What they represented to Reich was nothing less than the spontaneous generation of life: "The bions are forms of transition from inorganic to organic matter; they can develop into organized living forms such as protozoa, cancer cells, etc. They are vesicles filled with fluid and charged with energy." These bions moved about, motivated by the same electrical energy that coursed through the orgastic human. And, in one last tantalizing observation, Reich found that whichever eye he viewed the bions through would invariably become sore, evidence that the bions were emanating some form of radiation. He called this energy orgone.

In 1939 Reich secured an appointment at New York’s New School for Social Research, which had become a haven for intellectuals driven out of Europe by the Nazis. His course, "Biological Aspects of Character Formation," drew students who would become his American disciples. And he continued his research, now attempting to isolate the orgone: He placed his bion samples in boxes that were made of metal, in order to contain the orgone radiation, and covered in wood, in order to insulate against external orgone interference. He noted that if he stared at the darkness in the boxes, he could see colored patches of light. (When Reich was granted an audience with Albert Einstein, the physicist was skeptical: "But I see flickering light all the time," Einstein said. "Could it not be subjective?")

Then, one dark night, Reich discovered that if he looked hard enough at the dark spaces between the stars, he could see the same light. In a characteristic leap, Reich decided that orgone must be all around. It was a "primordial cosmic energy." It was the same universal medium that physicists once believed filled empty space but whose existence had been decisively disproved by A.A. Michelson and E.W. Morley in 1887: Reich had discovered the ether. Reich laid down his new, all-encompassing orgone theory in The Function of the Orgasm (1942–not to be confused with his earlier book of the same noscript), set up a journal to publish his work, and established the Orgone Institute Research Laboratory in Orgonon (known to the post office as Rangeley), Maine.

In the early 1940s, Reich began placing patients in his metal-and-wood boxes–"orgone energy accumulators"–to improve their mental health and orgastic potency, and even combat cancer, as detailed in The Cancer Biopathy (1948). Boxes ranged from full-body models about the size of a phone booth to smaller models designed to accommodate specific body parts in need of treatment. Sometimes they included attachments that intensified and sprayed orgone like a removable showerhead. There were also orgone blankets that could be folded up for easy traveling. Since the boxes (and their many variations) were relatively simple to make, they became something of a fad at various times, and many people who had no real notion of what Reichian therapy was enjoyed the supposed energizing and aphrodisiac effects of the accumulators. Hipsters, beats, and early hippies all knew about orgone boxes. And though they were eventually supplanted by other New Age panaceas (and banned by the FDA), ads for instruction manuals still appear in magazines from time to time, and there are now a dozen or so Internet sites with blueprints and how-tos.

Meanwhile, by the early 1950s, Reich was getting weirder. In 1950, he settled permanently in Rangeley, where he lived with his wife Ilse, their son, Peter, and a fluctuating cadre of true believers. Displaying an increasing dexterity with acronyms, he conducted experiments combining orgone radiation with radium (the oranur experiments: ORgone And NUclear Radiation) and determined that orgone could be used as an antidote to radiation poisoning (which was actually caused by dor: Deadly ORgone). He drew up plans for a motor that would run on orgone. He built orgone lightning rods that could trigger rainstorms.

These cloud busters, like so many of Reich’s experiments, only worked when conditions were just so: when there was no unforeseen dor interference, no radioactive breezes, and so on. Near the end, he observed unusual energy patterns in the sky and determined they were evidence of hostile UFOs (called EAs: Energy Alphas). He defended the oblivious human race using his cloud busters.

But amid all of the late advances in Reich’s research, trouble brewed. To counter the warm reception that many left-leaning American intellectuals were giving Reich in the postwar period, a freelance writer named Mildred Brady wrote a scathing article for The New Republic in 1947, called "The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich," in which she accused Reich of fraud and sex-cultism. (Reich thought she had an unspoken motive for lashing out: "Brady believes that I am the only man who could help her achieve an orgasm, which she so desperately needs.") The FDA was soon alerted to his activities, and it determined that the orgone energy accumulators were hoaxes that fell under its jurisdiction. This, despite Reich’s well-founded protestations that he was "investigating natural phenomena" that had nothing to do with foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals, or cosmetics.

The FDA, Joseph McCarthy claimed and Cold War hysterics believed, was infested with communists, and both Mildred Brady and the editorial staff at The New Republic were known to have left-wing sympathies. Reich, whose leftist political fervor had long since dissipated and who was now a card-carrying Republican, became convinced that "the slandering article by Miss Brady was the beginning of a chain reaction set into motion...by communist quarters." It was a conspiracy that involved The New Republic, the FDA, and maybe even Einstein. It was all orchestrated by Moscow’s global network, which Reich dubbed Modju (combining MOcenigo, who denounced the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno to the Inquisition, with DJUgashvili, Stalin’s original surname). Stalin, Reich was sure, knew that his discoveries would save the world from most–if not all–of its ills, something the Soviets could not abide. Reich wrote letters to Eisenhower and J. Edgar Hoover explaining his predicament but got no response. Reich’s books now bore angry and self-righteous noscripts like Listen, Little Man! (1948) and The Murder of Christ (1953). For Conspiracy: An Emotional Chain Reaction (1954), Reich feverishly compiled evidence that Modju was using the Hig (Hoodlums In Government) to destroy him. The conspiracy, in the opinion of many Reichians, survives today, evidenced by the continued failure of Reich’s ideas to gain mainstream currency, by the FDA’s continuing hostility to Reichian "hoaxes," and by the continuing success of the forces of evil (environmental destruction, disease, starvation, psychological malaise, and such) over good.

On February 10, 1954, the FDA–which was never able to produce a single dissatisfied patient, let alone one who had been harmed–requested an injunction against transporting orgone boxes across state lines; Reich refused to appear in court and the injunction–which still stands today–was granted. While the FDA nosed around (sans warrant) in Orgonon, one of Reich’s assistants transported an orgone energy accumulator out of Maine, in violation of the court order. When Reich again declined to appear in court, he was arrested for contempt. With uncharacteristic humility, he asserted his right only "to be wrong without being hanged for it." Acting as his own attorney, he pleaded guilty, conceding that he had indeed crossed the FDA but arguing that he had done so for the greater good of humankind.

Back in Orgonon, while Reich’s family, the laboratory’s staff, and Reich himself, who was awaiting sentencing, looked on, the FDA destroyed the accumulators and torched Reich’s books. In May 1956, he was sentenced to two years in the federal penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Prison psychiatrists were split on Reich’s mental competency. He died of a heart attack in 1957, shortly before he was to be released.

WILLIAM BURROUGHS WROTE OF AN ORGONE EXPERIMENT: "ONE DAY I GOT INTO THE BIG ACCUMULATOR... AND CAME RIGHT OFF."

REICH DIED AT the height of his mad-scientist phase, hounded by imaginary conspiracies and real-life federal agents, just when his influence in American culture was at its peak. In the 1950s Freudian ideas were all the rage, and many intellectuals–frustrated with the conformity of the society around them–were drawn to Reich’s earlier psychoanalytic stances (as they were to those of another Freudian heretic, Carl Jung). Through these literati, Reich reached his broadest audience. Indeed, his work seems to be a hidden thread running through the proto-counterculture of the 1950s. Paul Goodman, the anarchist critic and novelist who would become belatedly famous in the 1960s counterculture with the publication of Growing Up Absurd (1960), underwent Reichian therapy and became a proponent of Reich’s sociopolitical work; he cast Reich as a hero of anarcho-syndicalism and a champion of man’s return to his uncorrupted natural state. William Steig, whose drawings still appear in The New Yorker, was a friend of Reich’s and illustrated some of his works. Even the sober-minded critic Irving Howe was fascinated by Reich’s quest for Marxist-Freudian rapprochement and particularly by the notion that the individual’s need to repress his own sexual desire was the heart of fascism’s appeal.

In the late 1940s, the short story writer Isaac Rosenfeld convinced his friend Saul Bellow to undergo Reichian therapy. For Bellow it was a schizoid experience–at once liberating and belittling, celebratory and traumatizing–and one that would inform much of his fiction in subsequent years. Henderson the Rain King (1959), for example, is throughout an allegory (as well as a send-up) of Reichian therapy: Dahfu, the African witch doctor, methodically strips away the defenses of Henderson, an American traveling in Africa. At the climax, as Dahfu lies dying and Henderson is bruised, beaten, defenseless (and at the mercy of a hungry African lion), Bellow makes clear the pain and risk such exposure entails, and the extreme vulnerability it leaves behind. Similarly, the novella Seize the Day (1956) centers on a hapless protagonist–significantly named Tommy Wilhelm–who convulsively throws off the character armor that has been his protection and his prison. He too is left weeping and broken, though truer to himself. Bellow also wrote a play, The Wrecker (1954), on a similar theme, but with the violent aspects of his therapy more literally portrayed: The entire stage set is demolished by the protagonist’s unpent rage. Bellow even composed an entire novel–which is unpublished, its story having been transformed into Herzog (1964)–about a Reichian therapist. Although Bellow’s mature sensibility was formed by his experience of Reichian therapy, there’s no question that he ultimately turned against it. He would later blame his therapy for the breakup of his first marriage and for his friend Rosenfeld’s early death.

Norman Mailer’s enthusiasm for Reich was characteristically stronger. "If I were ever to look for a therapist," he wrote in a Village Voice piece that was reprinted in Advertisements for Myself, "I would be inclined to get me to a Reichian." Mailer understood Reich’s obsession with the orgasm in almost mystical terms. In what Mailer’s biographer Mary Dearborn characterizes as "a total lift from Reich," the blacks and hipsters in Mailer’s famous essay "The White Negro" (1957) are, by virtue of their alienation from square white society, freed from their armor, ready to experience the center of human experience: the orgasm. The hipster "seeks love...love as the search for an orgasm more apocalyptic than the one which preceded it." Then there is the novel fragment "The Time of Her Time" (1959), Mailer’s purest distillation of Reich.

In it, the narrator (who is described as a "phallic-narcissist," a Reichian term of art for a "self-assured, arrogant...energetic" sexual predator) forces an orgasm on an icy college student whose Reich-dabbling psychoanalyst has been unable to help her. Before returning to "love’s first hole," he penetrates her in "the seat of all stubbornness, tight as a vise," and calls her a "dirty little Jew." Her character armor shattered, she proceeds to have no fewer than five orgasms–"the first big moment in her life," in the narrator’s estimation.

Still, Mailer treats Reich as simply one inspiration among many. In "The White Negro," he wrote: "Energy, life, sex, force, the Yoga’s prana, the Reichian’s orgone, Lawrence’s ‘blood,’ Hemingway’s ‘good,’ the Shavian life-force; ‘It’; God.... To which a cool cat might reply, ‘Crazy, man!’" Mailer did pay Reich perhaps the ultimate compliment, though: in "The Hip and the Square: 1. The List" (1959), Mailer places "Wilhelm Reich as a mind" under "Hip," while placing "Wilhelm Reich as a stylist" under "Square." Mailer in the 1950s was highly susceptible to the intellectual gurus of the day. As Louis Menand recently put it in The New York Review of Books, he "brought Sartre and Reich together by making sex the site of existential struggle."

And then there is William Burroughs, whom Mailer himself declared "the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius" Like Bellow and Mailer, Burroughs built himself an orgone box, but unlike them, he made the box and the orgone central to his thinking. In 1949 he wrote to Jack Kerouac (who, like Allen Ginsberg, would submit to Reichian therapy at Burroughs’s insistence) that Reich "is the only man in the analysis line who is on the beam.... The man is not crazy, he’s a fucking genius." He declared that he would "not consider spending one hour of my time" in therapy with a non-Reichian. But it was Reich’s science that riveted Burroughs. "What interests me," he wrote to Ginsberg, "is his factual discoveries.... My own experiments with the [orgone] accumulator have convinced me that many of his conclusions are correct." (His experiments included building a small orgone box out of a gas can, which he tested in this way: "One day I got into the big accumulator and held the little one over my joint and came right off.")

Both the novels Junky (1953) and Queer (1985) originally contained extensive discourses on Burroughs’s interest in Reich and "his orgones," but Burroughs was unable to justify their inclusion stylistically. Reich always held a prominent place in the odd cosmology of Burroughs’s literary imagination, along with virus theory, Egyptian hieroglyphs, shamans, Mayan codices, the Time-Life image bank, flying saucers, and Scientology. But Burroughs was not always reverent–not that anyone would expect him to be. He did not much care about Reich the social theorist ("Reich’s social and political theories...bore me"). And in a 1952 sketch for a short story based unflatteringly on Paul Bowles, he wrote:

Like many homosexuals, Keif decided, periodically, that he wanted to be "cured" and lead a "normal life." To this end he had been analyzed by a Freudian, a member of the Washington group, a Horneyite (he chicly avoided Jungians and Adlerians), and finally by a female Reichian who attached electrodes to his penis, stuck an orgone sprayer up his ass, urging him, at the same time, to relax and let the "orgasm reflex" take over. The result was a dislocated spinal disc which required prolonged chiropractic treatment.

If the writers of the 1950s were fascinated by Reich, the actual sexual revolution of the 1960s did not necessarily proceed on Reichian premises. The overcoming of repression–which for writers like Bellow and Mailer was a desperate, dangerous struggle with internal neuroses and external conventions–was by the late 1960s a commonplace. And as the sexual revolution unfolded in American society at large, interest in its early theoretical proponents waned.

The feminist and gay rights movements of the 1970s may have synthesized left-wing politics with sexual radicalism, but they did so largely without the benefit of Reich.

Michel Foucault, the leading theorist of sexual politics to emerge in the wake of the 1960s, was of a distinctly un-Reichian persuasion. He used Reich as an ideological foil–a thinker who, for all his daring, remained mired in conventional ways of thinking. "There was formed, around Reich," Foucault wrote in The History of Sexuality: An Introduction (1978), "the historico-political critique of sexual repression. The importance of this critique and its impact on reality were substantial." But after granting Reich’s historical importance, Foucault is less than generous regarding his theoretical sophistication. In the Foucauldian model, revolutionary or subversive talk about sex, no less than repressive talk about sex, only makes sex an occasion for anxiety, surveillance, and self-surveillance. "The very possibility of [the Reichian critique’s] success," wrote Foucault, "was tied to the fact that it always unfolded within the deployment of sexuality, and not outside or against it." Reich had occasioned nothing more than a "tactical shift...in the great deployment of sexuality" that makes modern society a carceral nightmare. Of course, Foucault had a gift for understatement; Reich signaled the coming of a "tactical shift" that, to many people (perhaps including Foucault himself), felt like a cultural revolution.

IF THAT REVOLUTION IS now history, the scientific revolution that Reich believed would be his greatest contribution has yet to take place. This is not for lack of effort or enthusiasm on the part of his followers. Given that the most extreme ideas are often the ones that attract the most devoted adherents, it should not be surprising that Reich’s contemporary disciples are especially attracted to his scientific work. And given the information free-for-all that is the Internet, it should surprise no one that Reich’s UFO chasing and panaceas and conspiracies and alternative physics have not quietly faded into history. Indeed, Reichiana flourishes. A group in Canada called Another Orgone Research Laboratory concentrates on Reich’s scientific work with orgone itself, conducting research on interactions between orgone energy accumulators and tesla coils, observing orgone in interplanetary space, and investigating the possibility of creating an orgone vacuum. In Ashland, Oregon, "high above the stagnant atmospheric dor-layer which often affects the West Coast...with no significant sources of atomic or electromagnetic oranur in the vicinity," there is the Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory (OBRL). Run by James DeMeo, who managed to earn both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Reich-related scientific research, the OBRL uses cloud busters in desert-greening and drought-abatement experiments. The OBRL has also attempted to demonstrate that AIDS transmission is not related to HIV.

Each year, the lab gives out several thousand dollars to undergraduates and graduate students who are studying Reich’s work. But those who plan to put Reich in his social and intellectual context should think twice before applying. Last year, a notice in The Chronicle of Higher Education announcing the availability of this money–the Lou Hochberg Award for students working on "the social aspects of Reich’s discoveries"–caught the attention of Benjamin Kafka, a senior at Brown who had just completed an honors thesis called "Signs of Conspiracy: Wilhelm Reich and Anti-Communism in the United States." The paper is a historical consideration of Reich’s final years in America, but when Kafka sent it to the judges, he discovered it was not quite what they had in mind. Indeed, the anonymous reviews Kafka received accused him of "assuming wrongly that there was no rational basis to Reich’s last works...[on] cloud busting, UFO observations, orgone motor, etc.," of "trying to apply his own pro-Stalinist...positions" to Reich’s story, and of "willful blindness...[to] the facts." Odd criticisms,

perhaps, of a student who takes no scientific positions, whose politics intrude no further than to suggest that the Rosenberg case was "tragic," and whose research is thorough and well documented. But Kafka had written about the historical Wilhelm Reich, and the award was adjudicated by people who understood "social aspects" to mean the practical applications of Reich’s cosmological theorizing. To them, Kafka had been duped by Modju. He did not win the award.

So Reich stands before us, his achievements forgotten by the mainstream and his nuttiness apotheosized by the fringe. Without him, postwar American literature and European social theory, as well as the sociopolitical movements they defined and inspired, would have been quite different. Yet while character analysis, sex-pol, and Reich’s literary influence remain his most interesting and enduring legacies, the irony is that, in the end, Reich had left all three behind. The work that he did care about–the orgone, cancer biopathy, and the like–has served only to marginalize his followers and ensure that the larger world thinks of him as an oddball or a crank, when it remembers him at all. Historians may place him next to Carl Jung, Norman O. Brown, R.D. Laing, and others who tried to make psychology a basis for prophecy. In his own mind, though, Reich was something more–a latter-day Jesus, or a modern Prometheus, condemned by the gods for his theft of their power. In a document called "My Unlawful Imprisonment," composed in his cell near the end of his life, Reich declared:

I have "done wrong" to have disclosed to mankind the cosmic primordial mass-free energy which fills the universe. This energy rules all living processes and the lawful behavior of celestial functions. It determines our emotions, our first sense of orientation, judgment, and balance. I have "done wrong" in having discovered and made accessible the basic force in nature which for millennia was called "God" in many tongues.

Hal Cohen Is A Freelance Writer Living In Brooklyn. His Article "God Only Knows" Appeared In The July/August 1998 Issue Of Lf.

https://libcom.org/article/s-neill-reich#:~:text=I%20met%20Reich%20in%20Norway%20in%201937.,of%20his%20(%20Wilhelm%20Reich%20)%20therapy.

AI responses may confabulate.

The word
orgasm refers to the intense physical and emotional sensation and involuntary muscular contractions experienced at the peak of sexual excitement. Its usage in English dates back to the 17th century, initially referring to violent excitement of emotions or other bodily functions more generally, before specializing to its primary sexual meaning.
Etymology and Translation
The etymology traces back through several languages to an ancient shared root.

Greek: The English word comes from the Modern Latin orgasmus, which in turn is from the Greek word ὀργασμός (orgasmos), meaning "excitement, swelling". The Greek term derives from the verb ὀργάω (orgaō), which means "to swell with moisture, to be in heat, to be excited".
Latin: The Greek orgasmos was adopted into New Latin as orgasmus, which was used in medical texts from the early 16th century.
Sanskrit: The Greek verb orgaō is related to the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root *wrog- ("to burgeon, swell with strength"), which is also the source of the Sanskrit word ūrjā (ऊर्जा). Ūrjā conveys meanings such as "nourishment, sap, vigor, strength, energy, or force".

Usage

Medical/Biological: The term is primarily used in a biological and medical context to describe the physiological sexual response cycle, including the sudden release of sexual tension and rhythmic contractions of the pelvic floor muscles.
General/Figurative: In broader or older usage (from 1763 onwards), it can refer to any "immoderate excitement or action" or "frenzy," such as a non-sexual "orgasm of emotion".
Verb: The word "orgasm" was first used as a verb in the 1970s (e.g., "to orgasm").

AI responses may confabulate.

In Sanskrit, there is no single direct equivalent to the English "orgasm"; rather, several words describe aspects of sexual climax, excitement, or pleasure, reflecting a nuanced understanding in ancient texts like the
Kama Sutra and Tantric noscriptures.
Ancient Sanskrit Terms
Ancient texts use various terms to describe the physical and spiritual aspects of sexual climax:

Visṛṣṭi (विसृष्टि)
Definition/Usage: Primarily translates to "emission," "letting loose," or "creation". In a sexual context, especially for males, it refers to the moment of ejaculation. Tantric texts use this term to describe the physical release which can lead to spiritual bliss.
Etymology: Derived from the verbal root sṛj (to let go, emit) with the prefix vi (apart, out).
Samarasa (समरस)
Definition/Usage: Means "equipoise in feelings" or "same taste". In Tantra, Samarasa refers to the sublime, non-discriminating spiritual ecstasy achieved at the moment of orgasm, where the individual experiences a union of their personal consciousness with the divine.
Etymology: A compound word: sama (same, equal) and rasa (juice, essence, taste, sentiment).
Kāma-rasa (कामरस)
Definition/Usage: Refers to the "juice" or "essence" of sexual enjoyment, a broader term for the pleasure experienced during sexual activity and climax.
Etymology: A compound word: Kāma (desire, love, sexual love) and rasa (essence, taste, emotion).
Ūrjā (ऊर्जा)
Definition/Usage: While not a direct term for orgasm, ūrjā (vigor, energy, strength) is the Sanskrit word related to the Proto-Indo-European root that also produced the Greek word orgasmos. It conveys the sense of swelling power or vital energy that precedes or accompanies climax.

Modern Sanskrit Words
In modern translations and dictionaries seeking a direct equivalent for the contemporary English "orgasm," several functional Sanskrit terms are offered:

Āsaṃvega (आसंवेग)
Definition/Usage: A term used to denote intense sexual excitement leading to climax, often found in modern translation dictionaries.
Etymology: Derived from saṃvega (agitation, excitement, impulse) with the prefix ā.
Kṣobha (क्षोभ)
Definition/Usage: Signifies "agitation, disturbance, or excitement," used in modern contexts to describe the physical perturbation of the body during climax.
Etymology: Related to the root kṣubh (to be agitated, tremble).
Drava (द्रव) or Uttāpa (उत्ताप)
Definition/Usage: Drava means "flowing" or "liquid," referring to the seminal flow, while Uttāpa means "intense heat" or "great excitement," capturing the physical sensation.

These modern terms are often used as direct dictionary translations, while the ancient words carry deeper physiological and philosophical connotations within traditional Indian contexts.

AI responses may confabulate.

The Sanskrit word
mandalam (मण्डलम्) means "circle" or "disc". Its proposed Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root is men(t)-, which relates to thinking, mind, or a circular/turning motion.
Identifying definitive English cognates for mandalam is difficult because the word's precise PIE derivation is debated. However, based on the proposed root men(t)- ("mind" or "turn"), the most likely related English words are:

Mind: Related through the Germanic branch, stemming from the PIE concept of thought or intellect.
Mental: Via Latin mens (mind) and mentalis, also related to the PIE root for mind/thought.

These words are distant relatives connected through the shared ancient ancestor language (Proto-Indo-European), specifically linking the Sanskrit word's root meaning "mind/thought" with the English words for mind and thinking.

Here are the English cognates for the Sanskrit synonyms of "
mandalam":
1. Chakra (चक्र)
The English cognates for chakra (from PIE root kwel-, "to turn") are:

Wheel: A direct cognate through the Germanic branch of Indo-European.
Cycle: Via Greek kyklos, which also means "circle" or "wheel".
Circle: Via Latin circus/circulus.
Colony/Cultivate: Related to turning the soil (agriculture).

2. Vṛtta (वृत्त)
The English cognates for vṛtta (from PIE root wert-, "to turn" or "to wind") are:

Worth/Worthwhile: Related to turning something into value.
Turn: Via Germanic languages.
Versus: Via Latin, meaning "turned against".
Verse: A line of poetry (a "turning" of the line).
Worry: Related to something "turning" over in the mind or being tormented.

3. Kṣetra (क्षेत्र)
The English cognates for kṣetra (from PIE root tkeh(i)-, "to cut" or "to mark off" land) are few and less direct:

Site/Situation: Related to a marked or placed location, via Latin situs.
City: Via Latin civitas and related to defining a place to live.
Home: Some etymologists link it distantly to the root meaning a marked dwelling place.

4. Paridhi (परिधि)
The English cognates for paridhi (from prefix _pari-_ "around" and root _dhā-_ "to place") are:

Peripheral: From the Greek peripheria, which uses the equivalent Greek prefix _peri-_ ("around").
Around: The English word "around" shares the same core meaning of the Sanskrit prefix _pari-.
Do/Deed: From the root _dhā-_, which is cognate with the English verb "to do" and the noun "deed" (something "put into action").
Thema/Theme: Via Greek thema (a proposition, something "placed" or established), related to the Sanskrit root _dhā-.

AI responses may confabulate.

Eddies, or local variations, in magnetic flux density are typically detected using specialized
magnetic sensors in a process called Eddy Current Testing (ECT) or Magnetic Flux Leakage (MFL) testing. The degree of accuracy depends heavily on the sensor technology used and the application, with some advanced systems achieving sensitivities in the femtotesla (fT) range or spatial resolutions of less than a millimeter.
Detection Methods
The primary method for detecting localized magnetic variations is using sensors that measure changes in a magnetic field:

Eddy Current Testing (ECT): This is a key non-destructive evaluation technique. An alternating current in an excitation coil induces eddy currents in a conductive test material. Defects or variations in the material (like cracks or changes in conductivity/permeability) disrupt the flow of these induced currents, which in turn alters the secondary magnetic field they produce. A sensor, often a pick-up coil or a magnetic sensor, measures the resulting changes in the amplitude and phase of the magnetic field (or the impedance of the coil) to identify the defect.
Magnetic Flux Leakage (MFL): This method is mainly used for ferromagnetic materials (e.g., pipelines). The material is magnetized close to saturation. If a defect is present, the magnetic field "leaks" out of the material's surface because the defect has much lower magnetic permeability. Magnetic sensors, typically Hall effect sensors or magnetoresistive (MR) sensors, are used to detect this leakage field.
High-Resolution Sensors: Modern systems employ advanced magnetic sensors for higher sensitivity and spatial resolution:
Hall Effect Sensors: These produce a voltage proportional to the applied magnetic field. They are compact, reliable, and a common choice for MFL measurements.
Magnetoresistive (MR) Sensors: These sensors (including AMR, GMR, and TMR) change their electrical resistance in the presence of a magnetic field. GMR and TMR sensors offer very high sensitivity and can be arranged in dense arrays for high-resolution mapping of surface defects.
SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices): These are extremely sensitive magnetometers used for measuring very small magnetic field changes, often in laboratory or specialized environments due to the need for cryogenic cooling.

Degree of Accuracy
The accuracy and sensitivity for detecting these variations vary significantly by the technology and specific instrumentation used:

Resolution and Sensitivity:
General-purpose, handheld gaussmeters/magnetometers using Hall effect sensors can have a resolution of a few microteslas (µT) or better.
High-sensitivity magnetometers, such as optically pumped magnetometers or SQUIDs, can detect fields in the picotesla (pT) or even femtotesla (fT) range.
In a specific eddy current non-destructive testing system, the standard deviation for amplitude was found to be about 0.8 mV and for the phase angle about 48 arcseconds, which successfully identified a 1 mm wide by 1 mm deep defect.
Spatial Resolution: Using sensor arrays (e.g., GMR arrays) allows for high spatial resolution, with the ability to detect defects as small as 0.44 mm in diameter with a separation of less than 2 mm.
Overall Accuracy: The absolute accuracy of commercial magnetometers can range from a few percent of the reading to parts per million (ppm) depending on the quality and type of the instrument. System errors and environmental factors (like temperature drift or external magnetic fields) often need to be compensated for to achieve optimal accuracy.

AI responses may confabulate.

A specific, universally accepted schematic for a functional "experimental orgone energy meter" does not exist in mainstream science, as the underlying principle of "orgone energy" is not recognized by established physics
. However, the commercially available devices, such as the LM4, are solid-state reproductions based on principles described by Wilhelm Reich's original "Orgone Energy Field Meter" (OEFM).
Principle of Operation
The original OEFM described by Wilhelm Reich was not a conventional electronic circuit but an apparatus that produced a visible effect:

It typically involved two parallel metal plates, one insulated with an organic material, connected to a simple 40-watt to 60-watt tungsten bulb or an argon gas tube.
When a hand or living organism was brought near or touched the apparatus, the gas tube would luminesce, a phenomenon Reich attributed to the organism's "orgone energy field" interacting with the apparatus's ability to concentrate this energy.

Modern Solid-State Meters (like LM4)
Modern "life energy meters" developed by companies like Heliognosis (which makes the LM4 for Essentia) are solid-state electronic devices that aim to replicate the effect of Reich's original apparatus in a more user-friendly way, using modern circuitry to provide a quantitative meter reading:

These devices use sensitive electronic circuits, likely involving high-impedance inputs and potentially electromagnetic oscillators, to detect subtle energy fields or electrostatic variations.
They typically use various electrodes (probes, plates) and sensitivity settings to measure interactions with objects, living beings, or the environment.
The exact internal circuit schematic for commercially sold meters like the LM4 is considered proprietary and is generally not publicly available. The manuals describe operation and use, but not the technical wiring.

DIY Alternatives
For those interested in building their own, information is available online for creating the original Reich-style devices or simple related circuits:

Plans for the original orgone accumulator construction are available from sources like the Wilhelm Reich Museum.
Simple "radionics" or "orgone amplifier" circuits can be found in various alternative science documents online, often involving quartz crystals, mobius coils, and basic electronic components to create a desired effect. These also are not based on standard scientific principles.

AI responses may confabulate.

The term
"medicine" refers to the science and practice of diagnosing, treating, and preventing disease, as well as substances used for these purposes. Its linguistic origins trace back to the Proto-Indo-European root *med-, meaning "to measure, limit, consider, or advise".
Etymology
The word "medicine" has the following etymological path:

Proto-Indo-European: Derived from the root *med- ("to measure, limit, consider, advise").
Latin: From *med- came the Latin verb medeor ("I heal") and the noun medicus ("a physician, surgeon"). This led to the feminine noun medicīna ("the healing art, medicine, a physician's shop, a remedy").
Old/Middle French: Adopted as medecine.
Middle English: Adopted as medicin or medicine, from which modern English is derived.

Usage
Modern usage of "medicine" encompasses several related meanings:

The field of study: The broad discipline dedicated to the maintenance of health and the prevention and treatment of disease.
A substance: A drug or preparation used for treatment or prevention of illness (e.g., "Take your medicine").
Indigenous/Cultural: In specific contexts, it can refer to the spiritual or magical practices of Indigenous cultures (e.g., "medicine man," "medicine wheel"), a usage calqued from the Ojibwe word mashkiki.

Proto-Indo-European Cognates
The PIE root *med- has cognates across many Indo-European languages, generally relating to the concepts of "measuring," "advising," or "healing."

Greek: medein ("to rule over, protect")
Germanic: Gothic miton ("to measure, limit"), Old English metan ("to measure")
Celtic: Old Irish midir ("judge")
Avestan: vī-mad-man ("physician")

Synonyms
Synonyms for "medicine" depend heavily on the specific context or sense in which the word is used:

For the field of practice: Healthcare, medical science, physic (archaic).
For a substance: Medication, drug, remedy, cure, treatment, pharmaceutical, specific, nostrum.

AI responses may confabulate.

Re: https://www.meta-synthesis.com/webbook/35_pt/pt_database.php

The "Internet Database of Periodic Tables" on the meta-synthesis website is
a specialized, internal database that is not fully indexed in a way that allows a general search engine like Google to perform complex, dynamic searches within its contents.
Here is how general search engines interact with the database:

Indexing Static Pages: Google can index the main entry page and some of the static, pre-defined search results pages (like "All Periodic Tables by Name" or "Top 10 Periodic Tables").
Inability to Run Dynamic Queries: General search engines cannot execute the website's internal search functions (such as searching for specific data points, years, or types using the drop-down menus on the site). This is because the results are generated dynamically based on user input within the site's interface, rather than existing as static, indexable pages.
Data Retrieval: To access specific information from the over 1300 periodic tables in the database, a user must visit the meta-synthesis website and use its dedicated internal search tools and filters.

In summary, the meta-synthesis database is a comprehensive resource, but specialized queries must be performed directly on its website using its built-in functionality.

The meta-synthesis website appears to be a personal project maintained by
Dr. Mark Leach, who describes himself as the "database curator." The site does not appear to be a commercial entity, academic institution, or government body with publicly disclosed financials or institutional funding.
Financial Situation and Risk
The financial situation is not publicly documented, as it is a personal website. The lack of a formal institutional backing might inherently introduce some level of risk compared to a database maintained by a large organization.

Risk Factors: The primary risk seems related to the long-term maintenance and funding being dependent on an individual's personal capacity and resources. If the curator is no longer able to maintain the site, its future would be uncertain.
Mitigating Factors: The site's content is highly specialized and valuable to the chemistry community. Such valuable educational resources are often candidates for preservation by academic or scientific organizations should the original curator step away.

Future of the Database if the Site Closes
If the website were to close, several things could happen:

Data Loss: Without a plan for preservation, the unique compilation of over 1,300 periodic tables could become unavailable.
Archival Efforts: Websites of significant educational value are often preserved by digital archives, such as the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. While not a perfect substitute for the live, searchable database, this would prevent a total loss of the information.
Potential Migration: The site mentions the potential to "expand and open up the data entry to chemists and chemical educators on the web". This suggests a recognition of the value of the data and a possible future path for collaboration or migration to a more robust, community-supported platform, which would ensure its longevity.

For now, the database remains a unique and comprehensive resource curated by an individual expert.