Re: Something Kate related, anyone interested?

[aruss@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (Andrew Russ)]

	I think the scientific community saw Wilhem Reich's early work as
promising, but then he got too seriously into good sex as the cure for 
everything, and he became marginalized.  He had set up his own foundation to 
continue his work, and after being arrested (i don't know for what) he died in 
jail (and was he ever tried and convicted of anything?).  Some people make him
out to be a martyr.  
	I remember reading passages in William S. Burroughs where he describes
"Deadly Orgone Radiation" and "Orgone Accumulators".  Whether Burroughs meant it
as science or science fiction, you can never tell.  It's hard enough figuring
out what is real and what isn't in his books.  
	There is also quite a cult built up around him, and you can order
books about him and instructions for making your own orgone accumulators--
i think you're supposed to use laternating layers of conducting and insulating
materials, preferably organic, for instance layers of steel wool and wax paper.
I can try looking this up somewhere, maybe, i don't keep it handy.  I recall
th description sounding a lot like an electrical capcitor, though.

	Also, Patti Smith wrote a song called "birdland" from her first album,
Horses, that's about Wilhelm and Peter Reich.  A very different take on   the
same topic as "Cloudbusting".  In concert she would preface performances
of the song with lengthy remarks about the Reich's and sex.  

					andrew