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by
Alan Cantwell, Jr., M.D.
from
NewDawnMagazine Website
Contents
Introduction
In my medical research into the infectious cause and origin of
cancer, I never imagined I would become enmeshed in the strange
world of Wilhelm Reich. For two decades I had studied the work of
scientists linking bacteria to cancer, but never once did I come
across Reich’s important experiments with the deadly “T-bacilli”
that he discovered in cancer.
I first learned about Reich in 1982 from Lorraine Rosenthal who
heads the Cancer Control Society in Los Angeles. Her mother worked
in his laboratory in the 1950s, and Lorraine was sure his cancer
work was related to my cancer microbe research. She recommended I
read Reich’s two most revolutionary books:
The Bion Experiments on
the Origin of Life (1938) and
The Cancer Biopathy (1948). These two
volumes provide valuable and fascinating insights into the origin of
the cancer cell and his discovery of cancer “T” bacteria.
During his life, Reich was portrayed as a mad psychiatrist and
scientist who advocated free love, abortion, communism, and a
multitude of other so-called perversions. The medical establishment
regarded him as quack who tried to dupe the public into believing he
had a cure for cancer. Eventually the US government took legal
action to suppress Reich’s research, and the closing years of his
life were filled with tragedy. Persecuted and hounded by the
government, he was finally sacrificed on the altar of science.
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Who was Wilhelm Reich?
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And why was he condemned for his beliefs?
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Was
he merely a crack-pot psychiatrist?
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Or was he one of the greatest
and most misunderstood scientific geniuses of the twentieth century?
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Reich’s
Sex Experiments and Orgone Energy
Reich was born on March 24, 1897, on a small farm on the eastern
outreaches of the Austro-Hungarian empire in what is now known as
the Ukraine. At age twelve his childhood was shattered by his
mother’s suicide. Provoked by marital unhappiness and infidelity,
and beatings by her husband, she swallowed a kitchen poison. Reich
watched her die a slow and agonizing death. His father died of
tuberculosis in 1914, and twelve years later his only brother also
died of TB. Orphaned at age 17, Reich entered the Austrian army and
experienced the brutality of World War One and the ensuing breakup
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
After the war he resumed his studies in Vienna and entered medical
school. He was a brilliant student who developed a strong liking for
the new specialty of psychiatry. At age twenty-three he became one
of Sigmund Freud’s prized associates and began private practice as
an analytic psychiatrist.
As a pioneer in the study of human sexuality, he used novel
experimental methods to examine, analyze and measure various aspects
of physical lovemaking. He concluded that the ability to love was
dependent on one’s physical ability to make love with “orgastic
potency.” Reich coined this term to denote a kind of
super-lovemaking in which the mental, physical and emotional aspects
of sexuality were all functioning at a high level. Experimenting
with electrical stimulation of erogenous zones, he showed that
sexual feelings of touch, pleasure, and pain could all be measured
in the laboratory.
The physiologic process of erection of the male penis provided the
beginning formula for Reich’s great scientific discoveries. Before
male orgasm, he noted four distinct and separate processes that had
to take place physiologically.
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First is the necessary psychosexual
build-up or “tension”
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Second, the “charge” that accompanies
tumescence of the penis, which Reich measured electrically
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Third, the electrical
“discharge” at the moment of orgasm
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And fourth, the
final “relaxation” of the penis
Reich observed these four essential stages (tension, build-up,
discharge and relaxation) in all aspects of life forms he examined.
In the orgasm process of sex, he discovered a unique energetic life
force that pervaded all nature. Reich named this force “orgone
energy.”
With Freud’s professional support, Reich quickly rose to the highest
ranks of academia. His classic book,
Character Analysis (1933),
recounts his original contributions to psychiatry and introduces
Reich’s novel concept of “body armoring.” Reich discovered that
unreleased psychosexual energy could produce actual physical
“blocks” within the muscles and organs of the body. These blocks act
as an unfortunate “armor” preventing the release of blocked sexual
energy. The orgasm, along with the convulsive body spasms which
accompany orgasm, is the mechanism through which “orgone energy” is
released by the body.
Reich believed a healthy and loving sex life is everyone’s right. In
fact, he considered a good sex life absolutely necessary for the
proper functioning of the body. He stressed that the social and
political ills of the world stemmed largely from society’s
repression of sexuality. This repression leads to unhappiness,
depression, and the inability to express joyous sexual love. For
countless people the sexual energy is blocked because of personal
body armoring. As a result of this armoring, such people often fall
victim to various aspects of the “emotional plague.”
In his practice of analytic psychiatry Reich broke with tradition.
Instead of sitting passively, notebook in hand while his patients
talked, Reich took an active role in the therapy. He frequently
touched his patients, felt their chests for breathing, and
repositioned their bodies. Sometimes he badgered and goaded them to
physical action. In order to observe their body response during
analysis, he sometimes insisted that all or part of the clothing be
removed. Men were often reduced to shorts; women to bra and panties.
Reich’s colleagues publicly protested against these unorthodox and
radical psychiatric practices, and his most vociferous opponents
accused him of immorality.
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Reich,
Communism and the Nazis
As a young man in post-war Vienna during the 1920s and 30s, Reich
was active politically. Disliking the anti-sexual right-wing
conservatives and repelled by the fanaticism of the fascists, he
migrated to Marxism and the sexual freedom proclaimed by the
communists. Although Reich was a sex expert, his expertise did not
carry over to the state of matrimony. In 1922 he married Annie Pink,
a psychiatrist. Their first child Eva was born in 1924, and a second
daughter in 1928. No matter how hard he tried, it was impossible for
Reich to conform to marital convention and the marriage was chaotic.
In his writings the outspoken Reich went so far as to propose that a
series of romantic relationships (“serial monogamy”) was a better
alternative to marriage. In
The Function of the Orgasm (1927) he
declared:
“Marriage is only one of the many issues where social
scientists go astray, especially since they fail to see marriage for
what it really is – a sexual union, based primarily on genital love.
They prefer to ignore that fact and merely view it as an economic
union or means to perpetuate the human race. Actually very few
people marry for money or to have children; marriages of today
really limit peoples’ freedom and may lead to economic deprivation.”
For professional, political, and social reasons,
Reich moved his
practice to Berlin in 1930. He joined the German Communist party,
convinced the sexual freedoms of Marxism would liberate the common
man and foster his mental health. As a spokesman for the Party,
Reich advocated free contraceptives, birth control, abortion on
demand, and sex education in schools.
By 1933, Reich’s marriage was on the rocks and he was already in
another passionate love relationship. The German communists were
increasingly disenchanted with the controversial Reich due to some
of his outrageous ideas on sexual-political matters. The Party
finally expelled him. He was also in a career crisis. His
psychiatric writings and left-wing political activities became
progressively more out of tune with Freud’s ideas and their
relationship cooled considerably. In a supreme blow to Reich’s
career, the Psychiatric Association revoked his membership.
All this personal turbulence was compounded by the rise of Hitler
and Nazism. The Nazi press damned Reich as a radical psychiatrist,
an anti-Nazi communist, a womaniser, and a Jew. Berlin was no longer
safe. Disguised as a tourist on a ski trip to Austria, he luckily
got out of the city by the skin of his teeth.
Returning to Vienna, he soon realized he was no longer
professionally welcome there either. He emigrated to Denmark but
soon became embroiled in disputes with Danish communists. From
there, he relocated to Sweden, but was again harassed by the
authorities. Finally, through the help of Norwegian colleagues, he
secured residence in Oslo, where he had a new laboratory and enough
money to continue his research.
By 1934 Reich’s divorce was finalized. Escaping the Nazis, Annie and
his children resettled in Austria. Reich was madly in love with Elsa Lindenberg who had dutifully followed him in his exodus to Austria,
Denmark, Sweden, and finally to Norway. In Norway he was determined
to continue his research into the orgone life force that he had
discovered in his orgasm experiments.
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The Bion
Experiments and the Origin of Life
His experiments began simply by close microscopic examinations of
the smallest form of cell life known to man: the so-called
“protozoa.” Reich marveled at the squirming amoebae that developed
from his grass and water “infusions.” Swimming in his microscopic
preparations, the one-celled organisms were seemingly structureless
blobs, yet they were also exceedingly complex forms that ate,
digested, contracted, expelled, and multiplied. He playfully applied
a small electric current and watched the protozoa contract and
elongate.
During the years 1934-1937 Reich was totally absorbed in his
experiments on the origin of life. His preparations consisted of
infusions of various substances, such as grass, beach sand, earth,
coal, iron fillings and animal tissue. He tested various
combinations and added potassium, gelatin and other biochemicals to
the mixtures. Boiling the preparations resulted in a marked increase
in the number of “vesicles” that could be cultured.
After much experimentation, Reich concluded the cultured vesicles
were intermediate “transitional” forms which were “midway between
life and non-life.” “Dead” inorganic substances (such as sand,
earth, and coal) gave birth to vesicles which pulsed with life.
Reich named these energetic vesicles “bions.” He suspected bions
were a heretofore unrecognized elementary stage of life.
After cooling the boiled bion cultures, he poured some of the boiled
material onto laboratory nutrient culture media designed to grow
ordinary bacteria. An unbelievable phenomenon resulted: the boiled
bion cultures gave birth to peculiar-looking bacteria, and amoeboe!
To eliminate the possibility of contamination, Reich heated the
cultures to the intense, flaming, glowing temperatures of
incandescence (150 degrees Centigrade), and repeatedly sterilized
his lab culture media by autoclaving it at a high temperature (180
degrees Centigrade) and pressure. At the time it was thought no
known bacteria or any other life forms could possible survive such a
high temperature and pressure.
Reich believed he had discovered an indestructible life force that
defied death. He concluded: Bions are preliminary stages of life;
they are transitional forms from the inorganic and non-motile – to
the organic, motile, and culturable state.
When Reich’s
The Bion Experiments On the Origin of Life was
published in Oslo in 1938, the book created a furor. His critics
latched onto one paragraph in the book that intimated Reich might
have inadvertently found a cancer cure. Reich wrote that preliminary
studies showed bion-like structures could be cultured from human
blood and “bion research proved particularly fruitful for an
understanding of cancer.” He was attacked by the scientific and lay
press as a “Jew pornographer” who was tinkering with life and
promoting a quack cancer cure.
Instead of discouraging him, the attacks lured him deeper and deeper
into orgone research. Reich was determined to prove, beyond doubt,
the reality of the new life energy forms he had discovered.
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The
T-Bacilli, Cancer and Reich’s Bions
The unfair accusations surrounding the publication of
The Bion
Experiments goaded Reich into trying to solve the mystery of cancer.
Weeks earlier he had placed some sterile cancer tissue (provided by
the surgeons at a local hospital) into flasks containing liquid
nutrient broth. Now in his anger, he scurried around to retrieve the
bottles. To his astonishment,
“all these cultures showed a
green-blue coloration. Taking material from the margin, [Reich]
inoculated a new agar plate and saw, for the first time, the
T-bacilli, the discovery of which would help break down the mystery
surrounding the cancer problem.”
The finding of bacteria in cancer filled
Reich with a curious
mixture of fear and awe. With fear because he knew that solving the
secrets of cancer would be a Herculean task, further antagonizing
the medical establishment against him. With awe, because he
intuitively knew these bacilli were involved in the agonizing cancer
deaths that affected countless millions. After much study, Reich
named his newly-discovered cancer microbes “T” bacilli, after the
German word “Tod”, meaning death.
The years 1934-1937 in Norway were Reich’s happiest. The bion work
was exceedingly productive, and he was deeply in love with Elsa Lindenberg. In August 1938,
Hitler annexed Austria. Miraculously,
Annie and his children had emigrated to America the month before.
Reich’s lingering presence in Norway increasingly angered the
authorities, and the newspaper attacks against him were unrelenting.
Aggravated by depression and bouts of jealously and pettiness, his
relationship with Elsa cooled. An American colleague strongly urged
Reich to emigrate to the United States. In August 1939, on the last
boat to leave Norway before the war, Reich left for America.
Half-heartedly he had asked Elsa to come, but their tempestuous love
affair was over and beyond repair. By this time Reich was also
completely disillusioned with the communists and their false
promises and their perversion of Marx’s humanitarian ideals. Never
again would their philosophy interest him, and he became an ardent
anti-communist.
When he embarked for America, Wilhelm Reich was no longer young. He
was 42 years old and he would again be a stranger in a strange land.
He rented a house in Forest Hills, Long Island, and soon began a new
love affair with Ilse Ollendorf, who was extremely helpful in
assisting him with his research. They were married in 1946 and Ilse
bore him a son, Peter.
The cancer work continued with the T-bacilli proving to be the key
to the origin of cancer. Reich’s experiments showed that all life
contains orgone energy and when this energy diminishes in the cells,
either through injury or aging, the cells undergo a death process
that Reich termed “bionous degeneration.” As a consequence of this
degeneration, the deadly T-bacilli begin to form in the cells.
Reich could demonstrate these bacteria microscopically in living
(and unstained) cancer cells. Cultures of T-bacilli injected into
mice caused inflammation and eventual death from cancer. The
T-bacilli that formed in the cells provoked a reaction in the
tissues resulting in the formation of vesicular swellings.
Microscopically, these vesicles gave off a bluish glow, and Reich
called them “blue PA bions” because they resembled the clumped
“PAcket” bions that were experimentally produced when he heated
substances (such as grass and coal) to high temperatures.
In degenerating cancerous tissue, the blue PA bions seriously
affected the orgone energy of the cells. In other mouse experiments,
Reich injected blue bions into the tissue and observed the resulting
cancerous cell changes and the development of actual protozoa. These
cancerous changes were similar to what had occurred in Reich’s
earliest experiments during the death process of cut blades of grass
immersed in his water infusions. First the tissue cells swelled and
formed vesicles; and eventually transformed into protozoa.
Reich found that cancer cells have less orgone energy
than normal,
healthy cells. As the energy-depleted cancer cells break down and
degenerate into T-bacilli, putrefaction of the body occurs. It is
the overwhelming infection with T-bacilli and the massive breakdown
of cancer tissue that causes most deaths from cancer. Cancer is
literally death in the living body.
Reich discovered T-bacilli not only in the cancer tumours, but also
in the blood, the body fluids, and the excreta of
cancer patients.
He originally thought the T-bacillus was the specific infectious
agent of cancer. But these cancer microbes were eventually found by
Reich in persons with other diseases – and Reich also observed the
T-bacilli in the blood and excreta of normal healthy people!
The blood of cancer patients produced T-bacilli easily and quickly.
In contrast, normal blood produced the bacilli slowly. Reich
concluded,
“the disposition to cancer is therefore determined by the
biological resistance of the blood and the tissues to putrefaction.
This biological resistance, in turn, is itself determined by the orgone energy content of the blood and tissues, which is to say, by
the organotic potency of the organism.”
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Reich in
America, the Oranur Experiment, and Orgone Energy
Reich’s early years in America were comparatively quiet compared to
his turbulent years in Europe, but his biomedical activities did not
go unnoticed by the authorities. In December 1941, under the guise
of subversive activity, the FBI arrested Reich and detained him at
Ellis Island for three weeks. The exact reasons for the arrest were
never made clear, but the harrowing experience further embittered
him against his real and imagined enemies.
Along with his cancer discoveries, Reich had first noticed
biological energy radiating from a beach sand bion culture in his
Oslo lab back in January 1939. Now, in America, Reich would follow
his hunches that would lead him to discover a new energy pervading
the entire planet.
Reich and his lab co-workers frequently experienced headaches,
irritability, and other unpleasant psychological and physical
effects when working with certain radioactive bion cultures. It was
theorized the beach sand had absorbed considerable quantities of
radiation from the sun. When the sand was experimentally heated to
incandescence (1,500 degrees Centigrade), Reich believed the solar
radiation energy contained within the sand was released. Whatever
the reason, there was no doubt orgone radiation was real and
bion
cultures had to be handled with extreme care because of their
radioactivity.
In July 1940 Reich discovered orgone energy in the atmosphere! In
order to study the effects of this radiation, he designed a
specially-constructed box to house and concentrate this energy.
Boxes were constructed to house lab animals. Eventually larger boxes
were constructed in which a person could sit comfortably. Reich was
interested in determining the effect of atmospheric orgone energy on
humans, particularly persons with far-advanced and incurable forms
of cancer.
It was this “orgone accumulator box” and its use in human cancer
experimentation that caused the US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) to begin an intensive investigation of Reich’s scientific
activities in the late 1940s. There were all sorts of rumors that
the accumulator was a “sex box” which induced uncontrollable
erections and stirred up intense and immoral sexual passions. As a
result, Reich was harassed and intimidated by the authorities.
Condemnatory articles in the professional and lay press added fuel
to the fire by alluding to Reich’s mental problems and his
sex-tinged research.
In the early 1940s Reich bought a summer house and acreage in Maine.
He dearly loved the clean air, the clarity of the atmosphere, and
the peacefulness of the place. A research lab was eventually built
on the site, and in 1950 he moved permanently to the site he named
Orgonon. He was fifty-three years old and tired of the stress of his
psychoanalytic practice. Over the years his continuing practice had
helped tremendously to support Reich’s studies and family, but now
he wished to devote the remaining years of his life exclusively to
orgone research.
Wilhelm Reich
house at Orgonon (Rangeley, Maine)
1996
At Orgonon a dangerous experiment began.
Reich was deeply concerned
with the planetary dangers unleashed by atomic warfare at Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, and in the early 1950s it was feared the Korean War
might provoke another nuclear holocaust. Reich believed orgone
energy could be harnessed as a possible antidote for nuclear
radiation. He began testing the effects of orgone energy (OR) on
nuclear energy (NR), and named the experiment “Oranur.”
During the Oranur experiment, radioactive radium was brought to
Reich’s lab and housed in a special room containing orgone energy.
The slow mixing of the two energies produced a nuclear chain
reaction with devastating consequences. As a result of this nuclear
accident, Reich learned that nuclear energy drastically changes orgone energy – converting it into “deadly orgone energy” (DOR). The
laboratory accident seriously affected the physical, mental, and
emotional health of Reich and his co-workers and necessitated a
complete shut down of the lab until the dangerous radiation levels
cleared.
Reich’s daughter, Eva, almost died in the mishap. Eva had been
estranged from her father for years, but after finishing medical
school, she joined him at Orgonon to help with the Oranur
experiment. The stressful changes wrought by Oranur, and the
increasing harassment by the FDA, put Reich under great pressure. He
was never quite the same again.
The experiment undoubtedly contributed to Reich’s worsening
relationship with Ilse. The marriage become more and more stormy as
he tormented Ilse with accusations of infidelity and was physically
abusive. Few people understood the clinical nature of feelings and
emotions better than Reich; and yet he could be cruel, unyielding,
and insanely jealous in his love relationships. He preached sexual
freedom for all but he practiced a sexual double standard in
marriage that allowed him to be unfaithful, but never his mate.
While Reich was immersed in the problems of Oranur, Ilse developed
uterine cancer. She was convinced her cancer was connected with the
radiation experiments at Orgonon. While she convalesced from
surgery, Reich cruelly filed for divorce. After it was
finalized in
September 1951, he began another relationship. The following month
he suffered a major heart attack.
According to David Boadella’s biography of Reich,
“The Oranur
experiment had exposed Reich and all those who worked with him to
severe strains. The remainder of his life was to be devoted to
working on the many problems that the atmospheric chain reaction
provoked by Oranur opened up, and it was particularly unfortunate
for Reich that just at the time when he was struggling to cope with
the dislocation to the normal activities of the Institute, he should
become victim of a sustained campaign to belittle, discredit and
attack his work on many fronts.”
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Reich’s
Trial, Book Burning and Imprisonment
Despite constant attacks by the FDA, Reich pursued his experiments
undaunted. He built a “cloud buster” in order to affect the
orgone
energy in the atmosphere. In the Arizona desert he induced rain by
forcing clouds to form and disperse. Like a god, he began to control
the forces of nature, as no one before him had ever done.
He was convinced the scientific world would recognize the value of
his work and would appreciate the great benefit orgone energy could
bring mankind. Long before such subjects were popular, Reich was
concerned about toxic waste, nuclear energy, and planetary
pollution; he knew their detrimental and damaging effects on the
atmospheric orgone energy. He was sure the FDA would never destroy
his research which held so much promise for the planet and its
healing. Reich also had implicit faith in the fairness of the
American legal system. He fully believed that American justice would
never allow his important work to be discontinued.
Whether from ignorance or arrogance, or both, Reich severely
underestimated the power of the FDA and the campaign against him. In
February 1954 the FDA issued an injunction forbidding the interstate
shipment of orgone accumulators. The injunction also denied the
existence of orgone energy, and proclaimed all Reich’s books and
publications were promotional materials for the worthless
accumulator.
As demanded by the terms of the injunction, Reich foolishly refused
to appear in court. He was adamant his scientific work could never
be properly argued or evaluated in court. His legal counsel pleaded
with him to reconsider, but he stood firm in his position. His
unyielding decision had disastrous consequences. The FDA won the
injunction by default.
The legal maneuverings culminated in a trial that took place in
Portland, Maine, in May 1956. Reich was arrested in Washington, DC,
on contempt of court charges, and was forcibly brought to Portland
in chains. His refusal to cooperate with the court did not bode well
with the judge.
Time was running out for Reich. Years earlier he had been abandoned
by the psychoanalytic establishment. The communists drummed him out
of the Party, and the Nazis wanted him dead. He had offended the
Austrians, the Danes, the Swedes and the Norwegians. Now the
Americans would have the opportunity to destroy the mad psychiatrist
and his new god of orgone.
Reich was finally done in. He had played into the hands of his
enemies, and now they had him where they wanted him. Reich was
sentenced to two years in federal prison.
Before imprisonment, the FDA had its final vengeance. On June 5,
1956, FDA officials came to Orgonon. Reich and his young son
Peter
watched in silence as the federal officials axed the accumulators.
On June 26, Reich’s many books and journals at Orgonon were burned
by government authorities. On August 23 in New York City the final
destruction of Reich’s literature took place. Six tons of books,
journals and papers were burned in a scientific holocaust. And not a
single major newspaper in the Land of the Free protested this
unprecedented action, so reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
In early March 1957 Reich was imprisoned at Danbury Federal Prison.
The psychiatrist who examined Reich recorded the diagnosis:
“Paranoia manifested by delusions of grandiosity and persecution and
ideas of reference.” A few weeks later, Reich was transferred to the
federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
The United States government won. Officially, orgone energy did not
exist. Reich was certified as a mentally ill, quack psychiatrist who
tried to foist a sex box and a cancer cure on the American public.
The Reich affair was terminated.
In his prison cell towards the end of October he began to feel
poorly, but he was afraid to bring the matter to the attention of
the prison officials. He told friends that his jailers would try to
kill him in prison, and believed he would never get out alive. On
November 3, 1957, Reich was found dead in his cell, an apparent
victim of a heart attack.
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Reich’s
Scientific Legacy
The body was taken to Orgonon for burial. A small band of loyal
followers, including Ilse, Eva, and Peter, paid their last respects.
Elsworth Baker, M.D., who had studied with Reich for eleven years,
gave the eulogy.
“Friends, we are here to say farewell, a last
farewell to Wilhelm Reich. Once in a thousand years, nay once in two
thousand years, such a man comes upon this earth to change the
destiny of the human race. As with all great men, distortion,
falsehood, and persecution followed him. He met them all until an
organized conspiracy sent him to prison and there killed him.”
Years later, Dr. Baker also wrote:
“Reich’s attitude, in fact his
entire life, was unconventional and as difficult for the world to
understand as were his discoveries. Many legends, probably even
religions, will develop about him. Already, some people look upon
him as a superman who could not err, or as a spaceman come to earth;
others have rationalized and written articles attempting to prove
him insane, a charlatan, or a fraud, He was very human, natural, and
open, and foremost, a great and genuine scientist. He could be as
soft and warm as a summer breeze or as violent and angry as a
thunderstorm.”
Was he a genius or a madman? For those who consider
Reich an enemy
of the people, his official sins are duly recorded in the dusty
archives of office buildings in Vienna, Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo and
Washington. For those willing to take the time to investigate
Reich’s writings, a different sort of man emerges.
It is my feeling that Reich desperately wanted to show the world
God
existed in the realm of the orgone. Through the study of orgonomy,
Reich believed man and science could prove, beyond doubt, that God
is real. Like God, the orgone is indestructible. And like God,
orgone energy exists everywhere in the universe. Man’s spirit
constantly reflects the orgone, eternally imbued with new life
rising from the ashes of death.
Almost a half-century after his death, his scientific legacy
persists. Reichian (Orgone) therapy is practiced by some
psychiatrists and psychologists. The American College of Orgonomy
publishes the Journal of Orgonomy devoted to his work, and maintains
a web site (www.orgonomy.org).
Reich’s laboratory and burial place
at Orgonon is now a Museum with a bookstore open to the public.
Cloud-busting followers like Jim DeMeo have established an
Orgone
Biophysical Research Laboratory in Ashland, Oregon. The lab conducts
yearly seminars reproducing Reich’s bion experiments and
demonstrating Reich’s blood test procedures.
Reich’s T-bacilli are obviously connected to still controversial and
current bacteriologic findings of so-called:
In addition, newly discovered bacteria have been found in the blood
of all human beings. All of these microbial life forms have been
implicated as possible cancer-causing and disease-causing agents.
In some ways Reich was childlike and surprisingly naïve. His
downfall was overestimating the goodness of science; and
underestimating the dark forces of science. In human terms, he paid
for this error with his life.
Science, as we know it, is becoming increasingly “dark.” As this new
century begins, scientists continue to discover all sorts of new
ways to kill mass numbers of people and other living things with
chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare. Perhaps it is time to
take another look at Reich’s discoveries and his dream to harness orgone energy for planetary healing. Rather than automatically
placing Dr. Wilhelm Reich in the trash bin of medical science, he
might eventually prove to be the most inventive and far-sighted
physician-scientist of the twentieth century.
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References:
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Baker EF: "My eleven years with
Reich". Journal of Orgonomy 18:155-171, 1984.
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Boadella D: Wilhelm Reich: The
Evolution of His Work. Vision Press, Chicago, 1973.
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Cantwell AR, Blasband RA: "Bionous
tissue disintegration in AIDS". Journal of Orgonomy
22:220-228, 1988.
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Cantwell AR: The Cancer Microbe.
Aries Rising Press, Los Angeles, 1990.
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Cantwell AR: "Bionous breakdown
in degenerative disease". Journal of Orgonomy 25:191-202,
1991.
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Cantwell AR: "Bacteria, cancer
and the origin of life". New Dawn, November 2003, pp 71-76.
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Reich W: The Bion Experiments on
the Origin of Life. Ferrar, Straus and Giroux, New York,
1979.
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Reich W: The Cancer Biopathy.
Ferrar, Straus and Giroux, NY, 1973.
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Reich W: Passion of Youth; An
Autobiography, 1897-1922. Ferrar, Straus and Giroux, New
York, 1988.
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Sharaf MR: Fury On Earth: A
Biography of Wilhelm Reich. St. Martin’s Press/Marek, New
York, 1983.
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