Wilhelm Reich's work

 

Wilhelm Reich Museum
Orgonon, Rangeley, Maine, USA
wilhelmreichmuseum.org

 

The Wilhelm Reich Museum is dedicated to the life and work of Wilhelm Reich. Its mission is to preserve the primary sources that form the basis of our knowledge about the life and work of Wilhelm Reich so that present and future generations can study them in their unadulterated form.

 

Image: Wilhelm Reich Museum (Hans-Jürgen Hübner) (Excerpt) . CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

 

Wilhelm Reich's books have been translated into many languages and published in many countries. The following book titles and excerpts are translations of the German editions, using the DeepL machine. The titles of the books in your national language may therefore differ. All original publications are available at the Wilhelm Reich Museum.

 

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The Discovery of Orgone I

The Function of Orgasm

Basic Sexual Economic Problems of Biological Energy

 

Preface to the Second Edition

The discovery of orgone was the result of continuous clinical research into the concept of ‘psychic energy’, initially in the field of psychiatry. The present work can be regarded as a comprehensive introduction to this newly opened field of orgone biophysics. Many results of the biophysical and physical orgone research that began around 1934 were published in the International Journal of Sex-economy and Orgone Research, 1942–1945, and are now to be published in the second volume of The Discovery of Orgone under the title Cancer Biopathy. Experience has shown beyond doubt that knowledge of the emotional functions of biological energy is indispensable for understanding its physiological and physical functions. The biological emotions that govern psychic processes are themselves the immediate expression of a purely physical energy, cosmic orgone.

Wilhelm Reich. New York, February 1947

 

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The Discovery of Orgone II

Cancer

 

Preface to the second volume

This second volume of my book The Discovery of Orgone is the direct continuation of the first volume, The Function of the Orgasm (Cologne, 1969). It consists of several treatises that appeared in the International Journal of Sex Economy and Orgone Research in New York between 1942 and 1945 and reported on the discovery of cosmic orgone energy. The summary of these essays in book form offers the reader the advantage that orgone biophysics emerges more clearly as a logical consequence of the observations, experiments and working hypotheses presented. The unbiased reader can now be more convinced than by the individual treatises that the discoverer of orgone energy was far more a tool of scientific logic and consistency than a creator of ‘new theories.’ No human mind can conceive of the wealth of relationships and facts presented in this volume. My task in the process of discovering cosmic orgone energy was not to construct theories, but solely to follow the observations attentively and with honest self-control, to verify them through appropriate experiments, and to build the logical bridges that led from one field of function to another.

I have rearranged some of my previously published treatises to avoid repetition and to ensure that the chronological sequence is essentially preserved. A description of the errors associated with the ‘air germ theory’ has been added, and a section has been added for specialist cancer researchers, which attempts to establish the connection between classical and orgonomic cancer research. At the end of the orgone physics explanations, there is a short note on the detection of atmospheric orgone using the Geiger-Müller apparatus. It was no longer possible to present this highly significant fact in detail, as it was only discovered during the summer months of 1947.

I believe – and hope – that this volume will also be accessible to readers who are not specially trained, provided they are familiar with the principles of scientific research in general and those of orgonomy in particular. The overly specialised sections can be skipped without compromising the understanding of the whole.

[...]

It is not without great concern that I am publishing this book. At the heart of my concern is the expectation of so many readers of our literature that a panacea for cancer has now been found. I must reject this notion outright. It is true that the discovery of orgone has made the mystery of cancer fully accessible. But it is wrong to believe that every cancer patient can now be saved. It will require hard, long and cooperative work before we know how much orgone energy can achieve in specific cases of cancer. The beginning has certainly been made.

Wilhelm Reich. Orgonon, September 1947

 

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The Bionexperiments

On the Origin of Life

 

Preface

It is with some trepidation that I present these experimental results on the origin of vegetative life to the public. This trepidation has nothing to do with the correctness and accuracy of the facts presented, even though there may be an insignificant error or an awkward turn of phrase here and there. This comprehensive, but not exhaustive, report contains no statements of fact that have not been confirmed hundreds of times. I have omitted any observations that are not verified. I have endeavoured to describe the methodology as precisely as possible so that it can be verified. The basic facts, such as the blistering disintegration of matter during swelling or the cultivability of bions, cannot be overlooked if the instructions are followed reasonably correctly. I am aware that others may disagree with my interpretation of the same facts. For this reason, I have carefully separated the factual report in the first part from the interpretations in the second part.

My concern is that I could be accused of immodesty in the conclusions I have drawn. I have not gone beyond the scope of what is required of me by eighteen years of clinical work on vegetatively diseased organisms and ten years of intensive study of the relevant biological and physiological literature. The sections on colloids and the dialectical-materialist method of research were completed many years ago, but remained unpublished in my desk drawer. They were attempts to reconcile my experiences as a psychotherapist working with sick people with my general biological studies. When I had to review Fr. Kraus's book on the pathology of the person (Syzygiology) for a scientific journal in 1926, the connection with psychoanalytic findings based on my orgasm theory became immediately apparent to me.

I had no idea that ten years later I would be able to verify natural philosophical assumptions and the dialectical-materialistic method in this way. Of course, I knew that the theory of orgasm was relevant to the problem of life. This was not a chance discovery, but the result of years of work on the problem of vegetative function. The foundations of a theory of biogenesis, which still had to be worked out, were revealed step by step. I will not hide the fact that the facts I found seemed unbelievable at first. But one fact followed another. Each one confirmed the picture I had previously formed of the patient's life functions and their disturbances. When I published the experimental results on ‘the electrical function of sexuality and anxiety’ in 1937, the cultural results of Bion's research were already available. And now that I have decided to publish them, I already have further results in related fields that confirm and continue them.

Completed, October 1937. Wilhelm Reich

 

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The ORANUR Experiment (I)

First Report (1947–1951)

 

1. Introduction and Overview

This publication presents the first report on the ORANUR EXPERIMENT (No. XXX,1). The experimental design was published in the Orgone Energy Emergency Bulletin in December 1950. This report is only preliminary; its results require further elaboration and possibly also a change in design. Nevertheless, the essential statements seem to be sufficiently reliable to warrant publication at this time. Under peaceful circumstances, I would have preferred to wait longer before presenting the results. However, the tension of the current social situation makes it imperative to publish these initial results on the influence of orgone energy (OR) on nuclear energy (NR).

The first series of the actual Oranur experiment was conducted between mid-December 1950 and May 1951. The first three sections of this report concern purely physical phenomena; they deal exclusively with physical OR energy phenomena that are essential for a basic understanding of OR energy and the actual Oranur experiment. The two sections on the Geiger-Müller reaction of OR energy and on OR phenomena in high vacuum cover an experimental phase of four years, from 1947 to 1950. The results contained in these two sections were preceded by many unsystematic, random observations and experiments made during the years from the discovery of OR energy in SAPA bions (1939) to the beginning of the systematic investigation of the physical quantum properties of atmospheric OR energy in the early summer of 1947. Some of these results were published at irregular intervals in the form of short communications in the International Journal of Sex-economy and Orgone Research and in the Orgone Energy Bulletin.

The physical OR energy functions are closely related and often identical to bioenergetic OR functions. In fact, it is completely impossible and also inadmissible to separate them, since the bioenergetic functions of OR energy in living organisms are mere variations of the OR energy functions in the atmosphere and in the universe as a whole.

 

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The ORANUR Experiment (II)

Second Report (1951–1956)

Contact With Space / OROP Desert Ea (1954–1955)

 

Preface

THERE ARE NO AUTHORITIES HERE

"What counts as proof? Does a UFO have to land at the river gate to the Pentagon in front of the assembled chiefs of staff? Or is it proof when a ground radar station detects a UFO and sends up an interceptor, when the pilot in question sees the object and picks it up on his radar – whereupon it shoots away at phenomenal speed? Is it proof when a jet fighter pilot shoots at a UFO and sticks to his story even when threatened with a court martial? Is that proof?

Perhaps the answer to this hotly debated question is also the answer to the question: ‘Do UFOs really exist?’

I will give you the facts – all the facts. You must decide for yourself."

E. J. Ruppelt, ‘The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects,’ Doubleday & Co., Garden City, New York, 1956, p. 8

‘WHAT KIND OF PROOF DO YOU WANT?’

There is no proof. There are no expert authorities on this matter.

No president, no academy, no court, no congress or senate on this earth has the knowledge or the power to decide what tomorrow's knowledge will be. It is pointless to try to prove the unknown to a person who refuses to accept it or fears its impending supremacy. Only the good and proven rules of learning will ultimately lead us to understand what has forced its way into our earthly lives. Leave those who do not want to learn alone, while those who know what learning means powerfully pave the way into the unknown.

The thirst for knowledge is the highest human aspiration.

It can and must be guided only by the rules of learning.

April 1956 [Wilhelm Reich]

INDICATIONS OF AN INTERPLANETARY ‘WAR’

"MacArthur hints at the possibility of a space war. The views held by CRIFO are supported by what General Douglas MacArthur soberly and timely expressed before meeting with the mayor of Naples, Achille Lauro, at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York on 7 October 1955. The mayor reported the general's statements to the New York Times as follows: 'He thinks that another war would be double suicide and that people on both sides of the Iron Curtain have enough sense to prevent it... He believes that, due to scientific progress, all countries on Earth must stick together in order to survive, that they must join forces against attacks directed against us from other planets.' The mayor added that, in the general's opinion, the politics of the future would be cosmic or interplanetary in nature."

From: C.R.I.F.O., Orbit, Volume II, No. 8, 4 November 1955

The following report deals with experiments that confirm the above-quoted view of a leading military figure.

Ea is the abbreviation for visitors from space who were discovered and observed in the atmosphere of our planet in 1954 and 1955, as well as in the first half of 1956, and who were attacked in experiments with the so-called ‘space gun’ at various locations in the United States. The “E” stands for ‘energy,’ the ‘a’ for alpha or primordial. Occasionally, Ea was also used as an abbreviation for ‘Enigma’.

I propose that a world citizens' committee of experts be established with sufficient democratic, organisational and legislative power to drive forward the social restructuring of planet Earth and responsibly carry out the Ea operations of the future.

 

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OROP Desert

Spaceships, DOR and drought

 

Introduction

The history of OROP DESERT is long and complicated. Let's start with the term OROP. It is a made-up word for operations of all kinds carried out by humans in relation to the desert. By desert, we mean drought and, in a broader sense, atmospheric conditions that lead to aridity and desertification. OROP also refers to the technical means based on scientific knowledge of nature that can potentially be used to combat drought and desertification.

The word component ‘OR’ indicates that the scientific results underlying our technical knowledge of desertification were obtained both within the framework and using the methods of, and in the course of, the empirical and technical development of orgonomy, a discipline that differs from other systems of thought in that it is neither mechanistic nor mystical, but functional and energetic.

‘OROP’ therefore stands for technical operations using and manipulating COSMIC ENERGY FUNCTIONS.

However, that is not all that needs to be said about OROP DESERT. The physical desert, out there in nature, is the result of an infinite variety of cosmic processes. Many areas on our planet were once flourishing, green, fertile landscapes that nourished rich and happy human cultures. We know from archaeologists and geologists that only twenty-five thousand years ago, the southwestern United States was a green, populated land. The same is true, without needing to be proven in detail here, for the Nile Delta and the land where Jesus lived only two thousand years ago, the entire region around Nazareth, which is now called the ‘Middle East.’ As we know from historians, other regions that are now characterised by poverty and barrenness, such as the plains and valleys of Mexico and South America, were once rich and fertile. I think this also applies to the Roman Empire, compared to which today's Italy appears poor and devastated.

What is the cause of desertification?

Deserts are obviously not just the result of some unknown natural processes; they are spreading over ever larger parts of our globe. The severe droughts that threaten to wipe out all human life are in fact functions of desertification. […]

When dealing with the problem of desertification, it is important to bear the following in mind:

Deserts are based on natural processes that cause the atmosphere and soil to dry out, thereby destroying life. However, humans would have been able to defeat the desert and halt desertification if they had not undergone a process that shaped their emotional structure, which we will refer to as

‘EMOTIONAL DESERTIFICATION’.

Humans themselves are responsible for whether the desert spreads or is halted. Today, humans have the scientific and technical means to combat desertification and even to transform existing deserts back into lush green land for humans and animals.

THE FIRST OBSTACLE THAT OROP MUST OVERCOME IS NOT THE EXTERNAL DESERT, BUT THE INTERNAL, EMOTIONAL DESERT WITHIN HUMANS.

We are aware of the responsibility we bear when we make such a sweeping statement; to substantiate it, we need hard facts.

 

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The cosmic superimposition

On the orgonotic roots of humans in nature

 

"O human! Take heed!

"What speaks the deep midnight?

"I slept, I slept –

"From deep dreams I awoke: –

"The world is deep,

"And deeper than the day thought.

"Deep is its sorrow,

"Desire – deeper still than heartache:

"Sorrow says: Pass away!

"But all desire wants eternity,

"– wants deep, deep eternity!"

Friedrich Nietzsche. Thus Spoke Zarathustra

 

Chapter 1

The stage and the meadow

The main interest of this work is not astrophysics, but man. How is man rooted in nature? That is the question at the heart of this discussion. It is undoubtedly the function of orgone energy in human thought that builds a bridge to reality.

How the fate of humanity and our living conditions will unfold in the near future depends on the character structure of human beings, the rigid history of their society over the last four to six thousand years. Piercing the thick fog that has clouded our view for many decades now, I have endeavoured to draw the ultimate conclusions from the knowledge of how human beings function that I have acquired in more than thirty years of intimate familiarity with the characterological processes behind the scenes of life. However, these pages contain little about the concrete drama of today's social conflicts. It is not my intention to show how the events behind the scenes affect what happens on stage in front of everyone's eyes. On the contrary, I am opening the door that leads from the rooms behind the stage to the wide field and meadow that surrounds the theatre of contemporary everyday life. For an observer standing on this meadow, with the shimmering stars above them in the endless expanse of the firmament, the spectacle on stage will be strange. It seems as if the wide sky of the silent night has no connection with the play being performed and its theme. Everything that belongs to the performance seems distant, unreal and completely inappropriate when viewed from outside.

 

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Ether, God and the Devil

 

What is the hardest thing of all?

What seems easiest to you:

To see with your eyes

What lies before your eyes.

(Goethe)

 

Chapter 1

The workshop of orgonomic functionalism

Cosmic orgone energy was discovered as a result of the consistent application of functional thinking techniques. It was methodically strictly controlled acts of thinking that led from one fact to another, over a period of about 25 years, weaving seemingly disparate facts into a unified picture of the functions of nature, which today, in 1947, is still an unfinished teaching structure of orgonomy, left to the judgement of the world. It is therefore necessary to describe the ‘functional thinking technique’.

It is advantageous not only to show the serious student of natural science the result, but also to initiate him into the secrets of the workshop where the product is formed with painstaking effort. I consider it a mistake in scientific communication that usually only the beautifully polished and flawless results of natural research are presented, as in an art exhibition. A display of finished products alone has many disadvantages and dangers, both for their creators and for their users. The creator of the product will easily be overly concerned with presenting perfection and flawlessness, while concealing the gaps, uncertainties and disharmonious contradictions in the knowledge of nature. In doing so, he damages the sense of the real process of natural science. The consumer of the product will have no sense of the hardship and rigour of the demands placed on the natural scientist when he has to usefully reveal and describe the mysteries of nature. He will never learn to think and care for himself. Very few motorists have a correct idea of the wealth of thought and manual skill required to manufacture a motor car. Our world would be a better place if the beneficiaries of labour knew more about the process of work and the experience of the worker, if they did not reap the fruits of others' labour so carelessly.

The presentation of a piece of workshop work is particularly appropriate in the case of orgonomy. The greatest difficulty in understanding orgone theory is that the discovery of orgone solved too many and too big problems at once: the biological basis of mental illness, biogenesis and thus cancer biopathy, the ether, the cosmic longing of human animals, a new physical theory, and so on. There was always too much going on and being presented in the workshop: too many facts, new connections, corrections of old and incorrect views, connections between different branches of specialised scientific research. As a result, I often had to defend myself against the accusation that I was not limiting myself scientifically, that I was undertaking ‘too much at once’. I did not undertake too much at once, and I was not scientifically immodest. No one felt the excess as painfully as I did. I did not pursue the facts; rather, the facts and connections flowed to me in abundance. I had difficulty paying attention to them and organising them neatly. Many, many facts of great importance were lost in the process, while others remained misunderstood. However, the essential and fundamental aspects of the discovery of cosmic energy seem to me to be secure and organised in such a way that others can continue to build on the framework that I was unable to complete.

 

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Character analysis

 

Preface to the third edition

The second edition of this book (1945) was soon out of print, and for more than two years the high demand could not be met. Our publishing house was busy with publications on the newer field of orgone biophysics (The Discovery of Orgone, Vol. II: The Cancer Biopathy, 1948, etc.).

Furthermore, I was reluctant to publish a new edition of Character Analysis. This book still uses psychoanalytic terminology and a psychological description of neuroses. In the 15 years since the publication of the first edition, I have had to rethink and redescrib our understanding of emotional suffering. During this time, there have been many important developments: ‘character’ became a term that characterised typical biophysical behaviour. Emotions increasingly had to be seen as manifestations of a real BIONERGY, the organismic orgone energy. We slowly learned to deal with it practically by applying what is now called ‘medical orgone therapy.’ In the foreword to the second edition, I emphasised that ‘character analysis’ is still valid in the field of depth psychology, from which it originated and to which it still belongs. We no longer apply character analysis as described in this book. However, we do use the character-analytical method in certain situations; we still arrive at the depths of human experience via character attitudes. But in orgone therapy, we take a bioenergetic approach rather than a psychological one.

So why are we publishing a third edition of this work in its original form? The main reason is that it is difficult to find the path to understanding orgonomy and medical orgone therapy if one is not familiar with its development from the research into human emotional pathology 20 or 25 years ago. Character analysis is still valid and helpful in psychotherapy, but it is far from adequate for dealing with the bioenergetic core of emotional functions. It is indispensable for the medical orgone therapist who has arrived directly at the orgone biophysics of the 1940s without having studied psychoanalysis. The psychiatrist who has not studied the bioenergetic functions of emotions tends to overlook the actual organism and get stuck in the psychology of words and associations. He will not find the way to the bioenergetic background and origin of any kind of emotion. On the other hand, the orgone therapist who is trained to see the patient primarily as a biological organism may easily forget that, in addition to muscular armouring, physical sensations, orgone currents, orgone attacks, diaphragmatic and pelvic blockages, etc., there is a wide area of functioning such as marital mistrust, specifically distorted ideas about genital functions in puberty, certain social insecurities and fears, unconscious intentions, rational social fears, etc. Although the ‘psychic realm’ of emotions is much narrower than their ‘bioenergetic realm,’ although certain ailments such as high blood pressure cannot be treated with psychological means, although language and thought associations cannot penetrate deeper than the phase of language development, i.e. up to about the second year of life, the psychological aspect of emotional suffering remains significant and indispensable, even though it is no longer the most important aspect of orgonomic biopsychiatry.

The third edition of Character Analysis has been considerably expanded. I have added ‘The Emotional Plague,’ an article first published in the International Journal of Sex-economy and Orgone Research in 1945. Also included is a previously unpublished paper on The Language of Expression of Living Beings. This article deals with the field of biophysical emotional expression, the main area of medical orgone therapy. Finally, a detailed case history of paranoid schizophrenia will introduce students of human nature to the new field of biopathology, which was only opened up a few years ago by the discovery of organic orgone energy (equivalent to bioenergy). This case history will convince the reader that organismic orgone energy is the physical reality that corresponds to the classical, purely psychological concept of ‘psychic energy’.

 

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Speech to the little man

 

"You false hypocrites who laugh at me!

What has your politics lived on since you ruled the world?

On stabbing and murder...‘

De Coster, Till Ulenspiegel

 

Preliminary remarks

This ’Speech to the Little Man" is a human document, not a scientific one. It was written in the summer of 1946 for the archives of the Orgon Institute, with no intention of ever publishing it. It was the result of the inner turmoil of a natural scientist and physician who, for decades, first with naivety, then with amazement and finally with horror, witnessed what the little man of the people does to himself; how he suffers, rebels, worships his enemies and murders his friends; how, wherever he gains power as a ‘representative of the people,’ he abuses it and wields it more cruelly than the power he previously had to endure at the hands of individual sadists from the upper classes.

The ‘Speech’ was the answer to gossip and defamation. When it was written, no one suspected that a government agency responsible for protecting health would attack orgone research in collaboration with politicians and psychoanalytical profiteers. The attempt by the ‘spiritual plague’ in 1947 to destroy orgone research (note: not to prove it wrong, but to destroy it by defaming it) led to the publication of the ‘Speech’ as a historical document. The reasoning behind this was that it was necessary for the ‘man of the people’ to learn how a scientist and psychiatrist actually works and how he, the little man, appears to his experienced eye. He must learn to recognise the reality that alone can counteract his pernicious thirst for authority. He must be told clearly what responsibility he bears, whether he works, loves, hates or talks. He must learn how he becomes a black or red fascist. Anyone who fights for the safety of the living and for the protection of our children must be against both black and red fascists. Not because today's red fascists, like the black ones before them, have a murderous ideology, but because they turn living, healthy children into cripples, puppets and moral idiots; because they put the state before justice, lies before truth, war before life; because children, and the protection of life in children, are the only hope we have left. There is only one loyalty for the educator and the doctor: to the life in the child and to the sick. Once this loyalty has been achieved, the big questions of ‘foreign policy interests’ are easily resolved.

The ‘speech’ does not demand that it be made the model for one's existence. It describes storms in the emotional life of a productive, joyful person. The ‘speech’ does not seek to convince, win over or conquer anyone. It depicts experience, just as a painting depicts a thunderstorm. The reader is not asked to express sympathy for it. It contains no intentions or programmes whatsoever. It merely demands for the researcher and thinker the right to personal expression, which has never been denied to the poet or philosopher. It is a protest against the mean and unrecognised intention of the ‘spiritual plague’, well protected, from a safe ambush, to be able to shoot its poisonous arrows at the hard-working researcher. It shows what the ‘spiritual plague’ is, how it works and how it hinders progress. It also testifies to the trust in the untapped giant treasures that lie at the heart of ‘human nature,’ ready to be put at the service of fulfilling human hopes.

Living beings are kind and naive in their social and human relationships and are therefore endangered under existing conditions. They extrapolate from themselves to others. They assume that their fellow human beings also think and act according to the laws of living beings, giving, kind and helpful. This natural attitude, which is inherent in healthy children and primitive humans, becomes the greatest danger in the struggle for a rational way of life as long as there is a ‘spiritual plague.’ For even those afflicted by the plague attribute their own way of thinking and acting to their fellow human beings. The kind-hearted believe that all people are kind and act kindly. Those afflicted with the plague believe that all people lie, cheat and deceive, and are obsessed with power. It is obvious that for these reasons, the living are at a disadvantage and in danger. Where there are those afflicted with the plague, they are sucked dry and afterwards ridiculed or betrayed; and where they trust, they are deceived.

 

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