Every conversation about “AIDS” eventually gets around to the dangers of getting it on. Is sex really unsafe at any speed? Unsafe for whom? What does love have to do with it? Amazingly, the answers to these questions have been around for more than 60 years, in the work of the late Dr. Wilhelm Reich. Dr. James DeMeo is furthering this important research at his Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory (OBRL) — and no, it’s not pornographic and you can’t watch. You can, however, listen in as Dr. DeMeo and “How Positive Are You” co-host Elizabeth Ely talk about electrical discharges, love, the healing powers of a sexual energy called “orgone,” orgone accumulator boxes, and the energy of life itself.
According to the “sex-economic” hypothesis and other theories advanced by Dr. Reich in The Mass Psychology of Fascism, traumatic and sex-repressive social institutions create fearful people and fascist societies. Dr. DeMeo validated this theory by undertaking the most ambitious global, cross-cultural research study of human behavior, family systems, and sexual life to-date. This study led to his discovery of an ancient epoch of drought, desertification, famine and mass migration in the Old World after about 4000 B.C. — which he named Saharasia. His book, also called Saharasia, locates the origins of human violence in traumatic and sex-repressive social institutions in that place and time.
While working toward his 1986 doctorate at the University of Kansas, Dr. DeMeo had already rigorously tested the controversial discoveries of Dr. Reich and had found them to be sound. He even used orgone technology in the arid American Southwest, Egypt, Israel, and sub-Saharan Africa, literally causing it to rain in the desert.
Other published books by Dr. DeMeo include The Orgone Accumulator Handbook and In Defense of Wilhelm Reich (reviewed here and here). He has also edited several academic books, has served on the geography faculty of several universities, and is a member of many prestigious scientific associations.
In the course of our discussion, we also mention HPAY Episode 74, featuring Dawn Lester and David Parker talking about Why Germs Don’t Make You Ill and Drugs Can’t Cure You. The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch explains what we mean by “narcissism.” For information about the Gerson therapy for cancer, see the documentary film Dying to Have Known. (For another view on sex, we hope you stayed tuned for our talk about the “Tantric Tiger” philosophy in our upcoming Episode 81 with Mark Skanda; if you haven’t heard it yet, you can still tune in now.)
Resources on Wilhelm Reich, sexual freedom, and orgone energy include several books and articles accessible to lay readers. An excellent place to start is The Function of the Orgasm, as much a memoir/history as an explanation of the research from the Freudian to the discovery of orgone energy. Selected Writings: An Introduction to Orgonomy details the experiments themselves. “The Sexual Rights of Youth” appears as an essay in Children of the Future: On the Prevention of Sexual Pathology. The Orgone Accumulator Handbook: Construction Plans, Experimental Use, and Protection Against Toxic Energy explains how to collect the energy that the U.S. government concluded didn’t actually exist (and had, therefore, to destroy the machines that made it). More complex but still readable is The Cancer Biopathy, concerning Dr. Reich’s findings on cancer.
Listeners can check the “Resources” page at the “OrgoneLab” Web site for further writings, scholarly journals, and independent practitioners of orgone therapy. The American College of Orgonomy and the Institute for Orgonomic Science are the two main professional organizations in the field.