From The History Of The Emotional Plague: The Solution Of Christianity

The core functions of all religions are twofold: First, it provides a way of understanding the relation of humans to the cosmos from which they originate and second, it provides a way of coming to grips with people’s armored condition and it’s destructive social consequence, the emotional plague of mankind.  Because human armor is omnipresent, practically the entire human race is caught in the world-wide web of the emotional plague.  This trap includes religions movements themselves.

Christianity has had a powerful influence on Western life in it’s attempt to address  these  functions, particularly in understanding and dealing with the problem of human evil which is how the emotional plague is currently recognized in a distorted form.  Christianity  began to flourish around the fourth century A.D.  when the Roman Empire was disintegrating. People’s secondary destructive drives were responsible for this collapse and   Christianity’s primary  function was to preserve whatever remained intact of  Roman social order.

In order to do this, Christianity combined the two basic functions of religion, the cosmic element and the emotional plague element, into one comprehensive  mystical dogma: Christ, the son of God, came to earth to save humanity from it’s sins by sacrificing his life for man.  The function of this belief was to restore social order by anchoring Christian mysticism into the structure of  the armored populace.

Christianity attempted to get to the universality of human armor and the emotional plague through the irrational idea of original sin: all men and woman are sinners.  It also attempted to bring about social cohesion by converting all non-believers into Christianity since only by believing in Christ as the true savior of souls could one be saved from eternal damnation.

The act of mystical belief in Christ the savior was expected to keep impulses from the destructive secondary layer of armored humans in check.  Since Christ died for people’s sins, the responsibility for sinning (human social destructiveness) and the guilt that is associated with it is taken over in the body of Christ.  People can temporarily be relieved of the feeling of guilt that is contained in the destructive impulses in their armor by believing in Christ.

The Catholic church has incorporated into its religion the function of providing relief in the practice of confession.  The priest as the representative of Christ on earth functions in the role of confessor.  What is essential for obtaining relief from guilt is the sinner’s absolute conviction that  Christ is the true savior.

However, the Christian solution to the problem of the emotional plague was only partially successful and lasted for about a thousand years in Europe.  Consider the rampant debauchery and corruption of the  Church’s leaders during the middle ages that resulted in the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.  The importance of the Reformation movement was to deal with the emotional plague within the Catholic Church itself.  The Reformation under Luther returned to  the earlier Christian belief that faith in Christ alone without any human intervention was sufficient for salvation.

But Protestantism also was not able to contain the build-up of energy in the destructive secondary layer since it soon was apparent that Protestants could be as cruel and as fanatical as Catholics.  Furthermore, people were growing dissatisfied with Catholicism’s rigid mystical interpretation of the natural world.  From a biophysical perspective, people’s mystical form of ocular armor was loosening.

The only other solution that armored humans had to deal with the problem of human destructiveness was to pull energy up from the body into the head and rely on the objective, not subjective,  aspects of human life.  This led to the age of enlightenment and the liberal thinkers in 18h century England.  On the one hand, liberalism was a rational attempt to deal with the  Catholic Church’s mystical view of the world and on the other, it was a hopelessly desperate attempt to deal with and control impulses from people’s secondary destructive layer  (the emotional plague) by pulling energy from muscular armor into the brain.  With liberalism, brain (ocular) armor intensified through the development of defensive intellectualism at the expense of muscular armor.  One form of ocular armor (mysticism) was replaced by another equally destructive form (defensive intellectualism). From a characterological perspective, conservative thinking was replaced by liberal thinking.

However, eliminating mystical religion created another, more serious problem in today’s anti-authoritarian society.  There was no longer a mechanism for people who had given up their faith in religion to obtain relief from their guilt resulting from the socially destructive impulses contained in their middle layer.  Since people had chronic armor they also had a chronic sense of guilt that they had to live with on a daily basis.  As a result, people developed free floating guilt feelings.  To obtain relief, it was readily acted out through advocating leftist social and political causes of every kind.

The development of free floating guilt in people who have given up their mystical faith in religion and in religious leaders is the reason for liberalism’s instability as a political movement and why it can quickly degenerate into socialism and communism.  It is also the reason  for how quickly psuedo-liberal leaders on the political left can appear on the social scene to assume the role of a secular savior of the masses who need to be led into subjugation.

Wilhelm Reich found that human beings are not born evil,  but that evilness is instilled in infants and children through a process of armoring and  that this causes them to behave destructively toward other humans.   Armoring in humans is the source of the emotional plague.  Therefore, if humans are not born evil but are made so, sinfulness can be prevented in the human race through natural child rearing practices and through the process of armor elimination of medical orgone therapy.  The emotional plague is a medical disorder and must be treated like any other infectious medical disease.

Biological Comprehension Requires Functional Thinking

Mechanistic thinking in biology always makes a secondary or tertiary biological process the primary factor.  Consider the latest “discovery” in biology  that claims that a single molecule, the hormone oxytocin, is at the center of our moral lives. In his new book, “The Moral Molecule” Paul J. Zak asserts that the presence or the absence of this molecule in the blood stream is the reason that some people are caring and generous while others are cruel and greedy.  Typical of the way mechanists think, he goes on in mystical fashion to propose that this new science of morality can be used to create a more virtuous society.  He writes, “If you detect the makings of an endless loop that can feed back onto itself, creating what might be called a virtuous circuit- and ultimately a more virtuous society- you are getting the idea.” (See The Truest Molecule by Paul J. Zak, The Wall Street Journal, April 28-29 2012).

This kind of thinking about biological processes is downright destructive not only because it leads nowhere but also because it generates more mystical distortions and confusion in biology.  It is another manifestation of the emotional plague in natural science.

From a functional-energetic perspective, all living organism’s pulsate.  Their biological  orgone energy expands out to the world with pleasurable stimuli and it contracts away from the world with painful or noxious stimuli.  Pulsation is a primary biological function and it is anchored structurally in the organism’s plasmatic system which includes the autonomic nervous system, the vascular system, endocrine system and the immune system.  These systems are responsible for maintaining all the life functions of the organism.  It is true that the hormone oxytocin is elevated in functions that involve expansive or pleasurable activities of the organism.  However, the expansive function of biological orgone energy is primary and is what determines the blood levels of oxytocin.  Taking a secondary function, oxytocin, and attributing a primary importance to it is an evasion of recognizing the primary orgonotic functions that are the foundation of life.

The Role Of Armor In Speech Impediments

Mechanistic neurology incorrectly ascribes the speech function exclusively to certain local areas in the brain, the so-called speech centers on the cerebral cortex.  From a functional perspective, however, we understand that these speech centers function only to integrate impulses entering and leaving the brain from and to the tissues and organs contained in the thoracic, cervical and oral segments that are involved with the speech function.

Sigmund Freud, who was a highly skilled and respected neurologist before launching into psychoanalysis, came to the same conclusion as a result of his investigations into brain pathophysiology in patients suffering from aphasia.  Contrary to what was popularly believed by neurologists at that time, he demonstrated that individual words were not localized in the brain.  In the conclusion to his monograph, On Aphasia written in 1891 he writes, “the significance of the factor of [speech] localization for aphasia has been overrated, and that we should be well advised once again to concern ourselves with the functional states  of the apparatus of speech.”  Freud had first to scientifically satisfy himself of the inadequacies of the mechanistic approach to the psychology of speech before introducing psychoanalysis and free association to the world. The significance of this important contribution by Freud to the history of science is overlooked by everyone.

The next important step in understanding disturbances in the speech function also came from the realm of pathology.  Clinical experience with patients in medical orgone therapy  who have certain speech impediments such as spastic dysphonia and stuttering revealed that when muscular armor is removed from the segments involved in speech by expressing the anger in therapy that was being held in those muscles, the speech disturbance was permanently eliminated.  Thus, the presence of  body armor was found to be an important factor in producing these symptoms.

Therefore, the integration of organ sensations of the speech apparatus from the thoracic (respiration), cervical (vocalization), oral (articulation)  and ocular (comprehension) segments by the brain must be the the sources of the speech function.  Armor results in a disturbance in the integration of these organ sensations.

One is reminded of the motion picture, The Kings Speech, which accurately depicts a stutterer who is clearly portrayed as having severe oral and cervical armor. When he is provoked to anger, his stuttering temporarily disappears.  The discharge of emotional energy accompanying the expression of  anger that is bound up in the armored organs of articulation (vocal cords, facial  muscles, tongue etc.) momentarily eliminates the speech problem.

The Common Understanding Of “Character” Is Not Enough

In a recent Wall Street Journal article “America’s Crisis of Character” (April 21-22 2012), conservative columnist Peggy Noonan cites that the week’s Gallup poll showed that only 24% of Americans feel that the nation was on the right track.  She attributes the  dissatisfaction to the widespread cultural degradation that is taking place in every area of American life . She is “worried about the American character-who we are and what kind of adults we are raising.”

Typical of conservatives, the use of the concept of character in this way is unfortunately fraught with strong pejorative and moral overtones (i.e. “good” vs “bad” character) and is, therefore, of not much help in providing an understanding and management of the source of social problems.

There is now a true science of character. First  discovered by Wilhelm Reich and extended into the social and political arena by Elsworth Baker, knowledge of characterology can dramatically help people  to effectively deal with today’s social destructiveness. Reich described character functionally as the individual’s stereotypical manner of acting and reacting in all, (including social and political) situations.  The primary function of  character is to protect (armor) the individual from feeling unpleasant and unacceptable emotions and sensations.  A functional understanding of  character can be essential to know how a person will behave in any given social situation.

Our anti-authoritarian society is the result of the breakdown of the traditional authoritarian family and of the numerous kinds of impulsive an anti-social character types that are currently littering the social landscape.  Today’s anti-social behavior that Ms. Noonan describes in her article is a direct result of this breakdown.  Without an understanding of the function of character armor and of the anti-authoritrian transformation of society that we are living in, all attempts at trying to make sense of what is happening to our society are  bound to be futile.  The only thing the political right can accomplish is to retard the social degradation into socialism.  It can do nothing to arrest or reverse it.

The Source Of Barack Obama’s Popularity

The source of a politician’s popularity comes from the people.  A question that is not asked is, how can an individual like Barack Obama who has performed so poorly as President of The United States in almost every area enjoy the enormous popularity that he has to the point that he actually has a good chance of being reelected to a second term in office?

In order to answer this question, it must first be known from which layer of their bio-psychic structure does people’s attraction to Obama originate, the superficial layer or facade, the destructive middle layer,or from the biological core.  Most Blacks (98%) voted for Obama in 2008.  Many of them did so because they identified with him as being Black. For them, only Obama’s blackness, not his political thinking, was the primary distinguishing feature that mattered.  This group was attracted to Obama from the superficial layer of their bio-psychic structure.

With the anti-authoritarian transformation of society, there was a breakthrough of the emotional plague  and a shift to the left of the political mainstream as leftist ideology became the dominant force driving socio-political activity in the West.  As a result, many diverse groups of all classes of people including White as well as Black leftist ideologues and particularly those in the media as well as others who somehow believed that the government should take care of them, became swept up in a political movement that ran on a vague platform of  “change” led by savior-candidate Obama.  A recent Washington Post/ABC poll shows by a 2-to-1 ratio that the president is more “friendly and likable” than Mitt Romney. These group’s attraction to Obama originate from the superficial and from the powerful destructive middle layers of their bio-psychic structure.

Thus, Obama and most if not all of his supporters have contact with each other through their superficial and middle layers.  In today’s anti-authoritarian society, the biological core of human beings has been all but obliterated from social life leaving only the superficial and destructive middle layers to determine social processes.  How long can a society last that has absolutely no undistorted contact with the biological core functions of work and love that sustain it?

People’s Difficulty In Recognizing The Emotional Plague

People’s inability to recognize the existence of the emotional plague as a highly destructive and contagious medical disease is related to the fact that there is currently no scientific knowledge of the bio-emotional forces that govern human social life.

What must be known and understood is that differences in human armor produce differences in the way the emotional plague is misperceived and misunderstood. These differences correspond in a general way to the pattern of armor of people belonging on the left and right of the socio-political spectrum. Those on the left (liberals) live mainly in their superficial layer or facade. For them, the idea of the emotional plague is meaningless because the function of the liberal’s facade is to defend them from being aware of their destructive, middle layer (from where the emotional plague originates) and so the plague does not seem to exist for them.  (The liberal’s unawareness of the plague is partly why they are an effective tool that leftist radicals can use at will to carry out their destructive social agendas.)  Those on the right (conservatives) have better contact with their middle layer and their core. For conservatives, the idea of the emotional plague is real but it is perceived in a distorted form.  They view the plague not as a true medical disease but as a moral human failing.  They think of it in terms of “good” and “bad” human behavior and that the illness can be addressed by rational political dialogue.  However, the plague is not good or bad.  It cannot be stopped by political means.  Like any other medical disease, the plague is embedded in the biophysical structure of plague-ridden people.  The farther they are to the right of center, the more righteous and irrational are their thoughts about the plague.  This view of the plague is worthless from a therapeutic standpoint since a moralistic or righteous approach can never be used to combat a contagious medical condition.  (It is reminiscent of the irrationally fearful ways some contagious medical diseases, such as leprosy, syphilis and the bubonic plague, were treated before the modern era in medicine.)

Humanity cannot possibly come to grips with the emotional plague and recognize it as a deadly medical illness because their armor prevents people from seeing and thinking without distortion about problems in their individual and social lives.  This is why the disease will  remain a mystery and continue to ravage society until a sufficient number of  qualified social scientists appear on the scene who can take an honest look at themselves and deal with the emotional plague as a true medical illness.

People’s Difficulty In Recognizing The Emotional Plague

People’s inability to recognize the existence of the emotional plague as a highly destructive and contagious medical disease is related to the fact that there is currently no scientific knowledge of the bio-emotional forces that govern human social life.

What must be known and understood is that differences in human armor produce differences in the way the emotional plague is misperceived and misunderstood. These differences correspond in a general way to the pattern of armor of people belonging on the left and right of the socio-political spectrum. Those on the left (liberals) live mainly in their superficial layer or facade. For them, the idea of the emotional plague is meaningless because the function of the liberal’s facade is to defend them from being aware of their destructive, middle layer (from where the emotional plague originates) and so the plague does not seem to exist for them.  (The liberal’s unawareness of the plague is partly why they are an effective tool that leftist radicals can use at will to carry out their destructive social agendas.)  Those on the right (conservatives) have better contact with their middle layer and their core. For conservatives, the idea of the emotional plague is real but it is perceived in a distorted form.  They view the plague not as a true medical disease but as a moral human failing.  They think of it in terms of “good” and “bad” human behavior and that the illness can be addressed by rational political dialogue.  However, the plague is not good or bad.  It cannot be stopped by political means.  Like any other medical disease, the plague is embedded in the biophysical structure of plague-ridden people.  The farther they are to the right of center, the more righteous and irrational are their thoughts about the plague.  This view of the plague is worthless from a therapeutic standpoint since a moralistic or righteous approach can never be used to combat a contagious medical condition.  (It is reminiscent of the irrationally fearful ways some contagious medical diseases, such as leprosy, syphilis and the bubonic plague, were treated before the modern era in medicine.)

Humanity cannot possibly come to grips with the emotional plague and recognize it as a deadly medical illness because their armor prevents people from seeing and thinking without distortion about problems in their individual and social lives.  This is why the disease will  remain a mystery and continue to ravage society until a sufficient number of  qualified social scientists appear on the scene who can take an honest look at themselves and deal with the emotional plague as a true medical illness.

Divide And Conquer: The Emotional Plague At Work

The emotional plague-ridden politician will promise anything that is necessary to gain political power over people.  Once in power he will renege on his promises and do whatever he must to carry out his destructive social agenda.  Prior to being elected President of the United States in 2008, for example, Barack Obama promised Americans that he would bring about unity of the different factions that were tearing America apart.  Since his election, Obama has consistently done exactly the opposite.  He has deliberately generated social divisiveness, turning Americans against one another and exacerbating political polarization in every area of social life.

On the top of his list of groups to be alienated in this way are the “Haves” from the “Have-Nots.”  Typical of the emotional plague’s way of operating, this way of dividing people is calculated to generate confusion in people’s minds (what groups are we talking about?) and also to provide a rationalization justifying the right of government to legally enter into the free market and shift wealth and power from one group, arbitrarily designated as ” the rich,” to another group, ” the poor” which includes, incidentally, those who are currently in political power. All of this is being covered over in the name of tax fairness, social justice and caring for ” the people.”

These rationalizations are designed to get the political support of an unsuspecting electorate many of whom because of their pre-existing armored perceptual structure honestly believe in the truth of these lofty ideals and mindlessly go along.  An ideological alliance is thereby established between the power hungry politician and the masses of well-intentioned people who have no idea what is happening.

The Political Right Is No Rival Of The Left

In general, those on the right are not capable of effectively dealing with their radical adversaries on the left because they have no scientific understanding of the emotional plague character’s mode of operation and also because they are too decent to believe that  radicals are actually intent on transforming America into a socialist state.

People on the right are often taken in by the left’s talk of  democracy, equality, justice and so on because they project their own sense of decency onto them.  Giving leftist radicals the benefit of the doubt is a deadly mistake.  This is a perceptual distortion, a manifestation of their ocular armor.  In fact, the radical’s ideas only serve as a screen to conceal the destructiveness of their underlying political agenda.  Without recognizing the existence of the secondary destructive layer of armored humans and understanding that emotional plague characters operate entirely from the hatred that is contained in this layer,  it is not possible to fully appreciate the malevolent, evilness of leftist radicals.

Plague individuals simply cannot tolerate the freedom and the imperfections that exist in American society.  These imperfections are used to rationalize their need to control the lives of Americans by transforming this nation into a “perfect” world, a world that is actually constructed to fit their own predetermined, evil tendencies.

The Political Right’s Way Of Promising The Impossible

From an orgonometric perspective, both sides of the socio-political spectrum, the left and the right, constitute the symptom of social armor.  The ideology of the political left is the expression of unlimited social freedom while the ideology of the political right is the expression of the defense against it.  With the anti-authoritarian transformation of society and with the shift of the political mainstream to the far left of center, the ideology of the left is the dominant destructive social force in today’s Western society.  The genie is out of the bottle and there is very little that the political right can offer by way of promises that can arrest the process of social decline.

What is needed to stop the decline is an entirely different way of looking and thinking about the way things are, a way that originates neither from the left nor the right but which takes into consideration the biological existence of human armor that gives rise to humanity’s social and political troubles.

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