
process of suppression of the capacity to creatively evolve is suppression of the core function of creativity, the function that
serves as the central mechanism of creative evolution as such, on every plane of being, the function we call sexuality.
And yet, if our analysis is correct, reawakening of this function leads to the entrance of impressions via the Second
Conscious Shock, impressions that register on the higher emotional center, characterized by Gurdjieff as “the feeling of
religiousness,” of the “sacredness or divinity of everything existing,” and, at times, of “remorse of conscience.”1 This
characterization implies that such impressions involve a deep-seated love for all of being, a feeling so extraordinary and all
encompassing that we must wonder if it could be consistently felt by anyone other than a saint. How can we, who moan
about the weather, the neighbors, politicians, taxes, and on and on, feel such an all-abiding love? Some religions preach
such a message, although this does not entail that it is understood or that believers feel it.
We can think loving thoughts all we like. We can feel such feelings if and when they arise. But to feel them consistently, to
crystallize such feelings as the nucleus of a Higher Emotional Body (either literally or simply as a consistent psychological
state) is something else. An organism filled with unexpressed rage, sadness, longing, anxiety, and perverse sexual impulses
could not possibly feel such love with the whole of his or her being.
To be capable of reaching such a condition, it seems to me, is to be relatively unarmored and orgastically potent. In effect,
this entails learning to love one person fully before we can love all of being. It is easier to dream or fantasize about loving all
than to actually love one—the “all” is abstract, doesn’t bitch at us when in a bad mood, become ill, or require loving care; and
it doesn’t die. Loving the idea of all brings no heartache, requires no patience, no need to learn to endure negative
manifestations, or, in a word, brings no suffering.
Loving one implies bioenergetic merger, periodic surrender of one’s identifications, dissolution of buffers. In learning to
love one, we prepare for a genuine love of all, for it opens us to the full pulsation and flow of orgone energy so that it can
saturate the cells of our centers with impressions of unification, the impressions upon which are built the feeling of
religiousness, of the sacredness of everything existing.
The idea that we should love one as well as all has been adopted by ordinary religion, but though the word is the same,
the meaning is often not. When I speak of love, I mean, with Reich, the capacity to merge bioenergetically with the loved one,
a merger that is sensual, emotional, intellectual, sexual, spiritual, or, in a word, complete. The “love” of most forms of religion,
I’m afraid, is, in practice and in spite of what people say or would like it to be, often conditional love, incomplete love,
armored love—“love” that leads to war. Such is the “fruit” and “seed” of sex-negative culture.
Helping God
An aspect of the impressions of the higher emotional center Gurdjieff speaks about is the feeling he calls “feeling the
suffering of the Absolute.”2 To feel this feeling, says Beelzebub, is to lighten the burden of the Absolute by reducing its
suffering, a suffering based on the need for the Absolute to “feed” on evolved souls so to overcome the ravages of what he
calls the “merciless Heropass,” or time. In feeling such a feeling and in evolving, we fulfill our natural function, for Gurdjieff,
which is to “help God.”
The various religions carry a message similar to this, but the message has been adulterated by the fruits of armor, for the
goal of serving the Lord has been opposed to full living in the body, a contradiction that, as Reich says, has turned clear-
minded lovers of life away from organized religion. And because of this adulteration, the message has actually been turned
from evolution up the Ray of Creation, up Jacob’s Ladder, to involution down it. But this is precisely what happens,
according to Gurdjieff, when an ascending, antientropic process reaches a point where it requires further stimulus and does
not receive it.
If we follow the tenets of sex-negative religion or philosophy, genuine evolution is impossible, and God will not be helped,
for in order to do so, we must become well armored. Being armored, the energy within us will not be capable of full
luminescence, and merger and the impressions needed for evolution will not be produced. Sex-negative religion and
philosophy, in suppressing sexuality, has, I would guess, increased the suffering of the Absolute in that it has made it
impossible for would-be helpers of God to actually evolve. Gurdjieff’s father had two sayings that make this point rather
succinctly: “If the priest goes to the right, then the teacher must without fail turn to the left.” “If you wish to lose your faith, make
friends with the priest.”3
The Secret
In characterizing the difference among the four ways of evolution that he discriminates, Gurdjieff says that one who
chooses the Fourth Way can evolve much more quickly than one who chooses one of the other ways, because the worker in
the Fourth Way learns a “secret” and via this “secret” can make a “pill” that, when “swallowed,” automatically leads to the
transmutation of emotions or the Second Conscious Shock.4 On our analysis of the function of complete bioenergetic merger
in the genital embrace—that through this process the cells of the body become saturated with the requisite impressions for
crystallization of the Higher Emotional Body—this function qualifies as the “secret” Gurdjieff speaks of so obliquely. Of the
four ways, that of the Fakir (overcoming physical pain), the Monk (overcoming emotional doubt), the Yogi (overcoming
intellectual wandering, control of thoughts), and the Householder (the Fourth Way), only the latter eschews suppression of
sexuality (although we do hear of some yogis indulging, don’t we?).
That love is the “secret,” though not widely understood bioenergetically, has at least been noticed by some sincere
seekers of truth besides the ancient Tantrics. Rodney Collin, as mentioned, says that all that is needed to serve as the shock
that brings consciousness to the state where a higher-being body can form is “ecstatic love.”5 Dhiravamsa, also as
mentioned, speaks of the highest point of sexuality as revelatory of the very essence of the movement of the universe itself,6
which, on Reich’s research, is literally true. Neither Collin nor Dhiravamsa, however, appear to have comprehended the full
significance of what they say. The latter goes on to say that seekers must, in the end, give up sex, although he provides no
justification for this claim.7
Whether or not abstinence can be used in the service of spiritual evolution, it cannot be the case that it must be. To say
that suppression of the sexual function is necessary is as absurd as to say that suppression of the pulmonary function, the
excretory function, the respiratory function, and so on is necessary for evolution (don’t laugh; there are those who actually
believe this). Every essence function is needed, and the core of the teaching of the Work is that to evolve we must become
fully functioning, fully balanced beings. It seems more likely that the principle of abstinence is a product of armored
consciousness, desperate in its frustrated longing for freedom and release but denied them by circumstances, by what
Gurdjieff calls the “Law of Accident” and the “consequences of the organ Kundabuffer.”
Yet rejection of natural genitality remains at the core of most forms of esoteric teaching today. That the necessary energy
could be produced via healthy sexuality seems impossible, for where is the evidence? On the other hand, history is replete
with examples of those reputed to have achieved sainthood via celibacy. History, of course, is elusive. Are we aware of
every being who has ever transubstantiated a soul? Do we know for certain that no one has ever evolved and yet has
retained genital potency? In such ignorance, can we be sure that those who claim that spiritual growth requires denial of
genitality are correct?
Recent anthropological research has provided evidence that nonviolent, sex-positive partnership societies existed prior
to “recorded” history.8 Can we be sure, as some would have it, that such societies were societies of beasts or savages and
not of Women and Men? Should we, without evidence, assent to the views of sex-negative, armored humans toward the sex-
positive? Reich has shown that the views of armored humanity cannot help but be distorted, for they are polluted with
unreleased, immobile orgone energy. This suggests that the armored could envision the unarmored in no other way than to
see them as less than human.
Unarmored views are rarely heard today, nor have they often been heard above the static of the armored. If we want to
know what relatively unarmored genitality means, we must work to become relatively unarmored ourselves, although those
who attempt it are necessarily charting unknown waters.9 The trip can be frightening because the free, spontaneous
movements of the orgastic convulsion and of life expressions generally terrify we who yet remain armored. One must,
nevertheless, push on and, as Gurdjieff puts it, “discover America.” And although culture and our own armoring will offer a
great deal of resistance, we are not without support. There is a great body of research and teaching—to begin with, the
research of Wilhelm Reich and the teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff—and for their contribution to the knowledge, being, and
understanding of life’s essence, we must be grateful for all eternity.
Notes
1. BT, pp. 76-7, 141, 342, 576, 623.
2. Ibid., pp. 373, 386, 802.
3. MWRM, pp. 46-7.
4. ISM, p. 50; VFRW, p. 204.
5. Rodney Collin, op. cit., p. 95.
6. Dhiravamsa, op. cit.
7. Ibid.
8. See for example, Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade (Harper & Row, 1988).
9. Help in melting armor is not easy to come by or to evaluate. There are orgone therapists that can be reached through the
Wilhelm Reich Museum, Rangely, Maine, and the College of Orgonomy, Princeton, New Jersey. There are practitioners
of various forms of what is sometimes called “neo-Reichian” therapies, including bioenergetics as developed by
Alexander Lowen, MD, and others (see, for example, Lowen’s Bioenergtics (New York: Coward, McCann &
Geoghegan, Inc., 1975). There are also individuals like myself who combine spiritual practice with ideas derived from
Reich. In each of these cases, of course, the seeker should not forget that famous bit of wisdom, “Let the buyer beware,”
for, as those who have completed this book no doubt realize, the ground is new and the voyage mysterious. Still, if we
keep our eyes open and follow the promptings of our hearts, our “first sense,” our intuition, and our reason, we might
find the rewards very great indeed.
ABBREVIATIONS
(See bibliography for publication information)
BT Gurdjieff: All and Everything: First Series, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
G Reich: Genitality
Life Is Real Only Then, When “I Am.” New York: E. P. Dutton, 1975.
Gurdjieff Talks
Ouspensky, P. D. In Search of the Miraculous. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1949 (contains mostly Gurdjieff’s talks
plus Ouspensky’s reactions).
Views from the Real World: Early Talks of Gurdjieff as Recollected by His Pupils. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1973.
Bennett, J. G. Gurdjieff: Making a New World. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
____________. Transformation of Man Series: Gurdjieff Today. The Enneagram [And other titles]. Sherbourne, England:
Coombe Springs Press, 1974-7.
Butkovsky-Hewitt, Anna. With Gurdjieff in St. Petersburg and Paris. New York: Weiser, 1978.
Collin, Rodney. The Theory of Celestial Influence. New York: Weiser, 1975.
De Hartman, Thomas. Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff. Baltimore: Penguin, 1972.
Friedlander, Ira, and Katherine Speeth. Gurdjieff: Seeker of Truth. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1980.
Nicoll, Maurice. Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky (5 volumes). London:
Robinson and Watkins, 1970-2.
____________. Living Time. London: Watkins, 1976.
____________. The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution. New York: A Bantam Book, 1968.
Popoff, Irmis. Gurdjieff: His Work on Myself, with Others, for the Work. New York: Vantage, 1969.
____________. The Enneagrama of the Man of Unity. New York: Weiser, 1978.
Vaysse, Jean. Toward Awakening. San Francisco: Far West Undertakings, 1978.
Waldberg, Michael. Gurdjieff: An Approach to His Ideas. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981.
Walker, Kenneth. The Making of Man. London: Routledge Kegan & Paul, 1963.
Webb, James. The Harmonious Circle. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1980.
Welch, Louise. Orage with Gurdjieff in America. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.
Welch, William J., MD. What Happened in Between. New York: George Braziller, 1972.
Wilson, Colin. The War Against Sleep. Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: The Aquarian Press Limited, 1980.
Zuber, Rene. Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff? London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
Reich
Reich’s books, unless otherwise indicated, are published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux or one of their divisions. Most of
Reich’s writings, including journal articles, are available through the Wilhelm Reich Museum. Write for a catalogue to: The
Wilhelm Reich Museum Bookstore, Orgonon, PO Box 687, Rangeley, ME 04970 (Phone: 207 864 3443).
Contact with Space. New York: Core Pilot Press, 1957 (available at the Wilhelm Reich Museum, Rangely, Maine).
The Impulsive Character and other Writings. New York: A Meridian Book, 1974.
Character Analysis. New York: Pocket Books, 1976 (published earlier by Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
Genitality. 1980.
Sex-Pol: Essays, 1929-1943 Wilhelm Reich (Edited by Lee Baxandall). New York: Vintage, 1972.
Greenfield, Jerome. Wilhelm Reich vs. the USA. New York: Norton, 1974.
Higgens, Mary and Chester M. Raphael, MD. Reich Speaks of Freud. New York: Noonday, 1967.
Placzek, Beverly R. (ed.). Record of a Friendship: The Correspondence of Wilhelm Reich and A. S. Neill. New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1981.
Raphael, Chester M., MD. Wilhelm Reich Misconstrued, Misesteemed: Critique of Man in the Trap. New York: Wilhelm Reich
Institute for Orgonomic Studies, 1970 (available at the Wilhelm Reich Museum).
____________. Some Questions and Answers about Orgone Therapy. Orgonon, Rangely, Maine: The Wilhelm Reich
Museum, 1977.
Reich, Ilse Ollendorf. Wilhelm Reich: A Personal Biography. New York: St. Martin’s, 1969.
Sharaf, Myron. Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983.
Wyckoff, James. Wilhelm Reich: Life Force Explorer. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett, 1973.
Reich’s Journals
International Journal of Sex-Economy and Orgone Research (IJSEOR), first published in 1942.
Orgone Energy Bulletin (OEB), first published in 1949. Available from University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, MI.
Orgonomic Medicine (OM), first published in 1955. Available at the Lane Medical Library, Stanford University Medical
Center, Stanford, CA, 94305.
Orgonomic Functionalism, published by the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund (Orgonon, Box 687, Rangeley, Maine 04970;
new and currently available).
Orgone Therapy
Anderson, William. “Orgone Therapy in Rheumatic Fever.” OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, April 1950, pp. 71-73.
Baker, Elsworth F., MD. “A Grave Therapeutic Problem.” OEB, vol. 5, nos. 1 and 2, March 1953, pp. 60-70.
Brenner, Kenneth M., MD. “Medical Effects of Orgone Energy.” OEB, vol. 4, nos. 1 and 2, March 1953, pp. 71-84.
Cott, Allan A., MD. “Orgonomic Treatment of Icthysosis.” OEB, vol. 3, no. 3, July 1951, pp. 163-168.
Gold, Phillip, MD. “Orgonotic Treatment in a Manic-Depressive Case.” OEB, vol. 3, no. 3, July 1951, pp. 167-180.
Hoppe, Walter, MD. “My Experiences with the Orgone Accumulator.” OEB, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 12-22.
Levine, Emanuel, MD. “Treatment of a Hypertensive Biopathy with the Orgone Energy Accumulator.” OEB, vol. 3, no. 1,
January 1951, pp. 23-24.
Oiler, Charles I., MD. “Orgone Therapy of Frigidity: A Case History.” OEB, vol. 2, no. 4, October 1950, pp. 207-216.
Raknes, Ola, PhD. “A Short Treatment with Orgone Therapy.” OEB, vol. 2, no. 1, January 1950, pp. 22-31.
Raphael, Chester M., MD. “Orgone Treatment during Labor.” OEB, vol. 3, no. 2, April 1951, pp. 90-98.
Silvert, Michael, MD. “On the Medical Use of Orgone Energy.” OEB, vol. 4, no. 1, January 1952, pp. 51-54.
Sobey, Victor M., MD. “A Case of Rheumatoid Arthritis Treated with Orgone Energy.” OM, vol. 2, no. 1, April 1956, pp. 64-69.
____________. “Six Clinical Cases.” OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, January 1950, pp. 32-43.
____________. “Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis with Orgone Energy.” OM, vols. 1 and 2, November 1955, pp. 121-
132.
Wevrich, N., MD. “Physical Orgone Therapy of Diabetes.” OEB, vol. 3, no. 2, April 1951, pp. 110-112.
Willie, James A., MD. “The Schizophrenic Biopathy Part I: The BioEnergetic Basis for Auditory Hallucinations.” OM, vol. 1, no.
1, June 1955, pp. 41-53.
____________. “Orgonomic Therapy of the Ocular Segment.” OM, vol. 2, no. 1, April 1956, pp. 51-63.
Secondary Drives
Reich, Wilhelm. “Orgonomic Functionalism Part II.” OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, April 1950, pp. 49-62 (especially pp. 59-61).
Raphael, Chester M., MD, and Helen E. MacDonald, PhD. “Orgonomic Diagnosis of Cancer Biopathy.” OEB, vol. 4, no. 2,
April 1952, pp. 65-128. (Reprinted in a separate volume and available at the Wilhelm Reich Museum, Orgonon, Rangely,
Maine.)
Raphael, Chester M., MD. “Confirmation of Orgonomic (Reich) Tests for Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer.” OM, vol. 2, no. 1, April
1956, pp. 36-41.
Reich, Wilhelm. “Cancer Cells in Experiment XX.” OEB, vol. 3, no. 1, January 1951, pp. 1-3.
____________. “The Leukemia Problem: Approach.” OEB, vol. 3, no. 2, April 1951, pp. 76-80.
Tropp, Simeon J., MD. “Orgone Therapy of an Early Breast Cancer.” OEB, vols. 2 and 3, July 1950, pp. 131-138.
Mathews, Paul. “On Adolescents in Public High Schools.” OM, vol. 1, no. 2, November 1955, pp. 139-144.
Neill, A. S. “Self-Regulation and the Outside World.” OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, April 1950, pp. 68-70.
Reich, Wilhelm. “About Genital Self-Satisfaction in Children.” OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, April 1950, pp. 63-67 (reprint).
____________. “Children of the Future.” OEB, vol. 2., no. 4, October 1950, pp. 194-206.
____________. “Armoring in a Newborn Infant.” OEB, vol. 3, no. 3, July 1951, pp. 121-138.
____________. “Adolescent Genital Misery.” OM, vol. 1, no. 1, June 1955, pp. 65-72.
Sandel, Francine. “Adolescents and Babies in Trouble.” OM, vol. 2, no. 1, April 1956, pp. 42-50.
Saxe, Felicia. “Armored Beings vs. the Healthy Child.” AOI, no. 1, 1947.
Baumann, Jacob. “Some Observations of the Atmospheric Orgone Energy.” OEB, vol. 2, no. 2, April 1950, pp. 74-83.
Grossman, Werner. “Observations of Orgone Energy Lumination.” OEB, vol. 4, no. 1, January 1952, pp. 59-60.
Hamilton, A. E. “A Child’s Eye View of the Orgone Flow.” OEB, vol. 4, no. 4, October 1952, pp. 215-16.
Raphael, Chester M., MD. “DOR Sickness: A Review of Reich’s Findings.” OM, vol. 1, no. 2, June 1955, pp. 18-40.
Reich, Wilhelm. “Cosmic Orgone Energy and ‘Ether.’” OEB, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 143-159.
____________. “Meteorological Functions in Orgone-Charged Vacuum Tubes.” OEB, vol. 2, no. 4, October 1950, pp. 184-
193. (This article presents evidence that confirms the relationship between water and orgone energy that Reich postulated.)
____________. “The Storm of November 25th and 26th, 1950.” OEB, vol. 3, no. 2, April 1951, pp. 72-5.
____________. “Dowsing as an Object of Orgonomic Research.” OEB, vol. 3, no. 3, July 1951, pp. 139-144.
____________. “DOR Removal and Cloud Busting.” OEB, vol. 4, no. 4, October 1952, pp. 171-182.
____________. “The Blackening Rocks, Melanor.” OEB, vol. 4, nos. 1 and 2, March 1953, pp. 28-59.
____________. “Reemergence of Freud’s ‘Death-Instinct’ as ‘DOR.’” OM, vol. 2, no. 1, April 1956, pp. 2-11.
____________. “OROP DESERT.” CORE, vol. 4, nos. 1-4, July 1954, pp. 1-139. (Contains a report of Reich’s weather-
control experiments in Rangely and Ellsworth, Maine, and Boston and Hancock, Massachusetts, 1952-53. The reports
continue in CORE, vol. 7, nos. 1-4, March and December 1955.)
Orgone Therapy
Dew, Robert A., MD. “The Biopathic Diathesis.” JO, vol. 2, no. 2, November 1968, pp. 155-171. (Dew’s analysis continues
through vols. 3, no. 1; 4, no. 1 and no. 2; and vols. 6, 7, and 10.)
Nelson, Arthur. “Ocular Segment Blocking and the Obsessive-Compulsive Character.” Vol. 14, no. 1, May 1980, pp. 69-73.
____________. “The Cancer Biopathy: A Case History.” Vol. 9, no. 2, November 1975, pp. 145-52.
Adolescence
Eden, Jerome, MA. “Do Not Disturb: The Emotional Plague in Education.” Vol. 2, no. 2, November 1968, pp. 188-208.
Raknes, Ola, PhD. “Puberty and Its Educational Problems.” Vol. 3, no. 1, March 1969, pp. 36-43.
____________. “UFOs, DOR, and Drought in the Northwest.” Vol. 7, no. 2, November 1973, pp. 246-253.
____________. “The Perihelion Spiral.” Vol. 12, no. 1, May 1978, pp. 55-63.
____________. “The Spinning Wave, I.” Vol. 13, no. 1 and II; vol. 3, no. 2.
Hale, Nathan Cabot. “Orgonomic Morphology (Part I: The Galactic Superimposition Sequence).” Vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 187-201.
Rosemblum, C. Frederick. “The Gravitational Spinning Wave.” Vol. 2, no. 1, March 1968, pp. 95-9.
____________. “Mass and the Gravitational Function.” Vol. 2, no. 2, November 1968, pp. 210-14.
____________. “The Red Shift.” Vol. 4, no. 2, November 1970, pp. 183-91.
____________. “See Sprouting Inside the Orgone Accumulator.” Vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 253-58.
Lane, Loretta, MD. “Effects of the ORAC on Growing Plants.” Vol. 11, no. 1, May 1977, pp. 68-71.
See also Espanca, Jutta. “Effects of Orgone on Plant Life.” Offshoots of Orgonomy, no. 3, Autumn 1981, pp. 23-28. Offshoots
is published by Offshoots Publications, PO Box 1248, Grade Station, NY, NY, 10028.
Note: These days, of course, one can find any newly published literature online, and books and articles do keep coming, so
please do so if you are interested.
ENDNOTES
[1]* Finer energy is used by higher functions. Thus “higher,” for Gurdjieff, means “finer,” energetically speaking, that is, less
dense. “Higher” does not mean better, for each density of the energy and the center or part of the center it feeds is
necessary for the overall functioning of the organism. Generally speaking, the lower centers use denser energy than the
higher centers, and the lower parts use relatively denser energy than the higher parts.
[2] Gurdjieff calls his work “The Fourth Way,” distinguishing it from the first way or the Way of the Fakir; the way of the body;
the second way or the Way of the Monk, the way of the heart; the third way or the Way of the Yogi, the way of the mind.
The Fourth Way is called the Way of the Householder, a balanced way of all the centers carried out in the midst of
everyday life.
[3] Reich began using the term T-bacilli instead of T-bodies at this point as he noted properties of the T-bodies reminiscent
of bacilli.
Table of Contents
Reich and Gurdjieff
Copyright © 2011 by David M. Brahinsky.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011902825
ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4568-7257-1
ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4568-7256-4
ISBN: Ebook 978-1-4568-7258-8
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
This book was printed in the United States of America.
To order additional copies of this book, contact:
Xlibris Corporation
1-888-795-4274
www.Xlibris.com
Orders@Xlibris.com
CONTENTS
For my family: my wife Naomi, a woman of deep love and understanding; my son, Joshua,
whose warm light makes all he touches glow; my daughter, Rachel, whose openhearted
love brings peace and happiness to all who know her.
REICH AND GURDJIEFF: SEXUALITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE TO THE XLIBRIS EDITION
INTRODUCTION
PART I
CHAPTER ONE
Waking Up
CHAPTER TWO
Etherokrilno
CHAPTER THREE
Some Symbols
CHAPTER FOUR
Self-Remembering and Self-Observation
CHAPTER FIVE
The First and Second Conscious Shocks
CHAPTER SIX
Relativity
PART II
CHAPTER ONE
Gurdjieff on Sex
CHAPTER TWO
Orgastic Potency
CHAPTER THREE
Armoring
CHAPTER FOUR
Melting Buffers
PART III
CHAPTER ONE
Explaining the Orgasm Function
CHAPTER TWO
Bions, Bion Radiation, and Orgone Energy
CHAPTER THREE
Experiments with the Orgone Energy Accumulator
PART IV
CHAPTER ONE
Development of Reich’s Theory of Cosmic Superimposition
CHAPTER TWO
The Highest Laws
PART V
CHAPTER ONE
Consciousness and Evolution
CHAPTER TWO
Biopathic Illness
PART VI
CHAPTER ONE
How Impressions Provide Energy
CHAPTER TWO
Impressions of the Higher Emotional Body
PART VII
CHAPTER ONE
Sex Energy
CHAPTER TWO
Suppression of Sex
CHAPTER THREE
Conclusion
ABBREVIATIONS
(See bibliography for publication information)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ENDNOTES
Table of Contents
Reich and Gurdjieff
Copyright © 2011 by David M. Brahinsky.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011902825
ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4568-7257-1
ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4568-7256-4
ISBN: Ebook 978-1-4568-7258-8
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
This book was printed in the United States of America.
To order additional copies of this book, contact:
Xlibris Corporation
1-888-795-4274
www.Xlibris.com
Orders@Xlibris.com
CONTENTS
For my family: my wife Naomi, a woman of deep love and understanding; my son, Joshua,
whose warm light makes all he touches glow; my daughter, Rachel, whose openhearted
love brings peace and happiness to all who know her.
REICH AND GURDJIEFF: SEXUALITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE TO THE XLIBRIS EDITION
INTRODUCTION
PART I
CHAPTER ONE
Waking Up
CHAPTER TWO
Etherokrilno
CHAPTER THREE
Some Symbols
CHAPTER FOUR
Self-Remembering and Self-Observation
CHAPTER FIVE
The First and Second Conscious Shocks
CHAPTER SIX
Relativity
PART II
CHAPTER ONE
Gurdjieff on Sex
CHAPTER TWO
Orgastic Potency
CHAPTER THREE
Armoring
CHAPTER FOUR
Melting Buffers
PART III
CHAPTER ONE
Explaining the Orgasm Function
CHAPTER TWO
Bions, Bion Radiation, and Orgone Energy
CHAPTER THREE
Experiments with the Orgone Energy Accumulator
PART IV
CHAPTER ONE
Development of Reich’s Theory of Cosmic Superimposition
CHAPTER TWO
The Highest Laws
PART V
CHAPTER ONE
Consciousness and Evolution
CHAPTER TWO
Biopathic Illness
PART VI
CHAPTER ONE
How Impressions Provide Energy
CHAPTER TWO
Impressions of the Higher Emotional Body
PART VII
CHAPTER ONE
Sex Energy
CHAPTER TWO
Suppression of Sex
CHAPTER THREE
Conclusion
ABBREVIATIONS
(See bibliography for publication information)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ENDNOTES