Wilhelm Reich

by Robert S Corrington

  24 Ibid., 399. The original is in English.

  25 Ibid., 403. The original is in English.

  26 Ibid, 422. The original is in English.

  27 Handout from Conference on the Orgone Energy Accumulator at the William Reich Museum in Rangeley, Maine, July 17—21, 2000.

  28 Reich, Character Analysis, 539. The German is: “daβ einzig und allein die Wiederherstellung des natiirlichen Liebeslebens der Kinder, Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen die Charakterneurosen und mit den Charakterneurosen die emotionelle Pest in ihren verschiedenen Abwandlungen aus der Welt schaffen kann” (Charakteranalyse, 372).

  6: DISPLACEMENT, ORGONE, COSMIC RELIGION, AND CHRIST

  1 Wilhelm Reich, Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals 1934—1939, ed. Mary Boyd Higgins, trans. Derek and Inge Jordan and Philip Schmitz (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994), xx.

  2 Ilse Ollendorff Reich, Wilhelm Reich: A Personal Biography (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969), 44.

  3 David Boadella, Wilhelm Reich: The Evolution of His Work (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1973), 368.

  4 Reich, Beyond Psychology, 7.

  5 Ibid., 3.

  6 Reich, Wilhelm Reich: A Personal Biography, 37.

  7 Reich, Beyond Psychology, 197.

  8 Myron Sharaf, Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich (New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), 251.

  9 Reich, Beyond Psychology, 215—216.

  10 In particular, I mention the work of James Strick at Franklin and Marshall College; Bernard Grad at McGill University; Joseph Heckman at Rutgers University; James DeMeo at the Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory in Ashland, Oregon; and Bernd Senf at the Fachhochsshule fur Wirtschaft in Berlin, Germany.

  11 Wilhelm Reich, American Odyssey: Letters and Journals 1940—1947, ed. Mary Boyd Higgins, trans. Derek and Inge Jordan and Philip Schmitz (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999), 67.

  12 Ibid., 70.

  13 Ibid., 35.

  14 Ibid., 74.

  15 Ibid., 218.

  16 Ibid., 228. From an undated journal entry (probably in February 1944).

  17 Ola Raknes, Wilhelm Reich and Orgonomy (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1971), 148.

  18 In essay seven of A Pluralistic Universe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), entitled “Continuity of Experience,” James argues that our various encounters with the universe always hint of something “more” that turns out to be vitalistic and, in our context, orgonelike: “Every smallest state of consciousness, concretely taken, overflows its own definition. Only concepts are self-identical; only ‘reason’ deals with closed equations; nature is but the name for excess; every point in her opens out and runs into the more; and the only question, with reference to any point we may be considering, is how far into the rest of nature we have to go in order to get entirely beyond its overflow. In the pulse of inner life immediately present now in each of us is a little past, a little future, a little awareness of our own body, of each other’s persons, of these sublimities we are trying to talk about, of the earth’s geography and the direction of history, of truth and error, of good and bad, and of who knows how much more? Feeling, however dimly and subconsciously, all these things, your pulse of inner life is continuous with them, belongs to them and they to it” (129). It should be mentioned that James was a medical doctor who later became one of the most important philosophers of classical (1870—1930) Euro-American philosophy. He taught in the philosophy department of Harvard University. The relationship between his cosmology and that of Reich bears further creative examination.

  19 Wilhelm Reich, “Orgonotic Pulsation (1),” Orgonomic Functionalism: A Journal Devoted to the Work of Wilhelm Reich, vol. 3 (Summer 1991), 23. This and the other three essays in the series were translated by Reich’s first English-language translator, Theodore P. Wolfe. Reich had a close working relationship with Wolfe, a native speaker of German, but it soured toward the end of Reich’s life. The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund engaged several other translators to bring out new English versions of the originals. While out of print and hard to obtain, Wolfe’s translations can still be found.

  20 Ibid., 27.

  21 Ibid., 31.

  22 Ibid., 30—31.

  23 Ibid., 36. It is interesting that some scientists are now attempting to make the diesel engine more efficient and less polluting by applying principles derived from genetics and evolution (via computer models). These frameworks entail working through the kind of adjustments that come from a natural selection process that “desires” efficiency. This represents a very important transgression of the old barriers between mechanistic and organic thinking. My own sense is that even quantum physics, with its uncertainty principle, remains mechanistic, even if it must fall back on “less desired” statistical language. Reich’s functional approach clearly foreshadowed some of the major conceptual revolutions now in the making. This makes me more optimistic that the academic, clinical, and general therapeutic worlds are now more likely to give his work a fair hearing.

  24 Ibid., 42—43.

  25 W. Edward Mann, Orgone, Reich and Eros: Wilhelm Reich’s Theory of Life Energy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), 143—59, makes the connection between orgone and the human aura as described in the Hindu literature.

  26 For what it is worth to the reader, I have experienced some of these colorations in the orgone room in Rangeley, Maine. In addition, I built an orgone blanket that has very strong effects, a bit like heat radiation, on my body. I am fully aware that experiences like these, no matter how intense, can have strong psychological causes. They could, for example, be manifestations of a positive transference to the subject of this book. It would be somewhat presumptuous, however, to assume that Reich could not be right about orgone and that his intense quest for disconfirmations was not a real part of his scientific methodology.

  27 Wilhelm Reich, “Orgonotic Pulsation (2),” Orgonomic Functionalism: A Journal Devoted to the Work of Wilhelm Reich, vol. 4 (Summer 1992), 31.

  28 Wilhelm Reich, “Orgonotic Pulsation (3),” Orgonomic Functionalism: A Journal Devoted to the Work of Wilhelm Reich, vol. 5 (Summer 1994), 37.

  29 For an excellent and thorough analysis of the nature of the orgone accumulator, see The Orgone Energy Accumulator: Its Scientific and Medical Use, published by the Wilhelm Reich Foundation, 1951.

  30 Reich, “Orgonotic Pulsation (3),” 43.

  31 Plato, Symposium, trans. Michael Joyce, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961). Eryximachus says: “And so, gentlemen, the power of eros in its entirety is various and mighty, nay, all-embracing, but the mightiest power of all is wielded by that eros whose just and temperate consummation, whether in heaven or on earth, tends toward the good. It is he that bestows our every joy upon us, and it is through him that we are capable of the pleasures of society, aye, and friendship even, with the gods our masters” (541).

  32 Wilhelm Reich, “Orgonotic Pulsation (4),” Orgonomic Functionalism: A Journal Devoted to the Work of Wilhelm Reich, vol. 6 (Summer 1996), 22.

  33 Ibid., 31.

  34 Wilhelm Reich, Ether, God and Devil and Cosmic Superimposition, trans. Therese Pol (New York: Welcome Rain Publishers, 2000), 11.

  35 Reich, Ether, God and Devil and Cosmic Superimposition, 63.

  36 Ibid., 107.

  37 Ibid., 120.

  38 See Robert S. Corrington, Nature’s Religion (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), for the outlines of ecstatic naturalist religion.

  39 Reich, Ether, God and Devil and Cosmic Superimposition, 121. For a fascinating study of Freud’s correlation of the “oceanic feeling” with more genuine forms of mysticism, see William B. Parsons, The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling: Revisioning the Psychoanalytic Theory of Mysticism (Oxford, Eng: Oxford University Press, 1999). In this book Parsons argues that Freud was actually more open to the religious dimension of mysticism than is often recognized, as can be seen in his correspondence with the French intellectual Romain Rolland, a
disciple of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.

  40 Ibid., 141.

  41 Ibid., 143.

  42 Ibid., 155—56.

  43 Ibid., 271.

  44 Ibid., 278.

  45 Ibid., 287.

  46 Ibid., 291.

  47 Ibid.

  48 Ibid., 296—97.

  49 Eustace Chesser, Salvation Through Sex: The Life and Work of Wilhelm Reich (New York: William Morrow, 1973), 90.

  50 In their interesting if slightly flawed analysis of Reich and his psychological dynamics, Robert D. Stolorow and George E. Atwood argue that Reich had a split-off component to his psyche that stemmed from the suicide of his mother. This self-contained complex, so they argue, intruded itself in his written work again and again. In their psychobiographical analysis of Cosmic Superimposition, for example, they maintain, “The orgone in the atmosphere reacts to the presence of deadly orgone energy by surrounding and sequestering it into isolated pockets. The purity of the unaffected air is thereby safeguarded and preserved. The images of the feverish sequestering off of a deadly stale intruder vividly symbolize the splitting process on which Reich’s life floundered; namely, the splitting off and repression of the image of his disappointing and sexually treacherous mother in order to preserve her as an idealized object, and the splitting off and sequestering of his own disappointment, jealous rage, and moral indignation in order to preserve the image of an idealized, messianic self.” See Faces in a Cloud: Subjectivity in Personality Theory (New York: Jason Aronson, 1979), 127. Basing their conclusions only on Ilse’s previously discussed biography, with some hints from Peter’s reflections, they make claims that go far beyond legitimate biographical data. I consider this argument to be an example of the reductive rather than ampliative, form of psychoanalytic reasoning. While his mother’s suicide had a deep and long-lasting impact on his character, it certainly did not translate itself into the concept of negative orgone energy, for which he had, in his mind, direct empirical evidence; nor is his poetic cosmology a result of his ambivalence toward his mother’s betrayal, but is rather a logical extension of all of his previous work, even though there are clear maternal components in his poetic vision. I owe my awareness of Stolorow and Atwood’s book to Patricia J. Middleton, M.D.

  51 Wilhelm Reich, Listen, Little Man!, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974), 45. The German text is Rede on den kleinen Mann (Frankfurt am Main: Fisher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2000) The German is: “Gewiß, gewiß, du willst daß es ‘Genies’ gibt, und du bist bereit, sie zu ehren. Doch du willst brave Genies, Genie mit Maß und Anstand und ohne Dummheiten … kurz, ein passendes und wohlabmessendes Genie … kein wildes, unzähmbares, alle deine Schranken und Beschranktheiten niederbrechendes Genie … Du willst ein Beschranktes, verkürztes, gestutztes and zurechtgemachtes Genie, um es, ohne zu erröten, im Tri-umphzug durch die Straßen deiner Stadte zu führen. So bist du, kleiner Mann. Du kannst gut ausschöpfen und erschöpfen and auslöffeln und auffressen, aber du kannst nich schöpfen” (Rede, 50).

  52 Ibid., 77. The German is: “‘Hört, hört! Er besudelt meine Kriegsbegeisterung, die Ehre meines Vaterlands, die Glorie der Nation!’ Schweig still, kleiner Mann! Es gibt zweirerlei Töne, das Heulen des Sturms auf hoben Gipfeln … und deinen Furz! Du bist ein Furz, und du glaubst, wie Veilchen zu riechen. Ich heile deine Seelennot, und du fragst, ob ich in Who is Who? bin. Ich begreife deinen Krebs, und dein kleiner Medizinaldirektor verbietet mir das Experimentieren mit Mausen. Ich lehre deine Arzte, dich arztlich zu begreifen, und dein Arztevereinigung verleumdet mich bei der Staatpolizei. Du leidest an Verwirrtheit deines Geistes, und sie versetzen dir den elektrischen Schock, wie sie dir im Mittelalter die Schlange odor die Kette order die Peitsche versetzten” (Rede, 78—79).

  53 Ibid., 127—28. The German is: “Was immer nun du mir angetan hast oder noch antun wirst, ob du mich als Genie verklarst oder als Wahnsinnigen einsperrst, ob du mich nun als deinen Retter anbetest oder als Spion hangst oder raderst, früher oder später wirst du aus Not begreifen, daβ ich die Gesetze des Lebendigen entdeckte und dir das Handwerkszeug gab, dein Leben mit Willen und Ziel zu lenken, wie du bisher nur Maschinen lenken konntest. Ich war dir ein treuer Ingenieur deines Organismus. Deine Kindeskinder werden meinen Spuren folgen und gute Ingenieure der menschlichen Natur sein. Ich habe dir das unendlich weite Reich des Lebendigen in dir, deines kosmischen Wesens, eröffnet. Dies ist mein großer Lohn. Den Diktatoren und Tyrannen aber, den Schlauen und den Giftigen, den Mistkafern und Hyanen rufe ich die Worte eines alten Weisen zu: Ich pflanzte das Paniere der heiligen Worte in diese Welt. Wenn langst der Palmenbaum verdorrte, des Fels zerfallt, wenn langst die strahlenden Monarchen wie faules Laub im Staub verwehn: Tragen durch jede Sünd-flut tausend Archen mein Wort: Es wird bestehn!” (Rede, 124).

  54 In his flippant and breezy The Life and Work of Wilhelm Reich (New York: Horizon Press, 1971), trans. Ghislaine Boulanger, Michel Cattier claims: “Nearly all the texts that Reich wrote in the United States were full of self-congratulatory remarks. He explained that his intellectual breadth eclipsed his enemies, who were mere mental defectives … His thirst for recognition took an unpleasant turn when he implied that he should be awarded at least two Nobel prizes, and complacently repeated the remarks to his disciples, who looked upon him as a messiah” (207).

  55 Reich, Listen, Little Man!, ix-x. The German is: “Der Versuch seitens der‘seelischen Pest’ im Jahre 1947, die Orgonforschung zu vernichten (wohlgemerke: nicht als unrichtig zu erweisen, sondern durch Ehrabschneidung zu vernichten), wurde zum An-laß der Publikation der ‘Rede’ als eines historischen Dokuments” (Rede, 9).

  56 Ibid., 32. The German is: “Ich bin ein biologischer und kultureller Mischling (mongrel), und ich bin stolz, das geistige und körperliche Ergebnis aller Klassen und Rassen und Nationen zu sein … Mich bewegt kein Gefühl für jüdische Sprache, jüdische Götterei, jüdische Kultur. Ich glaube an den jüdischen so wenig wie an den christlichen oder indischen Gott, aber ich begreife, wo du deinen Gott hernimmst. Ich glaube nicht, daß das jiidische Volk das ‘einzige’ oder das ‘auserwählte’ Volk Gottes ist. Ich glaube, daß das jüdische Volk irgendwann einmal sich in den Massen der Menschentiere dieses Planeten verlieren wird, zu seinem eigenen Gedeihen, und dem seiner Enkelkinder. Das hörst du nun nicht gerne, kleiner jüdischer Mann, denn du pochst so sehr auf dein Judentum, weil du dich selbst als Juden verachtest, und jeden, der dir nahe ist. Der schlimmste Judenhasser ist der Jude selbst. Dies ist eine alte Wahrheit. Doch ich verachte dich nicht, und ich hasse dich nicht. Ich habe mit dir nur nichts gemein, oder nicht mehr gemein, als ein Chinese mit einem Wiesel in Amerika: den gemeinsamen Ursprung aus dem Weltenall. Weshalb gehst du nur bis Sem, und nicht bis auf das Protoplasma zurück, kleiner Jude? Für mich beginnt das Lebendige in der Plasmazuckung, und nicht mit deinem Rabbinat” (Rede, 37—39).

  57 Wilhelm Reich, The Murder of Christ (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), 11.

  58 Ibid., 12.

  59 I am using the proper name Jesus to refer to the historical person (about whom very little is actually known), while the title Christ is an honorific that was given to the historical person by the biblical writers. Paul Tillich’s solution for dealing with this tension in designation works quite well: his phrase “Jesus who is the Christ” combines the proper name and honorific in a more accurate way by showing that Jesus was the one who was received as the Christ. Hence Jesus Christ is not a proper name and makes little sense as a referent. But in this text I will use both terms interchangeably in order to simplify matters.

  60 Reich, Murder of Christ, 17.

  61 Ibid., 19.

  62 Ibid., 33.

  63 Ibid., 146, 147.

  64 Ibid., 153–54

  65 Ibid., 160.

  66 Reich, Wilhelm Reich: A Personal Biography, 51.

  67 Wilhelm Reich, American. Odyssey: Letters and Journals 1940–1947, ed. Boyd Higgins, trans. Derek and Inge Jordan and Philip Schmitz (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999), 173.


  68 Ibid., 271.

  69 Ibid., 322.

  70 See Sharaf, Fury on Earth, 360-69.

  71 On the overall social milieu surrounding Reich and his battles, see Jim Martin, Wilhelm Reich and the Cold War (Fort Bragg, Calif.: Flatland Books, 2000). Martin’s book details the ways in which the Communists were in fact working against Reich and his research during the postwar period.

  72 Sharaf, Fury on Earth, 418–19.

  73 Wilhelm Reich: Viva Little Man, a documentary by Digne Meller-Marcovicz, produced and distributed by Natural Energy Works, Ashland, Ore., 1987, 2000. The video is ninety minutes in length.

  74 Wilhelm Reich, Selected Writings: An Introduction to Orgonomy (New York: Welcome Rain, 2000), 539.

  75 Colin Wilson, The Quest for Wilhelm Reich: A Critical Biography (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1981), 227.