Armoring
Elsworth Baker, M.D.
Excerpted from Man in the Trap
The American College of Orgonomy
Armoring may be divided into natural or temporary muscular contraction and permanent or chronic contraction. The former occurs in any living animal when it is threatened, but is given up when the threat is no longer present. The latter originates in the same manner, but because of continued threats is maintained and becomes chronic, reacting eventually to permanent inner rather than environmental dangers. In this discussion armoring refers to the latter type.
So far as we know, the origin of chronic armoring is lost in antiquity. Legendary artifacts of human behavior indicate that man was armoring before recorded history began, and no one can tell what initiated such a necessity. Certainly something of tremendous importance started armoring since it is almost universal and has persisted through all the ages. It is even questionable whether man could exist without it.
Though individuals can, masses cannot give up armoring without drastic changes in our culture and way of thinking. Probably people in general could not dispense with armor at all as long as we emphasize material ownership. Knowing how armor began is important because it can help us gauge if civilization can possibly exist without it.
Reich postulated that man armored when he became introspective; that is, when he perceived that he perceived himself, and that he perceived at all. This awareness of self-perception as an object of attention produced a split. Man became frightened and began to armor against the inner fright and amazement in an effort to control his own sensations. This sequence seems highly probable for we know clinically that people clamp down especially against the sensation of surrender in the orgasm.
Reich deduced the origin of armoring from his knowledge of schizophrenia and his observation of what he called the "universal terror of living." (Footnote 1) To face the unknown is always frightening; to stand and examine it, terrifying. Pascal in his Pensees conveys this very well. To understand it, then, became a compulsion and thus perhaps the urge for knowledge was born. This urge, however, man seemed to divert to everything except studying his own body bioenergetically. He avoided that for millennia and even yet cannot accept contemplating his natural emotions or allowing them expression.
In the sequence of events leading to armor formation, the crucial point in holding back seems to be the terror of surrendering in orgastic convulsion where man completely merges with nature. The first orgasm is always frightening because of its accompanying loss of control. When man began paying attention to his sensations this letting go was more than he could bear and he began to truly to control it. To get an idea of the process, the reader has only to pay attention to and examine his own sensations at any given moment and he will find himself holding his breath - the best way to control feeling.
Such then, we may speculate, was the starting point of man's urgency for knowledge, the craving to know, which ever since has been more important to him than his natural functioning. The latter itself, he subjected - always distorted - to formalized knowledge, control, repression, and at times an almost complete ban. This has resulted in artificial laws of behavior and mores. Man no longer dares give in to his natural organismic functioning; he holds back as if his very life depended on it.
Several legends have sprung up which seem to bear out Reich's hypothesis. These may well epitomize the growth of knowledge at the expense of natural love by way of armoring, as well as the origin of patriarchy.
For example, there is the bitter struggle of Aphrodite to destroy Psyche, who has ensnared the love of her son, Eros. Psyche successfully performs all the tasks set by Aphrodite and wins over the gods, immortality, and Eros. Aphrodite has to acknowledge defeat; natural love capitulates to intellect.
A further apotheosis of knowledge is seen in the legend of Pallas Athene, goddess of ancient Athens, She springs full blown from the head (brain) of Zeus. Thus she comes directly from man, not from a mother. At the trial of Orestes she casts the deciding vote and declares she always votes in favor of the man. The male assumes the favored or important position - a close linkage of knowledge and patriarchy.
The clearest account comes from the Bible in the expulsion This narrative of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.(Footnote 2) This narrative seems more an account of civilization's origin rather than man's origin - particularly with regard to the concomitant development of knowledge and armoring and the origin of patriarchy.
Genesis 2:16. (Footnote 3) And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Genesis 3:1. Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
4. And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die.
5. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
7. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
14. And the Lord God said unto the serpent ...
15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed ...
16. Unto the woman he said. I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
23. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (Author's italics.)
The "subtil serpent" or, we may say the perceptive penis, where sensation is most acute, tempted man to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Gerhard von Rad feels that the expression, "of good and evil," is a subsequent addition and refers simply to knowledge of everything or all things. (Footnote 4) But even taken at face value as a knowledge of good and evil it would imply the development of a conscience or superego, which means repression, civilization, and the birth of religion.
Thus eating of the fruit of knowledge brought armoring - fig leaves, clothes on skin, sexual shame - and drove man from his natural paradise. He lost his contact with nature and natural feelings and killed his emotional life (". . . thou shalt surely die."). This brought all the problems armoring produces (thorns and thistles) including difficult labor and a deep fear of the genital (enmity between woman and serpent).
Like Athene, Eve comes directly from man. After the Fall, God tells her thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee," thus signaling the advent of patriarchy. One may postulate, then, that at an earlier time there was no patriarchal state and that man lived naturally or in a matriarchy. Von Rad cites the following passage, which he thinks may be a holdover from an earlier matriarchal culture: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." Certainly, as he points out, it is not characteristic of patriarchy.
Still another passage from the Bible shows the ascendant role given to knowledge: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (St. John 1:1) This is known as the Divine Concept of Logos (Word, Idea); that is, the idea, word, or knowledge is supreme.
A further possibility is that armoring occurred when man took up agriculture and/or the raising of herds. This is compatible with the first hypothesis and may have grown out of it or parallel to it as man acquired knowledge and faced the need to obtain more food for mere survival or a growing population. Man was insecure and knowledge was power. He settled down, tilled the soil, and took his mate with him - "And thou shalt eat the herb of the field." Also from Genesis 4:16-17: "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. / And Cain knew his wife; and bare Enoch; and he builded a city..."
The beginnings of agriculture (Footnote 5) can be discerned in the well - watered uplands bordering the Arabian, Syrian, and Iranian deserts somewhere between 8000 and 7000 B.C when men left their caves and gathered together in more or less fixed communities. Within three or four thousand years the condition of life changed more radically than it had over the preceding quarter of a million years. The period between 4000 and 3000 B.C. has been deemed more fruitful in inventions and discoveries than any period in human history prior to the sixteenth century A.D. - weaving, metallurgy, the plow, the wheel for transportation and turning pottery, molding of bricks, harnessing of draft animals, invention of sails, use of seals to distinguish and protect private property. Economic organization, political controls, and social attitudes developed, along with a more elaborate formulation of a more elaborate formulation of religious belief. Cities grew.
Thus man settled down with his mate, tilled the soil, started the family as a social unit, and instituted patriarchy. (Footnote 6) The male was responsible for feeding the household and did not want the burden of any other offspring but his own. He began to place restrictions on the sexuality of his wife and daughters and even set up household gods to watch his women. (Footnote 7) This very likely was the origin of the double standard.
We know that a armoring is more extensive in patriarchal societies, where the general attitude is sex negative, than in matriarchal societies where there is a sex-affirmative attitude. Also in all but the most primitive patrilineal (not true patriarchy) knowledge is much more emphasized. Primarily, armoring reduces genital sensations, especially affecting the orgastic surrender in which the individual seems to merge with the cosmos. (Footnote 8) Life without armoring does not seem possible in a patriarchal society, but might be possible in a matriarchal system.
There is considerable confusion as to just what constitutes a matriarchal society. (Footnote 9) I have heard it stated that America is fast becoming one because of the growing influence of women; but this is a superficial view. Where women assume the same position men hold in a patriarchal system, an Amazon society is produced which is little different in effect from patriarchy. A true matriarchy is a tribal system in which the tribe and not the family is the unit. When a woman marries she remains in her tribe regardless of the origin of the husband. (Footnote 10) He thus becomes an unofficial member of her tribe and assumes an unimportant role in family upbringing.
The children remain with their parents, but they receive their training from the mother's male relatives, usually her brothers. This system allows a more objective and freer attitude toward natural needs and prevents the sexual restrictions found in patriarchal systems. The competition between the parents for the children's love is minimized, and so is the competitive pressure that follows when both father and children seek a woman's attention. In such matriarchal societies neuroses and crime are unknown; frequently there are not even words for them. Strangely enough, although adolescent boys and girls are provided with facilities for being together privately and engage freely in sexual expression, the girl very rarely conceives prior to marriage. This is so striking that in a few tribes (Footnote 11) the relation between sex and conception was not understood. (Footnote 12)
Regardless of how it originated, armoring prevents complete orgastic release so the organism never experiences full satisfaction and constantly strives to find it. With loss of orgastic release oneness with the cosmos is lost; we no longer feel contact with nature, and cosmic longing supervenas. I believe that this longing is behind much of the thirst for knowledge and progress. According to our usual concepts, all matriarchal systems are very primitive. Their natural way of living provides adequate satisfaction and therefore members have no urge for scientific progress. (Footnote 13) Where armoring exists the energy blocked from pelvic release is drawn up to the brain (Footnote 14) (the organism's other end) and seeks outlet, hoping each new discovery will provide the answers to regaining cosmic contact. Particular do we look up to the heavens and study them and contemplate them and prepare to travel there. Somewhere up there we place our God, (Footnote 15) who will provide satisfaction, but only after death when our spirits are free of their armored bodies. Along with armoring there is always contempt. Contempt results from pulling energy up from the pelvis to the face so that we feel superior. Contempt is basically a rejection of the genital and is expressed toward some object considered more sexual than ourselves, or toward those who differ from us sexually. This is true whatever may appear superficially to be the reason for the contempt.
Armoring is self-perpetuating, because armored parents raise armored children. The present cause of armoring is the necessity on the part of the child to accept unnatural attitudes and training conditions set up by the parents and others. It is accomplished largely by contraction, mostly of the muscles, but also to some extent by the contraction of the body tissues. It allows the child to hold back its desires and conform. In each case the specific type of armor required determines the future specific character of the individual, and one may speak of it as character armor. It is a result of the infantile sexual conflict and its purpose is to solve that conflict. It attempts to do so by changing the habitual attitude of the ego, especially in becoming sex negative. The end product is a reduction of the motility of the organism (much like the pricked amoeba's loss of motility), which protects the ego against internal and external dangers.
In a limited way, armor varies in response to pleasure and pain stimuli. That is, in pleasurable situations it is relaxed somewhat and in painful circumstances it is increased. But the more rigid the armor, the less flexible the behavior in the face of new situations. Even the healthy organism armors in dangerous situations but dispenses with it completely in pleasurable circumstances. Where armor is severe and chronic, the organism is tolerant only of contraction, and experiences terror when great expansion and movement occurs. It has a sensation of bursting and loss of control. This, Reich called the terror of living. (Footnote 16)
If armoring prevents a child from reaching the genital level, he remains at an infantile character stage. In Western patriarchal societies adult character formation begins with a particular solution to the Oedipus complex (Footnote 17) which is easily identified. The solution occurs in three stages:
1. An identification is made with the frustrating reality, the frustrating parent. (Footnote 18)
2. The aggression mobilized against this parent causes anxiety and is turned against the self. This creates the inhibiting aspect of the character.
3. The ego forms reactive attitudes toward the sexual impulses and utilizes the reactive energies to ward off sexual impulses, either by repression or by a change of direction. (Footnote 19)
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