What are the typical experiences in the orgone accumulator?

The charge in the orgone accumulator happens on the energetic level. The actual charge is bound to water, i.e. the body fluid. Whether you perceive something from the charging process and what you feel is individually very different, because it is the reactions of the nerves what is felt: tickling and prickling on the skin, a pleasant warmth on the skin and the typical feeling of being penetrated, flushed through by something very pleasant. However, all these nerve reactions are different for each individual. Often there are clear reactions of the digestive system and urge to urinate or defecate.

The user of the orgone accumulator, after a short period of habituation, is able to significantly increase the energetic charge, the "vitality": all organismic processes are stimulated and the self-healing powers are supported.

First and foremost, the orgone accumulator is a medical device - that's how Wilhelm Reich envisioned it. However, he himself and his co-workers, as well as all those who had incomparable experiences in the accumulator, used it to increase vitality and to add an extra dimension to their lives.

Reich called the merging of the body energy field with the stored atmospheric energy "Erstrahlung," a soothing, even intimate experience of gentle flow and inner glow.

The radiation is a very joyful experience, an intimate "touch", a merging of the body's own energy field with that of the accumulator, which occurs after a short habituation phase and which can be perceived as a "gentle flow" or "glow" in the organism. One is penetrated by waves of atmospheric energy.

This radiation is an extremely positive feeling, reminiscent of the intimate merging of two people in sexuality, because there too - in the optimal situation - this radiation takes place. It was the intimate dimension of this feeling, triggered by a device, which led critics to attack Reich and the orgone accumulator with malice, ridicule and sexual jokes and to completely destroy the work with this device in the USA.

The perception of the Erstrahlung is quite real and unmystical, since it is based on the ability of each body cell to absorb energy and to expand plumply. Since nerve cells are also activated, it can (but does not have to) come to the most diverse sensual perceptions in the orgone accumulator:

• Tingling on the skin like carbonic acid bubbles
• Heat sensation without temperature rise,
• Noise in the ears
• metallic taste and smell

Every physiological reaction in the orgone accumulator depends on the basic energetic situation of the person using the device. Thus, a great many people experience a spontaneous sensation of warmth, while a small portion experience a distinctly cool, even ice-cold sensation, which is also accompanied by distinctly cold extremities, and which can nevertheless be perceived as extremely pleasant: a "goose bump" on the body periphery and a cold flow sensation in the body center.