Wilhelm Reich

[tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney)]

[for the gaffa mailing list and rec.music.gaffa]

Much of this has been covered already, but I feel this cannot be
underscored too strongly.

Wilhelm Reich was one of the three main post-Freudian psychoanalytic
theorists, the other two being Adler and Jung.  As a result of his
pro-sexual and anti- fascist theories, Reich was constantly getting
expelled from various countries, which wound up giving him a
predictable messiah complex.  This complex led to his later crackpot
phase of orgonomy.  However, to dismiss his entire corpus as
crackpottery is merely to betray one's ignorance of the history of
psychology.  His works on character armor and the mass psychology of
fascism still deserve as serious scrutiny as the works of other
psychoanalytic theorists.

Wilhelm Reich was killed for scientific heresy, and that is the part of
his story that Kate Bush deals with in her excellent song
"Cloudbusting".  "You looked too small in their big black car to be a
threat to the men in power..." In the late 1950's, Reich was arrested
by US government agents for publishing unauthorized medical books based
on his research into orgonomy.  All his books, including his
psychoanalytic books from earlier in the century which contained no
orgonomic references, were burned.  Reich never left prison; he died of
prison sickness less than a year later.  The episode is a shocking and
disgusting one in the history of the country, and that the scientific
community did not object to Reich's execution for heresy is a powerful
discredit to that community.  To dismiss or trivialize it on the
grounds that Reich had become a crank is to endorse the execution of
heretics.

An excellent and skeptical biography of Reich can be found in the Readers
and Writers series of "Beginners' Books", entitled "Reich for Beginners".
Serious students should also examine his "Mass Psychology of Fascism" and
"The Function of the Orgasm".
--
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"But don't you see, the color of wine in a crystal glass can be spiritual.
 The look in a face, the music of a violin.  A Paris theater can be infused
 with the spiritual for all its solidity."
    -- Lestat, THE VAPIRE LESTAT, Anne Rice