Wilhelm Reich, 1897-1957, is best known for introducing the concepts of “orgone energy” and “orgonomics”. He was among the earlier representatives of 20th century science to seriously propose that mankind is beset and surrounded by a hostile extraterrestrial or hyperdimensional presence.
Reich, having returned from World War I, started with studies of medicine in Vienna, rapidly turned towards the then nascent discipline of psychoanalysis. Reich was among the first co-workers of Sigmund Freud at the latter’s institute and thereafter occupied various positions in teaching and practicing psychiatric medicine. Reich was forced to flee the rise of Nazism to Oslo, Norway in 1934. He continued to New York in 1939.
His psychiatric period produced Reich’s insights into the nature and function of the orgasm as well as his studies of the psychology of fascism. The core idea was that most of the ills of man and society derive from trauma assimilated into the mind and body, producing blockages, so-called armoring, preventing one from experiencing a full-body orgasm. The armoring in question consists of fears, frustrations, physical tensions, stress and other like factors. Fascism was seen as a specially acute societal consequence of authoritarian and fear-based childhood conditioning. These observations later led to the development of the concept of orgone energy.
In the 1950’s, Reich acquired a tract of land in Maine, USA, where he established his own research center, called Organon. In the US, Reich initially taught psychiatry and later devoted himself to study of weather phenomena and cancer cures and writing more general, philosophical books on his findings.
Reich noticed early on that human history was riddled with the same repeated mistakes and disasters. Somehow, history disproved man’s adaptive intelligence. This led him to form the idea of firstly man having an inadequate, at best partial paradigm and secondly being as if manipulated by an external destructive irrational force.
In the 1950’s, when performing weather modification experiments with the so-called cloud buster, Reich noticed that there were flying objects or points of light that interacted with the experiments. These seemed to be under intelligent control and would become disoriented by the cloud buster. Reich speculated that these represented a malevolent, energy draining influence of non-human origin. In his later writings, Reich raises alarm on this, basically stating that man is ‘food for the moon’ and gravely endangered by these intruders. Up to these times, Reich was a well regarded scientist but his career and reputation took a plunge following such pronouncements. He was set up by the FDA, which issues an injunction prohibiting moving ‘orgone accumulators’ across state lines, these being unauthorized medical devices. Reich was finally taken to court for violation of this frivolous injunction and is sentenced to 2 years in jail.
Much of Reich’s research material and printed books were destroyed in a public book burning organized by the FDA and police. This makes Reich the only person subject to a book burning organized by the US government in the 1950’s. We may only conclude that he was on to something, since no charlatan or conman, no matter how preposterous his claims or great his following, has deserved such treatment at the time.
At the present time, Reich has a certain following and materials for building orgone accumulators or other Reichian devices are available. Reich also has a certain following in psychology. Still, he is regarded as somewhat beside the mainstream.
See also
- Orgone Energy