Wilhelm Reich

More recently, the Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897 – 1957) proposed the existence of a form of bio-plasma in the body that he called orgone. He describes it as follows:

"The living organism contains orgone energy in every one of its cells, and keeps charging itself orgonotically from the atmosphere by the process of breathing. The red blood corpuscles, at a magnification of over two thousand, show a bluish glimmer: they are vehicles charged with orgone energy which they transport from the lungs to the body tissues." *

Although similar in many ways to the Indian concept of prana, Reich’s orgone lacks the all-important super-intelligent aspect that characterizes prana-Shakti. Its connection with oxygen, however, and its presence in every cell of the body clearly indicate that his investigations were heading in the right direction.

Wilhelm Reich

* The Function of the Orgasm, Wilhelm Reich, Panther Books, London, 1968