Page "Wilhelm Reich" Paragraph 36

From 1934 – 1939 Reich conducted what he called the bion experiments, seeking the origins of life, which he wrote up in Die Bione: Zur Entstehung des vegetativen Lebens ( The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life ), published in Oslo in 1938.

He examined protozoa, single-celled creatures with nuclei, and grew cultured vesicles using grass, sand, iron and animal tissue, boiling them and adding potassium and gelatin.

Having heated the materials to incandescence with a heat-torch, he noted bright, glowing, blue vesicles, which he said could be cultured and gave off an observable radiant energy.

He named the vesicles " bions " and believed they were a rudimentary form of life, halfway between life and non-life.

He wrote that when he poured the cooled mixture onto growth media, bacteria were born, dismissing the idea that the bacteria were already present in the air or on other materials.