TYPES OF QI
What Reich called DOR and what he called POR appear to be two types of qi, polar to one another in some sense. Karl von Reichenbach has discovered this polarity much earlier, in the first half of the nineteenth century, and he called it “od”, as the original meaning of “od” seems to have been connected with “primary force”. What Reich called POR Reichenbach called “negative od”, and what Reich called DOR, Reichenbach called positive od. Furthermore there are various Chinese names for these polar opposites. Since they occur often in the sequel, we shall need terms for them. Reichenbach found that POR, or negative od, is associated with the north pole of a magnet - and that DOR, or positive od, is associated with the south pole of a magnet. For this reason, in the past I have referred to POR as “north qi” and DOR as “south qi”. However the Chinese have the by far prior claim to have studied and used these concepts. Reichenbach stated that his negative od came from the sun and his positive od came from the moon (and the planets).
The Mandarin name for the sun is “tai yang” and the qi coming from the sun is called yang:
the Mandarin name for the moon is “yue liang” and the qi coming from the moon is yin.
In the sequel we shall usually refer to Reich’s POR and Reichenbach’s negative od as yang
and Reich’s DOR and Reichenbach’s positive od as yin.
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