“Streaming” Vs “Moralizing”: How An Understanding of Ourselves and Nature Can Help Us Stop Blaming Each Other

Psychiatrist and scientific investigator Wilhelm Reich and his followers have examined the function of “streaming“ and some of the other functions of nature (both human and otherwise) that can be understood to be aspects of streaming. 

“Streaming“ is a word to describe the movement of energy, both within a biological membrane, and in nature in general.

One can observe the function of streaming within a biological membrane if one looks at an amoeba or other microscopic organisms under a microscope:

Here we see the way the protoplasm within the biological membrane streams. Examples of protoplasmic streaming in a human organism would include the circulatory system. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) in warm blooded animals such as birds and mammals regulates the circulatory function and other functions, and therefore the ANS can be spoken of as part of the “plasmatic system”, as Reich and others have described it. The plasmatic system also includes the functioning of emotion in the body, which is mediated by the ANS along with respiration, the beating of the heart, and the operation of the immune and endocrine systems.

Reich also equated the the plasmatic system with what he called “the core”:

"At the very beginning of character-analytic research in the 1920s, the structure of the human character presented itself as if it were composed of three distinct layers: the outer, socially adjusted layer; the middle layer, which contains all the armor blocks, 'repressed impulses;' and the core which functioned as the highly excitable, responsive and mobile autonomous plasmatic life system, including the organized autonomic nervous system which seemed to be governed only by primordial charge-discharge functions in balancing the energy system."

Reich, W. 1956. The Medical DOR-Buster. CORE V7 N3-5. Rangeley, Maine: Orgone Institute Press, page 107.

Thus the core is both a psychic (psychological) and somatic phenomenon.

In fact, Reich felt that his focus on the function of streaming was at the heart of everything he explored over the course of his lifetime:

“In...the sweet streaming of living life are rooted most of WR's major accomplishments:

•The technique of dissolving the character armor, which inhibits the flow of life and energy in the body. 

•The perfect understanding of the 'preorgastic' and 'orgastic anxiety' in men and women who are unable to swing out fully with their life energy and fall prey to the sudden blocking exerted by the armor....

•The discovery of the plasmatic streamings in amebae.

•The idea of producing bions which led to the actual discovery of the life energy in the atmosphere....

•The understanding of the murder of Christ, because murder must follow such revelations of the discrepancy between pure, lovely nature and armored man." 

Reich, W. Spring 1952/1990. The Silent Observer. Orgonomic Functionalism V1: 83-99, pages 87-89.

Reich experimentally investigated functions of energy which were not adequately explained by conventional energy theories such as electromagnetic theory. He identified a set of energetic functions which he grouped together under the term “orgone energy.” “Orgonomy” is the study of orgone energy functions in humans and in nature in general. Observations about the interrelations between these different functions in nature have been summarized in an “orgonometric equation” called the “equation of contact” or “the equation of streaming”:

This diagram attempts to summarize some of the thinking about the integrated relationships (“contact”) between different functions of nature.

Thinking of human life as a function of streaming helps to eliminate moralizing about each other as opposed to thinking of each other in “functional” terms, in other words, in terms of the way nature, including each of our unique individual natures, functions. In the absence of this kind of natural scientific understanding that there are differences in the way we all function, we blame each other, we moralize about each other, we attack each other. Because we don’t understand the way we each function, we are frustrated and want to blame the other for things like how relationships don’t work out, or how we perceive politics differently, etc.

We each have a unique nature and character. Our nature comes from our core, and we are born with that. Our character structure is the result of how experience has modified our nature and built up “armor,” the system of psychological and somatic defenses against full emotional and psychic (psychological) experiencing from the core, such as the capacity to love. When our various natural psychic and somatic functions have become armored, our perception of things also becomes armored. Thus, instead of correctly perceiving the way things are functioning, we have a tendency to moralize about each other when we disagree.

So, for example, when our relationships don’t work out, we agonize ourselves and others by trying to figure out “who is to blame”: “Am I to blame or is he/she that ito blame?” Another example is that when we disagree about politics, we have a tendency to think the other one is “to blame” for our differences. But it’s not a question of “blame,” that is a moralizing way of looking at things. It’s a question of the different ways that we function due to our different natures and characters. And those differences ultimately derive from the different qualities (due to the differing natures and character structures) of the streaming function in each of us. Just like no two streaming amoebas are exactly alike. So our problems and differences are not moral ones, but rather “functional” ones, differences in the way we function.

Our armored way of thinking gets in the way of us understanding each other and our differences and why relationships fail. Part of the reason relationships fail is just that we have different natures that sometimes join with each other and stream together, and at other times drift apart as we are “taken” in a different direction by our own slowly evolving natures. Or sometimes it is our armoring, our character, which gets in the way of our ability to join together in love or cooperate sociologically. In some cases, our nature is not the problem, but rather our armoring. But it is as useless to blame our armoring as it is to blame our natures, because both nature and armoring are natural processes, functions of streaming and the blocks to streaming, and our nature and our way of becoming armored are not generally chosen consciously by us. We can try to change. We probably won’t change our natures, but sometimes we can dissolve some of our characterological armor through therapy, or just through learning from experience. So then we come better at fulfilling our unique individual natures.

Looking at ourselves and nature in energetic terms can provide a deep understanding of ourselves and others and how we are connected by nature, even on a cosmic scale, since the whole universe functions according to natural energetic laws. In this sense, we are all connected. Our yearning for love and peace and harmony is also an aspect of how the energy of nature, both biological and cosmic, functions.