the same principle, indeed the same device but on a smaller scale, in the treatment of human
beings. Pipes connected with water were applied to the human body. Once again, it sounds
utterly improbable that such a device should have any therapeutic efficacy. However, about
fifteen psychiatrists trained in orgonomic therapy have used the device, along with more tra-
ditional Reichian methods, in the treatment of patients. There has been only one good con-
trolled study of the DOR-buster, in the treatment of cancer mice; positive results were
obtained^20.
When Reich discovered orgone energy, he made it the basis for a synthesis of cre-
ative forces in the organism and the atmosphere. Between 1940 and 1950 he had the oppor-
tunity to explore this synthesis in physics, biology, psychiatry, medicine, education, and soci-
ology.
In 1951, he started with a “simple” experiment—to see whether orgone energy
could reduce harmful nuclear radiation. In the ensuing process he believed he had discov-
ered a sweeping view of the destructive forces in man and in the environment. In Reich’s
view, atmospheric and organismic orgone energy had to be irritated or blockedbefore DOR
emerged in virulent pathological form. Still, in a “normal” state, DOR was part of life. In a
way that Reich was just beginning to conceptualize, DOR was part of the process of death.
In Reich’s view, the common functioning principle of diverse kinds of death was blocked
life energy.
The most practical implications of the whole Oranur experiment, incomplete as it
may have been, concern its relevance for understanding and mastering the growing pollu-
tion of the environment. Reich only began a few empirical investigations, as with the cloud-
buster. It is worth repeating that for Reich what ultimately mattered was not a new abstract
synthesis but concepts that generated testable hypotheses. He could not continue his DOR
investigations for long because a different “investigation,” the FDA’s, was yielding its own
fruit—a kind Reich would perceive as yet another manifestation of DOR in the form of the
emotional plague.
26 : The Oranur Experiment: 1950-1953 355