There is great excitement and interest today in what is described as the "paradigm shift" in science. Humanity's understanding of the universe and its place in it is changing dramatically. Wilhelm Reich's Ether, God and Devil (1949) and Cosmic Superimposition (1951) are two groundbreaking books that helped initiate the current paradigm shift long before the concept was popularized in Thomas Kuhn's 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and the later works of such best-selling authors as Fritjof Capra, Gary Zukav, Timothy Ferris, and many more.In Ether, God and Devil, Reich describes his process of thinking-which he called orgonomic functionalism-and shows how the inner logic of this objective thought technique led him to the discovery of the cosmic orgone energy.In Cosmic Superimposition, Reich steps out of our current framework of mechanistic-mystical thinking and comes to a radically different understanding of how man is rooted in nature. He shows clearly how the superimposition of two orgone energy streams-demonstrable in the human genital embrace and in the formation of spiral galaxies-is the common functioning principle in all of nature. Concluding this work, Reich ponders what is perhaps the greatest riddle of all: "the ability of man to think, and by mere thinking to know what nature is and how it works."Together, these two works usher in a fundamentally new view of humanity, nature, and man's place in the cosmos.
