Harvard University press recently released a catalogue copy of a new book written by James Strick, PhD on Reich&#39s bion experiments. The title of the book is Wilhelm Reich, biologist. This book is written on Reich&#39s bion experiments soon to be published by Harvard University press. The catalogue states:

Wilhelm Reich, Biologist
James E. Strick

Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) gained fame and notoriety in the course of an unusually adventurous career. Psychoanalyst, political theorist, pioneer of body therapies, prophet of the sexual revolution—all fitting titles, but Reich has never been recognized as a serious laboratory scientist, despite his experimentation with bioelectricity and unicellular organisms. Wilhelm Reich, Biologist is an eye-opening reappraisal of one of twentieth-century science&#39s most controversial figures. Refuting allegations of "pseudoscience" that have long dogged Reich&#39s research, James Strick argues that Reich&#39s lab experiments in the mid-1930s represented the cutting-edge of light microscopy and time-lapse micro-cinematography and deserve to be taken seriously as legitimate scientific contributions. Strick also sets Reich's work in the context of other 1930&#39s work on origin of life, such as Herrera, Oparin and others, including the influence of dialectical materialism.

Trained in medicine and a student of Sigmund Freud, Reich took to the laboratory in 1934 to determine if Freud&#39s concept of libido was a quantitatively measureable substance. His electrophysiological experiments confirmed Reich's concept of biological pulsation and his tension-charge formula. This work became the conceptual basis for experiments in which Reich discovered microscopic vesicles (he called these "bions"), which Reich hypothesized were transitional stages in originating life from nonliving matter. Studying Reich&#39 laboratory notes from recently opened archives, Strick offers a detailed account of the bion experiments, tracing how Reich eventually concluded he had discovered an unknown type of biological radiation he called "orgone." The bion experiments were foundational to Reich&#39s theory of cancer and later investigations of orgone energy.

Reich&#39s experimental findings and interpretations were considered discredited, but not because of shoddy lab technique, as has often been claimed. Scientific opposition to Reich&#39s experiments, Strick argues, was based largely on resistance to Reich&#39s unorthodox sexual theories and his Marxist political leanings.

Pre-order this book though Amazon: Wilhelm Reich, Biologist – Hardcover – April 1, 2015

This is an important book in introducing Dr. Reich&#39s biological experiments on living organisms. Mainstream biology and science never has given fair chance to replicating the experiments and never in an unbiased way considered his conclusions. In fact in the book The Function of the Orgasm, Reich quotes one of his close scientist helpers and colleagues, du Teil, stating "Scientific objectivity is not of this world. Indeed its existence is all together doubtful". In the same book Reich regarding to his own method of thought states, "A general hypothesis was derived from a series of clinical observations. There were gaps in it here and there; it was open to objections which appeared justified. One&#39s opponents seldom fail to ferret out such gaps and on the basis of them, to reject the hypothesis as a whole." Dr. Strick, himself a biologist and science historian, discusses Reich&#39s experiments and points out biased approaches to his scientific work by contemporary scientists.

James E. Strick

Dr. Reich, in Function of Orgasm, states that his work as a psychiatrist and his research on human psychic function led him to series of discoveries that are all connected with each other. In the process of furthering and expanding Freud&#39s sexual theory—the libido theory, the theory of energy—Reich entered into the realm of biology. For those who are familiar with his theories and have worked on the clinical aspects of his psychiatric approach, the accuracy of his theories of human psychological structure is unquestionable and every treatment case is a testament to correctness of his theoretical understanding of the human psyche. Each and every scientific verification of his findings is another proof in the chain of experiments that demonstrates the correctness of his human psychological and physical functioning based on the concept of energy. Dr. Reich as a psychiatrist recognized the significance of human sexuality and the role of the function of the orgasm as a basic and central function. A function that is based on the principle of pulsation, charge and discharge of energy, constitutes a central importance in the organism. These discoveries led him into realm of biology and biophysics and his discoveries after that is related to his psychiatric theories. Dr. Reich in the book The Function of Orgasm states, "To most people it is a riddle that I can be active simultaneously in disciplines as different as depth psychology, sociology, physiology and now even biology"…. Then he continues "The subject of sexuality virtually cuts through all scientific fields of research. In its central phenomena, the sexual orgasm, we meet the questions driving from the fields of psychology as well as from the physiology from the field of biology no less than from the sociology. Natural science offers hardly another field of research that is so well equipped to exhibit the fundamental unity of everything that lives and guards against narrow, fragmentation specializations."

Dr. Reich in pursuing and furthering the libido theory of Freud recognized and discovered the pulsating nature of the life energy in every living organism and called it orgone energy. In The Function of Orgasm, Dr. Reich says, "In an unusual way the knowledge of the biological tension- charge function led me to the discovery of energy process in bions, in the human organism, and in the radiation of the sun."

"The bions are microscopic vesicles charged with orgone energy; they are developed from inorganic matter through heating and swelling. They propagate like bacteria. They also develop spontaneously in the earth or as in cancer, from decayed organic matter. My book, Die Bione, 1938 shows the importance of the tension-charge formula for the experimental investigation of the natural organization of living substance from nonliving matter."

As mentioned earlier, Reich&#39s theories of human psychic structure, its function, its development, and the discovery of bions and orgone energy are interrelated, constituting a chain of knowledge, each link reinforcing the entire field of Orgonomy.

The atrocities, violence, abuse, torture and murder; the disregard for all life, that we are witnessing today, and to which history has attested for millennia are all a consequence of the distortion of the human psyche stemming from a disturbance in the natural flow of energy with the natural charge and discharge function that a healthy organism is ordained to have. This disturbance is caused by the armoring of the human psyche. As students of Reich, it is our belief that as long as the psyche is distorted by armoring, no permanent peace will be achievable and will thus remain only a dream.

We congratulate Dr. Strick in his success; every discussion, introduction and publication focusing on Reich&#39s work is significant to the human race in every aspect of life.

Pre-order this book though Amazon: Wilhelm Reich, Biologist – Hardcover – April 1, 2015