Wilhelm Reich

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND WORKS OF WILHELM REICH:Part Three

The next stage involved experimentation with human subjects. Reich obtained significant results in the treatment of people. These experiments began in 1941. By this point Reich's

"thinking about [the accumulator's] therapeutic mechanism had also evolved. Initially, he thought that orgone energy in the accumulator simply penetrated the organism like X-rays. However, this hypothesis did not explain why some persons who used the accumulator reacted to orgone energy immediately whereas others need a number of irradiations before they showed any reactions. Reich had also noted that the accumulator functioned much better if its walls were about four inches from the organism treated. Ignorance of this fact initially caused a series of failures. The effect of accumulators on mice was poor when they were treated in large accumulators built for humans. A third key observation was that there was a slight rise in body temperature when persons used the accumulator.

"These findings led Reich to change his hypothesis about the mechanism behind the accumulator's beneficial effect. He shifted from the more mechanical idea of orgone particles hitting the organism within the accumulator to the notion of a mutual excitation between two energy fields--that of the organism and that of the accumulator. Here his thinking returned to earlier concepts: the attraction between two people with a 'field of excitation' and the lumination he had observed between bions. This explanation fit the finding that energetically sluggish persons usually did not react to orgone energy in the accumulator until after a number of sessions" (Sharaf 302-3).

His first patient was a woman with breast cancer. After beginning treatment, Reich found that, after three weeks, her hemoglobin count had increased significantly. Her pains eased, and she was able to sleep without morphine. In addition, she was no longer bedridden, and her tumor could be palpated after only eight sessions. However, she also began to get depressed about four weeks into her treatment. Reich decided to begin seeing the woman for separate character-analytic vegetotherapy. At this point he began to notice the usual resistances to psychoanalytic treatment: intense fear of falling and contractions of the musculature of the face--an example of the manifestation of character armor. Unfortunately, the woman broke her leg, and she had to put treatment off. During this time, her conditioned rapidly declined, and she eventually died four weeks after ending therapy. Reich concluded that the

"orgone therapy had prolonged her life for about ten months, and had kept her free of cancer tumors and cancer pains for months and had restored the function of her blood system to normal. The interruption of the orgone treatment...interdicts any conjecture as to a possible favorable outcome" (CB 191).

Reich was to obtain favorable results in his treatment of cancer patients. Some patient's cancers actually went into remission and disappeared. In most every case, the suffering of cancer was greatly alleviated. However, Reich would emphasize that the accumulator was best used as a preventative measure, and he never promised a cure for cancer. Still, I find his findings to be extraordinary.

Reich conducted further research into medical applications of the accumulator. Some of the most significant results were those obtained by using orgone energy to treat burns, skin ulcers, anemia, arthritis, high blood pressure, and cold and flu symptoms (CB 335-41).

His critics, on the other hand, were less than objective. He was accused of promoting a "cancer cure," and his accumulators were referred to as "sex boxes" by those less inclined toward his unique technique. It was about this time that Reich first began to have problems with the U.S. government.

"On December 12, 1941, Reich was picked up at his home at 2:00 A.M. by the FBI on the grounds that he was an 'enemy alien' and taken to Ellis Island, where he was detained for over three weeks. Since his credentials as an anti-Nazi and anti-Stalinist were impeccable, it was hard to understand why he was being held. It may have had something to do with his earlier Communist Party affiliations, or with his views on sexuality (a factor that gains weight in the light of J. Edgar Hoover's obsession with that subject), or his generally 'subversive' ideas...

"In the edgy atmosphere right after Pearl Harbor, the authorities may have been concerned about certain books the FBI seized when they searched Reich's home a few days after his arrest: Hitler's Mein Kampf, Trotsky's My Life, and a Russian alphabet for children Reich had bought in 1929. At the hearing, Reich was questioned about his possession of these books. Once again he had to point out that in order to understand mass behavior, one had to study such books--to understand Hitler was not the same as supporting him" (271-2).

After Reich threatened a hunger strike, he was released on January 5, 1942.

On May 26, 1947, The New Republic ran an article by Mildred Edie Brady entitled "The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich". The article was a vicious smear of Reich's work. In simple terms it stated that orgone (which she erroneously states is a euphemism for sexual orgasm) is the cosmic energy and that by sitting in his accumulators a person will become "orgastically potent." She also portrayed Reich as promoting the accumulator as a cure for cancer. This is an extremely skewed and incredibly over-simplified picture of Reich. However, this is the way Reich would be portrayed in the mainstream media from 1947 on, and it was only to get worse. The article also brought Reich's work to the attention of the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA investigation into Reich's experiments with and medical use of the accumulator would eventually lead to Reich's incarceration; however, that would not occur until 1955.

In late 1951, Reich began the Oranur Experiment. Reich was interested to know how nuclear energy would react with orgone energy. Reich placed a one milligram radium needle in a one-ply accumulator. He then placed that into a 20-ply accumulator and left it in a laboratory room constructed out of accumulator materials.

"Five hours after the radium was put in the accumulator, Reich checked the laboratory and found the air charged and oppressive. Objectively, the [Geiger-Muller] counter 'jammed,' that is, the impulses were faster than the GM could measure when it was brought near the accumulator in the OR room. That it was not a failure in the battery of the meter which caused the 'jamming' became apparent when Reich removed the meter to the fresh air, whereupon it once again gave the normal background count of about 35 CPM [counts per minute].

"Reich was not prepared to relinquish the experiment, but he did want to reduce the ominous charge inside the laboratory. The experimental radium, still in its small orgone charger, was removed from the OR room and taken to a shed some 150 feet away from the laboratory. The laboratory was aired with the hope that the high charge would dissipate quickly. But ventilation did not seem to help. Nor was the radium per se causing the heaviness, for one could get very close to the removed radium without feeling any of the ill effects--heaviness in the air, a sense of oppression, headaches, nausea--that one felt in the laboratory...

"Reich paid close attention to the sensations he and many of his co-workers experienced, such as a salty taste on the tongue; a severe pressure in the depth of the cheekbone; nausea; loss of appetite; sensations of weakness; a ringlike pressure around the forehead; sensitivity in the diaphragmatic segment; pallor; and feelings of cold shivers alternating with hot flashes...

"Reich rapidly conceptualized the first surprising results of the Oranur experiment: Contrary to expectations, orgone energy had not counteracted nuclear energy but rather nuclear energy had altered orgone energy" (Sharaf 373).

Reich referred to orgone energy that had been altered by nuclear radiation by the name Oranur.

"For the next six days he placed the experimental radium in the twenty-fold accumulator for an hour each day. On [the seventh day], it remained there for only half an hour. Soon after the radium was deposited, Reich and several persons with him noted that the atmosphere in the laboratory had become clouded. It showed a blue to purplish color through the glass windows. Reich felt sick to his stomach and dizzy...

"At this point the experiment was interrupted...The orgone-treated radium was placed a half mile away from the laboratory, buried in the ground of an unused field" (374).

A month later, after his wife and several colleagues had had severe reactions to the Oranur, Reich decided it was time to see if he could stop the reaction. All accumulators at Orgonon (his name for his property) were dismantled. However, the effects of Oranur persisted and a month later Reich evacuated Orgonon.

"By this time, he was concerned with a new development. He noted a quality of 'stillness' and 'bleakness' over the landscape...

"Reich was especially impressed by what he called 'DOR-clouds' (DOR is an acronym for Deadly ORgone). These bore a remarkable similarity to what would later be called air pollution or smog. DOR-clouds, black and bleak, could be present even in the midst of sunshine. When they were, the motility of animals was diminished, the atmosphere felt 'suffocating,' and the sky seemed to lose its sparkle.

"In an effort to do something about these debilitating clouds, Reich hit upon the idea of trying to 'draw off' energy from the clouds by means of long metal pipes, directed toward the DOR-clouds and connected through cables to a deep well. Here Reich was making use of an observation common to orgone energy and DOR: both were attracted to water. And, indeed, when he aimed the pipes toward the clouds, they began to dissipate and the oppressive atmosphere was alleviated.

"Out of this initial work grew what Reich later called 'cloud-busting,' an operation not limited to DOR-clouds...Briefly, Reich became concerned with influencing the dispersal of orgone energy in the atmosphere. By varying his method of drawing, he claimed to be able to influence the atmospheric potential either in the direction of concentration of energy (cloud formation) or in the direction of dispersal of energy (cloud dissipation).

"Reich likened the action of the 'cloud-buster' (as he came to call his pipes grounded in water) to the lightning rod. For Reich, the lightning rod, too, functioned according to orgone energy principles, since 'lightning' is a concentrated atmospheric energy discharge in a very narrow space. The pointed rod, reaching into the atmosphere, attracted the lightning discharge and conducted it through heavy wires into the ground...

"By July 6, 1953, or just over a year after his first experiments with weather modification, Reich felt sufficiently confident to test his work outside the Orgonon area. At the invitation of two Maine blueberry growers who wanted rain to save their crops from persistent drought, Reich conducted an operation with his draw tubes, by now a rather elaborate device mounted on a truck. The results were reported in the Bangor Daily News of July 24:

'Dr. Reich and three assistants set up their 'rain-making' device off the shore of Grand Lake, near the Bangor hydro-electric dam, at 10:30 on Monday morning 6 July. The device, a set of hollow tubes, suspended over a small cylinder, connected by a cable, conducted a 'drawing' operation for about an hour and ten minutes.

'The scientist and a small group of spectators then left the lake to await results.

'According to a reliable source in Ellsworth the following climactic changes took place in that city on the night of 6 July and the early morning of 7 July: 'Rain began to fall shortly after ten o'clock Monday evening, first as a drizzle and then by midnight as a gentle, steady rain. Rain continued throughout the night, and a rainfall of 0.24 inches was recorded in Ellsworth following morning.'

'A puzzled witness to the 'rain-making' process said: "The queerest looking clouds you ever saw began to form soon after they got the thing rolling." And later the same witness said the scientists were able to change the course of the wind by manipulation of the device.'...

"Reich conducted other weather modification efforts over a broad area. By 1954, he had several cloud-busters, and at least one functioning in the New York City area. In July of that year there had been a severe drought in the Northeast. Notifying the Weather Bureau of his intentions, Reich began the first of a series of drought-breaking operations. He was successful in New York and also in several other operations" (379-80).

By August of 1951, the FDA had begun its investigation of Reich. They questioned users of accumulators having obtained a list from the woman who built them for Reich. Reich was outraged, but he chose to focus on his experiments. Then in July of 1952, three inspectors from the FDA showed up unannounced at Orgonon. In 1953, Dr. D. Ewen Cameron, president of the American Psychiatric Association, told a patient considering orgone therapy that such therapy was "pure fake and that the American Psychiatric Association was going to bring charges of fraud against Dr. Reich" (414).

"Reich always wished to be informed about such incidents, much as they hurt and enraged him. Yet the most serious threat to orgonomy came not from visible manifestations, but from actions Reich was unaware of: the accumulator tests the FDA was conducting during 1952 and 1953. Since the FDA had not been able to find any dissatisfied users, medical test conducted under its auspices were to be crucial for evidence.

"The FDA never took its task lightly, even though some of the tests were grossly inadequate...

"Reich was quite correct in fearing that he would be at a serious disadvantage in any courtroom procedure where scientists with all the right credentials presented inadequately conducted control studies of his findings...Most of the outside replicators of orgonomy were as convinced of its falsity as the FDA was even before embarking on the testing.

"Dr. Frank H. Krusen of the Mayo Clinic wrote on August 24, 1953, to the FDA: 'It was very difficult for me to bring myself to take the time to prepare this report because of the fact that this quackery is of such a fantastic nature that it hardly seems worthwhile to refute the ridiculous claims of its proponents.' Other investigators also indicated their contempt prior to any investigation...

"...Reich had urged that he or another medical orgonomist participate in the FDA tests. The FDA never acceded to this condition, insisting on the necessity for entirely independent verification. They too had a point; still, for a completely fair assessment, their researchers would have to follow meticulously all conditions of the original experiments. Not only did they not meet these conditions, they often failed to mention their existence...

"The blow fell on February 10, 1954, when at the FDA's request the U.S. Attorney for the state of Maine filed a complaint for injunction against Wilhelm Reich, Ilse Ollendorff [Reich's wife], and the Wilhelm Reich Foundation. On the same day, the federal Attorney General's Office also announced the complaint action for an injunction against interstate shipment of accumulators. It mentioned extensive investigations that proved the nonexistence of orgone energy, and concluded with the charge that the accumulators were 'misbranded under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act because of false and misleading claims" (Sharaf's emphasis, 414-5, 418).

In addition, all of his publications were considered promotional material for the accumulator, even books like Character Analysis and The Mass Psychology of Fascism which only mention orgone energy in footnotes and introductory notes that had been added when the books were reedited and republished in America (418-9). Reich was faced with a serious conundrum.

In October of 1954, Reich left Maine for Oracle, Arizona, north of Tucson to conduct weather modification experiments with the cloudbuster. He had complied with the federal injunction and stopped the interstate transportation of accumulators; however, in his absence, one of his co-workers shipped one across state lines. The U.S. government held Reich accountable, and he was brought to trial in March of 1956.

Reich did not win his case. On May 25, 1956, Reich was sentenced to two years in prison. In addition, the judge ordered that all available copies of Reich's books and scientific journals mentioning orgone energy be burned in the New York City incinerator. His laboratory was dismantled, and accumulators were smashed with axes.

Reich died in prison on November 3, 1957. His work is still carried on, primarily by three groups: the the friends of the Wilhelm Reich Museum (the group with what I believe to be a vested interest in preserving the integrity of Reich's legacy), the American College of Orgonomy near Princeton, and by the Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory headed by Dr. James DeMeo.

Reich's psychoanalytical works fascinate me. Though I have a hard time arguing his points, I understand 97 percent of what I read. I have built my own orgone accumulator. I have been using it since January 1998. I have felt a difference, and I am convinced that orgone energy exists and that Reich's experiments were legitimate. That he has been dismissed as a quack is unsettling. I attribute this to the fact that his critics do not read his books objectively or thoroughly (if they take the time to read them at all), and to the fact that the FDA experiments were sloppy and undertaken with a lack of objectivity.

I think Reich was the greatest thinker of the 20th century and hope that someday humanity will realize that politics only offers temporary, superficial relief from the on-going destruction of our environment and the emotional plague. Not until we look inside ourselves and find the capacity to love, attune ourselves to the bio-energy within us, and learn to raise a new generation of un-armored children will humanity ever save itself or this wonderful planet upon which we live.

NOTES

• BE = Bion Experiments
• CA = Character Analysis
• CB = The Cancer Biopathy
• FO = The Function of the Orgasm
• MPF = The Mass Psychology of Fascism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Reich, Wilhelm:
• "Cancer Biopathy". Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York: 1973 (originally published in 1948).
• "Character Analysis". Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York: 1973 (originally published in 1933).
• "Function of the Orgasm, The". Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York: 1973 (originally published in 1927).
• "Mass Psychology of Fascism, The". Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York: 1973 (originally published in 1933).
• Corrington, Robert. "Wilhelm Reich: Psychoanalyst and Radical Naturalist". Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York: 2003.
• Sharaf, Myron. "Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich". De Capo Press, New York: 1983.

All of Reich's books (even the ones no longer in print) are available from the Wilhelm Reich Museum Bookstore, Orgonon, P.O. Box 687, Rangeley, Maine 04970.

A friendly reminder. This text is not intended for sale. It is intended for scholarly edification only. I have quoted extensively from Myron Sharaf's book Fury on Earth. I hope it is okay.