anorgonia The condition of diminished or complete lack of energy charge in the organism.
anxiety The psychic perception of the organism as it is constricted by a contraction against expansion accompanied by a distressing sense of oppression or a vague, formless worry.
armor The total defense apparatus of the organism consisting of the rigidities of the character and chronic spasms of the musculature. Armor functions essentially as a defense against the breakthrough of emotion – particularly anxiety, rage, and sexual excitation, as well as intolerable sensations. See character armor and muscular armor.
anti-authoritarianism The social system that is opposed to both neurotic (irrational) and rational authority at every level of social organization.
authoritarianism The social system that operates according to the principle of compulsive moral regulation. Headed by the father, the authoritarian family is reproduced in the authoritarian state.
biological core The autonomic nervous system from which biological excitation arises to maintain the living functions of the organism.
biopathy The pulsatory disturbance of the plasmic system (which consists of the autonomic nervous system and vascular system) resulting from the presence of armor.
bioenergy The energy in the living organism that provides the ability for functioning. Identical to biological orgone energy.
biophysical The status of charge and movement of energy in the organism.
biopsychaitry Psychiatry from the bioenergetic point of view.
character An individual’s particular bioemotional structure: his or her stereotyped manner of acting and reacting. The orgonomic concept of character is functional and biological, not a static, psychological, or moralistic concept.
character analysis The therapeutic technique used to treat the psychic (characterological) aspects of human armor. See orgone therapy.
character armor The sum total of typical character attitudes that an individual develops to block emotional excitations. Character armor is accompanied by rigidity of the body and lack of emotional contact (“deadness”). Functionally identical to muscular armor.
contact The perception of biological excitation.
contactlessness Absence of contact.
core The vegetative nervous system from which involuntary stimuli arise to maintain functioning of the organism.
core functions The functions of love, work and knowledge that govern rational human life.
cosmic feelings The sensation of being a part of nature and the universe, of belonging rather than living as an isolated entity.
defense mechanisms Specific of psychic actions (such as denial, projection, and isolation) that keep internal or external perception that would be experienced with anxiety or emotional pain from awareness.
depersonalization The loss of self-perception which depends on contact between the excitation and the subjective feeling of the excitation.
DOR energy The resultant state when primordial orgone energy reacts with an energy which has come out of matter, especially radioactivity. It is black, lusterless, immobile, oxygen and water hungry, and toxic. Reich concluded that it was a normal stage of metabolism in the body but when fails to metabolize it adequately disease results.
emotional plague The neurotic character in destructive action on the social scene.
energy charge The quantitative estimation of energy present.
erogenous Capable of intense pleasureable sensations usually felt as sexual excitation.
excitation The objective movement of biological orgone energy in the organism. Excitation moves at different velocities in different tissues. Energy moves both within discrete nervous pathways and through the various tissues of the body without respect to structural boundaries.
facade The surface of the armored organism’s bioemotional structure from which the individual interacts with the environment. Identical to the superficial layer and the social facade. In health, it is called the “social layer.”
fixation The arrest of emotional development or desire, especially sexual desire, upon a person or object or at a particular stage of psychosexual development.
formal democracy The distortion of work democracy arising from social armor.
functional thinking Thinking according to the way nature functions. Contrast with mechanistic thinking, which is based on viewing nature as if it were a machine, and mystical thinking, which is based on viewing nature as if it were unknowable.
genitality The manner of functioning of unarmored individuals. Because of the absence of significant armor, they are orgastically potent and can fully discharge built up energy in the sexual embrace. Thus, they do not suffer sexual stasis and this insures their capacity for natural self regulation.
hook A block that for some reason, either in its development or in a particular significance to the individual, is particularly difficult if not impossible to overcome.
idealogy A set of ideas based on fixed (i.e., mechanistic or mystical) thinking that produces a social force when it is displaced onto the social realm.
muscular armor The sum total of the muscular attitudes (chronic muscular spasms) that an individual develops as a block against the breakthrough of emotions and sensations, particularly anxiety, rage and sexual excitation. Functionally identical to character armor.
mystical thinking The belief system based on the idea that nature is unknowable through the physical senses. Mystical thinking has an objective basis in that armor distorts sense impressions and prevents direct contact with nature.
neurotic character The character type that, because of chronic stasis, operates either according to or opposed to the principle of compulsive moral regulation.
orgasm The unitary, involuntary convulsion of the total organism at the acme of the genital embrace. In armored individuals in societies that suppress infantile and adolescent genitality this reflex is blocked by orgasm anxiety.
orgasm anxiety Anxiety produced by final and complete surrender of the organism giving into its involuntary convulsion. Seen in the final stages of medical orgone therapy, orgasm anxiety is behind all armored manifestations. The psychic aspect of armor.
orgasm reflex The unitary, involuntary contraction and expansion of the total organism seen when the organism is at rest and energy flow is uninhibited. Also seen at the acme of the sexual act, it is suppressed by armor in most humans.
orgastic impotence The absence of orgastic potency, orgastic impotence is the most important characteristic of the average human today. Damming up biological (orgone) energy in the organism-provides the source of energy for all biopathic symptoms and social irrationalism. The somatic aspect of armor.
orgastic potency Essentially, the capacity for complete surrender to the involuntary convulsion of the organism and complete discharge of excitation at the acme of genital embrace. Orgastic potency is always lacking in neurotic individuals. It presupposes the presence or establishment of genitality; that is, the absence of pathological character and muscular armor. Orgastic potency is usually, and erroneously, not distinguished from erectile and ejaculativory potency, both of which are prerequisites of orgastic potency.
orgone energy Primordial cosmic energy, universally present and demonstrable visually, thermally, electroscopically, and by means of the Geiger-Mueller counter. In the living organism, this type of energy is known as bioenergy, life energy. Discovered by Wilhelm Reich between 1936 and 1940.
orgone therapy Orgone therapy dissolves muscular and character armoring, mobilizing the individual’s biological orgone energy and liberating held-back biophysical emotions with the goal establishing, if possible, orgastic potency. See character analysis.
orgonometry A system of thought that is closely aligned with the natural operation of functions and functional processes. Orgonometry relies on orgonometric notation to convey function processes.
orgonomy The natural science of orgone energy and its functions.
orgonomic functionalism The application of functional thinking to natural processes.
orgonomic potential The movement of orgone energy from lower to higher levels. This is in contrast to the mechanical potential, which moves in the opposite direction (see mechanical potential).
orgonomic sociology The application of orgonomic functionalism to the study of social processes.
orgonotic charge The same as energy charge.
orgonotic pulsation The pulsation of orgone energy in living and nonliving orgonotic systems. Measureable by the oscillograph, orgonotic pulsation consists of an expansive and convulsive phase.
parasympathetic The part of the vegetative system where excitation produces expansion in the organism.
paresthesias Distorted sensations arising out of the blocking of energy flow through a part of the body. Felt as prickling, tingling, or creeping.
perception The function of all living systems in contact with itself. Armoring interferes with the perceptual function.
plasmatic shrinking The state of the gradual lowering of the energy level through depression or disease such as cancer.
pleasure streaming The perception of the pleasant, wavelike movement of energy in the body, much like a soft breeze flowing through. It gives rise to a three-dimensional perception of the body.
political characterology The study of sociopolitical attitudes and behavior from a characterological viewpoint. Identical to sociopolitical characterology.
pregenital Development occurring before genital primacy is attained at approximately five years of age.
primary drive The natural expressions of the human organism that originate from the biological core. They are experienced and observable in the absence of armor, when there are no enforced inhibitions.
rational politics Political activity that originates from the biological core and serves to protect life.
secondary drives Disturbed expressions of primary drives resulting from the failure of armor to contain destructive impulses.
sex economy The body of knowledge within orgonomy that deals with the economy of biological (orgone) energy in the organism.
social anxiety Anxiety resulting from the breakdown of individual or social armor and manifested in the social activity. Not to be confused with the identical term used in the Diagnotic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).
social armor Any form of social organization that restricts individual freedom and responsibility. It gives rise to the opposing forces of mechanistic and mystical thought that are manifested socially, politically, and economically as ideological forces on the left and the right. The authoritarian form of social armor is necessary when people are armored.
sociopolitics Irrational political activity arising from the displacement of intrapsychic conflicts onto the social and political scene.
stasis The damming up of sexual energy in the organism, thus the source of energy for neurosis.
substitute contact An attempt to make contact when genuine contact is disturbed by armor. Substitute contact is stilted and artificial, and is experienced as not genuine.
superficial layer The surface of the armored human bioemotional structure.
sympatheticatonia A continual state of sympathetic excitation due to continuing anxiety.
vegetative contact TNatural contact (see contact).
vegetative functioning Natural, unblocked functioning.
warded off Prevented from expression.
work democracy The functioning of natural and intrinsic rational work relationships among human beings. The concept of work democracy represents the established reality (not the ideology) of these relationships, which, though usually distorted because of prevailing armoring and irrational political ideologies, are nevertheless at the basis of social achievement.
