(or energy systems) in the sexual embrace, he moved to the Superimposition of two orgone
energy particles in the formation of matter. The work included theoretical formulations on
the development of galaxies, hurricanes, and the aurora borealis.
Although the bulk of the book dealt with very technical material, Reich finished
with a more accessible chapter on “The Rooting of Reason in Nature.” Among other things,
he dealt with a problem of long-standing concern: the question of the origin of man’s
armoring. Reich did not attempt to solve the problem of how the armor developed. Rather,
he recast the problem. Earlier, consistent with a Marxist interpretation of human history, he
had seen the armoring as secondary to socioeconomic influences, especially the hypothe-
sized shift in early human history from matriarchal to patriarchal forms of social existence.
Now he changed the sequence: “The process of armoring, most likely, was there first, and
the socio-economic processes which today and throughout written history have reproduced
armored man, were already the first important results of the biological aberration of
man.”^25
Reich went on to speculate that man’s reasoning, especially in the form of self-
awareness, triggered the development of this armor:
In thinking about his own being and functioning, man turned involuntarily against him-
self; not in a destructive fashion, but in a manner which may well have been the
point of origin of his armoring. ...Man somehow became frightened and for the first time
in the history of his species began to armor against the inner fright and amazement. Just as in
the well-known fable, the milliped could not move a leg and became paralyzed
when he ... started thinking about which leg he put first and which second, it is quite
possible that the turning of reasoning toward itself induced the first emotional
blocking in man. It is impossible to say what perpetuated this blocking of emotions
and with it the loss oforganismic unity and “paradise.”^26It is fascinating here to see Reich come close to the Freudian thinking that postu-
lated a “mute hostility” between ego and id. The ego feared being overwhelmed by the id
and must needs defend against it in order to carry out the tasks of reasoning and self-aware-
ness. But and the “but” is importantReich never saw the split between ego and id as
inevitable. The few people who were able to maintain the unity of sensation and reason (for
Reich, they were the great artists and scientists) provided examples of a way out of the
dilemma: “It would become possible, by the most strenuous effort ever made in the history
ofman,to adjust the majority to the flow of natural processes. Then if our exposition of
the armoring blocking is correct, man could return home to nature; and what appears today
as exceptional in a very few could become the rule for all.”^27
Supported by the knowledge of orgone energy, man could use his reason to make
better contact with his depths, his deep emotions, his currents of pleasure. The split Reich
hypothesized as occurring when man began to be aware of himself could be overcome.
27 : Personal Life and Other Developments: 1950-1954 371