Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A universal life force hypothesized by Wilhelm Reich, supposed to emanate from all organic material, that purportedly plays a role in physical and mental health.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun in the theories of Wilhelm Reich, a supposed excess sexual energy distributed throughout the universe and available for collection, storage, and further use

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably org(anism) + –one.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Coined by Wilhelm Reich, probably a portmanteau of orgasm + hormone.

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Examples

  • At that time faddists of various persuasions proliferated up and down the Village: anarchists who dutifully went home every night to their mothers’ kitchens, a Hungarian monarchist with his own following, free-verse poets who eschewed capital letters, cultists who sat rapturously for hours in orgone boxes, cloudy Swedenborgians, and all the rest.

    What Happened to the Baby? 2006

  • At that time faddists of various persuasions proliferated up and down the Village: anarchists who dutifully went home every night to their mothers’ kitchens, a Hungarian monarchist with his own following, free-verse poets who eschewed capital letters, cultists who sat rapturously for hours in orgone boxes, cloudy Swedenborgians, and all the rest.

    What Happened to the Baby? 2006

  • At that time faddists of various persuasions proliferated up and down the Village: anarchists who dutifully went home every night to their mothers’ kitchens, a Hungarian monarchist with his own following, free-verse poets who eschewed capital letters, cultists who sat rapturously for hours in orgone boxes, cloudy Swedenborgians, and all the rest.

    What Happened to the Baby? 2006

  • They had retained their credulity, however—they saw little suspicious in Reich's claim to have explained everything with his discovery of the very ur-stuff of the universe, called "orgone," in a pot of beef stew, among other places.

    Thinking Inside the Box Henry Allen 2011

  • They had retained their credulity, however—they saw little suspicious in Reich's claim to have explained everything with his discovery of the very ur-stuff of the universe, called "orgone," in a pot of beef stew, among other places.

    Thinking Inside the Box Henry Allen 2011

  • Wikipedia has an entry on somatic psychologyand another on body psychotherapy, but not a specific entry for somatic psychotherapy; a website calledGoodtherapy, however, defines it as the brainchild of Wilhelm Reich, a German psychologist who believed, among other things, in a cosmic, primordial energy called orgone and who was known to try and increase the ‘orgiastic potency’ of patients by treating them in their underwear.

    Somatic Psychotherapy « shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows 2009

  • Wikipedia has an entry on somatic psychologyand another on body psychotherapy, but not a specific entry for somatic psychotherapy; a website calledGoodtherapy, however, defines it as the brainchild of Wilhelm Reich, a German psychologist who believed, among other things, in a cosmic, primordial energy called orgone and who was known to try and increase the ‘orgiastic potency’ of patients by treating them in their underwear.

    2009 August 11 « shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows 2009

  • Wikipedia has an entry on somatic psychologyand another on body psychotherapy, but not a specific entry for somatic psychotherapy; a website calledGoodtherapy, however, defines it as the brainchild of Wilhelm Reich, a German psychologist who believed, among other things, in a cosmic, primordial energy called orgone and who was known to try and increase the ‘orgiastic potency’ of patients by treating them in their underwear.

    2009 August « shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows 2009

  • Reich built machines called orgone accumulators which were supposed to concentrate orgone energy.

    AllAfrica News: Latest 2009

  • He said he had discovered a form of energy, which he called "orgone," that permeated the atmosphere and all living matter, and he built "orgone accumulators," which his patients sat inside to harness the energy for its reputed health benefits.

    WN.com - Financial News 2010

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  • Orgone energy is a term coined by psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich for the "universal life energy" which he was convinced to have discovered in published experiments in the late 1930s. Reich claimed that orgone energy was a "life energy" which filled all space, was blue in color, and that certain forms of illness were the consequence of depletion or blockages of the energy within the body. These theories are considered pseudoscience by most.

    _Wikipedia

    February 24, 2008