Return to Home PageMy name is Tom DiFerdinando. I am the president and director of the Orgone Biophysical Research Lab (OBRL). For nearly half a century, the OBRL served as the research laboratory and educational center of my late, dear friend and scientific mentor, Dr. James DeMeo. Dr. DeMeo devoted his life to testing and replicating the controversial clinical, biophysical and life-energy discoveries of the late Dr. Wilhelm Reich. OBRL was created to support Dr. DeMeo's research, so it could be done in an open scientific manner without intrusion from universities and other censors who, due to a strong bias against Reich's discoveries, kept interfering with Dr. DeMeo's work.
The OBRL is sponsoring Gil's extraordinary Nerve Tour because of the overlap between Gil's work and research, and that of my own and of the OBRL.
I myself have been a bodyworker (pain, injury and trauma therapist) for over thirty-five years. I use an innovative, hands-on approach that is also scientifically based upon the bioenergetic discoveries of Reich. While both Dr. DeMeo and I were deeply interested in the full range of Dr. Reich's orgone energy science (known as orgonomy - the science of the life energy) he (Dr. DeMeo) was more focused on the biophysics of the environment while I was more focused on the biophysics of the body.
Before his death, Dr. DeMeo asked me to take charge of keeping his books in print, and preserving his own discoveries and far reaching research legacy. Like that of Dr. Reich before him, Dr. DeMeo's work spanned many scientific disciplines, from psychiatry to sociology, biology to physics, and meteorology to cosmology. While the discovery of the life energy is what connects and runs through all these disciplines, of particular interest is Reich's clarification of how emotional trauma and pathology act as unacknowledged obstacles to true natural scientific research i.e., how defensive patterns emerge to diminish the intensity of perception, emotion and sensation in all of life's pursuits.
My own therapy as a bodyworker is based upon these same discoveries, but expanded to include corrective work with pain, injury and trauma. In my own approach, the biophysical work of Reich is used to trace the broader energy flow patterns of embryological development, as retained and accessed in both form and function in the mature human adult. This model provides a highly efficient and comprehensive context for repairing injuries. Note there is nothing yet posted on this website specifically related to my bodywork, as orgonelab.org was the research site of Dr. DeMeo, intended to catalogue his remarkable replications and discoveries from over 45+ years of research. The shift in OBRL under my leadership is only just beginning, but it will in time include among other things more information about my own work and research.
So why am I sponsoring Gil's Nerve Tour? It is not only because I love Gil and his work, and that over the years I have participated in about twenty of his hands-on dissection workshops, but because he has a genuine appreciation for the role of Wilhelm Reich's discoveries in many bodywork modalities. OBRL's mission is, in part, to provide an authentic source of information on Reich to bodyworkers and other body-oriented instructors, artists and therapists. There is so little access to authentic information about Reich, that reaching out to Gil's audience is one way of 'moving the ball forward'.
And why, as a body-oriented worker, might you want to know more about Wilhelm Reich and the orgone energy?
Reich's discoveries are exciting, amazing and truly inspiring. Bodyworkers know there is a bioenergy, but it is too often framed in vague or even mysterious terms. Reich's discoveries on the other hand are unnervingly specific, deeply clarifying and scientifically testable.
Most bodyworkers know that emotions can get unintentionally stirred up in clients. However, an under-appreciated reason for this is that modern day bodywork methods were born in psychiatry - Dr. Wilhelm Reich, the grandfather of modern day bodywork therapies, was a psychiatrist.
One often hears the word 'armoring'. But what exactly does it mean? What is it referring to? It is in fact a scientific term coined by Reich, one intended to characterize the way the human organism binds and represses emotional energy into predictably defensive muscular and characterological patterns, fragmenting and compromising our functional unity and with it our capacity to love.
There are many reasons why Reich's work and discoveries are grossly under-appreciated when not downright suppressed. (It says a lot that he died in jail and had his scientific books and journals burned by the FDA in 1956. Warning - better than 90% of what you will find on Reich on the Internet is unreliable or distorted.) One antidote to this problem is Dr. DeMeo's meticulous research replications of Reich's discoveries - these have not only proven the authenticity of Reich's claims, but given birth to many life-changing discoveries made by Dr. DeMeo himself, as documented throughout this website.
The new OBRL will be putting a particular emphasis on the scientific discovery of armoring. If one's system of health and happiness or therapeutic approach excludes or fails to fully appreciate the physical reality of the armoring process, then solutions to problems at both individual and social levels will tend to be incomplete and frequently unsatisfying.
For bodyworkers who want to better understand exactly what that word means - 'armoring' - and what life energy functions are and the relevance of Reich's discoveries to their own bodywork practice, I recommend four of Reich's works for starters:
First, The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety. This book (a compilation of three scientific essays) lays out the natural scientific basis for human emotion as relates to the autonomic nervous system, bridging the gap between psychology and biology. Here one can find the first scientifically objective demonstration of subjective experience. The book is a little technical, but fully accessible. It is essential reading for understanding spontaneous pulsation in the body, functional unity, and the relationship of both to emotional health, sexual gratification and total body energy regulation.
Second, the best overall starting point for Reich's work is his classic Function of the Orgasm. Don't get bogged down with the psychoanalytic terms in the first few chapters. It is written as a profoundly interesting, historical narrative. From chapter 4 on, Reich describes the observations and research that led to his discovery of the orgone energy, blazing his way through an exposition that, in a magnificently comprehensive and profoundly satisfying way, fills the present day gaps in psychology, biology and emotional pathology. Most bodyworkers are aware that repressed emotion is held in the muscles, but few appreciate that a) it was Reich who discovered this fact ('armoring') and b) that he discovered it in the context of solving the problem of chronic anxiety and its relationship to the incomplete orgastic charge and discharge of bioenergy in sexual gratification.
Thirdly, though its my impression that many bodywork modalities teach students to 'hold the space' for clients if any emotion happens to come up, it is also my impression that little is taught regarding when and especially whether it is appropriate to go beyond just holding that space, what to do if you accidentally go beyond holding that space, and what you are potentially getting yourself into if you choose to go beyond holding that space. For insight into these questions, I recommend reading (especially) chapter 15 of Reich's Character Analysis, called 'The Expressive Language of the Living in Orgone Therapy' (and, for the more adventurous individuals, see chapter 14 'Psychic Contact and Vegetative Current'). Fantastic stuff.
Fourth, for the morphology buffs, check out chapter III of Cosmic Superimposition: 'The Living Orgonome'.
Finally, if you've read this far and would like to know more about me, here is a print interview that can give you a sense of what I do:
https://acupuncturetoday.com/article/32306-engaging-the-energy
Engaging the Energy
Interview with Tom DiFerdinando
By Jennifer Waters, LAc, Dipl. Ac
For an overview of Reich's scientific discovery of the life energy and the central device he invented to harness it - the orgone accumulator - get a copy of Dr. DeMeo's book The Orgone Accumulator Handbook from amazon.com. It also has complete instructions on the authentic construction and working of Reich's orgone accumulating devices:
https://www.amazon.com/Orgone-Accumulator-Handbook-Life-Energy-Construction/dp/0980231639/
For an overview of Reich's many other amazing discoveries and the persecution of his work past and present, get Dr. DeMeo's book, In Defense of Wilhelm Reich: Opposing the 80-Years' War of Mainstream Defamatory Slander Against One of the 20th Century's Most Brilliant Physicians and Natural Scientists. This book was written in response to an onslaught of mainstream media slander against Reich that picked up again in 2011. Here is my review of this excellent though controversial book:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RV128M04MVZGX/
Review of In Defense of Wilhelm Reich
by Tom DiFerdinando
For those wanting more detail about exactly who Wilhelm Reich was and what he discovered and achieved, there is an 8-part video lecture series of a conference that Dr. DeMeo and I did together back in 2015 at Southern Oregon University. This seminar covers the basic historical details of Reich's work, expanding on relevant new research which supports or exactly verifies his controversial scientific findings. New connections and insights abound, and they are presented in ordinary language for both the serious professional, as well as the educated layperson. Note there is a paywall to access this series. One can also pay for and download the talks individually:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/obrlarchive
Due to Dr. DeMeo's recent death, our online book and instrument store is temporarily closed. His books however are still available through amazon.com. To see that selection, along with the other type of products we hope to once again carry in the future, see here:
https://www.orgonelab.org/cart/naturalenergy.htm
Over the next year, I will start publishing updates on the new and exciting work at OBRL, including more information on seminars of my own contributions to the field of bodywork. For more information, sign up for the alerts on the homepage. If you are a person of means, please seriously consider to support our work and research by making a substantial donation at the bottom of the homepage. Any amount is deeply appreciated.
Tom DiFerdinando Director, Orgone Biophysical Research Lab
Return to Home PageVisitor Count: