Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) was a psychoanalyst and student of Sigmund Freud, who pioneered the study of the orgasm and human sexuality. In his pursuit of a mature society free from sexual neuroses, prostitution, venereal disease and perinatal violence, Reich championed birth control and sex education for adolescents. He considered genital sex culminating in orgasm as a peak experience. But these impressive acheivements, which influenced the 1960s 'Sexual Revolution', have been overshadowed by Reich's 1956-57 battle with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), who confiscated and burnt his books, leaving Reich to die in prison. Although this persecutory incident is well known, being regularly mentioned in First Amendment defences and brilliantly satirized by Robert Anton Wilson's play 'Wilhelm Reich In Hell' (1986), it was perhaps the inevitable outcome of Reich's professional career.

Always tough-minded, Reich extended Freud's 'abreactive theory' into new realms with his 'Peer Gynt' paper, which led to Reich joining the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1920. Reich argued that neurosis was a form of stasis, laying the groundwork for dynamic evolutionary psychology. His most important early writings were 'The Function of the Orgasm' (1927), which extended Freud's 'libido' human sexuality theory and revealed the formula of 'Tension, Charge, Discharge, Relaxation'; 'Character Analysis' (1933), which continued his 'Sex-Pol' sociological analyses and 'Character Armor' concept; and 'The Mass Psychology of Fascism' (1933), a brilliant angry polemic which exposed the 'group-think' and emotional personality engineering at the core of the Communist and Nazi parties (Reich was denounced vigorously in return and forced to flee to Denmark and Sweden, settling in Norway). Reich's book 'The Sexual Revolution' (1936) consolidated his early period. Genital gratification and the avoidance of compulsory sex-morality was touted as the key to avoiding a pathological society (influencing Anton LaVey and the early Church of Satan).

'The Bion' (1938) extended the scope of Reich's research from bodywork and the bioelectric nature of pleasure and anxiety to consider a vast cosmology and the origins of life. Reich claimed to have discovered 'Orgone' ('Lifeforce'), and explored the implications in 'Bion Experiments and the Cancer Problem' (1939), which led to attacks by University of Oslo scientists. Reich fled to America, discovering Orgone in the atmosphere in 1940 and linking the energy to Geiger counters in 1947. Over the next decade, Reich would clinically train psychiatric orgone therapists and edit journals, publishing 'The Murder of Christ' (1946), 'The Cancer Biopathy' (1948), 'Ether, God and Devil' (1951), 'Cosmic Superimposition'(1951), 'People In Trouble' (1953) and 'Contact With Space' (1957). He conducted research into eye-segments and epilepsy/schizophrenia (possibly foreseeing 'Eye Movement Desensitization and Re-processing' therapy).

On January 1st 1951, Reich performed a now notorious experiment called 'Oranur' ('Orgone Anti-Nuclear') in which he discovered 'Deadly Orgone Radiation' (DOR). Some critics trace his misunderstood martyr and longterm emotional sickness from this period. In 1952 and 1953 Reich experimented with weather control and cloudbusting, and developed a keen interest in the UFO phenomena.

Reich's Orgone Energy Accumulator device was central to the FDA, who objected in 1955 to the sale on the grounds that there was no scientific evidence that it worked. Reich fought the conspiracy charges, but was imprisoned and died on November 3, 1957, one week before his scheduled release. This tragic end-game epitomised Cold-War paranoia, sealing Reich's reputation as an 'Outsider' too dangerous for the scientific and allopathic medical establishment.

Despite disinformation, Reich's work has seeped into contemporary culture and Humanistic psychotherapies, and influenced Colin Wilson, William S. Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson. Reich developed a metal-lined device named the Orgone Accumulator, believing that the box trapped orgone energy that he could harness in groundbreaking approaches towards psychiatry, medicine, the social sciences, biology and weather research. Reich's discovery of orgone began with his research of a physical bio-energy basis for Sigmund Freud's theories of neurosis in humans. Reich believed that traumatic experiences blocked the natural flow of life-energy in the body, leading to physical and mental disease. Reich concluded that the libidinal-energy that Freud discussed was the primordial-energy of life itself, connected to more than just sexuality. Orgone was everywhere and Reich measured this energy-in-motion over the surface of the earth. He even determined that its motion affected weather formation. In 1940, Reich constructed the first device to accumulate orgone-energy: a six-sided box constructed of alternating layers of organic materials (to attract the energy) and metallic materials (to radiate the energy toward the center of the box). Patients would sit inside the accumulator and absorb orgone energy through their skin and lungs. The accumulator had a healthy effect on blood and body tissue by improving the flow of life-energy and by releasing energy-blocks.

Not everyone liked the theories Wilhelm suggested. Reich's work with cancer patients and the Orgone Accumulators received two very negative press articles. Journalist Mildred Brandy wrote both The New Cult of Sex and Anarchy and The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich. Soon after their publication, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) sent agent Charles Wood to investigate Wilhelm Reich and Reich's research center, Orgonon.

In 1954, the FDA issued a complaint for an injunction against Reich, charging that he had violated the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by delivering misbranded and adulterated devices in interstate commerce and by making false and misleading claims. The FDA called the accumulators a sham and orgone-energy nonexistent. A judge issued an injunction that ordered all accumulators rented or owned by Reich and those working with him destroyed and all labeling referring to orgone-energy destroyed. Reich did not appear in person at the court proceedings, defending himself by letter.

Two years later, Wilhelm Reich was in jail for contempt of the injunction, the conviction based on the actions of an associate who did not obey the injunction and still possessed an accumulator.

Liquid Glyph, (c) 2002