The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety by Wilhelm Reich

Author:Wilhelm Reich
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

OBSERVATIONS ON THE OSCILLOGRAPH

Apart from the fundamental concept of a primary antithesis of vegetative life, a special hypothesis was needed at each step in the experiments; this hypothesis was based on a well-known clinical fact. In order to avoid mistakes, I had to conduct and control every experiment in such a way that it was guided by clinical theory yet was entirely unprejudiced. In the course of my work, there were many occasions when clinical theory was inadequate or took on a new aspect. Our fundamental task was to test the accuracy of the assumptions made in the tension-charge formula, or “orgasm formula,” as it may also be called.

The biological resting potential

The first condition needed for the electrical function of sexuality is that the undamaged skin and mucous membrane surfaces must possess a resting potential, or basic electrical charge.

If one damages any area of a subject’s skin by scratching the epidermis, and if one then applies an (“indifferent”) electrode to this area, while the other (“differential”) electrode is applied without pressure to various undamaged skin areas, then, when the subject is connected into the electrical circuit of an oscillograph, the light beam deviates from the absolute, otherwise motionless zero line. The beam jumps rapidly to a different position. This is because the electrical surface charge of the undamaged skin area has disrupted—i.e., either strengthened or weakened—the grid voltage of the apparatus, which corresponds to the absolute zero line. It is easy to prove that it is actually the undamaged skin area which causes this interference. For if one measures two abraded skin areas simultaneously, the absolute zero point does not move; the beam of light stays where it is.

Physical requirements

To help understand the experimental results,3 we must give an idea, even if only simplified, of the physical principle behind the apparatus which produced them.

The fundamental principle is as follows: a steady electrical current is disrupted by connecting the human body into the electrical circuit. The interference is manifested as a fluctuation in the otherwise steady light beam. The light beam is generated by the reflection of light rays on a small mirror attached to the electromagnetically influenced, moving element of the oscillograph.

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