As a pioneer in the study of human sexuality, he used novel experimental methods to examine, analyse and measure various aspects of physical lovemaking. He concluded that the ability to love was dependent on one’s physical ability to make love with “orgastic potency.” Reich coined this term to denote a kind of super-lovemaking in which the mental, physical and emotional aspects of sexuality were all functioning at a high level. Experimenting with electrical stimulation of erogenous zones, he showed that sexual feelings of touch, pleasure, and pain could all be measured in the laboratory.
The physiologic process of erection of the male penis provided the beginning formula for Reich’s great scientific discoveries. Before male orgasm, he noted four distinct and separate processes that had to take place physiologically. First is the necessary psychosexual build-up or “tension.” Second, the “charge” that accompanies tumescence of the penis, which Reich measured electrically. Third, the electrical “discharge” at the moment of orgasm. And fourth, the final “relaxation” of the penis.
Reich observed these four essential stages (tension, build-up, discharge and relaxation) in all aspects of life forms he examined. In the orgasm process of sex, he discovered a unique energetic life force that pervaded all nature. Reich named this force “orgone energy.”
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