WILHELM REICH Biography and Bibliography

«I was born in a small village as the first son of not unprosperous parents.»

— From: Passion of Youth

Wilhelm Reich was born on March 24, 1897 in Galicia, in the easternmost part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Ukraine. He grew up in the Bukovina on a large farm operated by his father. His first language was German, and until 1938 he was an Austrian citizen.

According to The Bibliography of Orgonomy–prepared at Orgonon in 1953 under Reich’s supervision–his «interest in biology and natural science was stimulated early by the life on the farm, close to agriculture, cattle-farming, and breeding…Between his 8th and 12th years, he had his own collection and breeding laboratory of butterflies, insects and plants under the guidance of a private teacher. The natural life functions, including the sexual function, were familiar to him as far back as he could remember, and this may well have determined his strong later inclination as a bio-psychiatrist toward the biological foundation of the emotional life of man, as well as his biophysical discoveries in the fields of medicine, biology, and education.»

Until he was 13 years old, Reich was educated at home by tutors. His mother, to whom he was devoted, committed suicide in 1910 after his father discovered she had had a brief affair with one of the tutors. Reich’s father died four years later from tuberculosis, leaving seventeen-year old Reich to direct the farm work on his own without interrupting his studies at the German high school he was attending.

That same year, 1914, the first World War broke out. Soon Russian troops swept through the Bukovina. Reich narrowly escaped being sent to Russia as a hostage, and had to flee his home. Later he wrote, «I never saw either my homeland or my possessions again. Of a well-to-do past, nothing was left.» (Passion of Youth) He joined the Austrian Army in 1915, served as a lieutenant from 1916-1918, and was at the Italian front three times, experiencing what he called «the war as a machine.»

In 1918 the war finally ended. Germany and Austria were defeated, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was broken up, and the Bukovina became part of Romania. Alone, homeless and intellectually starved after four years of war, Reich entered the Medical School at the University of Vienna.

Part II

REICH, FREUD, AND THE LIBIDO: 1918 – 1934

«It is sexual energy which governs the structure of human feeling and thinking.»

— From: The Sexual Revolution

As a war veteran, Reich was permitted to complete the six-year course in four years, and he passed the 18 Rigorosa in 18 medical subjects and received «excellent» (ausgezeichnet) in all the pre-medical subjects. He graduated and received his M.D. degree in July 1922.

During his last years of medical school, Reich did post-graduate work in Internal Medicine at the University Clinics of Ortner and Chvostek at University Hospital, Vienna. He continued his postgraduate education in neuro-psychiatry for two years (1922-24) at the Neurological and Psychiatric University Clinic under Professor Wagner-Jauregg (who would win the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1927). Reich also worked for one year in the disturbed wards under Paul Schilder. Additional postgraduate studies included attendance at polyclinic work in hypnosis and suggestive therapy at the same University Clinic and special courses and lectures in biology at the University of Vienna.

Most significantly, however, while still in medical school Reich attained membership in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association in October 1920. As an undergraduate, his recognition of the importance of sexuality had drawn him to the work of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis was a new discipline which had emerged from Freud’s startling insights into the causes of mental illness. Reich soon became one of the most active younger members of Freud’s inner circle, and was considered one of Freud’s most promising students.

Reich began his private psychoanalytic and psychiatric practice in 1922. He was the First Clinical Assistant at Freud’s Psychoanalytic Polyclinic in Vienna (under the directorship of Dr. Edward Hitschmann) from its establishment in 1922 to 1928; Vice Director of the Polyclinic, 1928-1930; and Director of the Seminar for Psychoanalytic Therapy at the same institution. As a member of the faculty of the Psychoanalytic Institute in Vienna (1924-1930), he gave lectures on clinical subjects and bio-psychiatric theory. He conducted research on the social causation of the neurosis at the Polyclinic from 1924, and at mental hygiene consultation centers in various districts in Vienna (Sozialistiche Gesellschaft feur Sexualberatung und Sexualforschung), centers which he founded and led from 1928 to 1930. Reich’s extensive clinical work and research ultimately led to conflicts with Freud.

Staff of the Vienna Ambulatorium, 1922. Eduard Hitschmann is seated fourth from the left, Reich fifth, and Annie Reich first on the right. — From wikipedia.org

Freud had discovered that neuroses are caused by the conflict between natural sexual instincts and the social denial and frustration of those instincts. Freud had also hypothesized the existence of a biological sexual energy in the body. He called it «libido,» and described it as «something which is capable of increase, decrease, displacement and discharge, and which extends itself over the memory traces of an idea like an electric charge over the surface of the body.»

But as the years passed, Freud and his followers diluted much of this concept, reducing the libido to little more than a psychological energy or idea. By 1925, Freud had concluded that «the libido theory may therefore for the present be pursued only by the path of speculation.»

Reich’s clinical work convinced him otherwise. He devoted himself to matters of technique in an attempt to overcome the limitations of psychoanalysis in treating neuroses. And in doing so he observed that sexual energy is more than just an idea, and that sexual gratification, in fact, alleviated neurotic symptoms. He discovered that the function of the orgasm is to maintain an energy equilibrium by discharging excess biological energy that builds up naturally in the body. If that discharge function is disturbed–as it proved to be in all of his patients–this energy continues to build up without adequate release, stagnating and fueling neurotic disorders. Reich also discovered that in psychic disturbances, this biological energy is bound up not only in symptoms, but more importantly, in the individual’s characterological and muscular rigidities–what he called «armor.»

Reich’s orgasm theory set him apart from his colleagues, because it indicated that the libido was a real physical energy that possibly might be measured quantitatively. Reich’s clinical work also led him to develop new therapeutic techniques to eliminate the patient’s character and muscular armor and allow for the flow and discharge of this bio-energy to achieve what he called «orgastic potency,» the capacity for total discharge of sexual excitation in the genital embrace.

But the widespread existence of sexual misery forced Reich to conclude that the solution to the problem of neuroses wasn’t treatment, it was prevention. «You have to revamp your whole way of thinking,» Reich said, «so that you don’t think from the standpoint of the state and the culture, but from the standpoint of what people need and what they suffer from. Then you arrange your social institutions accordingly.» (Reich Speaks of Freud)

Freud, on the other hand, maintained that culture takes precedence, that sexual instincts must be adapted to the existing social structure. These conflicting positions would lead to an eventual break between Reich and Freud.

Reich also devoted much of his time and money educating working class people about the essential role of sexuality in their lives. «I had six clinics in Vienna where people came and received advice once or twice a week…To provide medical and educational help was its purpose.» (Reich Speaks of Freud) To reach the greatest number of people, he worked within the Socialist and Communist parties in Vienna, and later in Berlin, to promote sex education, birth control, divorce rights, and better housing. Reich recalled that in Berlin there were about fifty thousand people in his organization in the first year.

Reich was also very outspoken about Germany’s turbulent political climate. Unlike most members of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Association, Reich openly opposed the rise of the Nazi Party. But Reich’s activities exacted a high price. In 1933 he was denounced by the Communist Party, forced to flee from Germany when Hitler came to power, and expelled from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1934. Reich called these events «catastrophes which threatened my personal, professional and social existence.»

1923-1934 Orgasm theory and technique of Character Analysis

1928-1934 Respiratory block and muscular armor

1923-1934 Sex-economic self-regulation of primary natural drives in their distinction from secondary, perverted drives

1930-1934 The role of irrationalism and human sex-economy in the origin of dictatorship of all political denomination

1934 The orgasm reflex

McF 701 Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, Band 7, 1920-1921

Reich, Wilhelm. «Über einen Fall von Durchbruch der Inzestschranke» («About a Case of Breaching the Incest Taboo»), Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, VII, 1920

Reich, Wilhelm. «Über einen Fall von Durchbruch der Inzestschranke,» Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, VII. (1920).

Reich, Wilhelm. «Triebbegriffe von Forel bis Jung» («Forel’s Argument Against Jung»), «Der Koitus und die Geschlechter» («Sexual Intercourse and Gender»), Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, 1921

Reich, Wilhelm. «Über Spezifitaet der Onanieformen» («Concerning Specific Forms of Masturbation»), Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, VIII, 1922

Reich, Wilhelm. «Zur Triebenergetik» («The Drive for Power»), Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, 1923

Reich, Wilhelm. «Kindliche Tagtraeume einer spaeteren Zwangsneurose» («Childhood Daydreams of a Later Neurosis»), Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 1923

Reich, Wilhelm. «Über Genitalitaet» («About Genitality»), Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, IX, 1923

Reich, Wilhelm. «Die Rolle der Genitalitaet in der Neurosentherapie» («The Role of Genitality in the Treatment of Neurosis»), Zeitschrif für Aerztliche Psychotherapie (Journal for Medical Psychotherapy), IX, 1923

Reich, Wilhelm. «Der Tic als Onanieequivalent» («The Tic as a Masturbation Equivalent»), Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, 1924

Reich, Wilhelm. «Die therapeutische Bedeutung der Genitallibido» («The Therapeutic Importance of Genital Libido»), and «Über Genitalität vom Standpunkt der psa. Prognose und Libidotheorie.» («On Genitality From the Standpoint of PENSA. Prognosis and Libido Theory») Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, X, 1924

Reich, Wilhelm. «Eine hysterische Psychose in statu nascendi» («Hysterical Psychosis in Statu Nascendi»), Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, XI, 1925

Reich, Wilhelm. Der triebhafte Charakter: Eine psychoanalytische Studie zur Pathologie des Ich, Wien: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1925

Reich, Wilhelm. Die Funktion des Orgasmus: Zur Psychopathologie und zur Soziologie des Geschlechtslebens, Wien: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1927

Reich, Wilhelm. Sexualerregung und Sexualbefriedigung, Münster Verlag, 1929

Reich, Wilhelm. Geschlechtsreife, Enthaltsamkeit, Ehemoral: Eine Kritik der bürgerlichen Sexualreform, 1930

Reich, Wilhelm. Der Sexuelle Kampf der Jugend, Sexpol Verlag, 1932 (pamphlet)

Reich, Wilhelm. Der Einbruch der Sexualmoral: Zur Geschichte der sexuellen Ökonomie, Kopenhagen: Verlag für Sexualpolitik, 1932, 2nd edition 1935

Reich, Wilhelm. Charakteranalyse: Technik und Grundlagen für studierende und praktizierende Analytiker, Berlin, 1933

Reich, Wilhelm. Massenpsychologie des Faschismus, 1933

Reich, Wilhelm. «Dialektischer Materialismus und Psychoanalyse», Kopenhagen: Verlag für Sexualpolitik, 1934 (pamphlet)

Reich, Wilhelm. Was ist Klassenbewußtsein?: Über die Neuformierung der Arbeiterbewegung, 1934

Bibliographic material present in the microfilms (Wilhelm Reich Collected Works Microfilms) in PDF form, made available by Eva Reich.

McF 601 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 2, 1921

McF 709 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse Band 7, 1921

McF 702 Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, Band 8, 1921-1922

McF 710 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse Band 6, 1922

McF 703 Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, Band 9, 1922-1923

McF 602 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 4, 1923

McF 704 Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, Band 10, 1923-1924

McF 603 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 5, 1924

McF 705 Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, Band 10, 1923-1924

McF 711 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Band 10, 1924

McF 604 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 6, 1925

McF 101 Der Triebhafte Charakter, Eine Psychoanalytische Studie zur Pathologie desich, 1925

McF 712 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Band 11, 1925

McF 605 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 7, 1926

McF 606 Index to Volumes 1-10 of International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, p. 94-95

McF 713 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Band 12, 1926

McF 706 Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, Band 13, 1926-1927

McF 611 Internationale Zeitsmmift fur Psychoanalyse, Band XIII, Heft 2, 1927

McF 612 Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalytische Padagogik, Band I, Heft 789, 1927

McF 707 Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, 1927

McF 103 Die Funktion des Orgasmus, 1927

McF 714 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Band 13, 1927

McF 613 Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalytische Padagogik, Band II, Heft 456, 1928

McF 614 Almanach, 1928

McF 715 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Band 14, 1928

McF 615 Die Psychoanalytische Bewegung, Band I, Heft 2, 1929

McF 616 Die Psychoanalytische Bewegung, Band I, Heft 4, 1929

McF 716 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Band 15, 1929

McF 607 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 11, 1930

McF 102 Geschlechtsreife, Enthaltsamkeit, Ehemoral, 1930

McF 717 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Band 16, 1930

McF 708 Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, 1931

McF 608 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 12, 1931

McF 718 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, volume 17, 1931

McF 609 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 13, 1932

McF 617 Der Sexuelle Kampf der Jugend, 1932

McF 719 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Band 18, 1932

McF 610 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 14, 1933

McF 104 Charaktaranalyse, 1933

McF 105 Massenpsychologie des Faschismus, 1933

McF 103 Die Funktion des Orgasmus, 1927

Die Entdeckung des Orgons (German Manuscripts)

DIE ENTDECKUNG DES ORGONS, Erster Teil DIE FUNKTION DES ORGASMUS

Reich, Wilhelm. Die Funktion des Orgasmus: Zur Psychopathologie und zur Soziologie des Geschlechtslebens, Wien: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1927

The Function of the Orgasm

Ibsen’s Peer Gynt(German Manuscripts)

IBSEN’S PEER GYNT: Libidokonflikte und Wahngebilde

Ibsen’s «Peer Gynt»

Early Writings– Volume One includes «Libidinal Conflicts and Delusions in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt» (1920).

Part III

BIO-ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTS, BIONS, AND THE DISCOVERY OF ORGONE ENERGY: 1934 – 1939

«The discovery of orgone energy was made through consistent, thorough study of energy functions, first in the realm of the psyche, and later in the realm of biological functioning.»

— From: Ether, God and Devil

Reich traveled to Scandinavia where, despite incessant bureaucratic interferences, he managed to continue his research. In Oslo, while continuing to teach and develop his therapeutic techniques, Reich undertook a series of laboratory experiments to verify the existence of a physical biological energy expressed in the emotions.

Using human subjects, Reich was able to demonstrate a charge at the skin’s surface directly related to feelings of pleasure and anxiety. This charge would increase when a subject felt pleasure, and decrease during feelings of unpleasure. From this, Reich concluded that pleasure is the movement of biological energy toward the periphery of the organism, while anxiety is the movement of this energy toward the center. Reich initially assumed that biological excitation of living matter might be electrical, but the results of these experiments indicated otherwise. For example, the biological energy that Reich measured moved in a slow, wave-length fashion, in contrast to electromagnetic energy which moves much faster. Reich wondered if similar energy processes existed in more basic life forms.

This led Reich to conduct laboratory experiments in which he used time-lapse motion picture equipment affixed to microscopes with over 3000x magnification to record the development of protozoa. During these experiments Reich discovered that under certain conditions, sterilized and unsterilized substances–grass, blood, sand, charcoal and foodstuffs–disintegrate into pulsating vesicles that often exhibit a bluish color. Reich observed internal motility in these vesicles, an effect of energy. He called these vesicles «bions,» after the Greek word for «life.»

Reich’s research also revealed that certain bions exhibited a strong radiation phenomena, and that these bions could kill bacteria and cancer cells. This radiation confirmed the existence of an energy that did not obey any known laws of electricity or magnetism. Reich called this energy «orgone,» because its discovery had evolved from his investigation of the orgasm function, and because this energy could charge organic materials. When Reich published his findings, the scientific and psychiatric communities responded with a vicious year-long attack in the Norwegian press.

In the wake of this attack, and the inevitability of a second world war, Reich began to look to America as the future home for his work. Theodore Wolfe, M.D.–a representative of American psychosomatic medicine who had come to Oslo to study with Reich–was instrumental in arranging for Reich’s emigration. When Reich was invited to teach at the New School for Social Research in New York City, the U.S. State Department finally issued him a visa in the summer of 1939. On August 19, Reich sailed for America on the last ship to leave Norway before World War II broke out.

1935-1936 The bio-electrical nature of sexuality and anxiety

1936-1939 Orgone energy vesicles (bions)

1936-1939 Origin of the cancer cell from bionously disintegrated animal tissue, and the organization of protozoa from bionously disintegrated moss and grass

1937 T-bacilli in sarcoma

1939 Discovery of the bio-energy (Orgone Energy) in sand packet (SAPA) bions

McF 618 Zettschrift fur Politische Psychologie und Sexualokonomie, Band 1, Heft 3-4 1934

Reich, Wilhelm. Psychischer Kontakt und vegetative Strömung, 1935

Reich, Wilhelm. Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf: Zur sozialistischen Umstrukturierung des Menschen, 1936

Reich, Wilhelm. Experimentelle Ergebniße Über Die Elektrische Funktion von Sexualität und Angst, 1937

Reich, Wilhelm. The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety, 1982

Reich, Wilhelm. Menschen im Staat, 1937

Reich, Wilhelm. Die Bione: Zur Entstehung des vegetativen Lebens, Sexpol Verlag, 1938

The Bion Experiments: On the Origin of Life, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979 (Die Bione: Zur Entstehung des vegetativen Lebens)

Journals

(ed.) Zeitschrift für Politische Psychologie und Sexualökonomie (Journal for Political Psychology and Sex-Economy), using pseudonym Ernst Parell, 1934–1938

(ed.) Klinische und Experimentelle Berichte (Clinical and Experimental Report), c. 1937–1939

Bibliographic material present in the microfilms (Wilhelm Reich Collected Works Microfilms) in PDF form, made available by Eva Reich.

McF 109 Dialektischer Materialismus und Pychoanalyse, 1934

McF 111 Zeitschrift für Politische Psychologie und Sexualokonomie, Band 1, Heft l, 1934

McF 112 Zeitschrift fur Politische Psychologie und Sexualokonomie Band 1, Heft 2, 1934

McF 625 Sex-Pol Politisch-Psychologische Schriftenreihe no.1, 1934

McF 620 Zettschrift fur Politische Psychologie und Sexualokonomie, Band 2, Heft 2(6), 1935

McF 621 Zettschrift fur Politische Psychologie und Sexualokonomie, Band 2, Heft 3(7), 1935

McF 107 Der Einbruch Der Sexualmoral. (2nd ed.), 1935

McF 626 Sex-Pol Politisch-Psychologische Schriftenreihe no. 3a, 1935

McF 108 Psychischer Kontakt und Vegetative Strömung, 1935

McF 110 Religion, Kirche, Religionsstreit in Deutschland, 1935

McF 622 Zettschrift fur Politische Psychologie und Sexualokonomie, Band 3, Heft 1-2 (8-9), 1936

McF 623 Diagramms

McF 106 Die Sexualitat im Kulturkampf, 1936

McF 627 Sex-Pol Klinische und experimentelle Berichte no. 4, 1937

McF 628 Sex-Pol Klinische und Experimentelle Berichte no. 5, 1937

McF 624 Zettschrift fur Politische Psychologie und Sexualokonomie, Band 5, Heft 1(15) 1938

McF 201 Die Bione, 1938

McF 202 The Bions, on the Gernesis of vegetative life. Die Bione (English translation)

The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety

Original Publication: Sexpol Verlag – 1937

Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1982

«My experimental studies during the years 1934 to 1938 gradually and logically centered on a single basic problem: how deeply is the function of the orgasm rooted in biology? This book is composed of three studies from that period. They follow one another in a logical sequence which reflects the various stages of progress made in the development of orgone biophysics, a process which began in 1934 when I achieved a breakthrough into the biological foundation of psychoneuroses.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from the Foreword – 1945)

The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety is composed of three essential contributions from this period: «The Orgasm as an Electrophysiological Discharge,» «Sexuality and Anxiety,» and «The Bioelectrical Function of Sexuality and Anxiety.» Reich’s detailed report on the physiological experiments undertaken in Norway in 1935-36 in which he sought proof for his orgasm theory. They were compiled by Reich in 1945 and are presented here for the first time with his notes and corrections.

The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety «can with good reason be understood as a logical continuation of Character Analysis,» Reich wrote in the Foreword. «It is the character analysis of the areas of biological functioning.» Today, when emotions are viewed as psychological–that is, non-physical–phenomena, Reich’s clinical and experimental investigation of human sexuality gives revolutionary insight into the basically physical nature of emotional life.»

The Bion Experiments

On the Origin of Life

Original Publication: Sexpol Verlag – 1938

Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1979

«It is with some trepidation that I make known these experimental findings on the origin of vegetative life. It is not that I am worried about the correctness or accuracy of the data given, even though here or there an insignificant error or an awkward phrase may have crept in. All the findings described in this comprehensive, but not definitive, report were confirmed hundreds of times. I have omitted any observations that were not verified and I have gone to great lengths to describe the method as precisely as possible, so that it can be tested by others.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from Preface)

The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life–first published as Die Bione in 1938 in a limited German edition–represents a cornerstone in Reich’s scientific development. This work documents a series of experiments conducted in Oslo in 1936-37 in which Reich applied the formula of tension→ charge→discharge→ relaxation, derived from his research on the function of the orgasm, to the microscopic biological world, thereby opening a route to the understanding of the origin of life. This work is divided into two parts: the first, a detailed report on the experiments; the second, Reich’s conclusions and an exposition of his research method.

The Bion Experiments provides a unique insight into Reich’s scientific method, and makes available the experimental material essential to understanding his later work with cancer and orgone biophysics.

Die Bione (German Manuscripts)

The Bion Experiments

Part IV

REICH’S FIRST YEARS IN AMERICA: (1939 – 1947)

«There was no doubt of the existence of an energy possessing extraordinarily high biological activity. It remained only to discover what its nature was and how it could be measured.»

— from The Cancer Biopathy

Reich settled in the Forest Hills section of New York City; taught courses at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan («Character Formation: Biological and Sociological Aspects» and «Clinical Problems in Psychosomatic Medicine»); began publishing his books in English; trained American physicians in his therapeutic techniques; and pursued his investigations of orgone energy. This research included:

treating cancer mice with bion injections
developing a cancer serum from bion cultures
finding a way to isolate and collect orgone energy from bions in order to study its functions and make it more usable

And since orgone radiation from the bions seemed to permeate all substances, Reich was constantly confronting questions about the origins of this energy. Where did orgone energy come from?

To isolate and collect orgone from bion cultures, Reich relied on the results of several laboratory experiments. These experiments demonstrated that organic or non-metallic materials–such as cotton, wool or plastic–attract, absorb, and hold the energy. Metallic materials –like steel and iron–attract the energy and quickly reflect it in both directions. On the basis of these findings, Reich constructed small boxes with alternating layers of organic and metallic materials, with the inner walls lined with metal. By looking through a specially designed lens inserted into a wall of each box, one could observe orgone radiation from the bions within the enclosure. These «orgone energy accumulators» also revealed an unexpected phenomenon: the appearance of orgone radiation inside the enclosure even without the presence of bion cultures.

Reich now faced the daunting possibility of having discovered a biological energy that seemed to be everywhere, while still pondering the perplexing question of where orgone energy originated. In Maine, he would soon find the answers.

In the summer of 1940, during a camping trip to New England, Reich discovered the beautiful Rangeley Lakes region. While staying in a small cabin on Mooselookmeguntic Lake (the largest of the Rangeley Lakes), Reich’s observations of the night skies verified the existence of orgone energy in the atmosphere. This discovery of atmospheric orgone was a major thrust forward in Reich’s research. And with its low humidity and clean air, Reich realized that the Rangeley region provided an ideal environment for this work. (In contrast, since water and high humidity absorb and hold orgone energy, the summer weather in New York City made it difficult to carry out his experimentation.) Later that year, Reich purchased a cabin on Mooselookmeguntic Lake where he returned in the summers to continue his experiments.

Meanwhile, back in New York, the accumulator quickly became an increasingly vital tool for Reich’s research. The accumulator’s organic layers attracted the atmospheric energy which was directed inward by the metal layers. Any energy reflected outward by the metal layers was immediately re-absorbed by the organic material, attracted back to the metal, and directed toward the inside of the box. The result was a higher concentration of orgone energy inside the box. The more layers, the stronger the concentration.

This accumulation of energy can be verified in a number of ways. For example, a constant temperature difference exists between the air above the box and the surrounding air, contradicting the Second Law of Thermodynamics. There also exists a slower electroscopic discharge rate in the higher orgone concentration inside the accumulator than is demonstrated by an electroscope outside the box.

The accumulator now allowed Reich to test the effects of orgone radiation on cancer mice without resorting to bion injections, by simply placing the mice inside the metal-lined enclosure. Because his results with cancer mice were so promising, Reich decided to test the effects of orgone radiation on humans. He constructed accumulators large enough for a person to sit in, and in 1941 began experimental treatments with cancer patients.

They were all terminal cases. Reich promised no cure nor charged any money, as shown by the affidavit that his patients and/or their family members were required to sign:

«I state herewith that I came to see Dr. Wilhelm Reich for possibly helping the case of my _____ who suffers from cancer. I came because I was told of the experiments that Dr. Reich has made with cancer mice and human beings. Dr. Reich did not promise me any cure, did not charge any money, and told me that only during the last few months has he tried the orgone radiation on human begins who suffer from cancer. Death or abscesses could occur as a consequence of the disease. I told Dr. Reich that the physicians have given up the case of my _____ as hopeless. Should death or abscesses occur during the time of the experiment, it will not be because of the treatment.» (The Cancer Biopathy)

Over a period of time, the patients showed marked improvement: relief of pain, healthier blood condition, weight gain, and the shrinkage and elimination of tumors. Despite these positive results, the patients died, reinforcing Reich’s conviction that cancer is a bio-energetic shrinking following emotional resignation, and that the tumors themselves are not the disease, but merely a local manifestation of a deeper systemic disorder. Once again, Reich’s focus became prevention.

FBI files about Wilhelm Reich

On 12 December 1941, five days after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the day after Germany declared it was at war with the United States, Reich was arrested in his home at 2 a.m. by the FBI and taken to Ellis Island, where he was held for over three weeks. He identified himself at the time as the Associate Professor of Medical Psychology, Director of the Orgone Institute. He was at first left to sleep on the floor in a large hall, surrounded by members of the fascist German American Bund, who Reich feared might kill him, but when his psoriasis returned he was transferred to the hospital ward.He was questioned about several books the FBI found when they searched his home, including Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Trotsky’s My Life, a biography of Lenin and a Russian alphabet book for children. After threatening to go on hunger strike he was released, on 5 January, but his name remained on the «key figures list» of the Enemy Alien Control Unit, which meant he was placed under surveillance.

Turner writes that it seems Reich was the victim of mistaken identity; there was a William Reich who ran a bookstore in New Jersey, which was used to distribute Communist material. The FBI acknowledged the mistake in November 1943 and closed Reich’s file. In 2000 it released 789 pages of the file:

Federal Bureau of Investigation. «Dr. Wilhelm Reich» (also see here).

In November 1942, Reich purchased an old farm a few miles from his cabin in Maine. The 160-acre property of fields, forests, and hills bordered a small lake known as Dodge Pond, and commanded stunning views in all directions. Reich called the property «Orgonon,» and envisioned it as a permanent home for his work.

In 1945, a Student Laboratory was built at Orgonon. Three years later, construction began on the Orgone Energy Observatory which included additional laboratory facilities, Reich’s library and study, and outdoor observation decks to observe and study atmospheric orgone energy phenomena. Funding for these buildings and for Reich’s research came exclusively from his own income as a physician and teacher, and from loans and contributions from students.

By 1947, after less than eight years in America, Reich’s work was attracting considerable interest as orgone research expanded into new areas of psychiatry, medicine and biophysics. One of Reich’s most significant new developments at Orgonon was the discovery of a motor force in orgone energy from the atmosphere, a scientific breakthrough with enormous practical implications.

As Orgonon continued to grow, Reich’s dream for a home for his work was slowly becoming a reality. Sadly, it was a dream that would not be fulfilled.

1940 Discovery of Orgone Energy in the atmosphere

1940 Invention of the Orgone Energy Accumulator

1944 Invention of the Orgone Energy Field Meter

1940-1945 Experimental orgone therapy of the cancer biopathy

1945 Experimental investigation of primary biogenesis (Experiment XX)

1945 Method of Orgonomic Functionalism

1947 Emotional Plague of man as a disease of the bio-energetic equilibrium

McF 629 Sex-Pol Klinische und Experimentelle Berichte no. 7, 1939

Reich, Wilhelm. Die Entdeckung des Orgons Erster Teil: Die Funktion des Orgasmus, 1942

Reich, Wilhelm. The Discovery of Orgone, Volume 1: The Function of the Orgasm, 1942 (Die Entdeckung des Orgons Erster Teil: Die Funktion des Orgasmus, translated by Theodore P. Wolfe)

Reich, Wilhelm (1942). The Function of the Orgasm.

Reich, Wilhelm. Rede an den kleinen Mann, 1945

Reich, Wilhelm. Character Analysis, (Charakteranalyse, translated by Theodore P. Wolfe) 1945

Reich, Wilhelm. The Sexual Revolution, (Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf, translated by Theodore P. Wolfe) 1945

The Mass Psychology of Fascism, 1946 (Massenpsychologie des Faschismus, translated by Theodore P. Wolfe)

Bibliographic material present in the microfilms (Wilhelm Reich Collected Works Microfilms) in PDF form, made available by Eva Reich.

McF 630 Sexualokonomiske meddeleiser no. 3, 1942

McF 403 The Function of the Orgasm. 1942

McF 515 T.P. Wolfe. Emotional Plague versus Orgone Biophysics 1946

McF 631 Listen Little Man, 1948

McF 203 International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research, Vol. 1. 1942

(ed.) International Journal of Sex-Economy & Orgone Research, 1942–1947

(ed.) Annals of the Orgone Institute, 1947–1949

Bibliographic material present in the microfilms (Wilhelm Reich Collected Works Microfilms) in PDF form, made available by Eva Reich.

McF 204 International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research, Vol. 1. 1943

McF 205 International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research, Vol. 1. 1944

McF 206 International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research, Vol. 1. 1945

McF 207 Annals of the Orgone Institute, Number 1. 1947

01 ORGONE PHYSICS

01 Wilhelm Reich. Thermical and Electroscopic Orgonometry 1941

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Number 1 1944

Interval 6-21 Pag. 1-16

02 Wilhelm Reich. Orgonotic Pulsation I 1944

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Numbers 2 3 1944

Interval 1-54 Pag. 97-150

03 Notes. The Orgone Energy Early Scientific Literature 1944

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Numbers 2 3 1944

Interval 95-101 Pag. 191-197

04 Wilhelm Reich. Orgone Biophysics, Mechanistic Science and Atomic Energy 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Numbers 2 3 1945

Interval 3-6 Pag. 129-132

05 Wilhelm Reich. Experimental Demonstration of Physical Orgone Energy 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Numbers 2 3 1945

Interval 7-24 Pag. 133-146

06 Notes Editorial. Is the Orgone Atomic Energy? 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Numbers 2 3 1945

Interval 80-81 Pag. 202-202

02 ORGONE BIOLOGICS

01 Walter Frank. Vegetoterapy 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 1 1942

Interval 70-92 Pag. 65-87

02 Wilhelm Reich. The Discovery of the Orgone 1941

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 2 1942

Interval 12-36 Pag. 108-130

03 Wilhelm Reich. The Carcinomatous Shrinking Biopathy 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 2 1942

Interval 37-61 Pag. 131-155

04 Mary Robert. Shock Therapy as a Subjective Experience 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 2 1942

Interval 62-68 Pag. 156-162

05 Wilhelm Reich. The Natural Organization of Protozoa from Orgone Energy Vesicles (Bions) 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 3 1942

Interval 1-33 Pag. 193-255

06 William F. Thorburn. Mechanistic Medicine and the Biopathies 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 3 1942

Interval 65-66 Pag. 257-258

07 Theodore P. Wolfe. A Sex-Economic Note on Academic Sexology 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 3 1942

Interval 67-73 Pag. 259-265

08 Wilhelm Reich. Experimental Orgone Therapy of the Cancer Biopathy (1932-1943)

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Number 1 1943

Interval 6-96 Pag. 1-92

09 Lucille Bellamy. Vegetotherapeutic Gymnastics 1943

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Numbers 2 3 1943

Interval 49-55 Pag. 141-147

10 Theodore P. Wolfe. Misconceptions of Sex-Economy as Evidenced in Book Reviews 1943

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Numbers 2 3 1943

Interval 74-80 Pag. 166-172

11- Carl Arnold. A Theory of Living Functioning 1944

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Number 1 1944

Interval 22-42 Pag. 17-37

12 Notes Editorial. Rational and Irrational Discussion of Orgone Biophysics 1944

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Number 1 1944

Interval 79-84 Pag. 74-79

13 Theodore P. Wolfe. The Stumbling Block in Medicine and Psychiatry1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Numbers 2 3 1944

Interval 69-91 Pag. 175-187

14 Wilhelm Reich. Anorgonia in the Carcinomatous ShrinkingBiopathy 1944

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Number 1 1945

Interval 3-35 Pag. 1-33

15 Notes Editorial. Cold Facts. Orgone Accumulator 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Number 1 1945

Interval 102-102 Pag. 100-100

16 Notes Editorial. Free Love 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Number 1 1945

Interval 106-106 Pag. 104-104

17 Notes Editorial. Orgonotic Contact. Letter from a Reader 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Numbers 2 3 1945

Interval 81-82 Pag. 203-204

18 Wilhelm Reich. From the History of Orgone Biophysics 1947

McF 207 Annals of the Orgone Institute, Number 1. 1947

Interval 58-67 Pag. 108-126

03 ORGONE BIOLOGICS 2. A case History

01 Wilhelm Reich. The Orgasm Reflex. A case History 1942.

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 1 1942

Interval 60-69 Pag. 55-64

02 Carl Arnold. The Treatment of a Depression. 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 2 1942

Interval 69-76 Pag.163-170

03 Wilhelm Reich. The Masochistic Character (1933)

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Number 1 1944

Interval 43-66 Pag.38-61

04 Walter Hoppe. My First Experiences the Orgone Accumulator 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Numbers 2 3 1945

Interval 78-79 Pag. 200-201

04 ORGONOMIC FUNCTIONALISM

01 Theodore P. Wolfe. The Sex-Economic Concept of Psychosomatic Identity and Antithesis 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 1 1942

Interval 38-59 Pag. 33-54

02 Wilhelm Reich. Biophysical Functionalism and Mechanistic Natural Science 1941

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 2 1942

Interval 1-11 Pag. 97-107

03 Wilhelm Reich. Orgonotic Pulsation I 1944

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Numbers 2 3 1944

Interval 1-54 Pag. 97-150

04 Wilhelm Reich. The Living Productive Power, Working Power of Karl Marx (1936) 1944

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Numbers 2 3 1944

Interval 55-68 Pag. 151-164

05 R. H. Attkin. Mechanistic Thinking as the Original Sin 1947

McF 207 Annals of the Orgone Institute, Number 1. 1947

Interval 51-54 Pag. 95-101

05 CHILDREN

01 Ernst Walter. A Talk with a Sensible Mother 1936

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 1 1942

Interval 16-22 Pag. 11-17

02 Paul Martin. Sex-Economic Upbringing 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 1 1942

Interval 23-37 Pag. 18-32

03 Editorial. Physiological Anchoring of Psychic Conflicts 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 2 1942

Interval 83-85 Pag. 177-179

04 A. S. Neills. The Problem Teacher I 1939

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 2 1942

Interval 86-90 Pag. 180-184

05 A. S. Neills. The Problem Teacher II 1939

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 3 1942

Interval 90-96 Pag. 282-288

06 A High School Student. The Sexual Behavior of Adolescents in a New York Borough 1943

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Numbers 2 3 1943

Interval 61-65 Pag. 153-157

07 Theodore P. Wolfe. A Sex-economistAnswers I 1943

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Numbers 2 3 1943

Interval 66-73 Pag. 158-165

08 Paul Martin. Reviews Which Kind Progressive Education 1943

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Numbers 2 3 1943

Interval 83-96 Pag. 175-188

09 A .S. Neills. The Problem Teacher III 1939

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Numbers 2 3 1943

Interval 106-112 Pag. 198-204

10 Theodore P. Wolfe. A Sex-economist Answers II 1943

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Number 1 1944

Interval 67-75 Pag. 62-70

11 Theodore P. Wolfe. Reviews The Boy Sex Offender 1943

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Number 1 1944

Interval 87-91 Pag. 82-86

12 A. S. Neills. The Problem Teacher IV 1939

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Number 1 1944

Interval 92-101 Pag. 87-96

13 Paul Marting. Sex Education in the Schools

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Numbers 2 3 1944

Interval 92-94 Pag. 188-190

14 Notes. Some Observations of Children 1944

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Numbers 2 3 1944

Interval 101-107 Pag. 197-203

15 A. S. Neills. That Dreadful School I 1944

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Numbers 2 3 1944

Interval 124-136 Pag. 220-232

16 A. S. Neills. Coeducation and Sex 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Number 1 1945

Interval 56-60 Pag. 54-58

17 Felicia Saxe. A case History 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Number 1 1945

Interval 61-73 Pag. 59-71

18 Alexander Lowen. Adolescence A Problem in Sex-Economy 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Number 1 1945

Interval 74-97 Pag. 72-95

19 Notes Editorial. Sexuality Before the Law 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Number 1 1945

Interval 102-105 Pag. 100-103

20 A. S. Neills. That Dreadful School II 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Number 1 1945

Interval 117-130 Pag. 115-128

21 Elena Calas. Studying the Children’s Place 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Numbers 2 3 1945

Interval 34-50 Pag. 156-172

22 Lucille Bellamy Denison. The child and his Struggle 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Numbers 2 3 1945

Interval 51-68 Pag. 173-190

23 A. S. Neills. That Dreadful School III 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Numbers 2 3 1945

Interval 107-130 Pag. 228-251

24 Felicia Saxe. Armored Human Beings versus the Healthy Child 1947

McF 207 Annals of the Orgone Institute, Number 1. 1947

Interval 21-40 Pag. 35-72

25 Ilse Ollendorff. About Self-Regulation in a Healthy Childe 1847

McF 207 Annals of the Orgone Institute, Number 1. 1947

Interval 44-49 Pag. 81-90

26 Elizabeth Tyson. The Armored Teacher 1947

McF 207 Annals of the Orgone Institute, Number 1. 1947

Interval 49-51 Pag. 91-94

06 EMOTIONAL PLAGUE AND SOCIETY

01 Wilhelm Reich. Biophysical Functionalism and Mechanistic Natural Science 1941

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 2 1942

Interval 1-11 Pag. 97-107

02 Paul Martin. The Dangers of Freedom 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 3 1942

Interval 34-45 Pag. 226-137

03 Stefan Hirning. The Place of Literature in the cultural Struggle 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 3 1942

Interval 46-54 Pag. 238-246

04 Wilhelm Reich. Character and Society 1936

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 3 1942

Interval 55-64 Pag. 247-256

05 Gunnar Leinstikoy. The Fascist newspaper campaign in Norway 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 3 1942

Interval 74-81 Pag. 266-273

06 Wilhelm Reich. Give Responsibility to Vitally Necessary Work 1943

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Numbers 2 3 1943

Interval 1-4 Pag. 93-97

07 Wilhelm Reich. The Biological Miscalculation in Human Struggle for Freedom 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Numbers 2 3 1943

Interval 5-29 Pag. 97-121

08 Wilhelm Reich. Work Democracy Versus Politics 1943

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Numbers 2 3 1943

Interval 30-48 Pag. 122-140

09 Dorothy I. Post. Freedom is not so Dangerous 1943

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Numbers 2 3 1943

Interval 56-60 Pag. 148-152

10 Harry Obermayer. Reviews Social reconstruction Without Sex-Economy 1943

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 2 Numbers 2 3 1943

Interval 81-83 Pag. 173-175

11 Theodore P. Wolfe. On a Common Motive for Defamation 1944

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Number 1 1944

Interval 76-78 Pag. 71-73

12 Harry Obermayer. Reviews The Psychology of Fascism 1944

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 3 Number 1 1944

Interval 86-87 Pag. 81-82

13 Wilhelm Reich. Some Mechanism of the Emotional Plague 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Number 1 1945

Interval 36-55 Pag. 34-53

14 Gladys Meyer. Review The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Number 1 1945

Interval 107-116 Pag. 105-114

15 Wilhelm Reich. The Development of the Authoritarian State Apparatus from Rational Social interrelationships 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Numbers 2 3 1945

Interval 25-33 Pag. 147-155

16 Gladys Meyer. The Making of Fascists 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Numbers 2 3 1945

Interval 69-77 Pag. 191-199

17 Wilhelm Reich. Work Democracy in Action 1944

McF 207 Annals of the Orgone Institute, Number 1. 1947

Interval 6-21 Pag. 4-35

18 Anthony I. Swaroswsky. Thoughts on the Sex Behavior of American Soldiers in the Eto 1947

McF 207 Annals of the Orgone Institute, Number 1. 1947

Interval 54-57 Pag. 101-107

19 T.P. Wolfe. Emotional Plague versus Orgone Biophysics 1948

McF 515 T.P. Wolfe. Emotional Plague versus Orgone Biophysics 1948

Interval 1-26 Pag. 1-49

07 THE ORGONE INSTITUTE

01 Wilhelm Reich About the History and the Activities of our Institute 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 1 1942

Interval 6-15 Pag. 1-10

02 Outline of Present Activities of the Orgone Institute 1945

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 4 Number 1 1945

Interval 98-101 Pag. 96-99

03 The Annals of The Orgone institute 1947

McF 207 Annals of the Orgone Institute, Number 1. 1947

Interval 5-5 Pag. 3

04 Walter Hoppe. Sex-economy and Orgone Research in Palestine 1947

McF 207 Annals of the Orgone Institute, Number 1. 1947

Interval 40-44 Pag. 73-81

The Function of the Orgasm

The Discovery of the Orgone – Vol. 1

Original Publication: Orgone Institute Press – 1942 and 1948

Banned from circulation by U.S. Federal Court order – 1954

Burned under FDA supervision – 1956 and 1960

Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1961

«It is a good idea to write scientific biographies in one’s younger years, at an age when one has not yet lost certain illusions regarding the readiness of one’s fellows to accept revolutionary knowledge. If one still has these illusions, one is able to cleave to the basic truths, to resist all the various temptations to compromise or sacrifice clear-cut findings to laziness in thinking or to the need for peace of mind.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from the Introductory Survey)

This was Reich’s first published book in the United States, which he wrote specifically to introduce his work to an American audience. He summarizes his clinical and scientific work with the human organism over a period of twenty years from its roots in the Vienna Seminar on Sexology and his first contact with Sigmund Freud, to his laboratory experiments in Oslo which confirmed his orgasm theory and led to the discovery of a radiating biological energy, the orgone.

The discovery of orgone energy was the result of a consistent clinical investigation of the concept of «psychic energy,» at first in the realm of psychiatry. Experience has shown beyond any doubt that the knowledge of emotional functions of the biological energy is indispensable for the understanding of its physiological and physical functions. The biological emotions which govern the psychic processes are in themselves the immediate expression of a strictly physical energy, the cosmic orgone.

The Function of the Orgasm is an excellent presentation of the whole development of Reich’s work in its rapid progression from the realm of psychology into that of biology.

Character Analysis

(Third, enlarged edition – 1949)

Original Publication: Sexpol Verlag (1933) and Orgone Institute Press (1945 & 1949)

Banned from circulation by U.S. Federal Court order – 1954

Burned under FDA supervision – 1956 and 1960

Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1963

«In the fifteen years since the publication of the first edition, I had to redesign and rewrite our picture of emotional disease. During this time, many important developments took place: ‘character’ became a term signifying typical biological behavior. The ‘emotions,’ more and more, came to mean manifestations of of a tangible bio-energy of the organismic orgone energy. Slowly, we learned to handle it practically by what is now called ‘medical orgone therapy.'»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from the Preface)

In 1933, Reich published Charakteranalyse in German. In 1945, his second edition in English went further, adding the inevitable leap from depth psychology to biology predicted by Freud. Reich’s third, enlarged edition of this classic study of human character includes all of the previously published material–taken between 1928 and 1934, from psychoanalysis to the bioenergetic study of the emotions–and adds a new section expounding Reich’s later discoveries.

This includes three later papers: «The Emotional Plague,» «The Expressive Language of The Living in Orgone Therapy,» and «The Schizophrenic Split,» an extensive case history of a paranoid schizophrenic. This case history will convince the reader that the organismic orgone energy is the physical reality that corresponds to the merely psychological concept of «psychic energy.»

In this enlarged edition, Reich illustrates how his study of character led to a comprehension of the biological basis of neuroses and finally to the discovery of the cosmic orgone energy. Thus, character analysis is taken out of the realm of psychology and put on the firm basis of natural science, in the form of orgone biophysics.

Listen, Little Man!

Illustrated by William Steig

Original Publication: Orgone Institute Press – 1948

Banned from circulation by U.S. Federal Court order – 1954

Burned under FDA supervision – 1956 and 1960

Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1965

«They call you Little Man, or Common Man. They say your day has dawned, the ‘Age of the Common Man.’ You don’t say that, little man. They do, the vice president of great nations, the labor leaders, the repentant sons of the bourgeoisie, the statesmen and philosophers. They give you the future, but they ask no questions about your past. You’ve inherited a terrible past. Your heritage is a burning diamond in your hand. That’s what I have to tell you.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.,

(opening paragraph of Listen, Little Man!)

This is a human, not a scientific document. It was written in the summer of 1946 for the Archives of the Orgone Institute, although there are indications in the Archives that the manuscript evolved between 1943 and 1946. At the time Reich had no intention of publishing it. This work reflects the inner turmoil of a research physician and scientist who had observed the little man for many years and seen, first with astonishment and then with horror, what he does to himself.

Reich’s appeal to the little, average man was a silent response to the gossip and slander that plagued his career. His decision to publish this manuscript was made in 1947 during a concerted effort by various professional organizations and the U.S.. Food and Drug Administration to destroy orgone energy research–not to prove it unsound, but to destroy it by defamation. Reich’s sharp criticism combines with an abiding confidence in the «tremendous unmined treasures» that lie in the depths of human nature, ready to be utilized for the fulfillment of human hopes.

Listen, Little Man! is illustrated with expressive drawings from cartoonist and author William Steig, a friend and supporter of Reich’s, best known today as the author of Shrek, upon which the hit films were based.

Rede an den Kleinen Mann(German Manuscripts)

Listen, Little Man!

The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Original Publication: Sexpol Verlag (1933 & 1934) and Orgone Institute Press (1946)

Banned from circulation by U.S. Federal Court order – 1954

Burned under FDA supervision – 1956 and 1960

Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1969

«The Mass Psychology of Fascism was thought out during the German crisis years, 1930-33. It was written in 1933; the first edition appeared in September of 1933; and the second edition in April of 1934 in Denmark… In 1942 an English source suggested that the book be translated into English. Thus I was confronted with the task of examining the validity of the book ten years after it was written.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from the Preface)

Wilhelm Reich’s classic study, written during the years of the German crisis, is a unique contribution to the understanding of one of the crucial phenomena of our times–fascism. Reich firmly repudiates the concept that fascism is the ideology or action of a single individual or nationality, or any ethnic or political group. He also denies a purely socio-economic explanation as advanced by Marxist ideologists. He understands fascism as the expression of the irrational character structure of the average human being whose primary, biological needs and impulses have been suppressed for thousands of years.

The social function of this suppression and the crucial role played in it by the authoritarian family and the church are carefully analyzed. Reich shows how every form of organized mysticism, including fascism, relies on the unsatisfied orgastic longing of the masses.

The importance of this work today cannot be underestimated. The human character structure that created organized fascist movements still exists, dominating our present social conflicts. If the chaotic agony of our times is ever to be eliminated, we must turn our attention to the character structure that creates it; we must understand the mass psychology of fascism.

Die Massenpsychologie des Fascismus(German Manuscripts)

The Mass Psychology of Fascism

The Sexual Revolution

Toward a Self-Governing Character Structure

Original Publication: Muenster Verlag (1930),
Sexpol Verlag (1936), Orgone Institute Press (1945 & 1949)
Banned from circulation by U.S. Federal Court order – 1954
Burned under FDA supervision – 1956 and 1960
Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1962

«Twenty years have passed since the material in the first part of this book was summarized and published by the Muenster Verlag in Vienna under the title Geschlechtsreife, Enthaltsamkeit, Ehemoral. Twenty years do not count for much in the realm of biology; yet, in the first half of this turbulent twentieth century, human society has endured more misery than during many previous centuries. We may say that, in the last two decades, all the concepts which man has put forward for a clear understanding of his existence have been called into question. Among these concepts none has been more shattered than that of sexual morality, which, scarcely more than thirty years ago, seemed to guide human life in strict unswerving fashion. We are living in the midst of a genuine transvaluation of all values regarding the sexual life of human beings.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from the Preface)

In this book, Wilhelm Reich summarizes the criticism of the prevailing sexual conditions and conflicts as it resulted from his sex-economic medical experiences over a period of years. He demonstrates, by way of individual examples, the general basic traits of the conflicts in present-day sexual living, dealing particularly with the institution of marriage and the revolution in family life, as well as with the problems of infantile and adolescent sexuality. He also presents a detailed and revealing study of the sexual revolution that occurred briefly in Soviet Russia in the first few years of their economic revolution.

«What we are living through,» Reich stated, «is a genuine, deep-reaching revolution of cultural living [which] goes to the roots of our emotional, social and economic existence…The senses of the animal, man, for his natural life functions are awakening from a sleep of thousands of years.»

The Sexual Revolution was first published in English in 1945. This revised fourth edition includes Reich’s prefaces to his earlier editions, as well as all of the other materials that appeared in those earlier editions.

Articles by Reich

The Carcinomatous Shrinking Biopathy

This chapter from The Cancer Biopathy deals specifically with the underlying causes of cancer and shows how the sexual function is connected to this dread disease.

03 Wilhelm Reich. The Carcinomatous Shrinking Biopathy 1942

International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research Volume 1 Number 2 1942

Interval 37-61 Pag. 131-155

Part V

THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION’S CAMPAIGN AGAINST REICH: 1947 – 1957

04 Wilhelm Reich Orgone Energy (OR) Versus Nuclear Energy (NR) – Oranur 1950-1951

«The more success I have, the more I sense that I am in mortal danger. And the more successful I become, the less they will be inclined to spare me. It can hit me at any place and at any time.»

— Diary entry (June 14, 1947)

from American Odyssey

In 1947 an article entitled «The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich» appeared in New Republic magazine. Authored by freelance writer Mildred Edie Brady, it was filled with distortions and innuendos about Reich’s sexual theories and orgone research. Brady’s most inflammatory claim was that Reich was building accumulators of orgone energy «which are rented out to patients who presumably derived orgastic potency from it.»

Implying that Reich was a danger to the public, Brady challenged the medical authorities to take action against him. Two months later, the article was brought to the attention of the Food and Drug Administration. The result was a ten-year campaign by the FDA designed to destroy Reich’s work. The FDA focused on the orgone energy accumulator which Reich and his physicians were using experimentally with patients. Convinced that the accumulator was being fraudulently promoted as a sexual and medical device, FDA agents spent years interviewing Reich’s associates, physicians, students and patients, looking for dissatisfied users. None were ever found.

As the FDA’s investigation continued, so did Reich’s work.

— From: Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust The Oranur Experiment

Comment: Just as the Bions experiment was basic to the discovery of Orgone Biophysical Energy, the discovery of Orgone accumulators was basic to the discovery of Physical Orone Energy, ie, free mass energy in motion in the atmosphere and cosmos. In the same way, the understanding of the Oranur Project is basic to everything that comes forth in the Cosmic Orgone Engineering. The Oranur Project enabled the discovery of DOR Energy.

This 159-page publication first appeared as the entire October 1951 issue of the Orgone Energy Bulletin. In it, Reich documents his 1950-1951 laboratory experiments at Orgonon to test the effects of concentrated orgone energy on nuclear energy. Reich’s principal objective was the «investigation of possible anti-nuclear radiation effects in the atmospheric orgone energy.»

The most critical of these experiments took place in January 1951, when Reich placed a one-milligram needle of radium (procured from the Canadian Radium and Uranium Corporation in New York City) into a small one-layer orgone accumulator that was placed into a 20-layer orgone accumulator that was located inside the metal-lined Orgone Room in the Student Laboratory. The unexpected results of this experiment would be a major leap forward in Reich’s orgone energy research.

The first half of this report comprises Reich’s documentation of his earlier laboratory and field work leading up to the Oranur Experiment.

McF 310 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 4. Oct. 1951

Interval 45-74 Pag. 267-325

06 Wilhelm Reich DOR Removel and Cloud-Busting 1952

McF 314 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 4. Oct. 1952

Interval 3-9 Pag. 171-182

07 Wilhelm Reich. The Blackening Rocks Melanor 1952

McF 315 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 1,2. Mar. 1953

Interval 16-31 Pag. 28-59

11 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. Record Regarding of Oranur 1953

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 69-77 Pag. 123-139

04 Chester Raphael CORE. DOR Sickness. A review of Reich’s Findings 1954

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

Interval 12-16 Pag.20-28

06 Wilhelm Reich DOR Removel and Cloud-Busting 1952

Reich continued to develop new ways to visualize, measure, and harness orgone energy from the atmosphere. The Cloudbuster, for example, was an experimental instrument that could affect weather patterns by altering concentrations of orgone energy in the atmosphere. It comprised a set of hollow metal pipes and cables inserted into water, creating a stronger orgone energy system than that in the surrounding atmosphere. Water, which strongly attracts and absorbs orgone, draws the atmospheric orgone through the pipes. This movement of orgone from a lower to a higher energy system was used by Reich to create clouds and to dissipate them.

Reich used the Cloudbuster to conduct dozens of experiments involving what he called «Cosmic Orgone Engineering (C.O.R.E.).» One of the most notable occurred in 1953. During a long drought that threatened the Maine blueberry crop, several farmers offered to pay Reich if he could bring rain to the parched region. The weather bureau had forecast no rain for several days when Reich began his Cloudbusting operations. Ten hours later, a light rain began to fall. Over the next few days, close to two inches fell. The blueberry crop was saved, and in local newspaper articles the farmers credited Reich.

McF 314 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 4. Oct. 1952

Interval 3-9 Pag. 171-182

02 Wilhelm Reich CORE. DOR Removal, Cloud-Busting, & Fog-Lifting 1954

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 21-29 Pag. 28-44

In February 1954, the FDA filed a Complaint for Injunction against Reich in the Federal Court in Portland, Maine. The Complaint declared that orgone energy does not exist, and asked the Court to prohibit the shipment of accumulators in interstate commerce and to ban Reich’s published literature which they claimed was labeling for the accumulators.

After considerable thought and discussion of this matter, Reich responded with a lengthy letter to Judge John Clifford, explaining that he could not appear in Court, since doing so would allow a Court of law to judge basic scientific research. He wrote:

«Scientific matters can only be clarified by prolonged, faithful bona fide observations in friendly exchange of opinion, never by litigation… Man’s right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be safe, if the word FREEDOM should ever be more than an empty political slogan.

Furthermore, Reich asserted, if his painstakingly elaborated and published findings

«…over a period of 30 years could not convince this administration, or will not be able to convince any other administration of the true nature of the discovery of the Life Energy, no litigation in any court anywhere will ever help to do so. I, therefore, submit, in the name of truth and justice that I shall not appear in court as the ‘defendant’ against a plaintiff who by his mere complaint already has shown his ignorance in matters of natural science.»

Judge Clifford did not accept Reich’s letter as a valid legal response, and on March 19, 1954, a Decree of Injunction was issued on default as if Reich had never responded at all. But the Injunction itself was even more excessive than the initial Complaint:

it ordered orgone energy accumulators and their parts to be destroyed
it ordered all materials containing instructions for the use of the accumulator to be destroyed
it banned a list of Reich’s books containing statements about orgone energy, until such time that all references to orgone energy were deleted

After the initial shock, Reich continued his research, traveling to Arizona to experiment with the Cloudbuster in the dry desert environment. While he was there, and without his knowledge, one of Reich’ students–Dr. Michael Silvert–moved a truckload of accumulators and books from Rangeley, Maine to New York City, a direct violation of the Injunction.

As a result, the FDA charged Reich and Silvert with criminal contempt of court. Following a jury trial, both men were found guilty on May 7, 1956. Reich was sentenced to two years in federal prison, Silvert was sentenced to a year and a day. The Wilhelm Reich Foundation–founded in Maine in 1949 by students and friends to preserve Reich’s Archives and to secure the future of his discovery of the Cosmic Life Energy–was fined $10,000.

While Reich appealed his sentence, the government carried out the destruction of orgone accumulators and literature. In Maine, several boxes of literature were burned, and accumulators and accumulator materials either destroyed or dismantled. In New York City, on August 23, 1956, the FDA supervised the burning of several tons of Reich’s publications in one of the city’s garbage incinerators, including titles that were only to have been banned.

This destruction of literature constitutes one of the most heinous examples of censorship in United States history.

On March 8, 1957, Reich signed his Last Will and Testament. Among its stipulations was the establishment of The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund as the legal entity charged with operating Orgonon as The Wilhelm Reich Museum; protecting, preserving, and transmitting his scientific legacy to future generations; and safeguarding Reich’s Archives.

All appeals denied, on March 12, 1957–two weeks shy of his 60th birthday–Wilhelm Reich was temporarily incarcerated at the Danbury Federal Penitentiary in Connecticut. On March 22, he was taken to the Federal Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He died there of heart failure on November 3, 1957, and was buried at Orgonon.

SPACE.com staffwriter

posted: 05:38 pm ET

16 August 1999

Reich’s Tomb Flanked by Cloudbuster — From: Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Dr. Reich’s remains are interred at Orgonon. The tomb is a short walk from the Orgone Energy Observatory and sits next to one of Dr. Reich’s cloudbusters.

On January 28, 1954, Wilhelm Reich «happened accidentally to observe 2 bright yellow-orange lights moving in front of a mountain range toward a lake.» The encounter was the opening salvo of a «war» with UFOs that would occupy the final phases of Reich’s troubled medical and scientific career.

At the time, Reich — a trained psychoanalyst who had once belonged to Sigmund Freud’s inner Vienna circle — was already facing what he called «emotional and physical misery» caused by his more terrestrial battle with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration over the use of «orgone» — a controversial form of ambient «life energy» that he claimed to have discovered.

Reich found an inexhaustible range of uses for his discovery, touting orgone as everything from the secret of anti-gravity to a tool for weather control (especially rainmaking). Most importantly, he found that he could use orgone to «interfere» with UFOs.

But to the FDA, orgone simply did not exist, rendering Reich’s orgone-based therapies prosecutable under quackery statutes. Even today, 4 decades after the controversy, Reichian therapists claim to be able to manipulate the energy for a wide variety of healing effects — including the cure for cancer -without resorting to drugs, radiation, or chemicals. Instead, Reichians work to build up a current of orgone within the patient’s vicinity in order to strengthen and heal the underlying life force itself.

Nevertheless, Reich’s legal fight with the FDA ended with his death in prison after defying a federalinjunction against the use of orgone for medical purposes.

Whatever the official status of his medical theories, Reich expected a response when he wrote to the U.S. Air Force about his UFO sighting. He reasoned that «the U.S. Air Force is the natural organization in the Western World responsible» for dealing with such phenomena because «it operates in the atmosphere and watches the frontier upward toward outer space.» When the military didn’t deal with his report to his satisfaction, Reich took matters into his own hands.

The Encounter and the Air Force

In his letter to the Air Force — reproduced in his last book Contact With Space — Reich described his sighting as «a brightly shining light» moving from west-to-east through the forest outside Rangeley, Maine. A second, similar phenomenon soon joined the first, both moving steadily in front of Spotted Mountain. He concluded that the objects were not stars due to their course and the mountain intervening between their apparent motion and the sky, but the possibility that they were military vehicles or other objects of a terrestrial type did not seem to occur to him.

At around the same time, Reich’s secretary Ilse Ollendorff also reported seeing «a similar but brighter and bigger, because closer, object.» Like the aerial phenomena observed by Reich, Ollendorff’s sighting hovered in front of a mountain but then «was seen rising once vertically upward, settling down again and then disappearing.»

The Air Force, for its part, was either unaware of Reich’s running battle with the FDA or was intrigued enough by his encounter to overlook the controversy. Lt. Steven J. Hebert, stationed at the Presque Isle Air Force Base, wrote back telling Reich that the «subject officer notified this organization to take whatever action necessary since this unit is interested in investigating unidentified aerial phenomena.»

Hebert enclosed a copy of “Technical Information Sheet Form A” (the Air Force’s UFO reporting questionnaire) for Reich and Ollendorff to fill out and return. As Contact With Space ruefully notes, Reich received the letter only 5 days before the FDA obtained the injunction forbidding the distribution of orgone equipment as medical devices.

Reich returned the questionnaire along with a copy of a short essay «Survey on Ea«, providing background on other unusual occurrences around the Orgonon research facility including the revelation that friends had told Reich «of saucers having been seen over Orgonon in 1951». However, he had taken little personal interest in the reports until 1953 when his discovery of Donald Keyhoe’s book made him wonder whether UFOs — or in his terminology, «Enigma Alpha» or «Ea» — might be propelled by orgone.

The Air Force did not reply, perhaps put off by the impenetrable nature of the «basic Orgonometric equations» included as an appendix to «Survey on Ea«. In the book, Reich includes a rather coyly self-important note saying «not all can be revealed» about his relationship with the Air Force. But there is no evidence in Contact With Space that Reich was in communication with the military until October, a full 6 months later.

Instead, during that time, Reich writes that he busied himself with appealing the FDA injunction and preparing a research trip to Arizona where he hoped to investigate the role played by orgone reactions in the formation of deserts.

Watching for hostile signs in the sky

In looking toward space to explain his sighting, Reich showed himself to be anything but an uncontaminated witness. Like most U.S. citizens in the 1950s, exposed to years of speculation that flying saucers were not native to the Earth, Reich already believed that unknown aerial phenomena were — in his words — most likely «contacts with visitors from outer space.»

Reich was familiar with Donald Keyhoe’s groundbreaking 1953 book Flying Saucers from Outer Space, leaving him predisposed to look for extraterrestrialexplanations for the unknown lights weaving across the sky near his Maine research facility. Moreover, the fact that he had seen “War of the Worlds” only 3 weeks before reporting his sighting was also likely a contributing factor — as Reich called the film «a rather realistic approach to the planetary emergency,» it evidently made quite an impression.

Furthermore, the cultural climate of the 1950s not only predisposed Reich to look beyond the Earth but also to look for evidence that his UFOs were engaged in «warlike» behavior.

The threat of war was in the air, both in Reich’s embattled personal life and in the broader political framework. The Keyhoe book popularized several apparently hostile encounters between Air Force pilots and unidentified aerial phenomena, while no less a personage than General Douglas MacArthur would warn only a year after Reich’s sighting that «all countries on Earth will have to unite to … make a common front against attack by people on other planets.»

With that in mind, the Austrian refugee who had fled to the United States from the Nazis considered it not only a scientific but also a patriotic duty to alert Air Force Intelligence to the encounter at once.

This policy of full disclosure was typical to Reich, who had taken care to keep the White House informed about developments in orgone research since 1951. While his critics point to this as another symptom of what long-time skeptic Martin Gardner called Reich’s «paranoid egoism», Reich himself seems to have considered the matter a «major responsibility» and seems to have downplayed the potential uses of his encounter as a self-promotional vehicle.

Just before the war with the UFOs

In May, however, Reich made an accidental discovery that a few Air Force officers — including General Harold Watson, chief of intelligence at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — would find very interesting.

As Reich was scanning the sky with a «Cloudbuster» — a device he had designed to draw orgone out of the sky in order to induce rain — he saw a star «fade out» in the presence of 3 other witnesses. He pointed the Cloudbuster pipes at a second blinking light, which also faded in brightness. Meanwhile, the first star reasserted itself once the Cloudbuster was pointed away from it.

Reich repeated the experiment three more times in quick succession, reporting identical effects each time. As it was scientifically impossible that his device could have interacted with actual stars — even in orthodox Reichian literature, the Cloudbuster’s range was measured in kilometers not light-years — he concluded that his device had interfered with 2 UFOs.

Having concluded that his Cloudbuster could also function as a «Spacegun», Wilhelm Reich began to outfit his Arizona expedition as though preparing for a war with outer space.

In October 1954, Wilhelm Reich was under siege. Not only had the Food and Drug Administration stripped him of his livelihood, but also almost daily UFO sightings were leaving his friends and family exhausted and frightened.

«There is no doubt that I am at war» with the UFOs, Reich wrote hours after four bright pulsating lights hovered for hours over Orgonon, his research facility in rural Maine. «What seemed only a possibility 1-year ago is certainty now.»

The UFOs had been menacing Orgonon since Reich began experiments with super-charging his «Cloudbuster» weather-control device with small amounts of radioactive material. Reich had learned in May that the Cloudbuster not only apparently pulled rain out of clouds but also drained energy from lights in the sky, making it — in his words — a «Spacegun» effective against UFOs.

Like the Cloudbuster, the Austrian psychiatrist turned «natural scientist» was convinced that UFOs operated on orgone — an ambient energy source that interacts with life and organic matter. Reich’s claims to the contrary, the FDA had determined that orgone did not exist and so had obtained an injunction against any medical treatment purporting to effect cures through orgone manipulation.

However, Reich stayed devoted to the reality of his discovery. He trained the «Spacegun» on 2 aerial objects as they hovered ominously over Orgonon, causing both to retreat. One «disappeared after weakening, waning, and blinking, leading Reich to conclude triumphantly that «tonight, for the first time in the history of man, the war waged for ages by living beings from outer space upon this Earth … was reciprocated.»

As above, so below. On that same day, Reich informed the authorities in Portland that he would resume his orgone-oriented publishing efforts. This defiance would lead to his death in prison less than 3 years later.

An odd meeting with Air Force Intelligence

Convinced that the aliens were waging their «war» against Earth by poisoning its orgone and creating deserts, Reich decided to test his Spacegun in the drought-wracked wastes north of Tucson, AZ. According to his final book Contact With Space, it had not rained in Tucson for 5 years, making the desert a perfect proving ground for both the Cloudbuster’s rainmaking and UFO-weakening abilities.

Meanwhile, in order to share his findings with the Air Force, Reich sent his assistant William Moise ahead to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. As Reich bitterly noted, Orgonon «had received no direct help from the Air Force, financial or otherwise». But he remained eager to keep the military posted on the extraterrestrial-combat uses of orgone.

Moise, however, got a guarded reception at Wright-Patterson. General Harold Watson, chief of Air Force Intelligence, had initially seemed eager to speak with Moise about Reich’s claim to have «disabled» 2 UFOs, even insisting that Moise could arrive late in the day and the 2 men could «continue the conference after supper.»

Traveling cross-country, Moise was concerned that accidental factors could get in the way of the meeting and confirmed his appointment with Watson twice. Still, by the time he got to Dayton, Watson was unavailable due to «unexpected important business.»

Instead, a «Dr. W. H. Byers» and Harry Haberer greeted Moise at the base. Moise hated Byers on first sight, calling him «a man with a flabby handshake and eyes that don’t look at you.» As Watson had expressed concern that a group from the CIA would be visiting that week, it is a tantalizing possibility that Byers was a member of that delegation. Haberer, meanwhile, is known to UFO research as «a crack Air Force public relations man.»

Moise refused to talk to the 2 men and instead waited until the next day when he briefed the base’s deputy commander, who reportedly became «excited» by the revelation of a weapon against UFOs. Haberer and Byers were apparently less impressed but took notes.

The battle of Tucson begins

According to Reich, the Air Force continued its tacit interest in his work, sending numerous jets to fly by his Cloudbusting experiments but making no overt gestures because the Spacegun was «hot because it wasn’t official, and the reason it wasn’t official was because it was so hot.»

When his group arrived in Tucson from heavily-wooded Maine on October 19, they were shocked by the Arizona desert which was apparently much more severe than it is today. «We were impressed by the bare ground, giving a general impression of whiteness, hardness,» Reich wrote. «The river beds had all been dry for about 50 years … No prairie grass was to be seen anywhere.»

Over the next few weeks, the party — composed of Reich, his daughter Eva and son Peter, Moise, and another assistant — suffered almost immediately from dehydration, exhaustion, and general discomfort, all of which they attributed to poisonous «deadly orgone radiation». However, harassment from UFOs was sporadic-but-persistent, leading Reich to theorize that the «thirsty» aerial phenomena were actively fighting his rainmaking efforts.

The researchers fought back throughout November, apparently encouraging a rich growth of winter prairie grass but no rain. Transportation difficulties had forced Reich to leave his supply of radioactive material behind at Orgonon, leaving the cloudbusters at a sharp disadvantage against the UFOs. Without the radioactive charge, Reich’s team could only annoy the lights in the sky but not hinder their inscrutable activity in any real sense.

Meanwhile, the UFOs kept making the researchers miserable. One of Reich’s assistants suffered a «breakdown» while training his cloudbuster on the sky, forcing him to return to his family for a month of recuperation. In his absence, Reich speculated that the man had drawn too much poisonous orgone from a lurking alien object.

By December 7, Reich decided it was time to strengthen his hand by sending for his radioactive hole card — 2 radium needles charged with orgone. After a plane trip marked by misadventure and bad weather, the needles arrived a week later.

«A planetary Valley Forge»

Once Reich had his radium, he was ready to retake the offensive against the UFOs and the desert simultaneously.

«On December 14 about 16:30 hours, a full-scale interplanetary battle came off,» he wrote. «A battle which would have appeared incredible as well as incomprehensible to anyone who knew nothing about the (UFO) problems or who adhered to the illusion» that neither UFOs nor orgone existed.

First, the Orgonon team had to shake off «a special kind of deadly orgone attack» that left them «in very bad shape … sick … dulled, somehow out of balance.» A «tremendous black cloud — looking like smoke from a huge fire» — grew over Tucson, eventually taking on an angry reddish-purple coloration and triggering readings of 100,000 counts-per-minute on Reich’s Geiger counter. All of the researchers «suffered from nausea, quivering, pain in the upper abdomen, and discoloration of movements» while «about a dozen Air Force planes of various kinds» flew over the team’s camp.

Matters of orgone — beneficial or poisonous aside — Reich’s description of the event is reminiscent of a nuclear bomb test: a strong military presence, radiation, smoke, queasiness. However, it is unlikely that the Government would set off a bomb apparently targeted directly on Tucson — a thriving regional center of commerce.

Reich brought his radium needles into contact with the Cloudbusters and started firing away at the cloud to dissipate its power. The operation took about 20 minutes, at which time the cloud had broken up and the Geiger count returned to normal.

It rained 3 weeks later. In the meantime, Reich’s journal is filled with dozens of UFO sightings –«red-white-blue pulsations», «yellow pulsations», «silvery disks», «green-yellow steady» — on which to train his Spacegun sights. Most «grew fainter», were «extinguished» or «blinked out». The grass covering the desert grew to a height of «several inches to a foot deep», encouraging local ranchers to drive cattle into the region in herds.

After a brief side trip to Jacumba, CA, the team headed home to Maine at the end of April, 1955. «Our job in Arizona was done,» Reich said.

He was dead 18 months later, and all available copies of his books were burned by court order. Only a few copies survived, forcing his scattered disciples to rely on private printings of his works -including Contact in Space — for direction.

Cloudbuster — From: Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Three Cloudbusters are on display at the museum: the original prototype and two later models (this one near his tomb, and another inside of the observatory).

Alison Davidson, Borderlands

Waking Times

This article first appeared in Borderlands Magazine (1988, Vol. 44, No. 5, September – October), and is reprinted courtesy of the author. © Alison Davidson and the permission of Borderlands Research.

“There is no proof. There are no authorities whatever. No president, Academy, Court of Law, Congress or Senate on this earth has the knowledge or power to decide what will be the knowledge of tomorrow. There is no use in trying to prove something that is unknown to somebody who is ignorant of the unknown, or fearful of its threatening power. Only the good old rules of learning will eventually bring about understanding of what has invaded our earthly existence.”

The invasion that Reich refers to in his introduction to CONTACT WITH SPACE is the invasion of earth by intelligences from outer space. Very few copies of this remarkable book were made available, and Reich’s extraordinary experiences during this turbulent period have been swept under the carpet by ‘orthodox’ orgonomy.
To speak openly of UFO experiences still invites ridicule or polite smiles of disbelief. Consider then the atmosphere of the mid 1950?s when Reich was not only claiming the existence of space visitors, but carefully documenting his battle with these ‘invaders’, while developing his now well-known Cloudbusting techniques.

Reich termed the space craft Ea – ‘E’ standing for ‘Energy’, ‘a’ for alpha or primordial. Ea also represented ‘Enigma’…

“Ea is a new event without precedent in our lives,” he writes. “Humanity, with the exception of a few philosophers, had no idea of the possibility of visitors from outer space. Earthman had not developed any view, method or scientific tool to cope with the problem. In addition he has developed in his offspring a character structure and a kind of thinking which obstructs the approach to the new fact by way of ridicule, slander and outright threat to the existence of the pioneer of space engineering. Therefore our new approach must start from scratch, as if no science existed at all.”

Reich’s ability to ‘start from scratch’ had characterized his revolutionary approach to psychoanalysis early in his career, long before he left the restrictive climate of Europe to pursue his ideas in ‘free’ America. He is best known for his research into the fundamental life-energy and for his controversial methods of sex therapy. His greatest contribution to real science was his discovery (or re- discovery) of what he called ‘orgone’, the life energy at the very roots of existence. Blockages in the free flow of this energy in the individual caused ‘character armoring’ which inhibited the spontaneous expression of joy and pleasure in life. The nature of this cosmic energy, depending on circumstances, functioned either as a ‘life giving, life furthering, and reproductive force (OR), or in the absence of such conditions, turns into a killer of Life (DOR).”

During his orgonomic research Reich was able to measure this orgone energy and he successfully treated many patients in the orgone accumulator, a specially layered box wherein the life-energy was concentrated. It was this unorthodox method of treatment which brought down the wrath of the Food and Drug Administration upon Reich, an attack which finally secured his imprisonment, and death, in a federal penitentiary.

“Orgone energy does not exist,” the FDA officials said to the Judge. Having declared that Cosmic Energy did not exist, it was obvious that its discoverer must either be a “quack” or a “lunatic”. That, after all, is the rationale of orthodox, mechanistic science chained to its conceptions of a dead universe.

For Reich, the Universe was very much alive and his approach to scientific research was functional, taking into account the subjective perceptions and emotions of the researcher. After all, he writes, “Classical knowledge may all be wrong, such with the perfect Copernican circles, the ellipses of Kepler, the empty space of Einstein, the airgerms of Pasteurian bacteriologists, the atomic nature of the Universe, etc. To see new things from scratch, to expect the impossible to be true, belongs to the emotional equipment of the true pioneering scientist.”
“We shall no longer hang on to the tails of public opinion or to a non- existent authority on matters utterly unknown and strange. We shall gradually become experts ourselves in the mastery of the knowledge of the Future.”

THE FIRST CONTACT“ From the historic Oranur Experiment of 1951, Reich knew that nuclear radioactivity had a deleterious effect upon the living sea of energy in which we all live. From the observations made of the reaction of a milligram of radium put inside an Orgone Energy Accumulator, Reich knew that there was an antagonistic relationship between the energy of life (Ether, Prana, etc…) and the manmade nuclear energy so recently unleashed upon the planet. The effect of the nuclear ‘irritant’ seemed all out of proportion to the physical amount of radioactive material. The distance of this irritating and wildly exciting Orgone anti-Nuclear effect seemed to reach much farther than the actual radioactivity of the nuclear material would indicate. Perhaps, Reich reasoned, the Orgone Energy was a continuum; and this anti-nuclear reaction of the life energy (Oranur) extended and perpetuated itself in a chain reaction fashion far beyond the original limits of the nuclear radiation.” (1)

The development of the Cloudbuster was a response to the aftermath of the Oranur Experiment. Around Reich’s Oranur laboratory near Rangeley, Maine, the atmosphere became polluted with DOR (Deadly Orgone Radiation). The black and bleak DOR clouds were remarkably similar to what would later be called air pollution or smog. These clouds were present even in the midst of sunshine, and where they gathered the atmosphere felt ‘suffocating’, the sky seemed to lose its sparkle and animals and humans felt lethargy and other symptoms of malaise.

Not only were the DOR clouds a noxious presence, but a black powdery substance poured down onto the area, a substance that Reich came to directly associate with the presence of Ea in the skies above Rangeley. It was here that UFOs began to appear, big yellow and reddish pulsating ‘stars’ which were easily discernible from the planets and bluish colored fixed stars.

Previous to this Reich had no experience with UFOs and had never studied the subject. Now he was faced with a direct confrontation. Some nights there would be 3 or 4 Ea hanging in the sky above Orgonon. They would make the atmosphere black, but by mobilizing the cloudbuster Reich was able to clear the air and make the sky blue again. It was under these peculiar conditions that the ‘Spacegun’ came into existence, and the war with Ea began.

“I made actual contact by way of the Cloudbuster with luminous objects in the sky on May 12, 1954…During this hour men on earth saw for the first time in the history of man and his science two “Stars” to the west fade out several times when cosmic energy was drawn from them.” “Easy contact was made on that fateful day with what obviously turned out to be a heretofore unknown type of UFO. I had hesitated for weeks to turn my Cloudbuster pipes toward a “star”, as if I had known that some of the blinking lights hanging in the sky were not planets or fixed stars but SPACE machines. With the fading out of the two “stars”, the cloudbuster had suddenly changed into a SPACEGUN…what had been left of the old world of human knowledge after the discovery of the OR energy 1936-40 tumbled beyond reprieve. Nothing could any longer be considered ‘impossible’. I had directed drawpipes, connected with the deep well toward an ordinary star, and the star had faded out four times.”

Reich had first hesitated on using the spacegun on the Ea, considering the possibility of them being some kind of American craft, but the situation became so intolerable with the noxious OR influence, that he finally decided to. He found the power of the Oranur Spacegun tremendous due to the sensitivity of the OR energy ocean. The energy equilibrium of Ea could be disturbed or even put out of order by withdrawing energy from it directly. The affected Ea seemed at first to struggle, pulsating erratically, then shrink and even fade out completely. But the space visitors seemed to be retaliating by increasing the DOR pollution in the vicinity.

“There was no doubt left as to the purposefulness of the activities of Ea: Energy was being drawn from the planet, with the consequences known now, 1956, far and wide as ‘DOR-emergency’; decay of vegetation, the crumbling of granite rock, a feverish atmosphere. OR energy laws, mostly unknown to us earthmen, were used technically in the Ea operations.”

A detailed report on the Ea problem was forwarded to the American Air Force who appeared to be ‘burningly interested’ in the subject, but not particularly surprised.

To further test the correlations between Ea and the desert forming DOR, Reich and the Cloudbuster crew made their preparations to go to the fully developed desert, and the OROP Desert Expedition was underway.

SURVEY ON Ea. A simple chart Reich made to differentiate between stars and UFOs hovering high in the sky. Certain facts about the appearance of the UFOs such as their noiselessness, their shimmering lights, sometimes bluish in appearance, rotating discs underlying their motion, fell into place with some of the facts Reich knew well from cosmic OR functioning:

The ‘CORE MEN’ (CORE = COSMIC ORGONE ENGINEERS), as he came to call them, apparently were thoroughly conversant with the laws of functioning in the cosmic OR energy ocean.
2. They used cosmic OR energy in propelling their machines.
3. Their ‘blue lights’ were in agreement with the blue color characteristic of all visible OR functions, sky, protoplasm, Aurora, sunspots, the color of OR lumination in vacor tubes, etc.
4. The CORE MEN were obviously riding their space ships on the main OR energy streams in the Universe.
5. Just as space is not empty, light does not ‘come down to us from the stars and the sun’. It is an effect of lumination in the OR energy envelope of the planets. It is a local phenomenon.Therefore, there is theoretically no limit to speed in cosmic space, and the Ea were able to achieve tremendous speeds.DEADLY ORGONE RADIATION Driving across country to Arizona where the expedition would make its base, Reich closely observed the atmospheric conditions. DOR tended to concentrate over cities and became more pronounced as they entered the desert regions. Here it was observed to sink down into the valleys and hover low over the landscape like a ceiling. The tops of distant mountain ridges were seen to project clearly above the DOR shell, like islands above the ocean, and on these peaks the primal vegetation was still alive; while the lower vegetation, covered by the low-lying DOR blanket, died off, leaving only desert in the valleys – especially in the areas near atomic testing sites.Reich described the mountain ranges as being “eaten out”, gnawed at by DOR as if a monster were feeding on the rock itself. The DOR functions were characterized by “a silent, invisible and inaudible gnawing away and insidious consumption of the life force of a host or organism.”
“The process of disintegration of trees and whole forests is due to progressive DOR prevalence in the atmosphere. A slight DOR prevalence causes dryness, dryness in turn increases DOR. Thus, in a vicious circle, the water-hunger grows together with diminishing precipitation. The process is slow and not easily discernible. Not much is known about its secret attrition of life.”“It has great significance for the mastery of our future, that DOR surplus causes deserts in the landscape as it does in the organism. Desert souls will enhance desert development; and desert development will increase DOR or staleness in human emotions.”DOR is hungry for nourishment, for water, for oxygen. As the DOR increases it vampirizes its host, in this case the abundant life energy indigenous to the planet.Reich observes that “the pestilential character shows the same type of behavior. He saps juicy, emotionally rich people, deprives them of their strength, akin to the behavior of a tapeworm, within the host victim. The pestilential character thrives on the energy loss in the victim, but in the end he perishes with the host. From here to sociological conclusions regarding the secret dynamics of political dictatorship is only a logical step: from here, too, a bridge can be built toward understanding the connection between desert development on our planet and visitors from outer space. These visitors are using fresh cosmic energy for their locomotion and pour the slag, DOR, into our atmosphere. Whether this is being done on purpose or by accident does not matter as far as the effects upon life are concerned.”
Reich foresaw the complete destruction of life upon mother earth looming on the horizon, unless DOR energy could be reverted again into OR or Life Energy.OROP DESERT Ea (1954-55)“Life holds only a narrow wedge as its own domain in the infinite vastness of cosmic energy.”The desert around Tucson Arizona was chosen for Operation OROP, one of the hottest and oldest deserts (25,000 years) of the U.S. There was no primary vegetation growing; there had been no rain for five years. By October, 1954, the base was operating.It was not the primary objective of the expedition to “make rain over rainless desert”. Reich had no ambition to impress anyone with rain making. Rather he wanted to find the borderline where their artificial efforts at a new atmospheric technology could end “and be replaced by the self-regulatory, self-sustaining laws that governed the behavior of cloud formation, rain cycles, cosmic energy metabolism in the atmosphere, etc, as they do in the living organism.”He had observed that the living organism apparently metabolizes freshly taken in OR energy into DOR, which is expelled in the form of CO₂, urine, feces and sweat. In the healthy organism the energy equilibrium between the charge and the discharge was easily maintained, however, during sickness more OR seemed to change into DOR. Thus, Reich concluded, a prevalence of DOR would be a basic feature of all disease.Subjectively Reich and his co-workers experienced the DOR atmosphere in the desert as oppressive and irritating, with the blinding heat seeming to draw the juice and life energies out of their bodies.
“Thus, having seen and felt the desert, Expedition OROP proceeded to begin Cloudbuster operations, in order to find out whether such a climate could be changed.”
“With Cloudbusting operations, much DOR was removed and fresh Orgone Energy was brought in from the Southwest (along the Galactic Orgone Stream). The immediate result was a freshening of the atmosphere and environment: gone was the parching dryness and gone was the blinding whiteness of the sky. Rainmaking was not the goal; in fact, noticeable results occurred prior to any rain falling on the dry, sandy desert floor. By November, the barren desert north of Tucson began to turn green with a fine growth of new grass! In December, the greening of the desert had spread to cover an area 40 to 80 miles from Tucson with new grass up to one foot high! This happened without any rain falling, due solely to the fresh atmospheric Life Energy and attendant moisture from the Pacific Ocean, 250-400 miles to the Southwest.”(1)The arrival of denatured Radium (ORUR), from the Oranur experiment at Rangeley dramatically increased the effectiveness of the cloudbusting operations. “While the clearing of the atmosphere had previously been done by drawing off the DOR clouds into a lake, now, within a few seconds, using ORUR material, the sky cleared and became blue…The change in the atmosphere was immediately felt by all observers. Even dirty steel-gray, DOR-affected rain clouds seemed to fill up and become white in a brilliant, formerly dull, stale atmosphere.”However, Ea were also observing the operations. Whenever the familiar pulsating craft were seen in the sky, the rain clouds disappeared and severe DOR infested the atmosphere, making conditions extremely unpleasant for the crew. If the Spacegun was not used, the atmosphere became unbearable. One operator at a Spacegun was paralyzed by DOR while drawing from an Ea. Reich wrote: “There was no escape from the fact that we were at war with a power unknown to man on earth.”
But the ORUR was found to be extremely effective in combatting the Ea menace. “One could now reach far into space with ORUR: the range was limitless theoretically, since the OR energy ocean is endless and most sensitive to stimuli as demonstrated by the processes of dawn, dusk, and our actual operations over vast stretches of space.”

Another DOR-creating problem was atomic testing within the desert region. Reich was later to consider the possibility of immunizing the atmosphere against atomic explosions, much as living systems are immunized against infection. By creating a highly ‘orurized’ atmosphere, he reasoned, the DOR energy from atomic blasts or from Ea could be siphoned off. It was noticed that during the ORUR operations, there were ‘coincidentally’ many publicly announced postponements of atomic tests.
It became apparent to Reich that although there was moisture in the atmosphere, the lack of actual rainfall around Tucson was due to a DOR barrier somewhere west of the experimental site in Arizona, preventing the clouds and moisture flowing in from the Pacific. The barrier was found to exist on the Sierra mountain divide, where a concentration of DOR was breaking up and dissolving the rain clouds coming in from the west.

By March 1955, continuous DOR removal operations were set up just to the west of the divide. Within two weeks the barrier was breaking up with a black precipitate form of DOR (“Melanor”) falling to the ground and turning the white sand dark. By the end of March rain began to occur in the desert. The breaking of the DOR barrier had accomplished the full breakthrough of fresh OR energy into the desert basin.

The expedition was successful. The atmosphere had undergone a radical change, breaking a five year drought and turning completely barren desert land into green pasture again after thousands of years.
It proved conclusively to Reich that desert development was clearly and doubtlessly reversible, that through a new kind of orgone technology, humanity could convert life-destroying energy back into life-sustaining energy.

Winding up his affairs, Reich left the desert in April 1955. It was to be his last major operation. Within two years he was to die in prison, destroyed by a system that could not tolerate the free expression of live-giving energy. But the Enigma remains…

REFERENCES(1) ‘The New Age’ by Klark Kent, The Journal of Borderland Research, May-June 1987.

CONTACT WITH SPACE by Wilhelm Reich, Core Pilot Press, New York, N.Y. 1957. THE WILHELM REICH MUSEUM, PO Box 687, Rangeley ME 04970.

FURY ON EARTH by Myron Sharaf, St. Martin’s Press, New York. 1983.

1949-1950 Orgonometric equations

1951 Hypothesis of cosmic superimposition of two orgone energy streams as the basis of hurricanes and galaxy formation

1947-1951 Anti-nuclear radiation effects of Orgone Energy

1951-1952 Discovery of DOR (Deadly Orgone Energy) and identification of its properties, including a specific toxicity (DOR sickness)

1951-1954 Identification of Melanor, Orite, Brownite, Orene; and initial steps toward pre-atomic chemistry

1952-1955 Use of “reversed” orgonomic potential in removing DOR from the atmosphere in cloudbusting and weather control

1954-1955 Theory of desert formation in nature and in man (the emotional plague) and demonstration of reversibility (OROP Desert Ea and the Medical DOR-Buster)

1954-1955 Theory of disease based on DOR accumulation in the tissues

1950-1957 Equations of gravity and anti-gravity

1951-1957 Development and practical application of Social Psychiatry

McF 404 The Cancer Biopathy. 1948

Reich, Wilhelm. The Discovery of Orgone, Volume 2: The Cancer Biopathy, 1948

Reich, Wilhelm (1974). The Cancer Biopathy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published 1948).

Reich, Wilhelm. Listen, Little Man!, 1948 (Rede an den kleinen Mann, translated by Theodore P. Wolfe)

Reich, Wilhelm. The Orgone Energy Accumulator, Its Scientific and Medical Use, 1948

Reich, Wilhelm. Ether, God and Devil, 1949

Reich, Wilhelm (1973). Ether, God and Devil. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Reich, Wilhelm. Cosmic Superimposition: Man’s Orgonotic Roots in Nature, 1951

Reich, Wilhelm. The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality, 1951

Reich, Wilhelm. The Oranur Experiment: First Report (1947–1951), 1951

Reich, Wilhelm. The Murder of Christ (The Emotional Plague of Mankind), 1953

Reich, Wilhelm. People in Trouble (The Emotional Plague of Mankind), 1953 (Menschen im Staat)

Reich, Wilhelm (1953). People in Trouble.

Reich, Wilhelm. The Einstein Affair, 1953

Reich, Wilhelm. Contact with Space: Oranur Second Report, 1951–1956, 1957

Reich, Wilhelm (1957). Contact with Space: Oranur Second Report, 1951–1956.

Bibliographic material present in the microfilms (Wilhelm Reich Collected Works Microfilms) in PDF form, made available by Eva Reich.

McF 517 Oranur Project . Orgone Energy Emergency Bulletin No. 1 1950

McF 402 Cosmic Superimposition. 1951

McF 518 The Orgone Energy Accumulator, its Scientific and Medical Use, 1951

McF 520 Construction of a Three-fold Orgone Energy accumulator and Five-fold

McF 521. How to use the orgone energy accumulator

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

McF 320 The Murder of Christ. 1953

McF 401 People in trouble. 1953

McF 516 Wilhelm Reich The Einstein Affair, 1953

McF 513 Wilhelm Reich OROP Desert No. 1 February 1954

McF 514 Wilhelm Reich OROP Desert No. 1 March 1954

McF 512 Wilhelm Reich Biographical Material, History of the Discovery of the Life. Response to Ignorance 1955

McF 208 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1. Jan. 1949

(ed.) Orgone Energy Bulletin, 1949–1953

(ed.) CORE – Cosmic Orgone Engineering, 1954–1955

Bibliographic material present in the microfilms (Wilhelm Reich Collected Works Microfilms) in PDF form, made available by Eva Reich.

McF 209 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2. Apr. 1949

McF 301 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3. Jul. 1949

McF 302 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4. Oct. 1949

McF 303 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1. Jan. 1950

McF 304 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2. Apr. 1950

McF 305 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 3. Jul. 1950

McF 306 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 4. Oct. 1950

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

McF 308 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 2. Apr. 1951

McF 309 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 3. Jul. 1951

McF 310 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 4. Oct. 1951

McF 311 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 1. Jan. 1952

McF 312 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 2. Apr. 1952

McF 313 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 3. Jul. 1952

McF 314 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 4. Oct. 1952

McF 315 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 1,2. Mar. 1953

McF 316 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 3,4. Sep. 1953

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

McF 319 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 3,4. Dec. 1955

01 ORGONE PHYSICS

01 Wilhelm Reich Orgonotic Light Functions 1942-1944

McF 208 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1. Jan. 1949

Interval 5-7 Pag. 3-6

02 Wilhelm Reich A Motor Force in Orgone Energy 1947

McF 208 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1. Jan. 1949

Interval 7-9 Pag. 7-11

03 Wilhelm Reich Orgonotic Light Functions II 1947

McF 209 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2. Apr. 1949

Interval 2-4 Pag. 49-51

04 R. H. Atkin. The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Orgone accumulator 1947

McF 209 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2. Apr. 1949

Interval 5-9 Pag. 52-60

05 Wilhelm Reich Orgonotic Light Functions III 1948

McF 301 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3. Jul. 1949

Interval 3-4 Pag. 97-99

06 Alexander Lowen. The Impressionists and Orgone Energy 1949

McF 302 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4. Oct. 1949

Interval 16-23 Pag. 169-183

07 Notes of the Orgone Energy Observatory 1950

McF 303 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1. Jan. 1950

Interval 26-27 Pag. 46-48

08 Jakos Baumann. Some Observations of the Atmosphere Orgone Energy 1950

McF 304 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2. Apr. 1950

Interval 16-20 Pag. 74-83

09 Wilhelm Reich Meteorological Functions in Orgone-Charged Vacuum Tubes 1949

McF 306 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 4. Oct. 1950

Interval 17-21 Pag. 184-193

10 Myron R. Sharaf. From the History of Science 1951

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 20-22 Pag. 35-38

11 Wilhelm Reich. The Anti-Nuclear Radiation Effect of Cosmic Orgone Energy 1950

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 33-34 Pag. 61-63

12 Wilhelm Reich The Storm of November 25th and 26th 1950

McF 308 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 2. Apr. 1951

Interval 8-9 Pag. 72-75

13 Wilhelm Reich Dowsing as an Object of Orgonomy 1946

McF 309 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 3. Jul. 1951

Interval 13-16 Pag. 139-144

14 Wilhelm Reich Three Experiments with Rubber At Electroscope (1939) 1951

McF 309 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 3. Jul. 1951

Interval 16-16 Pag.

15 Wilhelm Reich Integration of Visual Orgone Energy Functions 1950

McF 310 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 4. Oct. 1951

Interval 4-12 Pag. 188-200

16 Wilhelm Reich The Geiger Muller Effect of Cosmic Orgone Energy (1947) 1950

McF 310 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 4. Oct. 1951

Interval 12-29 Pag. 201-234

17 Wilhelm Reich The Orgone Charged Vacuum Tubes (vacor) (1948) 1950

McF 310 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 4. Oct. 1951

Interval 29-45 Pag. 235-266

18 William Steig. Some Notes Inspired by Reich 1952

McF 311 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 1. Jan. 1952

Interval 18-20 Pag. 32-36

19 Werner Grossmann. Observation of Orgone Energy Lumination 1952

McF 311 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 1. Jan. 1952

Interval 31-32 Pag. 58-60

20 R. H. Atkin. A Space-Energy Continuum

McF 314 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 4. Oct. 1952

Interval 16-21 Pag. 197-206

21 A. E. Hamilton. Childes-Eye View of the Orgone Flow 1952

McF 314 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 4. Oct. 1952

Interval 25-26 Pag. 215-216

02 ORGONE PHYSICS 2 ACUMULATOR

01 Walter Hoppe. My Experiences With The Orgone Accumulator 1949

McF 208 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1. Jan. 1949

Interval 10-15 Pag. 12-22

02 Notes Editorial. Regarding the Use of the Orgone Accumulator 1949

McF 208 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1. Jan. 1949

Interval 22-23 Pag. 37-38

03 Notes. Questions Regarding Orgone and the Orgone Accumulator 1949

McF 209 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2. Apr. 1949

Interval 20-20 Pag. 82-83

04 Notes. Questions and Answers Regarding the Orgone Accumulator I 1949

McF 301 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3. Jul. 1949

Interval 21-23 Pag. 131-134

05 Notes. Questions and Answers Regarding the Orgone Accumulator II 1949

McF 304 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2. Apr. 1950

Interval 24-25 Pag. 91-93

06 Administration of Cosmic Orgone Energy Accumulator 1952

McF 314 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 4. Oct. 1952

Interval 9-10 Pag. 183-185

07 The Orgone Energy Accumulator, its Scientific and Medical Use, 1951

McF 518 The Orgone Energy Accumulator, its Scientific and Medical Use, 1951

Interval 1-31 Pag. 1-58

Interval 6-25 Pag. 9-47

08 Construction of a Three-fold Orgone Energy accumulator and Five-fold shooter

McF 520 Construction of a Three-fold Orgone Energy accumulator and Five-fold shooter

Interval 1-11 Pag. 1-6

09 How to use the orgone energy accumulator

McF 521 How to use the orgone energy accumulator

Interval 1-3 Pag. 1-3

03 ORGONE BIOLOGICS

01 James A. Willie. The use a Male Dummy in Medical Orgone Therapy

McF 209 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2. Apr. 1949

Interval 9-13 Pag. 61-69

02 Notes. A Psychoanalytic Dilemma and Bionous Disintegration in Wood 1940

McF 209 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2. Apr. 1949

Interval 21-23 Pag. 85-88

03 Editorial. Public Responsibility in the Early Diagnosis of Cancer 1949

McF 301 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3. Jul. 1949

Interval 11-14 Pag. 110-116

04 M. S Reviews. Harper & Brothers 1949

McF 301 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3. Jul. 1949

Interval 26-27 Pag. 141-142

05 Walter Hoppe. Further Experiences with the Orgone Accumulator 1950

McF 303 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1. Jan. 1950

Interval 11-13 Pag. 16-21

06 Helen E. McDonald. Wilhelm Reich’s concept Cancer Biopathy I 1950

McF 305 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 3. Jul. 1950

Interval 18-21 Pag. 124-130

07 Orgonomic and Chemical Cancer Research. A Brief Comparison 1950

McF 305 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 3. Jul. 1950

Interval 25-27 Pag. 139-142

08 On The Record. Wilhelm Reich’s Priority in Cancer Test 1950

McF 306 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 4. Oct. 1950

Interval 35-35 Pag. 220-221

09 Reviews. Correction Regarding a Control of reach’s Cancer Experiments 1950

McF 306 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 4. Oct. 1950

Interval 36-37 Pag. 222-224

10 Wilhelm Reich Cancer Cell’s in Experiment XX 1950

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 3-4 Pag. 1-3

11 Orgone Biologics. Rules to Follow in Basic Research 1951

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 34-35 Pag. 63-64

12 Wilhelm Reich The Leukemia Problem Approach 1950

McF 308 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 2. Apr. 1951

Interval 10-12 Pag. 76-80

13 Simeon J. Tropp. Limited Surgery in Orgonomic Cancer Therapy 1950

McF 308 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 2. Apr. 1951

Interval 12-16 Pag. 81-89

14 On The record. Life in Russia, Cancer Research and Stormy Social Weather 1951

McF 308 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 2. Apr. 1951

Interval 28-29 Pag. 112-115

15 Wilhelm Reich Armoring in a Newborn Infant 1950

McF 309 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 3. Jul. 1951

Interval 3-13 Pag. 121-138

16 Archives of Orgone Institute. Wilhelm Reich on the Road to Biogenesis (1935-1939)

McF 309 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 3. Jul. 1951

Interval 17-25 Pag. 146-162

17 Michael Silvert. On the Medical Use of Orgone Energy 1952

McF 311 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 1. Jan. 1952

Interval 27-29 Pag. 51-54

18 Elsworth F. Baker. Genital Anxiety in Nursing Mothers. 1952

McF 311 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 1. Jan. 1952

Interval 11-17 Pag. 19-31

19 Arthur Steig. Orgone Energy Metabolism 1952

McF 311 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 1. Jan. 1952

Interval 29-31 Pag. 54-58

20 Wilhelm Reich Orgonomic Diagnosis of Cancer Biopathy 1952

McF 312 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 2. Apr. 1952

Interval 2-34 Pag. 65-128

21 Ola Raknes. Letter to Reich (1950) 1952

McF 314 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 4. Oct. 1952

Interval 21-25 Pag. 207-214

22 On the Record. Clarifications 1952

Orgone and energy in the Brain, Emotionally Positive and Promise Cancer Cure

McF 314 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 4. Oct. 1952

Interval 26-28 Pag. 217-221

23 Elsworth F. Baker. A Grave Therapeutic Problem 1953

McF 315 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 1,2. Mar. 1953

Interval 32-37 Pag. 60-70

24 Kenneth M. Bremer. Medical Effects of Orgone Energy 1953

McF 315 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 1,2. Mar. 1953

Interval 37-44 Pag. 71-84

04 ORGONE BIOLOGICS 2. A case History

01 Simeon J. Tropp. The Treatment of a Mediastinal Malignancy with the Orgone Accumulator 1949

McF 301 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3. Jul. 1949

Interval 5-10 Pag. 100-109

02 Ola Raknes. A short Treatment with Orgone Therapy 1950

McF 303 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1. Jan. 1950

Interval 14-18 Pag. 22-31

03 Victor M. Sobey. Six Clinical Cases 1950

McF 303 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1. Jan. 1950

Interval 19-24 Pag. 32-43

04 William A. Anderson. Orgone Therapy in Rheumatic Fever 1950

McF 304 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2. Apr. 1950

Interval 14-15 Pag. 71-73

05 Simeon J. Tropp. Therapy of an Early Breast Cancer 1950

McF 305 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 3. Jul. 1950

Interval 21-25 Pag. 131-138

06 Charles I. Oller. Orgone Therapy of Frigidity A Case History 1950

McF 306 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 4. Oct. 1950

Interval 28-33 Pag. 207-216

07 Emanuel Levine & Elizabeth N. J. Treatment of a Hypertensive Biopathy wit the Orgone Energy Accumulator 1951

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 14-20 Pag. 23-34

08 Chester M. Raphael. Orgone Treatment During Labor 1951

McF 308 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 2. Apr. 1951

Interval 17-21 Pag. 90-98

09 N. Wevrick. Physical Orgone Therapy of Diabetes 1951

McF 308 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 2. Apr. 1951

Interval 27-28 Pag. 110-112

10 A. Allan Cott. Orgonomic Treatment of Ichthyosis 1951

McF 309 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 3. Jul. 1951

Interval 25-27 Pag. 163-166

11 Philip Gold. Orgonotic Functions in a Manic-Depressive Case 1951

McF 309 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 3. Jul. 1951

Interval 27-34 Pag. 167-180

12 Emanuel Levine. Observations on a Case of Coronary Occlusion 1952

McF 311 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 1. Jan. 1952

Interval 24-27 Pag. 44-50

05 ORANUR EXPERIMENT AND CORE

01 Wilhelm Reich The Anti-Nuclear Radiations Effect of Cosmic Orgone Energy 1950

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 33-34 Pag. 61-63

02 Orgone Energy Emergency Bulletin No. 1 Oranur Project (1950)

McF 517 Orgone Energy Emergency Bulletin No. 1-Oranur Project (1950)

Interval 2-6 Pag. 3-10

03 Wilhelm Reich The Oranur Experiment. Introduction and Survey 1951

McF 310 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 4. Oct. 1951

Interval 2-3 Pag. 185-187

04 Wilhelm Reich Orgone Energy (OR) Versus Nuclear Energy (NR) – Oranur 1950-1951

McF 310 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 4. Oct. 1951

Interval 45-74 Pag. 267-325

05 Wilhelm Reich The Oranur Experiment. Outlook & Appendix and Bibliography 1951

McF 310 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 4. Oct. 1951

Interval 75-84 Pag. 323-344

06 Wilhelm Reich DOR Removel and Cloud-Busting 1952

McF 314 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 4. Oct. 1952

Interval 3-9 Pag. 171-182

07 Wilhelm Reich The Blackening Rocks Melanor 1952

McF 315 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 1,2. Mar. 1953

Interval 16-31 Pag. 28-59

06 ORGONOMIC FUNCTIONALISM

01 Wilhelm Reich Cosmic Energy and Ether 1949

McF 302 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4. Oct. 1949

Interval 3-11 Pag. 143-159

02 Notes Editorial. Basic Natural-Scientific Research 1949

McF 302 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4. Oct. 1949

Interval 24-24 Pag. 184-185

03 Wilhelm Reich Orgonomic Functionalism Parte II A 1947

McF 303 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1. Jan. 1950

Interval 3-10 Pag. 1-15

04 Wilhelm Reich Orgonomic Functionalism Parte II B 1947

McF 304 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2. Apr. 1950

Interval 3-10 Pag. 49-62

05 Communications. Psychology and Natural Science 1950

McF 304 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2. Apr. 1950

Interval 23-24 Pag. 88-90

06 Wilhelm Reich Orgonomic Functionalism Parte II C 1947

McF 305 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 3. Jul. 1950

Interval 4-17 Pag. 99-123

07 Wilhelm Reich Orgonometric Equations I A. General Form 1949

McF 306 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 4. Oct. 1950

Interval 5-16 Pag. 161-183

08 Wilhelm Reich Orgonometric Equations I B. Complete 1950

McF 308 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 2. Apr. 1951

Interval 4-7 Pag. 65-71

09 R. H. Atkin. Mathematical Questions Without Answers 1951

McF 308 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 2. Apr. 1951

Interval 25-27 Pag. 106-110

10 Wilhelm Reich Orgonomic Functionalism Parte II D 1947

McF 311 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 1. Jan. 1952

Interval 2-8 Pag. 1-12

11 Charles R. Keller. Causality and Freedom A functional Analysis 1952

McF 311 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 1. Jan. 1952

Interval 20-23 Pag. 37-43

12 Wilhelm Reich Orgonomic Functionalism Parte II E 1947

McF 314 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 4. Oct. 1952

Interval 11-16 Pag. 186-196

07 CHILDREN

01 Elsworth F. Baker. The Concept of Self-Regulation 1949

McF 302 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4. Oct. 1949

Interval 12-14 Pag. 160-164

02 Richard Singer. Play Problems of a Healthy Child 1949

McF 302 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4. Oct. 1949

Interval 14-16 Pag. 165-168

03 A. E. Hamilton. Reviews The Problem Family by A. S. Neill 1949

McF 302 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4. Oct. 1949

Interval 26-28 Pag. 189-193

04 Wilhelm Reich About Genital Self-satisfaction in Children 1927

McF 304 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2. Apr. 1950

Interval 10-12 Pag. 63-67

05 A. S. Neill. Self-Regulation and the Outside World. 1950

McF 304 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2. Apr. 1950

Interval 13-14 Pag. 68-70

06 Meyer Silvert Editorial Note. Critique of an Attitude Expressed by Anna Freud 1950

McF 304 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 2. Apr. 1950

Interval 21-22 Pag. 84-87

07 Wilhelm Reich Children of the Future I 1950

McF 306 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 4. Oct. 1950

Interval 22-28 Pag. 194-206

08 Wilhelm Reich Armoring in a Newborn Infant 1950

McF 309 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 3. Jul. 1951

Interval 3-13 Pag. 121-138

09 Editorial. Protection of Life 1953

McF 315 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 1,2. Mar. 1953

Interval 3-4 Pag. 2-4

08 EMOTIONAL PLAGUE AND SOCIETY

01 Myron Scharaf. A Danger Tendency in Contemporary Thought 1949

McF 208 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1. Jan. 1949

Interval 19-20 Pag. 30-33

02 Notes Editorial. Orgonomy A Threat. A Warning. Regarding Rumors 1949

McF 208 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1. Jan. 1949

Interval 21-22 Pag. 34-37

03 From Recent Reviews by Wilhelm Reich 1949

McF 208 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1. Jan. 1949

Interval 23-26 Pag. 39-45

04 Chester M. Raphael. The Malboro Incident 1949

McF 209 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2. Apr. 1949

Interval 14-17 Pag. 70-76

05 Editorial A Dilemma in Self-Government 1949

McF 301 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3. Jul. 1949

Interval 18-19 Pag. 124-127

06 Notes Editorial. On Criticism of the Critic 1949

McF 301 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3. Jul. 1949

Interval 21-21 Pag. 130-131

07 Elizabeth Tyson Reviews. Want do Be like Stalin 1949

McF 301 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3. Jul. 1949

Interval 23-26 Pag. 135-140

08 Walter Hoppe. Greet Men in Conflict with the Emotional Plague I 1951

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 5-14 Pag. 4-22

09 Walter Hoppe. Greet Men in Conflict with the Emotional Plague II 1951

McF 308 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 2. Apr. 1951

Interval 21-24 Pag. 99-105

10 On The Record. It Happens again and again. Our Independence. Our Air Germs 1951

McF 309 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 3. Jul. 1951

Interval 34-36 Pag. 181-184

11 Reviews. Science and Common Sense. The Name of Humanity. And Biography of D. H. Lawrence 1952

McF 311 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 1. Jan. 1952

Interval 32-33 Pag. 61-63

12 Wilhelm Reich. Truth Versus Modju 1952

McF 313 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 3. Jul. 1952

Interval 19-23 Pag. 162-170

13 On the Record. On Human Evil 1952

McF 314 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 4. Oct. 1952

Interval 28-30 Pag. 221-224

14 Wilhelm Reich. The Murder of Christ 1953

McF 315 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 1,2. Mar. 1953

Interval 4-15 Pag. 5-27

15 Archives of the Orgone Institute. Modju at Works in Journalism 1953

McF 315 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 1,2. Mar. 1953

Interval 44-46 Pag. 85-89

09 THE ORGONE INSTITUTE

01 Myron Scharaf. The First Orgonomic Conference at Orgonon 1948

McF 208 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 1. Jan. 1949

Interval 15-18 Pag. 23-29

02 Orgonomic Movement 1949

McF 209 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2. Apr. 1949

Interval 17-19 Pag. 77-81

03 A. E. Hamilton. Reaction to the First Orgonomic Conference 1948

McF 301 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3. Jul. 1949

Interval 14-17 Pag. 117-123

04 Notes Editorial. A Letter to the American Medical Association 1949

Wilhelm Reich 302-Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4. Oct. 1949

Interval 25-25 Pag. 186-187

05 Notes Editorial. A correspondence 1949

McF 303 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1. Jan. 1950

Interval 25-26 Pag. 44-46

06- Our Biosocial Base of Operation 1950

McF 305 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 3. Jul. 1950

Interval 3-4 Pag. 97-98

07 Wilhelm Reich. Orgonomy 1935-1950. A brief Account 1950

McF 305 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 3. Jul. 1950

Interval 27-35 Pag. 143-151

08 Orgonomic Literature Ordered from Russia 1950

McF 305 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 3. Jul. 1950

Interval 36-40 Pag. 152-160

09 Wilhelm Reich. The Orgone Energy Observatory (1948)

McF 306 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 2, No. 4. Oct. 1950

Interval 33-34 Pag. 217-219

10 Elsworth F. Baker. The Orgone Institute Diagnostic Clinic. 1951

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 22-23 Pag. 39-41

11 Ola Raknes. Orgonomic Work in Scandinavia 1951

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 24-29 Pag. 42-52

12 Ilse Ollendorff. Orgone Energy Accumulators in U.S.A. 1951

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 29-32 Pag. 53-58

13 The Wilhelm Reich Foundation 1951

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 32-33 Pag. 59-60

14 An Experiment in Social Administration 1952

McF 313 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 3. Jul. 1952

Interval 3-5 Pag. 130-134

15 From The Charter of the Wilhelm Reich Foundation 1952

McF 313 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 3. Jul. 1952

Interval 5-6 Pag. 135-136

16 The Wilhelm Reich Foundation By-Laws 1952

McF 313 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 3. Jul. 1952

Interval 6-10 Pag. 137-145

17 Financial Report of the WRF 1952

McF 313 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 3. Jul. 1952

Interval 11-14 Pag. 146-153

10 BIBLIOGRAPHY ON ORGONOMY

01-Glossary 1949

McF 209 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2. Apr. 1949

Interval 25-27 Pag. 93-96

02 Orgonomic Lectures January 1948 to Date Jul 1949

McF 301 Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3. Jul. 1949

Interval 20-20 Pag. 128-129

03- Bibliography of works on Orgone Energy 1951

McF 310 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 4. Oct. 1951

Interval 83-84 Pag. 342-344

04 Ola Raknes. From Libido Theory to Orgonomy 1952

McF 311 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 1. Jan. 1952

Interval 8-11 Pag. 13-18

05 Bibliography (1950.1951) 1952

McF 313 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 4, No. 3. Jul. 1952

Interval 15-18 Pag. 154-161

06 History of Orgonomy (1897-1952) 1953

McF 315 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 1,2. Mar. 1953

Interval 47-49 Pag. 90-94

07 Literature on Orgone Energy 1948-1951

McF 517 Oranur Project. Orgone Energy Emergency Bulletin No. 1 1950

Interval 6-7 Pag. 10-12

08 Wilhelm Reich Biography Material 1953

McF 316 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 3,4. Sep. 1953

Interval 2-3 Pag. I-II

09 Prefatory Note 1953

McF 316 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 3,4. Sep. 1953

Interval 6-8 Pag. 1-4

10 Background and Scientific Development of Wilhelm Reich 1953

McF 316 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 3,4. Sep. 1953

Interval 8-10 Pag. 5-9

11 Glossary and Abbreviations 1953

McF 316 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 3,4. Sep. 1953

Interval 11-13 Pag. 10-14

12 Books, Articles and Seminars by Wilhelm Reich 1953

McF 316 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 3,4. Sep. 1953

Interval 13-25 Pag. 15-36

13 Articles on Orgonomy by Coworkers 1953

McF 316 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 3,4. Sep. 1953

Interval 25-33 Pag. 37-53

14 Books and Articles about Orgonomy 1953

McF 316 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 3,4. Sep. 1953

Interval 34-37 Pag. 54-61

15 Books, Articles and Reviews with References to Orgonomy 1953

McF 316 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 3,4. Sep. 1953

Interval 38-59 Pag. 62-105

16 Listings and Campaign by Wilhelm Reich (1949) 1953

McF 316 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 3,4. Sep. 1953

Interval 60-66 Pag. 106-119

17 Index by authors 1953

McF 316 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 5, No. 3,4. Sep. 1953

Interval 67-76 Pag. 120-137

01 ORGONE PHYSICS

01 CharlesR. Kelley. Orgone Energy and Weather 1954

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

Interval 20-35 Pag. 54-67

02 Werner and Doreen Grossmann. Wind Flow and Orgone Flow 1955

McF 319 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 3,4. Dec. 1955

Interval 11-18 Pag. 114-129

03 Maria Courie. Plant Response to Orgone Energy 1955

McF 319 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 3,4. Dec. 1955

Interval 55-56 Pag. 203-204

02 ORGONE BIOLOGICS

01 Robert A. McCullough. Antibiotics Cloudseeding and Life Energy 1955

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

Interval 22-25 Pag. 40-46

02 Eva Reich. Early Diagnosis of cancer of the uterus 1943

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

Interval 25-28 Pag. 47-53

03 Bernard Grad. WilhelmReich’sExperiment XX 1955

McF 319 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 3,4. Dec. 1955

Interval 19-25 Pag. 130-143

03 ORGONE BIOLOGICS 2. A case History

01 Eva Reich. Early Diagnosis of cancer of the uterus 1943

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

Interval 25-28 Pag. 47-53

04 CORE

01 Wilhelm Reich CORE. Expansion & Contraction in the Atmospheric OR Energy 1954

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 7-10 Pag. 1-7

02 Wilhelm Reich CORE. DOR Removal, Cloud-Busting, & Fog-Lifting 1954

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 21-29 Pag. 28-44

03 Wilhelm Reich CORE. Rules to Follow in Cloud Engineering 1954

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 59-60 Pag.105-106

04 Chester Raphael CORE. DOR Sickness. A review of Reich’sFindings 1954

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

Interval 12-16 Pag.20-28

05 Wilhelm Reich CORE. Robert A. McCullough. Melanor, Orite, Brownite and Orene 1955

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

Interval 16-21 Pag. 29-39

06 Wilhelm Reich CORE. The Medical DOR-BUSTER(1942-1955)

McF 319 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 3,4. Dec. 1955

Interval 2-10 Pag. 97-113

07 WilliamStfic. Table of Events, Dor-Emergency, 1954-1955

McF 319 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 3,4. Dec. 1955

Interval 31-53 Pag. 155-199

05 CORE OROP

00A Wilhelm Reich OROP Desert No. 1 February 1954

McF 513 Wilhelm Reich OROP Desert No. 1 February 1954

Interval 1-3 Pag. 1-4

00B Wilhelm Reich OROP Desert No. 1 March 1954

McF 514 Wilhelm Reich OROP Desert No. 1 March 1954

Interval 1-5 Pag. 1-8

01 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. Introduction 1954

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

Interval 5-6 Pag. 5-7

02 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. Space Ships & Desert Developments 1954

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 11-20 Pag. 8-27

03 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. OROP Desert Project 1954

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 29-34 Pag. 45-54

04 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. OROP Rangeley (August 1-2, 1952)

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 34-37 Pag. 55-60

05 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. OROP Ellsworth (July 5-6, 1953)

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 37-42 Pag. 61-70

06 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. OROP Orgonon (July 23, 1953)

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 42-45 Pag. 71-77

07 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. OROP Children’s Parade (August 8-9, 1953)

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 46-48 Pag. 78-82

08 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. OROP Boston (September 2, 1953)

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 48-52 Pag. 83-90

09 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. OROP Galactic Stream (Hancock, October 22, 1953)

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 52-59 Pag. 91-104

10 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. Original Protocolsof the 97 Dor Removal 1953

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 60-69 Pag. 106-122

11 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. Record Regarding of Oranur 1953

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

interval 69-77 Pag. 123-139

12 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. OROP Desert Ea 1 1954

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

Interval 4-11 Pag. 5-19

13 WilliamMouse CORE OROP Desert. Orop Drought Atlantic Cost. Summer 1954

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

Interval 36-43 Pag. 68-83

14 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. Orop Hurricane Edna 1954

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

Interval 44-48 Pag. 84-92

15 Michael Silvert CORE OROP Desert. Report of Orop Desert Ea Survey of Tucson 1955

McF 318 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 1,2. Mar. 1955

Interval 48-50 Pag.200-202

16 CORE OROP Desert. Notes and Communications. Abstracton Desert 1955

McF 319 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 3,4. Dec. 1955

Interval 54-55 Pag.93-96

06 CORE OROP. Contact With Space

Oranur Part 1 1951-1954

01 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. Space Ships Dor and Drought 1954 (a web)

McF 317 CORE. Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

Interval 1-78 Pag.1-139

02 Wilhelm Reich CORE OROP Desert. Space Ships Dor and Drought 1954 (b web)

Core (Cosmic Orgone Engineering) OropDesert Part 1 Space Ships Dor and Drought

Vol. 6, No. 1 – 4. Jul. 1954

Interval 1-86 Pag.1-73 + 1-7 + 1-6

07 CORE OROP. Contact With Space

Oranur Part 2. 1951-1956

01 McF 502 B Wilhelm Reich. Contact With Space. Oranur Second Report (1951-1956).

Orop Desert (1954-1955)

Interval 6-143 Pag. XI-XXIII + 1-259

02 Wilhelm Reich Contato com o espaço Tradução independente (1957)

08 ORGONOMIC FUNCTIONALISM

01 Robert A. McCullough. Rocky Road Toward Functionalism 1955

McF 319 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 3,4. Dec. 1955

Interval 26-31 Pag. 144-154

09 THE ORGONE INSTITUTE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

01 Wilhelm Reich – Response to Ignorance 1955

McF 512 Wilhelm Reich Biographical Material, History of the Discovery of the Life Energy.1955

Interval 1-19 Pag. 1-33

02 Grossroads Ahead – Wilhelm Reich at the Supreme Court (E.U.A.) in 1956

McF 504 A Court Case VII 1954-1957

Interval 4-29 Pag. 1-51

03 Appendix – Orgonomic State of Maine (1948-1952) 1956

McF 504 A Court Case VII 1954-1957

Interval 38-46 Pag. 17r-33r

04 Bibliography of Works on Orgone Energy (1937-1951) 1952

McF 504 A Court Case VII 1954-1957

Interval 49-51 Pag. 39r-43r

05 Texts of the Orgonomyindicated at the Court Case in 1956

McF 509 A Court Case XII 1954-1957

Interval 4-4 Pag. IV-V

06 Backgroundand Scientific Developmentof Wilhelm Reich 1956

McF 509 A Court Case XII 1954-1957

Interval 43-45 Pag. 11a-15a

07 Glossary 1956

McF 509 A Court Case XII 1954-1957

Interval 45-48 Pag. 15a20a

Ether, God, and Devil / Cosmic Superimposition

The Cancer Biopathy

The Discovery of the Orgone – Vol. 2

Original Publication: Orgone Institute Press – 1948
Banned from circulation by U.S. Federal Court order – 1954
Burned under FDA supervision – 1956 and 1960
Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1973

«I hope and believe this volume will be accessible to the scientifically untrained reader who has familiarized himself with the principles of scientific research in general and orgonomy in particular. Sections that are too technical can be passed over by such readers without undermining their understanding of the whole. The present volume comprises the results of work done over a period of seventeen years, between 1930 and 1947…I do not publish this book without serious concern, mainly that many readers of our literature will now assume that a cure for cancer has been found. This is not at all the case. It is true that the riddle of cancer has become fully accessible through the discovery of orgone energy. But it is incorrect to believe that every cancer victim can now be saved.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from the Preface)

What is cancer? Traditionally, medical science has thought of it as an invasive tumor arising spontaneously in an otherwise healthy organism. Consequently, it has naïvely devised increasingly intricate techniques to eradicate the tumor and treat its complications. These techniques have had varying degrees of success.

In contrast, Reich defines cancer not as a tumor–the tumor is merely a late manifestation of the disease–but as a systemic disease due to chronic thwarting of natural sexual functioning. The ensuing biopathic shrinking of the organism is revealed initially in emotional despair and resignation, which leads eventually to a disturbance of cellular metabolism, with the tumor as its most visible manifestation.

In this radically different scientific investigation of a process that ends, literally, in the putrefaction of the living body due to chronic suffocation of the tissues, Reich has arrived at the conclusion that «cancer is the most significant somatic expression of the biophysiological effect of sexual stasis.» If this is so, there is a far greater possibility for the prophylaxis of cancer than for its treatment.

Reich’s contribution to an understanding of cancer is based on his years of clinical, social, and laboratory study of human emotions and his discovery of the specific energy processes manifested in them. A detailed account of this discovery forms the opening chapters of the book, providing the experimental and theoretical basis for the later chapters in which he presents his findings on the emotional background of the disease, the crucial role played by inadequate sexual functioning that causes a general devitalization and shrinking, the origin of the cancer cell, experimental therapy with laboratory animals and human beings, and, finally, the problems and possibilities of prevention.

Der Krebs(German Manuscripts)

The Cancer Biopathy

Original Publication: Orgone Institute Press – 1949 and 1951

Banned from circulation by U.S. Federal Court order – 1954

Burned under FDA supervision – 1956 and 1960

Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1973

«The cosmic orgone energy was discovered as a result of the consistent application of the functional technique of thinking. It was these methodical, rigidly-controlled thought processes that led from one fact to another, weaving–across a span of about twenty five years–seemingly disparate facts into a unified picture of the function of nature; a picture which is submitted to the verdict of the world as the still unfinished doctrinal framework of Orgonomy.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from Chapter One of Ether, God and Devil)

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.

The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality

Original Publication: Sexpol Verlag – 1931 and 1935

3rd edition prepared by Wilhelm Reich – 1951

3rd edition published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1971

«The clinical and ethnologic material for this book was compiled between 1920 and 1930. It was rounded out by the extraordinary material Bronislaw Malinowski presented in 1930 in his comprehensive book The Sexual Life of Savages. My study of the origin of human sexual morality was written in September 1931 in the midst of the social storm that rocked the German republic before Hitler’s ascendancy to power; and the strong political slant of this book stems from the experiences of that period. Nothing of what shook our social existence at that time (1930-45), in the political sense, has survived. However, the facts about the history of human character development have not only survived the last twenty years but have gained in consistency and social influence, which is, in the long run the true social power.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from the Preface – 1951)

This study of the invasion of compulsory sexual morality into human society, written in 1931, was Reich’s first step in approaching the answer to the problem of human mass neuroses, preceding The Mass Psychology of Fascism and The Sexual Revolution. Growing out of Reich’s involvement with the crucial question of the origin of sexual suppression, this attempt to explain historically the problem of sexual disturbances and neuroses draws upon the ethnological works of Morgan, Engels and, in particular, Bronislaw Malinowski, whose remarkable studies of the sexual life and customs of the primitive people of the Trobriand Islands confirmed Reich’s clinical discoveries.

Repudiating Freud’s idea that sexual repression is an essential component of the development of human society, and rejecting Géza Roheim’s anthropological efforts to substantiate it, he grasps the problem of the relationship of socio-economic living conditions and the formation of human character structure. Reich writes, «The organization of social life determines the quanitity and the quality of the equalization of tension and discharge in the psychic apparatus. If there is a lack of social possibilities for genital gratification…if the measure of unpleasurable stimuli is too great owing to distress and want, the psychic apparatus works with substitute mechanisms that seek to bring about some discharge at any cost. The results are neuroses, perversions, patholiogical changes of character, anti-social manifestations of genital life and, not least, work disturbances.»

Contact With Space

Oranur – Second Report, 1951–1956

Original Publication: CORE Pilot Press – 1957

Bound photocopy issued by The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust

«No President, Academy, Court of Law, Congress or Senate on this earth has the knowledge or power to decide what will be the knowledge of tomorrow.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from the Preface)

Wilhelm Reich’s final publication, Contact With Space contains the result of six years of intensive research and field work: a natural scientific account of and the basis of practical measures for combating the DOR emergency. This volume is an exposition of the newest developments in the technology of Cosmic Orgone Engineering, which involve the use of «Spacegun,» an extension of the cloudbuster made possible by the discovery of ORUR.

During Reich’s scientific expedition to southern Arizona (1954–1955)–which he documents in this book–it was Cosmic Orgone Engineering that caused desert land to turn green with prairie grass. Here Reich submits a natural scientific explanation of the metabolism of the Life Energy, a study which goes into the nature of primal vegetation, and the nature of dying or death of vegetation, i.e. desert development.

Nature being one, Contact With Space examines the new basic energetic facts brought into the open by the Oranur Experiment in terms of the various branches of science into which they ramify: biophysics, Oranur medicine, astrophysics, meteorology, chemistry and pre-atomic chemistry, space technology, man’s reactions to these events, etc. It also deals with the methods of the functional scientist.

The Murder of Christ

Original Publication: Orgone Institute Press – 1953

Banned from circulation by U.S. Federal Court order – 1954

Burned under FDA supervision – 1956 and 1960

Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1966

«The social crisis we are living through is basically due to the inability of people to govern their own lives. From this inability cruel dictatorships have grown over the past thirty years, with no rational social ends at all. Serious men and women everywhere are deeply concerned with the misfortune which is threatening to extinguish our lives, our happiness, and cause disaster to our children. These men and women want blunt truth. They want blunt truth about people’s true ways of being, acting and emotional reacting. To tell the people everywhere the full truth about themselves means paying respect to their social responsibilities.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from the Introduction)

In this profound and moving work, physician and scientist Wilhelm Reich captures the meaning of Christ’s life and reveals the hidden, universal scourge that caused his agonizing death–The Emotional Plague of Mankind. Reich contends that man is faced with full responsibility for the murder of Christ all through the ages–for the murder of fellow human beings, no matter what the circumstances. Here is the blunt truth about people’s true ways of being, acting, and emotionally reacting.

Here, also, the lesson of the murder of Christ is applied to the contemporary social scene. The tragedy of Reich’s own death points up the fact that the problems presented in The Murder of Christ are acute problems of present-day society.

People in Trouble

Original Publication: Orgone Institute Press – 1953

Banned from circulation by U.S. Federal Court order – 1954

Burned under FDA supervision – 1956 and 1960

Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1976Reich, Wilhelm (1953). People in Trouble.

«Natural scientific thought bears witness to its own impartiality when it describes social events that occurred at various times that reflect both the paths of error and of remedy. I did not write this book out of emotion or preconceived theory. Nor did I write it as a result of an arbitrary thought process or because I envisioned a state of improved social organization. I gathered the insights summarized here just as a settler in an uninhabited wilderness must gather impressions and experiences if he wishes to survive.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from the Introduction)

First published by Reich in 1953, People in Trouble is an autobiographical work in which Reich describes the development of his sociological thinking from 1927 to 1937. In simple narrative form he recounts his personal experiences with major social and political events and ideas, and reveals how these experiences gradually led him to an awareness of the deep significance of the human character structure in shaping and responding to the social process.

The importance of Karl Marx’s work and its distortion by communist politicians plays an important role in Reich’s account, as does the political activity in the International Psychoanalytic Association which led to his expulsion from that organization in 1934. The Norwegian press campaign against his biological experiments is also discussed.

People in Trouble is the story of one man’s courageous struggle to understand the political activity of his fellow men.

Menschen im Staat(German Manuscripts)

People in Trouble

The Einstein Affair

15 Wilhelm Reich The Einstein Affair 1953

McF 516 Wilhelm Reich The Einstein Affair, 1953

Interval 1-102 Pag. I-V and 1-102

On December 30, 1940, Reich wrote a letter to Albert Einstein in Princeton, New Jersey, asking to meet with him to discuss a difficult and urgent scientific matter, i.e. the discovery of a «specific biologically effective energy which behaves in many respects differently as all that is known about electro-magnetic energy.» Two weeks later, on the afternoon of January 13, 1941, Reich met with Einstein in Princeton for approximately four hours. Einstein was sufficiently intrigued by Reich’s discussion of a temperature difference phenomenon in the orgone energy accumulator that he agreed to investigate this anomaly. During the next two weeks, Reich prepared an experimental apparatus for Einstein to study. And on February 1st, Reich visited Einstein a second time to deliver this apparatus, which they studied together. Einstein requested that Reich leave it with him for a couple of weeks, so he could investigate it further.

This publication comprises a collection of the protocols, correspondence and experimental documentation involved in the Reich-Einstein interaction. Those interested in this fascinating chapter of Reich’s scientific research are advised to also read the pertinent entries in Reich’s personal journals which are collected in American Odyssey – Letters and Journals (1940-1947).

Articles by Reich

The Schizophrenic Split(1945 & 1949)

In this chapter from Character Analysis, Reich documents the dramatic and moving case history of the first schizophrenic treated with orgone therapy, presenting revolutionary insight into one of the most serious problems in mental health.

Reich’s third, enlarged edition of this classic study (Character Analysis) of human character includes all of the previously published material–taken between 1928 and 1934, from psychoanalysis to the bioenergetic study of the emotions–and adds a new section expounding Reich’s later discoveries.

Orgonotic Light Functions

From Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, Nos. 1,2,3, 1949

Three articles on orgone physics:

«Searchlight Phenomena in the Orgone Envelope of the Earth (1942-44)»
«X-Ray Photograph of the Excited Orgone Energy Field of the Palms (1944)»
«Further Physical Characteristics of Vacor Lumination (1948)»

Cosmic Orgone Energy and «Ether»

From Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1949

Reich describes the characteristics and functions of cosmic orgone energy which have been observed directly and reproduced experimentally, and shows the extent to which they coincide with the characteristics described by many researchers to the ether.

Meteorological Functions in Orgone-Charged Vacuum Tubes

From Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1950

In this preliminary report, Reich describes the influence of weather conditions on orgone charged vacuum tubes.

Rules to Follow in Basic Research

Writen in 1951, these twelve rules represent Reich’s approach to basic research and constitute a valuable guide for any serious worker.

11 Orgone Biologics. Rules to Follow in Basic Research 1951

McF 307 Orgone Energy Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 1. Jan. 1951

Interval 34-35 Pag. 63-64

The Leukemia Problem

From Orgone Energy Bulletin, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1951

Reich presents his initial observations on leukemia, emphasizing the significance of the red blood cell system in this disease.

Bibliography on Orgonomy

Orgone Institute Press, 1953

Prepared under Reich’s supervision, Bibliography On Orgonomylists all books and articles by him and his associates, as well as lectures, information about newspaper campaigns, and reviews of orgonomic literature.

The Medical DOR Buster, Part One

Reich discusses the significance of Deadly ORgone (DOR) in living and non-living nature.

06 Wilhelm Reich CORE. The Medical DOR-BUSTER(1942-1955)

McF 319 CORE. Vol. 7, No. 3,4. Dec. 1955

Interval 2-10 Pag. 97-113

Bibliographic material present in the microfilms (Wilhelm Reich Collected Works Microfilms) in PDF form, made available by Eva Reich.

McF 405 A Court Case I. 1954-1957

McF 406 A Court Case II 1954-1957

McF 407 A Court Case III 1954-1957

McF 501 A Court Case IV 1954-1957

McF 502 A Court Case V 1954-1957

McF 503 A Court Case VI 1954-1957

McF 504 A Court Case VII 1954-1957

McF 505 A Court Case VIII 1954-1957

McF 506 A Court Case IX 1954-1957

McF 507 A Court Case X 1954-1957

McF 508 A Court Case XI 1954-1957

McF 509 A Court Case XII 1954-1957

McF 510 A Court Case XIII 1954-1957

McF 511 A Court Case XIV 1954-1957

01 The background to Court Case (1940-1955)

01 T.P. Wolfe. Emotional Plague versus Orgone Biophysics 1946

McF 515 T.P. Wolfe. Emotional Plague versus Orgone Biophysics 1946

Interval 2-25 Pag. 1-47

02 Wilhelm Reich Oranur Project 1950

McF 517 Oranur Project. Orgone Energy Emergency Bulletin No. 1 1950

Interval 1-7 Pag. 1-12

03 Wilhelm Reich Conspiracy Incomplete Set Filed intheFederal District Court 1952

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 1-1 Pag. 1-1

04 Wilhelm Reich The Blackening RocksMelanor 1952

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 2-34 Pag. 28-40

05 Letter FBI Archives of the Orgone Institute 1953

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 35-35 Pag. 1-1

06 Supplement 1 William Washington file Archives of the Orgone Institute 1947-1953

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 36-115 Pag. 1-80

07 Dor clouds over the U.S.A. 1954

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 117-137 Pag.111-131

08 A leap into the future – Committee for Protectingof the Environment 1970

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 138-147 Pag. 1-10

09 Chester M. Raphael Dor Sickness A review of Reich’sFindingst 1954

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 148-156 Pag. 17-26

10 Michael Silvert AppendixDor Sickness in New York City – Observations by Lay People 1953

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 156-169 Pag. 26-39

11The National Health Federation

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 170-170 Pag. 1-1

12 Table of Events 1942-1954

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 171-187 Pag. 1-17

13 The doors were closing – Archives of the Orgone Institute 1940-1947

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 188-212 Pag. 1-25

14 In favor of Orgonomy and the living orgone versus emotional plague, F.B.I. and F.D.A 1947-1952

McF 519 Conspiracy Incomplete Set 1952

Interval 213-374 Pag. 1-162

15 Wilhelm Reich The Einstein Affair 1953

McF 516 Wilhelm Reich The Einstein Affair, 1953

Interval 1-102 Pag. I-V and 1-102

16 Wilhelm Reich Response to Ignorance 1955

McF 512 Wilhelm Reich Biographical Material, History of the Discovery of the Life 1955

Interval 1-19 Pag. I-II and 1-33

02 A Court Case (1954-1957)

01 Wilhelm Reich et al vs. U.S.A. Vol. 1 1954-1957

McF 405 A Court Case I. 1954-1957

Interval 2-1 Pag. 1-32

02 Wilhelm Reich The Red Thread of a Conspiracy 1955

McF 405 A Court Case I. 1954-1957

Interval 2-22 Pag. 1-32

03 Appendix Biographical History of the Discovery of the Life Energy 1942-1954

McF 405 A Court Case I. 1954-1957

Interval 22-33 Pag. 33-54

04 Wilhelm Reich Atoms for Peace vs. the Hig1956

McF 405 A Court Case I. 1954-1957

Interval 34-44 Pag. 1-15

05 Documentary Appendix 1954-1956

McF 405 A Court Case I. 1954-1957

Interval 45-55 Pag. 17-36

06 Wilhelm Reich et al vs. U.S.A. Vol. 2 1954-1957

McF 406 A Court Case II 1954-1957

Interval 1-1 Pag. 1.1

07 Record Appendix to Briefs for Appellants 1956

McF 406 A Court Case II 1954-1957

Interval 2-133 Pag. I-VIII and 1-254

08 Wilhelm Reich et al vs. U.S.A. Vol. 3 1954-1957

McF 407 A Court Case III 1954-1957

Interval 1-7 Pag. I-VIII

09 Suppressed Documentary Evidence 1956

McF 407 A Court Case III 1954-1957

Interval 7-114 Pag. 1-183

10 Wilhelm Reich et al vs. U.S.A. Vol. 4 1954-1957

McF 501 A Court Case IV 1954-1957

Interval 1-3 Pag. I-III

11 Records Docketed by Clerk of Trial Court 1954-1956

McF 501 A Court Case IV 1954-1957

Interval 4-91 Pag. 374-544

12 Wilhelm Reich et al vs. U.S.A. Vol. 5 1954-1957

McF 502 A Court Case V 1954-1957

Interval 1-2 Pag. I-II

13 Wilhelm Reich. Contact With Space. Oranur Second Report (1951-1956) Orop Desert (1954-1955)

McF 502 A Court Case V 1954-1957

Interval 3-148 Pag. I-XXIII and 1-265

14.1 Wilhelm Reich. Contact With Space Oranur Second Report 1951-1956

14.2 Wilhelm Reich. Contact With Space Oranur Second Report 1951-1956

McF 503 A Court Case VI 1954-1957

Interval 1-148 Pag. I-XXIII and 1-265

15 Brief for Wilhelm Reich Appellant 1956

McF 504 A Court Case VII 1954-1957

Interval 1-3 Pag. I-III

16 Crossroads Ahead 1951-1956

McF 504 A Court Case VII 1954-1957

Interval 4-29 Pag. 1-51

17 Documentary Appendix 1956

McF 504 A Court Case VII 1954-1957

Interval 30-51 Pag. 1r-43r

18 Brief for Michael Silvert, appellant, Orgonomic Physician 1956

McF 505 A Court Case VIII 1954-1957

Interval 1-3 Pag. I-III

19 The Nature of Assault upon Orgonomy 1954-1956

McF 505 A Court Case VIII 1954-1957

Interval 4-31 Pag. 1-55

20 Wilhelm Reich Foundation vs. U.S.A. 1954-1957

McF 506 A Court Case IX 1954-1957

Interval 1-3 Pag. I-II

21 Brief for Appellant, The Wilhelm Reich Foundation 1956

McF 506 A Court Case IX 1954-1957

Interval 3-9 Pag. 1-12

22 Wilhelm Reich vs. U.S.A. 1954-1957

McF 507 A Court Case X 1954-1957

Interval 1-3 Pag. I-II

23 Reply Brief for Wilhelm Reich M.D. 1956

McF 507 A Court Case X 1954-1957

Interval 3-12 Pag. 1-19

24 Appendix 1956

McF 507 A Court Case X 1954-1957

Interval 13-29 Pag. 1a-33a

25 Wilhelm Reich Foundation vs. U.S.A. 1954-1957

McF 508 A Court Case XI 1954-1957

Interval 1-3 Pag. I-III

26 Reply Brief for the Wilhelm Reich Foundation 1956

McF 508 A Court Case XI 1954-1957

Interval 4-7 Pag. 1-6

27 Petition for a writ of Certiorari 1957

McF 509 A Court Case XII 1954-1957

Interval 1-6 Pag. I-IX

28 Petition to the United States Court of Appeals 1957

McF 509 A Court Case XII 1954-1957

Interval 7-37 Pag. 1-61

Petition for a writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit,

Supreme Court of the United States, October Term 1956 Number 688

«Wilhelm Reich, the Wilhelm Reich Foundation and Michael Silvert Petitioners vs. United States of America,

Washington Jan. 10, 1957 (denied 2/25/1957)

29 Appendix 1956

McF 509 A Court Case XII 1954-1957

Interval 38-52 Pag. 1a-29a

30 Supreme Court of the United States No 688 October Term 1956

McF 510 A Court Case XIII 1954-1957

Interval 1-2 Pag. Pag. I-II

31 Brief for the United States in Opposition

McF 510 A Court Case XIII 1954-1957

Interval 3-6 Pag. 1-7

32 Wilhelm Reich vs. U.S.A. 1954-1957

McF 511 A Court Case XIV 1954-1957

Interval 1-2 Pag. I-II

33 Petitioners Reply Brief – Feb. 18, 1957

McF 511 A Court Case XIV 1954-1957

Interval 3-8 Pag. 1-11

34 Appendix 1957

McF 511 A Court Case XIV 1954-1957

Interval 9-13 Pag. 1a-9a

— From: Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust– Testament

I, WILHELM REICH, residing at Orgonon, Rangeley, Maine hereby make, publish and declare this as My Last Will and Testament:

No personal revenge nor disregard for the many kindnesses I enjoyed during my lifetime determine my decisions in this Will. Being in full possession of my judgment of people and social matters and being clear of mind, I made the consideration of secure transmission to future generations of a vast empire of scientific accomplishment the guide in my last dispositions. To my mind the foremost task to be fulfilled was to safeguard the truth about my life and work against distortion and slander after my death.
I hereby revoke all prior Wills by me at any time made.
I direct that all my just debts and funeral expenses be paid with the exception of the specific requests hereinafter made; I hereby give, devise and bequeath all the rest, residue and remainder of my estate, both real and personal, of every nature and kind whatsoever and wheresoever situated, of which I may die seized and possessed or to which I shall then be entitled, to my Trustee hereinafter named, and to such successor trustees as may be appointed to administer the same, to have and to hold the said property and to manage, sell, invest the same and to collect the interest, income, dividends and proceeds arising from the said property for the uses and purposes herein set forth:

The Trust shall be held and administered hereunder under the name of the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund.
The administrative expenses of the said Trust shall never exceed 20% of the total income.
To operate and maintain the property at Orgonon under the name and style of the Wilhelm Reich Museum.

During the years following 1949 my life was running its course within and around the walls of the Orgone Energy Observatory. I supervised the building myself for two summers; I paid out upwards of $35,000 from my privately earned possessions for the construction. I have collected all of the pertinent materials such as instruments which served the Discovery of the Life Energy, the documents which were witnesses to labors of some 30 years and the library of a few thousand volumes, collected painstakingly over the same stretch of time and amply used in my researches and writings, the paintings, some 25 of them, small items which I loved and cherished during my lifetime such as the carved African stick given me by Malinowski, the Sigmund Freud picture, a few inexpensive but meaningful vases, the «Rock Woman» by Jo Jenks, the «Zaenn’t Weh’ Bauer» carved 12,000 feet above sea level on some mountain refuge in Austria — all of these things and similar things should remain where they are now in order to preserve some of the atmosphere in which the Discovery of the Life Energy has taken place over the decades.

The grounds should be kept neat and clean and repairs should not be neglected. The costs of maintenance, repairs, services and salaries should be paid from this trust.

In order to enable the future student of the PRIMORDIAL COSMIC ENERGY OCEAN, THE LIFE ENERGY discovered and developed by me, to obtain a true picture of my accomplishments, mistakes, wrong assumptions, pioneering basic trends, my private life, my childhood, etc., I hereby direct that under no circumstances and under no pretext whatsoever shall any of the documents, manuscripts or diaries, found in my library among the archives or anywhere else be altered, omitted, destroyed, added to or falsified in any other imaginable way. The tendency of man, born from fear, to «get along with his fellow man» at any price, and to hide unpleasant matters is overpoweringly strong. To guard against this trend, disastrous to historical truth, my study including the library and archives, shall be sealed right after my death by the proper legal authorities and no one shall be permitted to look into my papers until my Trustee, hereinafter named, is duly appointed and qualified and takes control and custody thereof.

These documents are of crucial importance to the future of newborn generations. There are many emotionally sick people who will try to damage my reputation regardless of what happens to infants, if only their personal lives would remain hidden in the darkness of a forsaken age of the Stalins and Hitlers.

I therefore direct my Trustee and his successors that nothing whatsoever must be changed in any of the documents and that they should be put away and stored for 50 years to secure their safety from destruction and falsification by anyone interested in the falsification and destruction of historical truth.
These directives are established by me solely for the preservation of documented truth as I lived it during my lifetime.
I have throughout all of my lifetime loved infants and children and adolescents, and I also was always loved and understood by them. Infants used to smile at me because I had deep contact with them and children of two or three very often used to become thoughtful and serious when they looked at me. This was one of the great happy privileges of my life, and I want to express in some manner my thanks for that love bestowed upon me by my little friends. May Fate and the great Ocean of Living Energy, from whence they came and into which they must return sooner or later, bless them with happiness and contentment and freedom during their life times. I hope to have contributed my good share to their future happiness.

To this end the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund should be mainly devoted and safely directed.

I bequeath the cabin below the road opposite the Student’s Laboratory at Orgonon to my daughter Dr. Eva Reich.
The 80% of all income, profits or proceeds due me and the Trust from royalties and tools originating in my discoveries shall be devoted to the care of infants everywhere, towards legal security of infants, children and adolescents in emotional, social, parental, medical, legal, educational, professional or other distress. Part of the proceeds may be used for basic orgonomic research.
Should the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund fail of purpose, then my Trustee after careful deliberation of the matter shall transfer all of the assets of the said Trust Fund to an appropriate agency designed and capable to handle such affairs.

My son Peter will need financial support for many years in his education to adult social activity. I therefore direct that:

All Treasury Bonds of the United States of America, bought and made out in Peter’s name, should not be used before the bonds fully mature.b.I hereby specifically give, devise and bequeath certain bonds made out in my name, my son Peter Reich as receiver after my death, to Ilse Ollendorff in trust nevertheless, or in the event of her death to Eva Reich in trust nevertheless, to have and to hold the same and receive the income and profits thereof and pay out to Peter the income, proceeds and principal thereof at the rate of $150. per month.
I hereby give, devise and bequeath to Peter any two of my rifles which he may choose, and together with those rifles such accessories as cartridge belt and cleaning material as he desires; my photographic equipment; such of my clothes as he may choose. For his life and until he decides not to use it personally, prior to his death, possession of the so-called «lower-cabin» at Orgonon with its furniture, together with surrounding acreage of about 10 acres, more or less, subject to a license in Eva Reich to use the cabin if she wishes; upon the death of Peter or upon his deciding not to use it personally, or upon his having not used it personally for a period of three years, the lower cabin shall revert to the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund for use by the Fund as a summer home for children; under no circumstances shall such summer home be in the possession, custody or control of any person other than Peter, or Eva Reich, if she likes, as hereinbefore set forth.

I hereby give, devise and bequeath to my daughter Eva $10,000, any of my personal furniture she may desire to possess.
I hereby give, devise and bequeath to Aurora Karrer $4,000 and my Chrysler 300, 1955 automobile.
I hereby give, devise and bequeath to my daughter Eva and my son Peter, share and share alike each 10% of all royalties which may be due at the time of my death or thereafter, which such royalties mean income from my discoveries, books or translations of books.
I hereby nominate, constitute and appoint Eva Reich M. D. as the Trustee of this My Last Will and Testament and as my Trustee direct that he or she shall be required to file no bond as such Executor or Trustee, any law to the contrary notwithstanding;’ and I further direct that in the execution of the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund, my said Trustee by an instrument in writing may appoint a successor, in the event my Trustee resigns or becomes incapacitated, or by a testamentary instrument may appoint a successor upon his death, which said successor and all of my trustees shall thereafter successively have the same power; it being my sole direction in this regard that such successor trustees shall make appointments consistent with my expressed purposes.
I harbor no ill will against my relatives. Most of them I have not met for many decades. Since I know of no relative of mine who would be able to serve the main purposes of this will, namely the Safeguarding of the Full Truth about my Life and Work, I disinherit for all future and in every respect ALL my relatives by blood and by marriage (both legal and common) on both my father’s and my mother’s line. They should have no claim whatsoever, no matter who, in what form or under whatever pretext to any of my present or future possessions, or to the possessions of the Wilhelm Reich Foundation which carries my name and was founded to preserve my discoveries; no claim on any ground and at no time whatever. This includes my own children with the exceptions mentioned above.
This Will and all of the provisions herein shall not be wholly or partially revoked or rendered or rendered wholly or partially ineffective or otherwise affected by the subsequent birth of a child or children to me.
I do not wish to be buried in any cemetery, but on Orgonon under the open porch, facing East, or at Rock Cove in the South. My Jo Jenks bust should be put on top of my grave. The inscription should be on granite and should contain the following words: Wilhelm Reich, born March 24, 1897, died___________, ________, No religious ceremonies should be performed. The «Ave Maria» of Schubert, sung by Marian Anderson, should be played.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set hand and seal this 8th day of March, 1957.

Wilhelm Reich (L.S.)

Witnesses:
William Moise

Michael Silvert

William Steig

Signed, Sealed, PUBLISHED AND DECLARED by the above named Testator as his Last Will and Testament, and we, at his request and in his presence and in the presence of each other, have hereunto signed our names as subscribing witnesses this ____ day of March, 1957.

William Moise, residing at, R. F. D. 1 Box 721 Alexandria, Va.

Michael Silvert, residing at, 50 Grove St., N. Y. 14, N. Y.

William Steig, residing at, R. D. 2., Cream Ridge, N. J.

Part VI

News & Events Posthumous Wilhelm Reich

From: Wilhelm Reich Collected Works Microfilms.

Bibliographic material present in the microfilms (Wilhelm Reich Collected Works Microfilms) in PDF form, made available by Eva Reich.

McF 522 Present handouts at the Orgone Energy Museum, Rangeley, Maine 1973

01 Wilhelm Reich The Developmental History of Orgonomic Functionalism A 1946

Reich’s autobiographical writings in four volumes:

Mary Boyd Higgins and Chester M. Raphael (eds.), Passion of Youth: An Autobiography, 1897–1922. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988

Mary Boyd Higgins (ed.), Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals 1934–1939, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994

Mary Boyd Higgins (ed.), American Odyssey: Letters and Journals 1940–1947, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999

Mary Boyd Higgins (ed.), Where’s the Truth?: Letters and Journals, 1948–1957, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012

Bookstore Special: All four of Reich’s autobiographical volumes, Passion of Youth, Beyond Psychology, American Odyssey, and Where’s the Truth/, are available as a set for discounted price.

Passion of Youth

An Autobiography, 1897–1922

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1988

«I was born in a small village as the first child of not unprosperous parents. My father was a farmer who, together with an uncle of my mother’s, had leased a fairly large landed estate in northern Bukovina, the farthest outpost of German culture. From the beginning, my mother tongue was German, as was my schooling.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(opening paragraph of Passion of Youth)

Passion of Youth is the first posthumous publication of Wilhelm Reich’s biographical writings, and reveals that Reich’s childhood, adolescence and early adulthood–no less than his work–were provocative and instructive. This 178-page volume is comprised of three sections: «Childhood and Puberty: 1897–1914,» «The Great War: 1914–1918,» and «Vienna: 1918–1922.»

In «Childhood and Puberty»–a reminiscence which Reich composed in 1919–Reich tells of his earliest years spent on a country estate in Bukovina. He describes his first conscious experiences of sexuality; the further development of his sexuality; his schooling; and the catastrophic infidelity that led first to his mother’s suicide in 1910, and then to his father’s death in 1914.

In «The Great War» Reich describes how he fled Bukovina at the outbreak of World War One and enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian Army, where he became a battalion commander and lieutenant. He recounts how his four years in the military impressed upon him the masses’ numb obedience to authority and the automatic quality of a ceaselessly operating «war machine.»

And in «Vienna: 1918–1922» Reich recalls his years as a medical student at the University of Vienna, from which he graduated in 1922. His diaries from these years record the growth of his conviction that sexuality is the core around which one’s social life and inner life revolves; his first political stirrings; and his analysis of the woman who would become his first wife.

Throughout this book, Reich’s reminiscences and diaries abound in turbulent emotions and the passion of youth.

Leidenschaft der Jugend(German Manuscripts)

Passion of Youth

Beyond Psychology

Letters and Journals 1934 – 1939

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1994

«Reich was a prolific writer. Throughout his adult life, he scrupulously recorded his observations, findings, and thoughts in diaries and workbooks, in personal and professional correspondence, as well as in published manuscripts. My task has been to choose from these diverse materials in a way that reveals within the confines of a limited number of pages the scope and diversity of Reich’s story. I do not know if I have succeeded in this effort, but I have honestly tried. There have many times when I felt overwhelmed. Reich’s life was neither neat nor smooth, nor did it always conform to the social mores of his time. It was passionate and bold, full of controversy and conflict, always in motion, and, in its unwavering search for the simplest truths about life itself, extraordinarily complex.»

Mary Boyd Higgins,

The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust

(from Editor’s Note)

In August 1934, without warning or explanation, Wilhelm Reich was expelled from the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). Political expediency and the organization’s growing adherence to Freud’s death instinct theory had prevailed over Reich’s scientific efforts to understand the functioning of what Freud had termed «libido.»

The provocative originality of Reich’s work in the years to follow would inevitably distance him from Freudian psychology. But the result was an extraordinary widening of his scientific interests, scrupulously documented in these journals and letters. They record his pioneering laboratory experiments to verify the reality of the pleasure function and his discovery of an unknown energy that exists in all living matter. They record, too, the anguish of a man unafraid to speak his truth in the face of attack and defamation, even though it cost him his profession, his homeland and his adopted country, his wife, his two children, and his lover.

In her Introduction to Beyond Psychology, the book’s editor, Mary Boyd Higgins of The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust, considers key events and themes of Reich’s life and work leading up to 1934.

Jenseits der Psychologie (German Manuscripts)

Beyond Psychology

American Odyssey

Letters and Journals 1940 -1947

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1999

«Created from Reich’s journals and correspondence, this book is a direct continuation of Beyond Psychology. Its narrative begins in January 1940. Reich has been living in the United States for four months, teaching at the New School for Social Research in New York City, re-establishing his laboratory and cancer research, becoming acquainted again with his daughters, Eva and Lore, and involved in a new personal relationship with a German-born woman, Ilse Ollendorff.”

Mary Boyd Higgins,

The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust

(Editor’s Note)

American Odyssey, compiled from Wilhelm Reich’s correspondence and his personal and work journals, chronicles his first years in America. They were years of prodigious accomplishment in which he developed the orgone energy accumulator–the so-called «orgone box»–published his first books in English, made breakthroughs in his persistent investigation of orgone energy in social pathology, cancer, physics, and astronomy, and interested none other than Albert Einstein in testing his theories. America also brought a new marriage, a son, a new group of students, and a new laboratory.

But these were years of fierce struggle as well: the denial of a complimentary American medical license, the refusal of a patent on the orgone energy accumulator, and finally a slanderous article that would incite the Food and Drug Administration to its dogged attack on Reich that would continue until his death in prison year later.

American Odyssey describes more than a period in the life of an embattled scientist: it illuminates the social and intellectual life of a country during a tumultuous time in history

Where’s the Truth?

Letters and Journals, 1948-1957

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 2012

«In the beginning of one’s task, one is enthusiastic about helping mankind. At the end of the same task, one is worn out and has lost most or all of the enthusiasm. Humanity, for whose benefit one believed to fight, has put too many dangerous obstacles in one’s path. One had to risk breaking one’s neck in overcoming these obstacles. Disillusionment has overcome the searcher and helper. Humanity itself, through its pestilent sergeants, has obstructed its own benefits. Therefore, the inventor or searcher acquires that definite expression of suffering and sorrow in his face (Beethoven, Galileo, Freud) which indicates that the enthusiasm to help has been replaced by ardent adherence to truth beyond any immediate practical interests. »

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(opening of Where’s the Truth?)

Where’s the Truth? is the fourth and final volume of Wilhelm Reich’s autobiographical writings, an account of the last years of his life and scientific career drawn from his diaries, letters and laboratory notebooks. These writings reveal the details of the outrider scientist’s life—his joys and sorrows, his hopes and insecurities—and chronicle his experiments with what he called “orgone energy”.

A student of Freud’s and a prominent research physician in the early psychoanalytic movement in Vienna and Berlin, Reich emigrated from Oslo to America in 1939 in flight from Naziism, arriving in New York four days before the outbreak of World War Two. In New York, and later in Maine and Arizona, he pursued his research about orgone energy functions in the living organism and in the atmosphere.

Where’s the Truth? begins in January 1948, shortly after Reich became a target of the Federal Food and Drug Administration. Starting in December 1939, he’d already faced persecution by the U.S. government, having been mistaken by the State Department and FBI for both a Communist and a Nazi.

Starting in 1947, Reich was hounded by the FDA which, in 1954, obtained an injunction by default against him that enabled it to burn six tons of his published books and research journals, and to ban the use of one of his most important experimental research tools: the orgone energy accumulator.

Challenging the right of a court to judge basic scientific research, Reich was imprisoned in March 1957 and died in the U.S. Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania eight months later.

The text gathered in this volume shows Reich’s steadfast determination to protect his work. «Where’s the truth?» he asked a lawyer. And that question animates this volume and rounds out our understanding of a unique, irrepressible modern figure.

— From: Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust – Orgonomic Functionalism

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol I. I (Spring 1990)

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol II. II (Fall 1990)

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol III. III (Summer 1991)

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol IV. IV (Summer 1992)

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol V. V (Summer 1994)

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol VI. VI (Summer 1996)

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol I. I

Interval 6-20 Pag. 1-29

02 Wilhelm Reich The Biological Revolution from Homo Normalis to the Child of the Future 1950

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol I. I

Interval 21-43 Pag. 30-74

03 Wilhelm Reich A Note on Sympathetic Understanding.

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol I. I

Interval 43-47 Pag. 75-82

04 Wilhelm Reich The Silente Observer A 1952

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol I. I

Interval 47-55 Pag. 83-99

05 Wilhelm Reich Functional Thinking 1950

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol I. I

Interval 56-62 Pag. 100-112

06 Wilhelm Reich The Developmental History of Orgonomic Functionalism B 1946

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol II. II

Interval 4-15 Pag. 1-23

07 Wilhelm Reich The Silente Observer B 1952

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol II. II

Interval 16-20 Pag. 24-33

08 Wilhelm Reich Wrong Thinking Kills 1936

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol II. II

Interval 21-25 Pag. 34-43

09 Wilhelm Reich On Using The Atomic Bomb 1945

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol II. II

Interval 26-28 Pag. 44-49

10 Wilhelm Reich Mans Roots In Nature 1950

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol II. II

Interval 29-41 Pag. 50-74

11 Wilhelm Reich The Developmental History of Orgonomic Functionalism C 1947

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol III. III

Interval 4-13 Pag. 1-19

12 Wilhelm Reich Orgonotic Pulsation 1944 A

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol III. III

Interval 14-35 Pag. 20-63

13 Wilhelm Reich The Evasiveness of Homo Normalis 1947

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol III. III

Interval 36-49 Pag. 64-91

14 Wilhelm Reich The Developmental History of Orgonomic Functionalism D 1947

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol IV. IV

Interval 4-13 Pag. 1-18

15 Wilhelm Reich Orgonotic Pulsation 1944 B

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol IV. IV

Interval 13-24 Pag. 19-40

16 Wilhelm Reich Orgone Functions in Weather Formation 1946

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol IV. IV

Interval 24-29 Pag. 41-51

17 Wilhelm Reich The Attitude of Mechanistic Natural Science to the Life Problem 1941

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol IV. IV

Interval 30-35 Pag. 52-63

18 Wilhelm Reich Orgonomic Functionalism in Non-Living Nature A 1947

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol V. V

Interval 4-13 Pag. 1-19

19 Wilhelm Reich Orgonotic Pulsation 1944 C

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol V. V

Interval 14-26 Pag. 20-44

20 Wilhelm Reich Parents as Educators 1926

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol V. V

Interval 26-37 Pag. 45-66

21 Wilhelm Reich Open Season on Truth 1942

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol V. V

Interval 37-48 Pag. 67-88

22 Wilhelm Reich The Fundamental Problem of Form 1935

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol V. V

Interval 48-48 Pag. 89-89

23 Wilhelm Reich Orgonomic Functionalism in Non-Living Nature B 1947

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol VI. VI

Interval 4-14 Pag. 1-21

24 Wilhelm Reich Orgonotic Pulsation D 1944

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol VI. VI

Interval 15-21 Pag. 22-35

25 Wilhelm Reich Desert Development and Emotional Dedness 1953

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol VI. VI

Interval 22-29 Pag. 36-50

26 Wilhelm Reich Process Of Integration in the Newborn and the Schizophrenic 1950

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol VI. VI

Interval 29-39 Pag. 51-71

27 Wilhelm Reich The Meaning of Disposition to Disease 1944

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol VI. VI

Interval 40-41 Pag. 72-75

28 Wilhelm Reich The Difficulty 1948

Wilhelm Reich-Orgonomic Functionalism – Vol VI. VI

Interval 42-42 Pag. 76-76

Reich, Wilhelm (ed.) (1953). The Einstein Affair, Orgone Institute Press.

Brian, Denis (1996). Einstein: A Life, John Wiley & Sons, pp. 326–327.

Clark, Ronald W. (1971). Einstein: The Life and Times, Avon, pp. 689–690.

Correa, Paul N.; Correa, Alexandra N. (October 2010). «The Reproducible Thermal Anomaly of the Reich-Einstein Experiment under Limit Conditions,» Journal of Aetherometric Research, 2(6), pp. 25–31.

Reich, Wilhelm. Selected Writings: An Introduction to Orgonomy, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1960

Reich, Wilhelm (1967). Reich Speaks of Freud. Souvenir Press.

Reich, Wilhelm. Sexpol. Essays 1929–1934, Random House, 1972

Reich, Wilhelm. The Sexual Struggle of Youth, Socialist Reproduction, 1972 (Der Sexuelle Kampf der Jugend)

Reich, Wilhelm. Early Writings: Volume One, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975

Reich, Wilhelm. Genitality in the Theory and Therapy of Neurosis, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980

Reich, Wilhelm. Record of a Friendship: The Correspondence of Wilhelm Reich and A.S. Neill (1936–1957), 1981

Reich, Wilhelm. Children of the Future: On the Prevention of Sexual Pathology, 1983 (the chapter entitled «The Sexual Rights of Youth» is a revision of Der Sexuelle Kampf der Jugend)

Reich, Wilhelm. Reich, Wilhelm (1988). Leidenschaft der Jugend/Passion of Youth. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Reich, Wilhelm (1994). Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals 1934–1939. Farrar Straus & Giroux.

Abrahams, Ian. Hawkwind: Sonic Assassins, SAF Publishing Ltd, 2004.

Bauer, Henry H. (2000). «Wilhelm Reich,» in Science or Pseudoscience?, University of Illinois Press.

Blumenfeld, Robert (2006). «Wilhelm Reich and Character Analysis», Tools and Techniques for Character Interpretation. Limelight Editions.

Bocian, Bernd. Fritz Perls in Berlin 1893–1933, Peter Hammer Verlag GmbH, 2010.

Brady, Mildred Edie (April 1947). «The New Cult of Sex and Anarchy», Harper’s.

Brady, Mildred Edie (26 May 1947). «The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich», The New Republic.

Brian, Denis (1996). Einstein: A Life, John Wiley & Sons.

Bugental, James F. T., Schneider, Kirk J. and Pierson, J. Fraser (2001). The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology, Sage.

Cooper, Kim (26 September 2011). «Very Different Tonight: The Contagious Nightmares of Wilhelm Reich», Post45.

Cordon, Luis A. (2012). «Reich, Wilhelm» in Freud’s World: An Encyclopedia of His Life and Times, Greenwood, pp. 405–424.

Corrington, Robert S. (2003). Wilhelm Reich: Psychoanalyst and Radical Naturalist, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Danto, Elizabeth Ann (2007). Freud’s Free Clinics: Psychoanalysis & Social Justice, 1918–1938, Columbia University Press, first published 2005.

DeMarco, Donald and Wiker, Benjamin D. (2004). «Wilhelm Reich», Architects of the Culture of Death, Ignatius Press.

Edwards, Paul (1977). «The Greatness of Wilhelm Reich,» The Humanist, March/April 1974, reprinted in Charles A. Garfield (ed.) (1977). Rediscovery of the Body. A Psychosomatic View of Life and Death, Dell, pp. 41–50.

Elkind, David (18 April 1971). «Wilhelm Reich — The Psychoanalyst as Revolutionary; Wilhelm Reich», The New York Times.

Encyclopædia Britannica (2012). «Wilhelm Reich».

Foucault, Michel (1978). The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, Vintage Books.

Freud, Sigmund (1928). «Letter from Freud to Lou Andreas-Salomé, May 9, 1928» in Ernest Jones (ed.), The International Psycho-Analytical Library, 89, pp. 174–175.

Greenberg, Leslie S. and Safran, Jeremy D. (1990). Emotion in Psychotherapy, Guilford Press.

Grossinger, Richard (1982). «Wilhelm Reich: From Character Analysis to Cosmic Eros», Planet Medicine: From Stone Age Shamanism to Post-industrial Healing, Taylor & Francis.

Guntrip, Harry (1961). Personality Structure and Human Interaction, Hogarth Press.

Isaacs, Kenneth S. (1999). «Searching for Science in Psychoanalysis», Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 29(3), pp. 235–252.

Karina, Lilina and Kant, Marion (2004). Hitler’s Dancers: German Modern Dance And The Third Reich, Berghahn Books.

Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (4 January 1971). «Back Into the Old Orgone Box», The New York Times.

MacBean, James Roy (1972). «Sex and Politics: Wilhelm Reich, World Revolution, and Makavejev’s WR», Film Quarterly, 25(3), Spring, pp. 2–13.

Moy, Ron (2007). Kate Bush and Hounds of Love, Ashgate Publishing.

Murphy, James M. (4 January 2012). «The man who started the sexual revolution», The Times Literary Supplement.

Reich, Peter (1973). A Book Of Dreams, Harper & Row.

Roeckelein, Jon E. (2006). «Reich’s Orgone/Orgonomy Theory,» Elsevier’s Dictionary of Psychological Theories. Elsevier.

Rubin, Lore Reich (2003). «Wilhelm Reich and Anna Freud: His Expulsion from Psychoanalysis», Int. Forum Psychoanal, 12, pp. 109–117.

Sharaf, Myron (1994). Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich, Da Capo Press; first published by St. Martin’s Press, 1983.

Sheppard, R. Z. (14 May 1973) «A family affair», Time magazine.

Sterba, Richard F. (1982). Reminiscences of a Viennese Psychoanalyst, Wayne State University Press.

Søbye, Espen (1995). Rolf Stenersen. En biografi, Forlaget Oktober (in Norwegian).

Strick, James E. (2015). Wilhelm Reich, Biologist, Harvard University Press.

Time magazine (18 November 1957). «Milestones, Nov. 18, 1957»(obituary).

Turner, Christopher (6 October 2005). «Naughty Children», London Review of Books, 27(19).

Turner, Christopher (2011). Adventures in the Orgasmatron, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Turner, Christopher (8 July 2011). «Wilhelm Reich: the man who invented free love», The Guardian.

Turner, Christopher (23 September 2011). «Adventures in the Orgasmatron», The New York Times.

Yontef, Gary and Jacobs, Lynn (2010). «Gestalt Therapy» in Raymond J. Corsini and Danny Wedding (eds.), Current Psychotherapies, Cengage Learning.

Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth (2008). Anna Freud: A Biography, Yale University Press, first published 1988.

Genitality in the Theory and Therapy of Neurosis

Early Writings

Volume One

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1975

«Publication of Reich’s early writings at this time is not merely to provide the evidence that established him as a pioneer in psychoanalysis, but primarily to enable the serious reader to become familiar with studies which form the essential links in the evolution of his work from psychoanalysis to orgone biophysics. Confusion about the logic of this development has contributed to the skepticism that has greeted his discoveries and to the hostility which surrounded his person and led to his untimely and tragic death. This confusion may in part be attributed to the inaccessibility of these early writings. Some of them were never published; others were banned in Nazi Germany; while still others were dispersed throughout Europe in the troubled circumstances preceding World War II. Moreover, prior to his immigration to the United States in 1939, Reich had already separated himself from the psychoanalytic movement and had committed himself to the biophysical investigations which led to the discovery of orgone energy.»

Chester M. Raphael, M.D.

(from the Foreword)

This volume marked the beginning of the publication in English of Reich’s early writings. Subsequent English publications of Reich’s early writings would include The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life in 1979, Genitality in 1980, and The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety in 1982.

Together, these volumes trace Reich’s scientific development from his psychoanalytic study of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt–presented by Reich for his membership in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (1920)–to his first laboratory experiments to investigate the energy functions of sexuality and anxiety (1934), to his crucial discovery of the bions (1938), which initiated his work in orgone biophysics and led to the discovery of cosmic orgone energy.

Early Writings – Volume One includes «Libidinal Conflicts and Delusions in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt» (1920), «A Case of Pubertal Breaching of the Incest Taboo» (1920), «Coition and the Sexes» (1921), «Drive and Libido Concepts from Forel to Jung» (1922), «Concerning Specific Forms of Masturbation» (1922), «Two Narcissistic Types» (1922), «Concerning the Energy of Drives» (1923), «On Genitality: From the Standpoint of Psychoanalytic Prognosis and Therapy» (1924), «The Psychogenic Tic as a Masturbation Equivalent» (1925), «Further Remarks on the Therapeutic Significance of Genital Libido» (1925), «A Hysterical Psychosis in Statu Nascendi» (1925), and «The Impulsive Character: A Psychoanalytic Study of Ego Pathology» (1925).

In The Theory and Therapy of Neurosis

Original Publication as Die Funktion des Orgasmus: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag – 1927

Re-published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1980

«Coming to Freud from sexology and biology, I perhaps felt the lack of a fundamental theory of the biological basis of neurosis more acutely than did my colleagues who came from internal medicine or from materialistic philosophy. Thus, although when I first encountered Freud’s teachings, his views of «actual neurosis» seemed completely unclear, I nevertheless felt it was the pivotal point from which the natural scientific study of sexual biology had to proceed.»

Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

(from the Preface – 1944)

Reich first presented the major aspects of his clinical findings on the significance of genitality in the theory and therapy of neurosis in 1927. Published in German as Die Funktion des Orgasmus, Reich dedicated the book to Freud who found it «valuable, rich in clinical material as well as in ideas.» In 1937 and again in 1944, Reich made extensive revisions for a second edition of this work in which his early thinking on the function of the orgasm was brought into line with his later biophysical discoveries.

Genitality is the first publication of Reich’s second, revised edition. Its title was changed to avoid confusion with Reich’s first American book, published in 1942, which he entitled The Function of the Orgasm.

Chapters in Genitality include: «Orgastic Potency,» «The Neurotic Conflict,» «Disturbances of the Orgasm,» «Sexual Statis: The Energy Source of Neurosis,» «Forms of Genital Impotence,» «On the Psychoanalytic Theory of Genitality,» «Sexual Stasis, Aggression, Destruction, and Sadism,» «The Social Significance of Genital Strivings.»

Record of a Friendship

The Correspondence of Wilhelm Reich and A.S. Neill

Edited, with an Introduction, by Beverley R. Placzek

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1981

«What held this friendship together for so long? The two men came from opposite ends of Europe and from vastly different social backgrounds. They were half a generation apart in age. And yet these two could talk to each other as no one else. Reich: «Please write more often, since you are one of the few to whom I can talk»; and Neill: «Forgive my grumble, but you are the only one to whom I can write.» On the face of it, it was a most unlikely friendship. Opposites are said to attract, and certainly two more different men can scarcely be imagined: Reich, the Central European, intellectual, highly educated, enormously gifted, and of driving energy, who moved, thought, and worked always in high gear; Neill, the Scot, intelligent to be sure, even wise, but no intellectual, canny, humorous patient, and pragmatic.»

Beverley R. Placzek

(from the Introduction)

Wilhelm Reich and A. S. Neill first met in Norway in 1936; they remained friends for over twenty years until Reich’s death in 1957. Though they were separated for most of those years, a steady exchange of letters, back and forth across the Atlantic, stand as a record of a friendship between two remarkable men.

Neill, Scottish schoolmaster and child psychologist, was the founder of the radical school Summerhill. Reich was an iconoclastic psychoanalyst known for his unorthodox theories on society and sexuality. Both were deeply dedicated men, with a strong belief in the redemptive powers of unconstricted, natural development. Neill held Reich to be a genius whose work was bringing humanity closer to the goal of self-understanding and freedom. Reich valued Neill’s experience as a pioneering educator and his extraordinary understanding of children.

Their letters chronicle the problem and joys of their work, their delight in the development of their children, their distress at what was happening in the world around them. The tone and content of each man’s letters are as different as the men themselves. Neill’s are filled with everyday things, his school activities, new of friends, variously humorous and pentetratingly realistic. Reich’s are almost always about his work and the growing success and acceptance of his ideas. For all their warm friendship, the two often argued, sometimes hotly. Reich frequently lectured Neill–on his slowness to righteous anger, on the threat of Communism and Fascism–and reiterated his assertion of his own indifference to public acceptance. In later years, as Neill’s left-wing sympathies kept him from visiting America and Reich’s legal battles became ever more consuming, the two began to drift apart. Yet throughout, Record of a Friendship glows with their affection and the enrichment each brought to the life of the other.

Editor Beverley R. Placzek has worked in child education and psychology, and is the translator of several works from German to English.

Children of the Future

On the Prevention of Sexual Pathology

With a Preface by William Steig

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1983

«Angels at birth, we become lost souls. And so it has been for ever so long, as we learn from reading the ancients. How does this happen? Why do we humans, in many ways the most intelligent of all animals, fail to realize what every dog, or whale, or mouse spontaneously knows–that he is part of nature and must cooperate with it, obey its laws? Why are we estranged from life? What is wrong with us, with our way of rearing our children? Reich asked such questions all the time. He was one of those extraordinary men who are able to step outside their culture and examine it with innocent eyes. This book contains a part of Reich’s enormous work on human pathology. It contains studies, made between 1926 and 1952, of the damage we do to our children by thwarting their natural impulses, some of which are sexual.»

William Steig

(from the Preface)

In Wilhelm Reich’s early work, his knowledge of children came about as a reflection of his work with adults. But his basic interest in preventing disease led him further and further back until he was focused on the newborn, «the unspoiled protoplasm.» Reich believed that nothing required our dedication more than an understanding of the impact of the environment on the infant child.

In Children of the Future–a collection of previously published articles as well as new unpublished materials–Reich shows how disastrous the exclusion of genitality is to the young and how important its influence is on their development. For example, in his 1932 work «The Sexual Rights of Youth,» published here for the first time in Reich’s revised form, he speaks to the young of in terms of what he sees as the real meaning of «the sexual enlightenment» of youth: not the mystery and dangers of procreation , but the essential nature of sexuality and the right of youth to genital satisfaction.

Other chapters include: «The Source of the Human ‘No’,» «Problems of Healthy Children During the First Puberty (Ages Three to Six),» «Orgonomic First Aid for Children,» «Meeting the Emotional Plague,» «Armoring in a Newborn Infant,» «Falling Anxiety in a Three-Week-Old Infant,» «Concerning Childhood Masturbation,» and «A Conversation With a Sensible Mother.» All of these writings reflect Reich’s concrete observations and experiences with children, and several of these chapters are never-before-published case studies from the Orgonomic Infant Research Center (OIRC). Children of the Future also includes a Preface by cartoonist and children’s book author William Steig, a friend and supporter of Reich’s, best known today as the author of Shrek, upon which the hit films were based.

«Let the children themselves decide their own future,» Reich writes. «Our task is to make them capable of deciding for themselves, and not to destroy their natural powers to do so.»

Reich Speaks of Freud

Wilhelm Reich Discusses His Work and His Relationship with Sigmund Freud

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1967

«The Wilhelm Reich interview, conducted by Kurt Eissler, M.D. representing the Sigmund Freud Archives, took place at Orgonon in Rangeley, Maine, on October 18 and 19, 1952…While Reich in many of his writings did refer to this relationship and to the conflict that developed later, the directness and informality of the interview technique has made it possible to elicit the information in a manner that is both simple and concise, and should have the advantage of placing the reader in a favorable position to determine for himself what was at issue.»

Mary Boyd Higgins & Chester M. Raphael, M.D.

(from the Editors’ Preface)

The core of this book is a tape-recorded interview of Wilhelm Reich conducted by a representative of the Sigmund Freud Archives, Inc. Published here for the first time–much to the displeasure of the Freud Archives–it is a profoundly human and unusually candid document that supplies a long-awaited clarification of the relationship between Freud and Reich. Reich is both critical and compassionate as he discusses the personally tragic but scientifically vital implications of his relationship with Freud.

The book also has an extensive Documentary Supplement containing pertinent extracts from Reich’s writings, as well as previously unpublished material from his archives, including letters to Freud, Adler, Ferenczi, and others involved in the early struggles within psychoanalysis. This book also includes documents revealing the unrelenting hostility of the psychoanalysts toward Reich.

Selected Writings

An Introduction to Orgonomy

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux – 1960

«This anthology of selected writings from the works of Wilhelm Reich was conceived as an introduction to Orgonomy, and it is presented without editorial comment or interpretation in the simple belief that those who seek knowledge must go to its source.»

Mary Boyd Higgins,

Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust

(from the Foreword)

For readers unfamiliar with Wilhelm Reich’s literature who are looking for that first book to read, we highly recommend Selected Writings – An Introduction to Orgonomy. First published in 1960, this anthology was the first re-publishing of Wilhelm Reich’s writings in America since the banning and burning of his literature by order of a 1954 Injunction from a U.S. Federal Court.

This selection of writings from the works of Wilhelm Reich is presented as an introduction to the science of Orgonomy, and includes key chapters from Ether, God and Devil, The Function of the Orgasm, Character Analysis, The Cancer Biopathy, Cosmic Superimposition, The Oranur Experiment, and The Murder of Christ, as well as articles from the Orgone Energy Bulletin.

This anthology is not intended to replace any of Reich’s books, bulletins, and journals, but rather to serve as an introduction to them. It is hoped that these selections will enable the reader to follow the functional logic of Reich’s body of work and to experience the excitement of a scientific legacy that extended for over a third of a century, culminating in Reich’s discovery and practical applications of orgone energy.

Selected Writings also contains a brief biography of Reich, a concise chronology of Reich’s scientific development, a glossary of terms from the science of Orgonomy, a bibliography of Reich’s publications, Reich’s Response to the Federal Court’s Complaint for Injunction, and the Court’s Decree of Injunction ordering the banning and destruction of Reich’s publications.

Articles by Reich

The Sexual Rights of Youth

Reich speaks to the young in terms of what he sees as the real meaning of «sexual enlightenment»: not the mysteries and dangers of procreation, but the essential nature of sexuality and the right of youth to genital gratification.

Reich, Wilhelm. Children of the Future: On the Prevention of Sexual Pathology, 1983 (the chapter entitled «The Sexual Rights of Youth» is a revision of Der Sexuelle Kampf der Jugend)

Laboratory Manual for Bion Experiments

Notes by a Laboratory Worker – Norway, February 1938

(Handwritten & Typed Pages in German only – 105 pages)

In his 2009 Summer Conference lecture, «Reich’s Unpublished Laboratory Notebooks and Correspondence,» Professor James Strick, Ph.D.–author and science historian–showed excerpts from this 1938 laboratory manual which he discovered during a visit to the Archives to research his new book about Reich’s bion experiments.

Professor Strick strongly urged the Trust to make this manual available in our bookstore for those seriously interested in Bion research, despite the fact that we currently have neither the time nor resources to translate this document into English and issue it as a regular book. We agreed, realizing that this primary resource has tremendous value for the serious scientific researcher.

We caution everyone that this publication will have limited interest and accessibility to the average reader. It is a bound-photocopy edition of the manual’s original pages: all of the content is in German, some of is typed and some of it is handwritten. It also has an Introduction in English by Professor Strick, which we include below:

Introduction to: A Laboratory Manual for Bion Experiments

by
James Strick, Ph.D.

Franklin and Marshall College

Strick, James E. (2015). Wilhelm Reich, Biologist, Harvard University Press.

JAMES E. STRICK Wilhelm Reich, Biologist HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2015

Psychoanalyst, political theorist, pioneer of body therapies, prophet of the sexual revolution—all fitting titles, but Wilhelm Reich has never been recognized as a serious laboratory scientist, despite his experimentation with bioelectricity and unicellular organisms. Wilhelm Reich, Biologist is an eye-opening reappraisal of one of twentieth-century science’s most controversial figures—perhaps the only writer whose scientific works were burned by both the Nazis and the U.S. government. Refuting allegations of “pseudoscience” that have long dogged Reich’s research, James Strick argues that Reich’s lab experiments in the mid-1930s represented the cutting edge of light microscopy and time-lapse micro-cinematography and deserve to be taken seriously as legitimate scientific contributions.

Trained in medicine and a student of Sigmund Freud, Reich took to the laboratory to determine if Freud’s concept of libido was quantitatively measurable. His electrophysiological experiments led to his “discovery” of microscopic vesicles (he called them “bions”), which Reich hypothesized were instrumental in originating life from nonliving matter. Studying Reich’s laboratory notes from recently opened archives, Strick presents a detailed account of the Bion experiments, tracing how Reich eventually concluded he had discovered an unknown type of biological radiation he called “orgone.” The bion experiments were foundational to Reich’s theory of cancer and later investigations of orgone energy.

Reich’s experimental findings and interpretations were considered discredited, but not because of shoddy lab technique, as has often been claimed. Scientific opposition to Reich’s experiments, Strick contends, grew out of resistance to his unorthodox sexual theories and his Marxist political leanings.

Archives, 1897, 1919-1956.

Baker, Elsworth F. (1967). Man In The Trap. Macmillan.

Bean, Orson (1971). Me and the Orgone. St. Martin’s Press.

Boadella, David (1971). Wilhelm Reich: The Evolution Of His Work.Henry Regnery.

Boadella, David (ed.) (1976). In The Wake Of Reich. Coventure.

Cattier, Michael (1970). The Life and Work of Wilhelm Reich.Horizon Press, 1970.

Cohen, Ira H. (1982). Ideology and Unconsciousness : Reich, Freud, and Marx. New York University Press.

Corrington, Robert S. (2003). Wilhelm Reich: Psychoanalyst and Radical Naturalist. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Chesser, Eustice (1972). Reich and Sexual Freedom. Vision Press.

Chesser, Eustice (1973). Salvation Through Sex: The Life and Work of Wilhelm Reich. W. Morrow.

Dadoun, Roger (1975). Cent Fleurs pour Wilhelm Reich. Payot.

De Marchi, Luigi (1973). Wilhelm Reich, biographie d’une idée. Fayard.

Gebauer, Rainer and Müschenich, Stefan (1987). Der Reichische Orgonakkumulator. Frankfurt/Main: Nexus Verlag.

Greenfield, Jerome (1974). Wilhelm Reich Vs. the U.S.A.. W.W. Norton.

Herskowitz, Morton (1998). Emotional Armoring: An Introduction to Psychiatric Orgone Therapy. Transactions Press.

Johler, Birgit (2008). Wilhelm Reich Revisited. Turia & Kant.

Kavouras, Jorgos (2005). Heilen mit Orgonenergie: Die Medizinische Orgonomie. Turm Verlag.

Kornbichler, Thomas (2006). Flucht nach Amerika: Emigration der Psychotherapeuten: Richard Huelsenbeck, Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm. Kreuz.

Lassek, Heiko (1997). Orgon-Therapie: Heilen mit der reinen Lebensenergie. Scherz Verlag.

Mairowitz, D. & Gonzales, G. (1986). Reich For Beginners. Writers & Readers.

Makavejev, Dusan (1972). WR Mysteries of the Organism. Avon Publishers.

Mann, Edward (1973). Orgone. Reich And Eros: Wilhelm Reich’s Theory Of The Life Energy. Simon & Schuster.

Mann, Edward & Hoffman, Edward (ed.) (1980). The Man Who Dreamed Of Tomorrow: A Conceptual Biography Of Wilhelm Reich. J.P. Tarcher.

Martin, Jim (2000). Wilhelm Reich and the Cold War. Flatland Books.

Meyerowitz, Jacob (1994). Before the Beginning of Time. Rrp Publishers.

Mulisch, Harry (1973). Het seksuele bolwerk. De Bezige Bij.

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

Raknes, Ola (1970). Wilhelm Reich And Orgonomy. St. Martin’s Press.

Reich, Peter (1973). A Book Of Dreams. Harper & Row.

Ritter, Paul (ed.) (1958). Wilhelm Reich Memorial Volume. Ritter Press.

Robinson, Paul (1990). The Freudian Left: Wilhelm Reich, Geza Roheim, Herbert Marcuse. Cornell University Press, first published 1969.

Rycroft, Charles (1971). Reich. Fontana Modern Masters.

Seelow, David (2005). Radical Modernism and Sexuality : Freud, Reich, D.H. Lawrence and Beyond. Palgrave Macmillan.

Senf, Bernd (1996). Die Wiederentdeckung des Lebendigen (The Rediscovery of the Living). Zweitausendeins Verlag.

Sharaf, Myron (1994). Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich. Da Capo Press; first published by St. Martin’s Press, 1983.

Sinelnikoff, Constantin (1970). L’Oeuvre de Wilhelm Reich. François Maspero.

Strick, James E. (2015). Wilhelm Reich, Biologist, Harvard University Press.

Turner, Christopher (2011). Adventures in the Orgasmatron. HarperCollins.

Wilson, Robert Anton (1998). Wilhelm Reich in Hell. Aires Press.

Wilson, Colin (1981). The Quest for Wilhelm Reich. Doubleday.

Wright, Paki (2002). The All Souls’ Waiting Room. 1st Book Library (novel).

Wyckoff, James (1973). Wilhelm Reich: Life Force Explorer. Fawcett.

———

Walter, Pierre F(2010). The Science of Orgonomy: A Study on Wilhelm Reich. Createspace.

——–

Wilhelm Reich after 50 years

«Sexual Energy gets a second look»

Rangeley, Maine, Nov. 6, 2007 (Associated Press)

This undated family photo from the mid 1950s shows the late physician-scientist Wilhelm Reich at his laboratory in Rangeley, Maine. The European-born inventor of the orgone energy accumulator died 50 years ago and will be honored at the opening of a major exhibition Nov. 15, 2007 at the Jewish Museum in Vienna. This is where Reich attended medical school and began his psychiatric practice and studied under Sigmund Freud.

Physician-scientist Wilhelm Reich — best known for his claims of a cosmic life force associated with sexual orgasm — died in Federal prison. The U.S. government burned many of his books and other publications and destroyed his equipment.

But half-a-century later, a small number of scientists and other believers are working to advance the European-born psychiatrist’s work on what he called «orgoneenergy» — a theory largely forgotten in the scientific mainstream.

«Personally, I think it’s going to be a long time before all of his work is understood and recognized,» said Reich’s granddaughter Renata Reich Moise, a nurse-midwife and artist in the coastal town of Hancock in the northeast state of Maine.

Reich died on Nov. 3, 1957 in a federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania where he was sent for ignoring an injunction obtained by the Food and Drug Administration that outlawed a device he called an «orgone energy accumulator». Reich believed it could charge the body with essential life energy, heightening vitality and potentially helping to heal disease.

Critics point to some of these more unconventional ideas in deriding him as a quack. But supporters say that he was a brilliant man whose ideas warrant further exploration.

The 50^thanniversary of his death is being marked by a major exhibition on Reich and his work that opens Nov. 15 at the Jewish Museum in Vienna — the city where he attended medical school, began his psychiatric practice, and studied under Sigmund Freud.

Also this month, archives of Reich’s unpublished papers (which have been stored at Harvard Medical School) will become available to researchers for the first time. Reich had stipulated that his papers only be opened 50 years after his death.

He also specified that his laboratory at the site he dubbed ‘Orgonon’ — which overlooks Rangeley Lake — be converted to a museum. It opened in 1960.

In Rangeley where Reich spent his latter years, scientists and doctors from the U.S. and Europe gathered this summer for a conference that explored the prospects of seeking FDA approval for clinical trials of orgone accumulator blankets to treat burn victims.

Reich is described by the American Psychoanalytic Association as «one of the most brilliant, creative, and controversial of the pioneering analysts.» He was the first to focus on character analysis rather than neurotic symptoms. He linked a healthy sex life — which he called «orgastic potency» — to emotional wellness, believing that failure to discharge sexual energy resulted in neurotic disorders.

His more controversial work came after he veered away from psychotherapy into laboratory experiments in Norway that led to the discovery of what he called «bions» — basic life forms that gave off orgone energy.

After moving to the U.S. just before the start of World War II, he focused on isolating and collecting that energy and went on to test its effect on cancer. His orgone accumulators eventually caught the attention of the FDA.

After an investigation, the agency branded the devices consisting of alternating metallic and nonmetallic materials a fraud. In 1954, it sought an injunction in U.S. District Court in Portland. Reich refused to appear in court, triggering a default judgment and order that his books and accumulators be destroyed.

He was sentenced to 2 years in prison for contempt of court. He served only 8 months before he died of a heart attack.

The FDA’s injunction, supporters say, had a chilling effect on his work that persists even today. Moise said she believes there is merit in the orgone accumulator blanket, which her mother used in her medical practice. Moise has tried it herself to heal burns.

«It’s not crazy. It actuallyworks,» she said.

Even as the anniversary-related events rekindle memories of Reich and his theories, some of his supporters worry that they are in a race against time.

The challenge, they say, is to keep his work alive and advance it through new studies and experimentation at a time when Reich is not being taught in either medical schools or physics classes.

Kevin Hinchey — who is writing a book about Reich’s work in the U.S. — said that most of the doctors and scientists who’ve taken an interest in Reich’s life are baby-boomers.

«If something dramatic isn’t done to bring his work before the medical and scientific community, I really wonder what’s going to happen when the baby-boomers die. There’s not a lot of younger people who are reading Reich.»

There was renewed interest in November 2007, when the Reich archives at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard University were unsealed; Reich had left instructions that his unpublished papers be stored for 50 years after his death.

Orgone Institute (Rangeley, Me.).

Title:

Archives, 1897, 1919-1956.

Author / Creator: Orgone Institute (Rangeley, Me.).
Description: 98 cubic ft. in 284 boxes and oversize items.
History note: The Orgone Institute was founded in 1942 by Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), psychiatrist and psychoanalyst (Vienna, M.D. 1922), who emigrated to the U.S. in 1939. First living in New York and later in Maine, he developed a therapy outside accepted psychoanalytic techniques. Reich posited the orgone as a biological base of psychic energy which in neurosis becomes dammed up somatically as well as mentally and can be released only through a combined physical and psychological therapy. His approach is related to Freudian theories of sexuality and repression of instinct and is grounded in his early work in Austria (1920-1939) on neurotic defense and character formation as evidenced in cases of failure in traditional psychoanalytic therapy. His work in Germany also involved psychoanalytic interpretation of the sociological phenomena of national character and political process.
Summary: Contains correspondence, diaries, trial transcripts, reports, and clippings relating to opposition to Reich’s theories and the work of the Orgone Institute; correspondence; published and unpublished manuscripts and translations; photographs and photographic slides; and records of the Orgone Institute Press. Also includes Reich’s personal papers, including diaries, correspondence, and financial records, and biographical interviews and writings created after Reich’s death. Also includes the papers of Wilhelm Reich pertaining to his discovery of the orgone.
Language: English; German
Subject: Reich, Wilhelm, — 1897-1957.;
Orgone Institute (Rangeley, Me.);
;
Psychotherapy.;
Psychiatry — Research.
Author / Creator: Reich, Wilhelm, 1897-1957.
HOLLIS Number: 000603496
Creation Date: 1897
Permalink: http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/000603496/catalog
Source: HVD ALEPH

Countway Medicine Rare Books H MS c287

← THIS FILM WILL BE COMPLETED!

The Film Is Finished: NYC Premiere

Posted on November 24, 2017by Kevin Hinchey

I’m pleased to announce the completion of the Wilhelm Reich Documentary Film Project.
This recently finished film is 107 minutes long and is entitled:

Love, Work and Knowledge – The Life and Trials of Wilhelm Reich

The title is derived from Reich’s guiding precept which appeared in print in his American
research journals and books, starting in 1942:

“Love, work and knowledge are the wellsprings of our life. They should also govern it.”

Two months from today—on the evening of January 13, 2018—a premiere screening of this film will take place at a 266-seat theater in New York City which we’ve rented for the occasion. In the next week or so, I’ll contact all crowdfunder backers who are eligible for the “perk” of two tickets to this event to find out who among them will be attending. Once I have a count of how many of these backers are coming and how many seats are still available, I’ll contact additional crowdfunding backers to see who else might want to attend.

We’re also exploring other screening possibilities early next year at universities and “art house” movie theaters in Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts, as well as broadcast opportunities in the United States and Europe. And we’ve already compiled a list of prestigious film festivals in which the film will be submitted.

Thank you again for supporting this project over the past three years and making possible its production, post-production and completion. We’re excited by the film’s many future opportunities to present a compelling, factually accurate narrative of Reich’s life and work to newer and more mainstream audiences.

Please feel free to contact me at: kevin.hinchey@wilhelmreichdocumentary.com.

Warm regards,

Kevin Hinchey – Writer/Director

Wilhelm Reich Documentary Film Project -Trailer