Carl Reichenbach#Scientific contributions

Reichenbach was educated at the University of Tübingen, where he obtained the degree of doctor of philosophy. At the age of 16 he conceived the idea of establishing a new German state in one of the South Sea Islands, and for five years he devoted himself to this project.

Afterwards, directing his attention to the application of science to the industrial arts, he visited manufacturing and metallurgical works in France and Germany, and established the first modern metallurgical company, with forges of his own in Villingen and Hausach in the Black Forest region of Southern Germany and later in Baden.

Reichenbach conducted original scientific investigations in many areas. The first geological monograph which appeared in Austria was his Geologische Mitteilungen aus Mähren (Vienna, 1834).

His position as the head of the large chemical works, iron furnaces and machine shops upon the great estate of Count Hugo secured to him excellent opportunities for conducting large-scale experimental research. From 1830 to 1834 he investigated complex products of the distillation of organic substances such as coal and wood tar, discovering a number of valuable hydrocarbon compounds including creosote, paraffin, eupione and phenol (antiseptics), pittacal and cidreret (synthetic dyestuffs), picamar (a perfume base), assamar, capnomor, and others. Under the name of eupione, Reichenbach included the mixture of hydrocarbon oils now known as waxy paraffin or coal oils. In his paper describing the substance, first published in the Neues Jahrbuch der Chemie und Physik, B, ii, he dwelt upon the economical importance of this and of its associate paraffins, whenever the methods of separating them cheaply from natural bituminous compounds would be established.

Reichenbach expanded on the work of previous scientists, such as Galileo Galilei, who believed the Earth's axis was magnetically connected to a universal central force in space, in concluding that Earth's magnetism comes from magnetic iron, which can be found in meteorites. His reasoning was that meteorites and planets are the same, and no matter the size of the meteorite, polar existence can be found in the object. This was deemed conclusive by the scientific community in the 19th century.[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_WBic2x0P5i4C "Scientific materialism and ultimate conceptions"], Sidney Billing. Bickers and Son, 1879. p. 355.

{{Main article|Odic force}}

In 1839 Von Reichenbach retired from industry and entered upon an investigation of the pathology of the human nervous system. He studied neurasthenia, somnambulism, hysteria and phobia, crediting reports that these conditions were affected by the moon. After interviewing many patients he ruled out many causes and cures, but concluded that such maladies tended to affect people whose sensory faculties were unusually vivid. These he termed "sensitives".{{cite book|title=Odic-Magnetic Letters -1859|url=https://archive.org/stream/odicmagneticlett00reic/odicmagneticlett00reic_djvu.txt|via=archive.org|publisher=New York : C. Blanchard|year=1860}}

Influenced by the works of Franz Anton Mesmer he hypothesised that the condition could be affected by environmental electromagnetism, but finally his investigations led him to propose a new imponderable force allied to magnetism, which he thought was an emanation from most substances, a kind of "life principle" which permeates and connects all living things. To this vitalist manifestation he gave the name Odic force.Gerry Vassilatos, Lost Science, Adventures Unlimited Press (2000){{ISBN|0932813755}} {{ISBN|978-0-932813-75-6}}

• Das Kreosot: ein neuentdeckter Bestandtheil des gemeinen Rauches, des Holzessigs und aller Arten von Theer 1833
• Geologische Mitteilungen aus Mähren (Geological news from Moravia) Wien, 1834
• Physikalisch-physiologische Untersuchungen über die Dynamide des Magnetismus, der Elektrizität, der Wärme, des Lichtes, der Krystallisation, des Chemismus in ihren Beziehungen zur Lebenskraft (Band 1 + [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_F_M_AAAAIAAJ Band 2]) Braunschweig, 1850
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=nyU4AAAAYAAJ Odisch-magnetische Briefe] Stuttgart 1852, 1856; Ulm 1955
• Der sensitive Mensch und sein Verhalten zum Ode (The sensitive human and his behaviour towards Od) Stuttgart und Tübingen ([https://books.google.com/books?id=tvYNAAAAYAAJ Band 1] 1854 + [https://books.google.com/books?id=AfYNAAAAYAAJ Band 2] 1855)
• [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_VM86AAAAcAAJ Köhlerglaube und Afterweisheit: Dem Herrn C. Vogt in Genf zur Antwort] Wien, 1855
• [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_K8c6AAAAcAAJ_2 Wer ist sensitiv, wer nicht] (Who is sensitive, who is not?) Wien, 1856
• [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_44g5AAAAcAAJ Odische Erwiederungen an die Herren Professoren Fortlage, Schleiden, Fechner und Hofrath Carus] Wien, 1856
• [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_VdQbAAAAIAAJ Die Pflanzenwelt in ihren Beziehungen zur Sensitivität und zum Ode] Wien, 1858
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20091014164131/http://www.sapientia.ch/E-Buecher/Diverse_E-Buecher/Reichenbach%20-%20Berlin.pdf Odische Begebenheiten zu Berlin in den Jahren 1861 und 1862] Berlin, 1862
• [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_6Ig5AAAAcAAJ Aphorismen über Sensitivität und Od] (Aphorisms on Sensitivity and Od) Wien, 1866
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=L5Q5AAAAcAAJ Die odische Lohe und einige Bewegungserscheinungen als neuentdeckte Formen des odischen Princips in der Natur] Wien, 1867

English translations:

• [https://archive.org/details/physicophysiolo02ashbgoog Physico-physiological researches on the dynamics of magnetism, electricity, heat, light, crystallization, and chemism, in their relation to Vital Force] New York, 1851
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=wXIFAQAAIAAJ Somnambulism and cramp] New York, 1860 (excerpt translated chapter out of Der sensitive Mensch und sein Verhalten zum Ode)
• Letters on Od and Magnetism 1926

{{botanist|C.Rchb.|Reichenbach, Carl Ludwig von}}

• Reichenbach's Otaheiti Society

• {{German title Freiherr}}

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.paranormal.de/para/ballabene/okkultes_weltbild/aether/reichenbach/reichenbach1.htm Karl von Reichenbach und Od]. Paranormal Site (In German)
• [http://www.stuttgart.de/item/show/300460 Karl Ludwig von Reichenbach] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160919160032/http://www.stuttgart.de/item/show/300460 |date=2016-09-19 }}. Stadt Stuttgart (in German)
• [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044018742130;view=1up;seq=9 Researches on Magnetism, Electricity, Heat and Light in their relations to Vital Forces]. Cornell University. or [https://archive.org/details/researchesonmag00greggoog here]
• [http://customers.hbci.com/~wenonah/history/odenergy.htm Luminous World] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130209104041/http://customers.hbci.com/~wenonah/history/odenergy.htm |date=2013-02-09 }}. Article by Gerry Vassilatos

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Category:1788 births

Category:1869 deaths

Category:German astrologers

Category:19th-century German chemists

Category:19th-century German geologists

Category:German naturalists

Category:German metallurgists

Category:19th-century occultists

Category:Parapsychologists

Category:Scientists from Stuttgart

Category:German barons

Category:Vitalists