Dr. Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 - November 3, 1957)

Dr.
Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957) 8/7/10 2:26 AM
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Dr. Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957)
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Available Courses Reich was born to Leon Reich, a prosperous farmer, and Cecilia Roniger, in Dobrzanica a village in Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. Three years after his birth, the couple had a second son, Robert.
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His father was Jewish, but had moved away from his ethnic and religious culture and had not raised his children as Jews; Wilhelm wasn't allowed to
play with Yiddish-speaking children, and as an adult did not want to be described as Jewish.
Shortly after his birth, the family moved south to a farm in Jujinetz, near Chernivtsi, Bukovina, where Reich's father took control of a cattle farm
owned by his mother's family. Reich attributed his later interest in the study of sex and the biological basis of the emotions to his upbringing on the
farm where, as he later put it, the “natural life functions” were never hidden from him. Reich also spoke of witnessing the family's maid having
intercourse with her boyfriend, and apparently later asking if he could “play” the part of the lover. He said that, by the time he was four years old,
there were no secrets about sex for him.
He was taught at home until he was 12, when his mother committed suicide after being discovered having an affair with Reich's tutor, who lived with
the family. In a report supposedly about a patient, Reich wrote about how deeply the affair had affected him, that the “joy of life [was] shattered, torn
apart from my inmost being for the rest of my life!”.
Her death was particularly brutal because of the method she chose; she drank a common household cleaner, which left her in great pain for days
before she died. The tutor was sent away, and Reich was left without his mother or his teacher, and with a powerful sense of guilt.
Reich joined the Austrian Army after school, serving from 1915-18, for the last two years as a lieutenant.
In 1918, when the war ended, he entered the medical school at the University of Vienna. As an undergraduate, he was drawn to the work of
Sigmund Freud; the men first met in 1919 when Reich visited Freud to obtain literature for a seminar on sexology. Freud left a strong impression on
Reich. Freud allowed him to start seeing analytic patients as early as 1920. Reich was accepted as a guest member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic
Association in the summer of 1920, and became a regular member in October 1920, at the age of 23.
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Dr. Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957) 8/7/10 2:26 AM
He was allowed to complete his six-year medical degree in four years because he was a war veteran, and received his M.D. in July 1922.
Reich worked in internal medicine at University Hospital, Vienna, and studied neuropsychiatry from 1922-24 at the Neurological and Psychiatric
Clinic under Professor Julius Wagner-Jauregg.
In 1922, he set up private practice as a psychoanalyst, and became a clinical assistant, and later deputy director, at Freud's Psychoanalytic
Polyclinic. He joined the faculty of the Psychoanalytic Institute in Vienna in 1924, and conducted research into the social causes of neurosis. There,
he met Annie Pink, a patient of his and later an analyst herself. They married and had two daughters, Eva in 1924 and Lore in 1928.
Annie Pink with Eva and Lore
The couple separated in 1933, leaving the children with their mother. Reich's second wife, Elsa Lindenburg, was trained in Laban movement
analysis, and was a pupil of Elsa Gindler, who had started to develop a system of breathing and somatic responsiveness named Arbeit am
Menschen in 1910.
Elsa Gindler Reich's 2nd wife Elsa Lindeberg
Reich first presented the principles of his vegetotherapy in a paper on “Psychic contact and vegetative current” in August 1934 at the 13th
International Congress of Psychoanalysis at Lucerne, Switzerland, and went on to develop the technique between 1935 and 1940.
Reich developed a theory that the ability to feel sexual love depended on a physical ability to make love with what he called “orgastic potency”. He
attempted to measure the male orgasm, noting that four distinct phases occurred physiologically: first, the psychosexual build-up or tension; second,
the tumescence of the penis, with an accompanying “charge”, which Reich measured electrically; third, an electrical discharge at the moment of
orgasm; and fourth, the relaxation of the penis. He believed the force that he measured was a distinct type of energy present in all life forms and
later called it “orgone”.
He was a prolific writer for psychoanalytic journals in Europe. Originally, psychoanalysis was focused on the treatment of neurotic symptoms.
Reich's Character Analysis was a major step in the development of what today would be called “ego psychology”. In Reich's view, a person's entire
character, not only individual symptoms, could be looked at and treated as a neurotic phenomenon. The book also introduced Reich's theory of
“body armoring”. He argued that unreleased psychosexual energy could produce actual physical blocks within muscles and organs, and that these
act as a “body armor”, preventing the release of the energy. An orgasm was one way to break through the armor. These ideas developed into a
general theory of the importance of a healthy sex life to overall well-being, a theory compatible with Freud's views.
Reich agreed with Freud that sexual development was the origin of mental illness. They both believed that most psychological states were dictated
by unconscious processes; that infant sexuality develops early but is repressed, and that this has important consequences for mental health. As
sexual repression was the cause of the neuroses, the best cure would be to have an active, guilt-free sex life.
Reich used touch to accompany the talking cure, taking an active role in sessions, feeling his patients' chests to check their breathing, repositioning
their bodies, and sometimes requiring them to remove their clothes, so that men were treated wearing shorts and women in bra and panties. These
methods caused a split between Reich and the rest of the psychoanalytic community.
In 1930, he moved his practice to Berlin and joined the Communist Party of Germany. His best-known book, The Sexual Revolution, was published
at this time in Vienna. He again set up clinics in working-class areas and taught sex education, but became too outspoken even for the communists;
after his book, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, was published, he was expelled from the party in 1933.
In this book, Reich categorized fascism as a symptom of sexual repression. The book was banned by the Nazis when they came to power. He
realized he was in danger and hurriedly left Germany disguised as a tourist on a ski trip to Austria. Reich was expelled from the International
Psychological Association in 1934 for political militancy. Reich moved to Scandinavia in the early 1930s, first to Denmark where he was not allowed
to settle permanently, and he then moved on to Sweden, however, he only stayed there for a short time before again moving on, this time to
Norway in the fall of 1934. Reich stayed in Norway five years and did much seminal research here, in the beginning under the auspices of the
University of Oslo, however there existed strong opposition to his work also here, which came to a head with a veritable smear campaign in late
1937 and throughout much of 1938, involving prominent authorities of the medical and psychiatric establishment. One of Reich's most fervent
apologists during this period was his friend and colleague Ola Raknes. Raknes' influence on Reich has been asserted to have been considerable
but mostly overlooked. Reich left Norway for the United States in the fall of 1939.
Reich with Ola Raknes and Wolfe
Reich was a respected analyst for much of his life, focusing on character structure, rather than on individual neurotic symptoms. He promoted
adolescent sexuality, the availability of contraceptives and abortion, and women's economic independence.
His work on the link between human sexuality and neuroses emphasized “orgastic potency” as the foremost criterion for psycho-physical health. He
said he had discovered a form of energy, which he called “orgone,” that permeated the atmosphere and all living matter, and he built “orgone
accumulators,” which his patients sat inside to harness the energy for its reputed health benefits. It was this work, in particular, that cemented the rift
between Reich and the psychoanalytic establishment.
In 1947, following a series of critical articles about Reich's “psychofascism” in The New Republic and his “dubious professional standing”in Harper's,
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began an investigation into his claims, and won an injunction against the interstate sale of orgone
accumulators. Charged with contempt of court for violating the injunction, Reich conducted his own defense, which involved sending the judge all his
books to read, and arguing that a court was no place to decide matters of science. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and in August 1956,
several tons of his publications were burned by the FDA. He died of heart failure in jail just over a year later, days before he was due to apply for
parole.
The bion experiments
From 1934-37, based for most of the period in Oslo, Reich conducted experiments seeking the origins of life.
He examined protozoa, single-celled creatures with nuclei. He grew cultured vesicles using grass, sand, iron, and animal tissue, boiling them, and
adding potassium and gelatin. Having heated the materials to incandescence with a heat-torch, he noted bright, glowing, blue vesicles, which, he
said, could be cultured, and which gave off an observable radiant energy. This he called “orgone”. He named the vesicles “bions” and believed they
were a rudimentary form of life, or halfway between life and non-life.
Reich at his Main lab, Orgonon The Orgonon Lab
When he poured the cooled mixture onto growth media, bacteria were born. Based on various control experiments, Reich dismissed the idea that
the bacteria were already present in the air, or in the other materials used. Reich's The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life was published in Oslo
in 1938, leading to attacks in the press that he was a “Jew pornographer” who was daring to meddle with the origins of life.
A Norwegian biologist named Kreyberg was allowed to see one of Reich's bion preparations under the microscope, and also observed that the
"broth" Reich had used as his culture medium was indeed sterile. He concluded that the bacteria were, in fact, ordinary staphylococci, and that
Reich's control measures to prevent infection from such airborne bacteria were therefore not as foolproof as Reich believed.
T-bacilli
In 1936, Reich wrote that “[s]ince everything is antithetically arranged, there must be two different types of single-celled organisms: (a) life-
destroying organisms or organisms that form through organic decay, (b) life-promoting organisms that form from inorganic material that comes to
life.”
This idea of spontaneous generation led him to believe he had found the cause of cancer. He called the life-destroying organisms “T-bacilli“, with the
T standing for Tod, German for death. He described in The Cancer Biopathy how he had found them in a culture of rotting cancerous tissue obtained
from a local hospital. He wrote that T-bacilli were formed from the disintegration of protein; they were 0.2 to 0.5 micrometer in length, shaped like
lancets, and when injected into mice, they caused inflammation and cancer. He concluded that, when orgone energy diminishes in cells through
aging or injury, the cells undergo “bionous degeneration” or death. At some point, the deadly T-bacilli start to form in the cells. Death from cancer, he
believed, was caused by an overwhelming growth of the T-bacilli.
Orgone accumulators and cloudbusters
In March 1938, Hitler annexed Austria. Reich's ex-wife and daughters had already left for the U.S., and in August 1939, Reich sailed out of Norway
on the last boat to leave before the war began. He settled in Forest Hills, Queens, and in 1946, married Ilse Ollendorf, with whom he had a son,
Peter.
Reich Ilse Ollendorff and son Peter
Reich goes for a camping trip and buys a cabin near Rangeley Maine. He buys 280 acres of land in Rangeley and creates Orgonon, a new
laboratory and research center devoted to orgone energy. This is what he said about Orgonon:
“A hundred and sixty acres of land on a soft incline facing

south and east, six hundred meters above sea level,
covered with a young pine forest, a lake in front and
mountains on the horizon. Here truth shall be sought and
protected from the plague, here sickness and misery shall
be understood and ways discovered for conquering

them...The name of the home of life research
shall be Orgonon.”
- Wilhelm Reich, September 1942
In 1940, Reich built boxes called orgone accumulators to concentrate atmospheric orgone energy; some were for lab animals, and some were large
enough for a human being to sit inside. Reich said orgone was the “primordial cosmic energy”, blue in color, which he claimed was omnipresent and
responsible for such things as weather, the color of the sky, gravity, the formation of galaxies, and the biological expressions of emotion and
sexuality. Composed of alternating layers of ferrous metals and organic insulators with a high dielectric constant, his orgone accumulators had the
appearance of a large, hollow capacitor.
Riech's Orgonebox- the original Orgone Accumulator
Based on experiments with the orgone accumulator, he argued that orgone energy was a negatively-entropic force in nature which was responsible
for concentrating and organizing matter. Reich posited a conjugate, life-annulling energy in opposition to orgone, which he dubbed Deadly Orgone
or DOR. Reich claimed that accumulations of DOR played a role in desertification and designed a “cloudbuster” with which he said he could
manipulate streams of orgone energy in the atmosphere to induce rain by forcing clouds to form and disperse. Reich reported observing UFOs over
Orgonon, Maine and also in the Arizona skies during his drought-relief expedition into the American Southwest. Reich even claimed to have done
battle with the UFOs, convinced that his “cloudbuster” could be deployed to extinguish the anomalous “stars” from the sky.
Reich and his cloudbuster
Orgone experiment with Einstein
Reich discussed orgone accumulators with Albert Einstein in 1941.

On December 30, 1940, Reich wrote to Albert Einstein saying he had a scientific discovery he wanted to discuss, and on January 13, 1941 went to
visit Einstein in Princeton. They talked for five hours, and Einstein agreed to test an orgone accumulator, which Reich had constructed out of a
Faraday cage made of galvanized steel and insulated by wood and paper on the outside. Einstein agreed that if, as Reich suggested, an object's
temperature could be raised without an apparent heating source, it would be “a bomb” in physics. This heating effect would be an amazing result
since it would allow the construction of a perpetual motion machine which would violate the laws of thermodynamics.
Reich supplied Einstein with a small accumulator during their second meeting, and Einstein performed the experiment in his basement, which
involved taking the temperature atop, inside, and near the device. He also stripped the device down to its Faraday cage to compare temperatures. In
his attempt to replicate Reich's findings, Einstein observed a rise in temperature, which according to Reich was the result of a novel form of energy
—orgone energy—that had accumulated inside the Faraday cage. However, one of Einstein's assistants pointed out that the temperature was lower
at the floor than that on the ceiling. Following that remark, Einstein modified the experiment and, as a result, concluded that the effect was simply
due to the temperature gradient inside the room. He then wrote back to Reich, describing his experiments and expressing the hope that Reich
would develop a more skeptical approach.
Reich responded with a 25-page letter to Einstein, expressing concern that “convection from the ceiling” would join “air germs” and “Brownian
movement” to explain away new findings, according to Reich's biographer, Myron Sharaf. Sharaf writes that Einstein conducted some more
experiments, but then regarded the matter as “completely solved”.
The correspondence between Reich and Einstein was published by Reich's press as The Einstein Affair in 1953.
Reich and A.s. Neill with students in lab/
In May 1956, Reich was arrested for violation of the injunction when an associate. moved some orgone-therapy equipment across a state line.
Reich was charged with contempt of court. Once again, he refused to arrange a legal defense. He was brought in chains to the courthouse in
Portland, Maine. Representing himself, he admitted to having violated the injunction and arranged for the judge to be sent copies of his books. He
was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
Dr. Morton Herskowitz, a fellow psychiatrist and friend of Reich's, wrote of the trial: “Because he viewed himself as a historical figure, he was making
a historical point, and to make that point he had conducted the trial that way. If I had been in his shoes, I would have wanted to escape jail, I would
have wanted to be free, etc. I would have conducted the trial on a strictly legal basis because the lawyers had said, 'We can win this case for you.
Their case is so weak, so when you let us do our thing we can get you off.' But he wouldn't do it.”.
On June 5, 1956, FDA officials traveled to Orgonon, Reich's 200-acre (80-hectare) estate near Rangeley, Maine, where they destroyed the
accumulators, and on June 26, burned many of his books. On August 25, 1956 and again on March 17, 1960, the remaining six tons of his books,
journals and papers were burned in the 25th Street public incinerator in New York's lower east side (Gansevoort incinerator). In March 1957, he was
sent to Danbury Federal Prison. Reich died in his sleep of heart failure on November 3, 1957 in the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania,
shortly before he was due to apply for parole.
Reich was buried in Orgonon. Next to the grave stands a replica of Reich's invention, the “cloudbuster”.
The Wilhelm Reich Museum now sits at the top of Orgonon, in the building which housed Reich's laboratory, teaching, and psychiatric treatment
facilities.
There is some use of orgone accumulator therapy by psychotherapists in Europe, particularly in Germany. A double-blind, controlled study of the
psychological and physical effects of the orgone accumulator was carried out by Stefan Müschenich and Rainer Gebauer at the University of
Marburg and appeared to validate some of Reich's claims. The study was later reproduced by Günter Hebenstreit at the University of Vienna.
Reich was a pioneer of body psychotherapy and several emotions-based psychotherapies. Nearly all Reich's publications have been reprinted, apart
from his research journals which are available as photocopies from the Wilhelm Reich Museum.
Eva Reich - Reich's eldest daughter, at home, May 2001
Spring 1997 - 100 year WR birthday celebration in Boston, Ma. - USA

Included are Peter Reich & his children and wife, Lore Reich,
Ilse Ollendorf Reich, Myron Sharof, and others
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich and the Orgone Energy

Orgone Accumulator
Wilhelm Reich Alone 10 min. homerecording

Reich - pictures
Reich - more pictures
posted @ Saturday, October 04, 2008 8:13 PM by nitsi
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Dr.

Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957) 8/7/10 2:26 AM

Current Articles | Categories | Search

Annie Pink with Eva and Lore

Elsa Gindler Reich's 2nd wife Elsa Lindeberg

Reich with Ola Raknes and Wolfe

Reich at his Main lab, Orgonon The Orgonon Lab

Reich Ilse Ollendorff and son Peter

“A hundred and sixty acres of land on a soft incline facing

be understood and ways discovered for conquering

- Wilhelm Reich, September 1942

Riech's Orgonebox- the original Orgone Accumulator

Reich and his cloudbuster

Orgone experiment with Einstein

Reich discussed orgone accumulators with Albert Einstein in 1941.

Reich and A.s. Neill with students in lab/

was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.

Eva Reich - Reich's eldest daughter, at home, May 2001

Spring 1997 - 100 year WR birthday celebration in Boston, Ma. - USA

Wilhelm Reich and the Orgone Energy

Wilhelm Reich Alone 10 min. homerecording

Reich - more pictures

posted @ Saturday, October 04, 2008 8:13 PM by nitsi

Previous Page | Next Page

MashooMashoo - Build Websites - Promote Websites

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