understanding the global “DOR-sickness.” The latter stemmed from a variety of irritants or
pollution, which changed orgone energy into a malignant force.
The effect of pollutants on orgone energy, transforming it into DOR, in turn led
to DOR-sickness in man. Reich also stressed that DOR-sickness brought out latent and spe-
cific emotional vulnerabilities within individuals.
In the second issue ofCORE, published in December 1955, Reich continned his
elaboration of themes presented in Raphael’s summary. Reich’s emphasis here was on the
build-up of DOR through the armor. Orgone energy that could not circulate freely within
the organism was transformed into DOR, just as atmospheric orgone energy was when irri-
tated by pollutants. During his Arizona trip, Reich was struck by parallels between the phys-
ical desert there and the emotional desert in man. The bristles of desert plants, the prickly
outer behavior of armored human beings—this is the kind of analogy Reich was drawn to
in his last years.
In Arizona, Reich had seen the desert fight hard, so to speak, against his cloud-
busting activities. The removal of DOR, the bringing in of fresh orgone energy meant an
end of existing secondary desert vegetation. Similarly, the discovery of orgone energy, as
well as of the armor, meant eventually an end to the complex, armored, “secondary” forms
ofliving in man.Reich used his understanding of DOR to comprehend in greater depth one
of his earliest clinical concerns, latent negative transference and negative therapeutic reac-
tion. His latest formulation posited that armored people dimly knew the “dirty feelings”
their armor contained. The negative transference could be viewed as a heightening of aware-
ness in the face of the threatened therapeutic exposure of the dirtiness. Nonetheless, the
road to health required a revelation of this “sequestered realm of the self.”^7
Reich’s various selves were functioning to the end, and in his best moments, as in
this paper, he could stand aside from pettiness and rage; he could, despite gross harassment,
clearly strive for that sober pursuit of truth that characterized all phases of his life in spite
of recurrent “little man” outbursts. He could put aside extravagant claims in order to pres-
ent a lucid argument in a tone that was deep and quiet.
Reich may have been quite wrong about the role of DOR in the atmosphere and
the organism. However, I must repeat my conviction: his paradigm, with its unification of
man and nature and its energetic model of life and death, holds such possibilities that it
behooves us to find out how right or wrong it is. To paraphrase Pascal’s wager, we lose more
by failing to pursue orgonomic hypotheses with all due speed should they eventually prove
to be correct than we do by testing them thoroughly only to find they are worthless.
Another issue ofCOREcontained a compilation by Eva Reich of clinical material
for a uterine case Reich had followed since 1942. This was the only medical report on accu-
mulator usage published by Reich after the injunction. He gave the FDA nothing, for the
article, in defiance of the injunction, showed positive results from the use of the accumula-
tor. After two months of treatment, the patient felt considerably stronger^8.
Most significant was Reich’s recommendation back in 1943 that the patient’s uterus
be removed. He had recommended this step on the basis of various orgonomic tests. The
29 : Background to the Trial for Contempt of Injunction: 1955-1956 411