them in solution. It should be noted that classical biology claimed no germs could survive
above a temperature of 180°C. Still, Reich was able to observe mobile forms from the coal
particles immediately after their sterilization.
Reich’s final answer to the argument of air-germ infection was a series of control
experiments devised by an associate, Roger du Teil, who set up a hermetically sealed system.
This, too, had no effect on the development of the bions^10.
The second interpretation was that the movements Reich observed were not bio-
logical at all but physico-chemical. Physics was familiar with the fact that small particles
oscillate slightly, due to the phenomenon known as Brownian movement, believed to be
caused by the bombardment of the particles with molecules.
Reich gave several answers to this interpretation. Brown was concerned with the
place-to-place movement of particles. Brownian movement could not explain the inner
motility, the pulsation of the bions, which Reich emphasized. Moreover, particles of coke or
earth had other life properties besides movement, such as ingestion of particles and divi-
sion, which Brownian movement was obviously unable to account for.
Reich’s own interpretation was that the preparations contained forms with some
life properties. Some kind of transitional organization between the nonliving and the living
had been discovered. Reich had succeeded in the laboratory in reproducing some of the
conditions for the “natural organization” of living forms from nonliving matter.
Reich’s bion research yielded in turn the first inkling of a new form of energy—an
energy he was later to name “orgone energy.” Briefly, the initial path was as follows:
In some of his preparations, Reich noted two kinds of bions: the more common,
packet-shaped, blue amoeboid vesicles, and much smaller, lancetshaped red forms. Reich
termed the first type “PA-bions,” and the smaller type “T-bacilli,” for reasons that will be
described in connection with his work on cancer (in Chapter 22).
He soon discovered that the two types had an antithetical effect on each other. The
PA-bions immobilized the T-bacilli.In his own words: “T-bacilli which are in the neighbor-
hood ofthe blue bions show a restless activity, they turn round and round, then remain, with
trembling movements, in one and the same spot and finally become immobile. As time goes
on,more and more T-bacilli conglomerate around the blue bions; they agglutinate. The
‘dead’ T-bacilli seem to attract and kill the still living ones.”^11
Reich here made several observations, the full significance of which would only
become apparent later:
The blue color of the PA-bions would be found to be characteristic of many
orgone energy phenomena.
In his observation of the PA-bions, Reich was noting an action at a distance. Some
force within the PA-bions was not simply providing the source of inner motility but
was affecting another organism. He noticed the same effect even more dramatical-
ly in a laboratory accident.
17 : The Bions: 1936-1939 211