The Bionous Nature of the Cancer Biopathy

The first talk of the conference, which began on Monday, July 14th, was a historical lecture entitled "Reich's Bion Experiments and the History of Their Development". The presenter was James Strick, Ph.D., author of the book Sparks of Life, a study of the debate over biogenesis in England, 1860-1880. Basically, there are two "types" of biogenesis: 1) heterogenesis - the development of life from previously living material (e.g. dead leaves), and 2) abiogenesis - the development of life from material that has never been alive (e.g. sand or iron filings). Reich initially had observed heterogenesis (i.e. the breakdown of grass clippings into amoeba-like structures) and later witnessed abiogenesis.

Allow me to provide a bit of history. Reich was a psychoanalyst who studied under Freud until splitting with him over their understandings of the "death instinct" (see Function of the Orgasm, pgs. 124-133) and the central role genitality played in psychological wellness as expressed in Reich's orgasm formula: mechanical tension - bioelectric charge - bioelectric discharge - mechanical relaxation (see Function of the Orgasm, pgs. 8-9,84-189). Continuing his studies into the role of healthy genitality, Reich developed his character analytic technique which, simply put, looked at the human being as a functional whole that was adversely affected by muscular armoring (i.e. chronic muscular tension). Reich noted that the healthy individual was capable of allowing their vegetative energies to expand out to the world. Conversely, an individual will withdraw from the world if confronted with unpleasure (e.g. grief, fear, etc.). It wasn't so much that one needed to always be in a state of expansion out toward the world, but that one was elastic and capable of expanding out toward the world or into the self in a rational, holistically functional manner dependant on the situation. The unhealthy individual was limited in their capacity for this free expression by character armor. The primary means for regulating the buildup of excess bioelectric charge, according to Reich, was via a complete, healthy orgasm--the capacity for which Reich termed "orgastic potency".

In the mid-30s, Reich became interested in studying the vegetative currents he had observed in his patients at the microscopic level. As such, he contacted the Botanical Institute in Oslo in order to obtain protozoa for study. He was informed that such cultures were not sold but that they could be easily obtained by placing hay in water. Ever the questioner of his reality and assumptions, Reich decided to observe the process by which these protozoal "germs" allegedly resting on the hay developed into bona fide protozoa once placed in water. What Reich saw became the subject of much contention in the French Academy of Sciences and the impetus for his work with bions.

Instead of observing protozoal germs develop, Reich found that the hay slowly decomposed. First, the chloroplasts would detach themselves and then the cellular structure of the plant tissue broke down into blue vesicles. These vesicles would then clump together and behave like single-celled organisms, in some cases membranes would develop around a group of individual vesicles. Reich called the vesicles "bions" and viewed them as the building blocks of life (see The Bion Experiments, pgs. 19-32). He began a series of "bion experiments" in 1936 wherein he cultured bions from all matter of substances--hay, moss, earth, coal dust, sand, etc. Some preparations were cultured in a completely sterile environment (e.g. some substances would be kept in a dry oven at 180 degrees Celsius and then heated to white-hot incandescence before being placed in a sterile solution). These substances also developed into bions. Reich was witnessing abiogenesis.

Anyway, back to the first talk. Dr. Strick then explained some problems with mainstream science that led to a misunderstanding of Reich and his experiments with bions (and later with orgone). One problem is that around the time that Reich was conducting the bion experiments mainstream science was making the move toward a chemical approach to biology rather than the functional-energetic/dialectical-materialist approach that Reich took (and which was much more popular when Reich recieved his medical training in the 1920s). By the 1940s, the chemical approach would be the mainstream. This was partly due to the fact that a major funder of scientific experimentation, the Rockefeller Foundation, had a prejudice against energetic approaches like Reich's. It also had to due with the fact that in 1948 T.D. Lysenko, a ranking Soviet scientist, declared that the dialectical-materialist approach was most proper. This statement from the Soviet block increased Western prejudice against the approach.

Furthermore, Dr. Strick stated, the biogenesis debate had been "settled" back in the 1800s. The French Academy of Sciences had offered prize money to any scientist who could settle the debate conclusively. The winner of this contest was Louis Pasteur. However, there were fundamental problems with Pasteur's "germ theory" of protozoal origin. For example, he did not use the hay infusion that proponents of biogenesis had used in their experiments (i.e. he refused to replicate their experiments). It was also later made known that Pasteur had in fact discovered that a small percentage of his experiments did generate growth but that Pasteur did not report these experiments deeming them anomalies unworthy of mention. Regardless of the flaws in Pasteur's methodology, the French Academy of Sciences declared that there was no spontaneous generation (i.e. biogenesis) and that the debate was closed forever (see Dr. Strick's book Sparks of Life for more information on this truly remarkable chapter in the history of science).

Dr. Strick pointed out that Reich did not dismiss the chemical approach but looked at it within the framework of functional-energetics (i.e. that the clues to life lay in the bioenergetic charge of plasma rather than in a combination of chemicals).

Let me tell you, I love history. Love it. And that lecture certainly drove home the lesson that history is written by the victors.

We then spent the afternoon preparing bion cultures. Some were non-sterile preparations of hay and moss. Some were sterile preparations of coal dust, iron flakes, earth, New Jersey beach sand, or black lava sand from Hawaii. These sterile preparations were made by heating the above to 180 degrees Celsius for four hours and then taking a sample of them and heating them to white-hot incandescence in a butane flame before placing them in sealed test tubes containing a sterile KCl solution. Some of the preparations were left in the test tubes while some were placed systematically on agar in covered petri dishes. Over the course of the following three days we would be sampling these preparations to see if bions were being generated and, if so, what sorts of characteristics they exhibited.

There was also an evening lecture: "An Introduction to Optical Microscopy" by Dr. Nagy. While there were three, nice light microscopes there, Dr. Nagy's Zeiss Photomicroscope was in a class by itself. We would be using it to examine especially interesting cultures. We would also be using it for examination of specimens under extreme magnification. The three microscopes I mentioned could magnify up to around 1000x. Dr. Nagy's Nikon would magnify up to 6000x (and he'd boost that even further after making an exciting discovery in the museum--more on that later). Anyway, given that we would be doing a lot of work with microscopes, Dr. Nagy's talk would help us understand the ins and outs of light microscopy and provide us with an understanding of microscope mechanics and a knowledge of microscopes that would be useful were any of us to look into acquisition of our own microscope.

Basically, a compound optical microscope is made up of several groups of lenses. Some are in the condensor, some are in the objective, and some are in the eyepiece. The magnifying power of a microscope is determined by multiplying the magnification of the objective by the eyepiece. Additionally, some microscopes have fixed magnification in the tube, or a variable magnification changer in a turret (such as in the Zeiss Optovar magnification changer), which can introduce an additional factor of 1.25 to 2x into the system.

There are three types of objectives used in optical microscopy that are characterized by the amount of chromatic and spherical correction built into them: achromats, flourites, and apochromats. Achromats are the most common but are only corrected for blue and red light wavelengths (i.e. one does not see true color). Flourites are a bit better, and apochromats are the best being corrected for three or four colors in the visible spectrum (i.e. one sees true color when looking through an apochromatic objective).

Having considered the various possible locations of the lenses in the microscope and the types of objectives available, Dr. Nagy next discussed aperture. The ability of a microscope to resolve small detail is determined by the numerical aperture of the objective lens, and the largest available numerical aperture, 1.4, is only found on apochromatic objectives. In order to get the sharpest images possible, a highly-corrected condenser is used to focus light onto the specimen from a position opposite the microscope objective.

Finally, illumination was discussed. There are three commonly-used types of illumination in optical microscopy: brightfield, darkfield, and phase contrast--although Dr. Reich used only brightfield and darkfield in his work. Brightfield illumination involves light going straight up through the specimen into the objective. Darkfield illumination is angled through the specimen so it does not enter directly into the objective. Darkfield illumination offers intense contrast and the ability to visualize small particles near the limit of resolution. Phase contrast illumination (which was not developed at the time of Reich's research) modifies changes in the wave phase relations caused by very thin specimens, which are invisible to the eye, into amplitude differences, which are visible to the human eye. Each type offers a different image (and thus a different perspective) of the specimen. We would use all three at some point during the conference.

One other point that Dr. Nagy made was the fact that mainstream science considers any magnification over 1000x the numerical aperture to be "empty" magnification. This basically means that any magnification over a 1000x the numberical aperture only makes the image larger (i.e. it does not increase resolution). Hence, conventional wisdom regards the maximum magnification possible from a 100x apochromat with a numerical aperture of 1.4 to be 1400 diameters. While this is modern dogma, there are many examples of larger magnifications being able to show detail invisible at the lower magnification. It is worth noting that regardless of this fact, microscope manufacturers do not make high-powered oculars any longer, with the maximum magnification eyepiece now being 15x. As the week progressed, the necessity of (and rationale for) viewing bion cultures at over 1000x would became quite apparent despite this tenet of modern microscopy.

The Tuesday morning talk began a bit after 9:00. It was a two-parter. G. Sellers, an adjunct professor with a lot of laboratory experience, would be presenting both talks: "The Bions: Biological Characteristics and Culture Experiments" and "Natural Organization of Protists in Bionously Disintegrating Plant Material". These two talks primarily summarized and supplemented the material in Reich's The Bion Experiments. First, Mr. Sellers summarized the primary characteristics of bions:

• bions are in a transitory phase between living and non-living matter
• bions are identifiable because they exhibit pulsatory movement
• bions can be cultured

He also mentioned a few historical facts about Reich's bion experiments:

• Reich admitted that each and every attempt he made to culture bions was not successful
• Reich intimates in The Cancer Biopathy (p. 15) that some bions degenerate into bacteria (a process known as pleomorphism)
• the only published replications of the bion experiments (that were successful) were those of Roger du Teil conducted in 1937

This talk was mainly geared toward giving us an idea of what to look for once we began examining the bion preparations under the microscopes. The rest of the day was spent at the microscopes. The preparations I viewed had begun to break down into vesicles. Some of these vesicles were beginning to clump together into bions and exhibited movements that were anything but Brownian. Still, I figured that more dramatic results would be seen on Wednesday and Thursday.

Wednesday's morning presentation was to be quite interesting: "Bionous Processes, From the Test Tube to the Living Organism: Cancer". The presenter was Dr. Stephen Nagy. He began by defining cancer as Reich understood it, a biopathy arising from the disturbance of biological pulsation. He then lectured on Reich's understanding of cancer in general (Dr. Strick would get more into the scientific process by which Reich developed this understanding on Thursday) and his methodology for treating cancer patients. This treatment would involve both orgone therapy and character analytic depth psychology. He mentioned that there had been some, but not much, validation of Reich's understanding of the cancer biopathy in medical literature (i.e. the link between depression and cancer). He did emphasize that Reich understood cancer to be the result of a lifelong process in which the actual tumor is a late-stage development. He also emphasized that Reich did not picture the cancer biopathy as an illness arising solely from psychological disturbances (i.e. that there are biological factors as well). This goes back to Reich's functional-energetic understanding of the human organism. We are a functional amalgam of our parts, and each must play its part in the functional whole.

One question that was brought up was the fact that seemingly happy people develop cancer too. Dr. Nagy offered a couple possible explanations: 1) some people put up a happy front to conceal their depression from others (and, often, themselves), and 2) Reich did mention chronic expansion (this goes back to the fact that pulsation is key--i.e. a person can be chronically contracted away from the world just as they can be chronically expanded toward it). He also addressed childhood cancer by stating that these cases may be related to the health of the mother, birth trauma, lack of contact with the mother in infancy, etc. All in all, it was a good introduction to Reich's understanding of the cancer biopathy.

We then had some lab time. Morning lab time was always a bit hectic, but there was some amazing stuff going on with our preparations. The iron flake preparation that we had cultured had generated hundreds of rod-shaped bions that were moving about the slide. Other preparations were exhibiting pulsation and/or a bluish color that Reich found especially pronounced in bion cultures he generated from beach sand. After seeing the iron bions I no longer had any doubts about the validity of Reich's bion experiments and now consider myself a witness to abiogenesis.

That evening we reconvened up at the museum for a viewing of some films Reich had made of his bion preparations. They were quite interesting but the title cards (it was a silent film after all) were all in German. Kind of made me wish that translations had been worked out beforehand. Oh well.

Thursday would be my last full day at Orgonon. The first presentation was given by Dr. Nagy and was entitled "The Reich Blood Test: Promise and Problems". I was very excited about this talk. I had known something of the Reich Blood Test, and learning about it firsthand was one of the primary reasons I had been so excited about attending the conference (my other reason for wanting to attend the conference was to gain a better understanding of the biological basis of Reich's theories of the cancer biopathy). Anyway, the Reich Blood Test is a test used to determine the overall health of the human organism. The test itself is four-fold and consists of the following:

1. observing blood droplet appearance - i.e. the greater the tendency of a blood droplet from a pricked fingertip to spread across the finger, the worse the general health of the organism
2. observing microscopic appearance/rate of cellular degeneration - i.e. the quicker the rate at which the blood cells degenerate and/or exhibit T-spikes, the worse the general health of the organism; the less turgid the cell, the worse the general health of the organism; and, the less intense the blue color of the blood, the worse the general health of the organism
3. conducting an autoclavation test - i.e. the lesser the degree to which autoclaved blood breaks down into blue, bionous flakes, the worse the general health of the organism
4. examining cultured blood bions - i.e. looking to see how healthy bions cultured from the blood appear in order to assess the overall health of the human organism

Dr. Nagy then talked about how a number of researchers had validated the basic concepts underlying the test, but that there were a number of flaws in the test protocol that allowed unintended errors to creep into the results. Also, there have not been enough tests done with large sample sizes in order to determine statistical norms.

Next, volunteers allowed their fingers to be pricked. The samples were then viewed under the microscopes in order to give us an idea of what to look for (though, as you can guess, we didn't have any terminally ill cancer patient blood to compare with the relatively healthy samples taken from the conference attendees--in fact, one disappoint I had with the conference was the fact that the sample of living cancer tissue we were supposed to have on hand for examination never showed up). It was quite interesting, and I'm very glad to have a better understanding of the Reich Blood Test even if it could still use a bit of standardizing. On that last point I might mention that Dr. Nagy said that with the advent of digital technology, it should be possible to take the subjective error out of the microscopic examination of red cells through the use of digital photographs and digital image-analysis software--however image-analysis software is still very expensive. Regardless, if a sufficiently large number of tests were done that demonstrate a statistically valid spectrum of results, it is conceivable that a paper describing the results could be accepted for publication in a conventional medical journal.

Dr. Strick then gave the last presentation of the conference, "Experimental Orgone Therapies for the Cancer Biopathy". He began by describing the medicinal uses for bions. Allow me to provide a bit of history: the first bions that Reich observed he labeled PA bions (short for 'Packet Ameoba bions') because of the tendency of the clumped vesicles (i.e. bions) to arranged themselves in packets and behave somewhat like amoeba. The bions he cultured from sand (i.e. the ones that were markedly more luminesce than the PA bions) he called SAPA bions (short for 'SAnd PAcket bions'). Reich had noted that these bions would "attack" bacteria. He further experimented with cancer tissue and found that when it was disintegrated in bouillon, it would break down into tiny (i.e. 1 to 2 micron in length) bacterial forms that Reich called T-bacilli. Reich then began studying the effect PA and SAPA bions on T-bacilli. Dr. Strick stated that Reich noted that when PA bions were injected into mice with cancer, they would kill the T-bacilli; however, when T-bacilli were injected into healthy mice they would cause tissue to disintegrate into PA bions which then attacked the T-bacilli. The problem here was that some of these PA bions would clump together into cancer cells and then form tumors. Reich faced a quandary. While he had found a means for treating cancer, his method of treatment would also cause the formation of new cancer cells. Reich was in a real pickle. The solution to this problem lay in his discovery of atmospheric orgone energy (see The Cancer Biopathy, pgs. 60-95).

As Dr. Strick explained, the therapeutic aspect of the bions lay in their bioelectric charge. This bioenergy was orgone, an energy that had up to Reich's time been known by various names (including chi and prana) in the mystic traditions. Reich, however, brought humanity's understanding of this energy into the realm of natural science by developing a means by which to quantify it and study it objectively. By taking the "middle man" out of the cancer treatment equation (i.e. the bions), Reich eliminated the side effect that bions had--namely, the tendency of some of them to break down into cancer cells. He acheived amazing results in the treatment of cancer in laboratory mice and was soon treating human cancer patients with his orgone energy accumulator and achieving remarkable results.

Thus, the content of the conference had given us an understanding of how Reich's discovery of bions led to his treatment of cancer patients with the orgone energy accumulator. I might also mention that Dr. Strick stated that the reasons Reich gave for the onset of the cancer biopathy lay primarily in impaired breathing and chronic muscular armature which, in turn, leads to oxygen deprivation in the tissues. This leads to the disintegration of body tissue into T-bacilli. Next thing you know, you've got cancer tissue forming into a tumor.

Friday morning Dr. Strick and Mr. Sellers led a review session. Dr. Strick re-emphasized how important it is to have Reich's work re-examined in the context of the historical split between functional-energetic biology and mechanical biology that occurred in the 1920s and 1930s. If proponents of Reich's theories fail to do this (and, especially, fail to understand the significance of this themselves), then the hope of having Reich's work seriously reconsidered will be severely limited. It was also re-emphasized that the susceptibility (or lack thereof) for developing cancer lies in the orgonotic charge of the tissues. As such, use of the orgone energy accumulator is especially relevant as a preventative measure in the fight against biopathies like cancer.

This was followed by a brief question and answer session. Then it was over. I must say, never has my understanding of the bionous nature of the cancer biopathy been so clear. The conference, from my perspective, was a huge success.

* *  Special thanks to Dr. Stephen Nagy for his assistance with the wording of the aspects of this essay
dealing with optical microscopy. His contributions were invaluable.  * *