Person:Wilhelm Reich (2)

Biographical Summary

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Wilhelm Reich (; ; 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian doctor of medicine and a psychoanalyst, along with being a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. The author of several influential books, most notably The Impulsive Character (1925), Character Analysis (1933), and The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), he became known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry.

Reich's work on character contributed to the development of Anna Freud's The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936), and his idea of muscular armour—the expression of the personality in the way the body moves—shaped innovations such as body psychotherapy, Gestalt therapy, bioenergetic analysis and primal therapy. His writing influenced generations of intellectuals; he coined the phrase "the sexual revolution" and according to one historian acted as its midwife. During the 1968 student uprisings in Paris and Berlin, students scrawled his name on walls and threw copies of The Mass Psychology of Fascism at police.

After graduating in medicine from the University of Vienna in 1922, Reich became deputy director of Freud's outpatient clinic, the Vienna Ambulatorium. During the 1930s, he was part of a general trend among younger analysts and Frankfurt sociologists that tried to reconcile psychoanalysis with Marxism. He is credited for establishing the first sexual advisory clinics in Vienna, along with Marie Frischauf. He said he wanted to "attack the neurosis by its prevention rather than treatment".

He moved to New York in 1939, after having accepted a position as Assistant Professor at the New School of Social Research. During his five years in Oslo, he had coined the term "orgone energy"—from "orgasm" and "organism"—for the notion of life energy. In 1940 he started building orgone accumulators, modified Faraday cages that he claimed were beneficial for cancer patients. He claimed that his laboratory cancer mice had had remarkable positive effects from being kept in a Faraday cage, so he built human-size versions, where one could sit inside. This led to newspaper stories about "sex boxes" that cured cancer.

Following two critical articles about him in The New Republic and Harper's in 1947, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration obtained an injunction against the interstate shipment of orgone accumulators and associated literature, believing they were dealing with a "fraud of the first magnitude". Charged with contempt in 1956 for having violated the injunction, Reich was sentenced to two years imprisonment, and that summer over six tons of his publications were burned by order of the court. He died in prison of heart failure just over a year later, days before he was due to apply for parole.

Video References

William Reich

Reich being escorted to Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary (March 1957)

Newspaper article regarding the FDA bar of Wilhelm Reich's "Orgone Accumulator" (1954)

Newspaper article relating to Dr. Eva Reich promoting her father's work and reputation (1977)

Newspaper article promoting the FDA's mission in identifying fraudulent health gadgets (1956)

Newspaper article relating to the art of massage, referencing Wilhelm Reich (1990)

Newspaper article relating to Wilhelm Reich's scientific work 50 years earlier (2007)

Newspaper article referencing medical quackery and illegitimate health devices (1972)

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4} Wilhelm Reich, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
   Retrieved 1 March 2015.
2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 Wilhelm Reich, in Reich, Peter. A Book of Dreams. (Dutton, 1973)
   1973.
   Cover to A Book of Dreams by son, Peter Reich
3.   Wilhelm Reich, in VersoBooks.com
   18 February 2015.

   Blog article written by Sarah Shin.

4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3} Wilhelm Reich, in Wilhelm Reich and Orgone Energy
   Article by Joe Ledue, 1998.

   Extracts: "Between 1914 and 1918 Reich serves in World War I during which he attains the rank of a lieutenant. After four years in charge of a large infantry of troops he asked for a formal note of leave to further his education. In 1940, Reich discovers orgone energy. He states that physical and mental health are based upon the existence and flow through the body of a biological energy called orgone. He also creates the first orgone accumulators and they are tested on humans. Reich goes for a camping trip and buys a cabin near Rangeley Maine. He meets Albert Einstein who rejected Reich's work, saying that it is too "radical" and refuses to support his concepts. Reich was extremely disappointed with Einstein's discard, but continues his work with orgone. Reich buys 280 acres of land in Rangeley and creates Orgonon, a new laboratory and research center devoted to orgone energy. The FDA accuse him of delivering fraudulent devices and claims dealing with orgone energy. They order agents to go to Orgonon to destroy all accumulators and to burn all of his books. He ends up in jail where he spent his last years of his life. Wilhelm Reich died in 1957 in his prison cell, prison officials claim that he died of heart failure."

5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2} Wilhelm Reich, in Genealogy.com.

   "Wilhelm Reich was a famous psychoanalysist. He was born in 24.3.1897 in Dobrzynica (Galicia, Austria). Mainly he lived and worked in Vienna and New York. In 1922 he became the chairman of the College for psychoanalysis in Vienna. His scientific roots were in the psychoanalysis of Siegmund Freud. But he alienated from Freud and the psychoanalysis in general. The reasons were that he tried to connect psychoanalysis and marxism. This statement was the reason for his becomming the founder of many sects of psychoanalysis. In 1934 he left the Psychoanalytic Society. He died at 3.11.1957 in Lewisburg (USA)." Source also includes biographical references and narratives.

6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6} Reich, Wilhelm, in Pennsylvania Center for the Book.

   Born: March 24, 1897, in Dobryzcynica, Bukovina Region, Ukraine (formerly Austro-Hungarian Empire)
   Died: November 3, 1957, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania
   Literary Vocations: Researcher, Essayist, Non-Fiction Writer, Diarist
   Geographic Connection to Pennsylvania: Lewisburg, Union County
   Abstract: After his birth to a farmer in what was a part of Austria, Wilhelm Reich spent much his youth isolated from other children. He was educated for the most part in the home but attended medical school in Vienna after his tour as a Lieutenant in the Army during World War I. While in medical school, Reich became a part of the inner circle of Freud and was a major part of Freud's research on the libido until he was exiled from Austria by Hitler and published several works, including The Function of Orgasm. Reich came to the United States to further his research into the energy that he called “orgone” which he thought fueled the libido and was responsible for psychological disorders if not released. In the 1950's the Food and Drug Administration put out an injunction on Reich's sale of orgone collectors which led to his imprisonment in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania where he died at the age of sixty.
   Full biography included in source.

   His outspoken ideas on sexuality and his open opposition to the Nazis led to Reich's public denunciation and his forced flight from Austria in 1933 when Hitler came to power. Reich moved to Norway where he continued his research.

   On March 22, 1957 Reich was moved to the Federal Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania where he died on November 3, 1957. His obituary lists the cause of death as heart seizure and his next of kin at death as his daughter, Dr. Eva Moise.

7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1 7.2} Wilhelm Reich, in The Mae Brussell Website
   1967.

   Wilhelm Reich biography reprinted from Twentieth Century Authors, H.W. Wilson Company - Fourth Printing, 1967

8. ↑ Wilhelm Reich, in Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust
   2015.

   The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust was established in Reich's Last Will and Testament, signed on March 8, 1957. The Trust operates the Wilhelm Reich Museum in Rangeley, Maine; manages Reich's Archives (i.e. the Archives of the Orgone Institute) at the Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard University; and continues to make the writings of Wilhelm Reich available through this website and at the Wilhelm Reich Museum Bookstore in Rangeley, Maine.

   On March 8, 1957, four days before he was taken to a federal prison, Wilhelm Reich signed his Last Will and Testament. By this time his orgone energy accumulators and many of his publications had already been banned and destroyed by order of a United States Federal Court injunction, starting on June 5, 1956 when three orgone energy accumulators were destroyed outside of Reich's Student Laboratory at Orgonon in Rangeley, Maine.

9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4} Wilhelm Reich, in Makara: Timeless Mysteries & Ageless Wisdom
   2005.

   Article authored by Michael D. Robbins

   In August 1939, Reich sailed out of Norway on the last boat to leave before the war began.

10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1 10.2} Wilhelm Reich, in Find A Grave: Museum at Reich summer residence, Rangeley, Franklin County, Maine
    Memorial# 11418, Aug 06, 2000.

    Birth: Mar. 24, 1897
    Death: Nov. 3, 1957
    Burial: Museum at Reich summer residence, Rangeley, Franklin County, Maine, USA

    Austrian psychiatrist and biophysicist. He founded the Orgone Institute in New York and is credited with the discover of Orgone Energy.

11. ↑ Wilhelm Reich, in The New York Times. (New York, New York)
    Section magazine, Page SM25, April 18, 1971.

    Article "Wilhelm Reich -- The Psychoanalyst as Revolutionary," by David Elkind. Extract: "DURING the student revolts that shook many European universities in the spring of 1968, the influence of the errant psychoanalyst, Wilhelm Reich, was much in evidence. In Paris, Reichian symbols depicting the human conflicts produced by societal repression of sexuality were crudely painted on the walls of the Sorbonne."

12. ↑ National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Orgone Energy Observatory
    17 Dec 1998.

    NPS Form 10-900 nomination form designating the Orgone Energy Observatory as historic property. Includes detailed property description and biography of Wilhelm Reich.

    The Orgone Energy Observatory became the Wilhelm Reich Museum.

13. ↑ ^13.0 13.1 Dr. Wilhelm Reich, in Atlas Obscura: Dr. Wilhelm Reich's Orgasm-Powered Cloudbuster
    19 Aug 2013.

    "A stone building with blue trim, once used as a laboratory, now holds much of the legacy of Wilhelm Reich, a psychoanalyst who believed that orgasmic energy could control the weather."

    The museum at Orgonon, the idyllic site of Reich's Maine lab, observatory, and home, contains equipment used in orgone experiments, as well as orgone accumulators, personal memorabilia, and original editions of publications burned by the FDA. Outside, a short walk into the woods, is a cloudbuster aimed directly at Reich's tomb.

    Two weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War, Reich moved to New York.

14. ↑ ^{14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4} Wilhelm Reich, in Kate Bush Resource Site.
15. ↑ ^{15.0 15.1 15.2} Wilhelm Reich, in Vice: How America Interrupted Wilhelm Reich's Orgasmic Utopia
    Article by Jason Louv, July 15, 2013.

    "It was the greatest incidence of scientific persecution in American history.
    
    In July of 1947, Dr. Wilhelm Reich—a brilliant but controversial psychoanalyst who had once been Freud’s most promising student, who had enraged the Nazis and the Stalinists as well as the psychoanalytic, medical, and scientific communities, who had survived two World Wars and fled to New York—was dying in a prison cell in Lewisberg, Pennsylvania, accused by the government of being a medical fraud engaged in a 'sex racket'.”

16. ↑ ^{16.0 16.1 16.2} Wilhelm Reich, in The Guardian: Wilhelm Reich - the man who invented free love
    Article by Christopher Turner, 8 July 2011.

    "When Wilhelm Reich, the most brilliant of the second generation of psychoanalysts who had been Freud's pupils, arrived in New York in August 1939, only a few days before the outbreak of war, he was optimistic that his ideas fusing sex and politics would be better received there than they had been in fascist Europe."
    "Soon after he arrived in the United States – by which time his former psychoanalytic colleagues were questioning his sanity – Reich invented the Orgone Energy Accumulator, a wooden cupboard about the size of a telephone booth, lined with metal and insulated with steel wool."
    "In 1947, after Harper's magazine introduced Reich to mainstream Americans as the leader of "a new cult of sex and anarchy" that was blooming along the west coast, where Henry Miller and other bohemians lived in shacks along the Pacific, the Food and Drug Administration began investigating Reich for making fraudulent claims about the orgone energy accumulator. In 1954, a court ruled that he had to stop hiring out and selling his machine."
    "On 3 November 1957 Reich died of a heart attack in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, eight months into his sentence and just days before his parole hearing. If his claims for the orgone accumulator were no more than ridiculous quackery, as the FDA doctors suggested, and if he was just a paranoid schizophrenic, as one court psychiatrist concluded, why did the US government consider him such a danger? The FDA spent an estimated $2m investigating and prosecuting Reich."

17. ↑ ^{17.0 17.1 17.2} Wilhelm Reich, in Reich, Ilse Ollendorf. Wilhelm Reich: A Personal Biography. (Elek, 1969)
    1969.

    Vienna Years, 1918-1930
    Berlin, 1930-1933
    Scandinavia, 1933-1939

18. ↑ ^{18.0 18.1 18.2} Who Was Dr. Wilhelm Reich?, in Biblioteca Pleyades
    Compiled by Jerry Morton, 3/13/03.

    Virtual Library extracted from Spectrum Magazine, July 2003, from TheSpectrumNews Website, citing multiple article on the subject.

19. ↑ Wilhelm Reich and Anna Frued: His Expulsion from Psychoanalysis, in International Psychoanalysis
    Article by Lore Reich Rubin, M.D., 15 Mar 1997.

    Abstract: "Wilhelm Reich and Anna Freud: His Expulsion from Psychoanalysis. This article describes the growth of hostility to Wilhelm Reich in the psychoanalytic community over his Marxist ideology and activism as well as disagreements over the death instinct. It describes the behind the scenes political manipulations between Ernest Jones and Anna Freud to effect the expulsion of Reich both from the Vienna and Berlin local psychoanalytic societies and from the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). It describes Reich's reactions to these events. Further it describes the pressure placed on other psychoanalysts to stop supporting him and also to the revision of history about the expulsion. It discusses the use of the term “crazy” as it was used in the psychoanalytic movement. Further the article discusses personality attributes of Anna Freud leading to counter-transference possessiveness to children and women especially patients. And briefly touches on the attitudes of both Sigmund and Anna toward sex and how this furthered the clash with Reich. It discusses similarity between Anna's actions toward the Burlingham children and what happened to the children of Reich."

20. ↑ Jewish Museum Vienna Presents Great Wilhelm Reich-Personale, in Wien.at
    16 Nov 2007.

    Jüdisches Museum Wien präsentiert große Wilhelm Reich-Personale
    Wien (RK). "Ich freue mich, dass das Interesse an der Ausstellung auch in der Fachwelt so groß ist, und ich bin stolz, dass wir im Rahmen der Schau zahlreiche sehr wertvolle Leihgaben aus dem Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust zum ersten Mal in Europa zeigen können. Das Jüdische Museum ist auch die erste Institution, die zahlreiche Dokumente, die bis dato gesperrt waren, durch die Ausstellung der Öffentlichkeit erstmals zugänglich macht", sagte Direktor Karl Albrecht-Weinberger in seinem Statement zur Eröffnung der Ausstellung "Wilhelm Reich. Sex! Pol! Energy!" im Jüdischen Museum Wien. Ausstellungskuratorin Birgit Johler betonte in ihrer Einführung zur Ausstellung, dass Reich auch heute noch in vielen theoretischen Ansätzen für den aktuellen wissenschaftlichen Diskurs wichtig sei. Seine Arbeiten über Sexualität und Psychotherapie, aber auch seine Schriften aus der "Sexpol"-Zeit sind in der Rezeption und Geschichte der psychoanalytischen Forschung immer noch von Bedeutung. Lore Reich Rubin, die 1928 in Wien geborene Tochter Wilhelm Reichs, hielt als Ehrengast den Eröffnungsvortrag "Wilhelm Reich's Changing Theories of Child Raising" (Wilhelm Reichs veränderliche Theorien der Kindererziehung) über die Konzepte der Kindererziehung, die ihr Vater im Laufe der Zeit entwickelte. Sie erläuterte, dass seine Theorien zu Mutter-Kind-Beziehung und Erziehungsstil einer ständigen Veränderung unterlagen, während seine Ideen zu Sexualität und elterlicher Autorität eine einheitliche Entwicklung zeigten.
    
    Die Ausstellung "Wilhelm Reich. Sex! Pol! Energy!" zeigt alle wesentlichen Aspekte von Wilhelm Reichs wissenschaftlichen Theorien vor dem Hintergrund seiner Biographie. "Wilhelm Reich. Sex! Pol! Energy!" ist bis 9. März 2008 im Jüdischen Museum Wien (1010 Wien, Dorotheergasse 11) zu sehen. Das zu den Kulturbetrieben der Wien Holding zählende Jüdische Museum ist von Sonntag bis Freitag von 10 bis 18 Uhr geöffnet. Der Eintritt beträgt 6,50 / 4 Euro ermäßigt. Schulklassen haben freien Eintritt, Führungen und pädagogische Programme: Tel.: +43-1-535 04 31-311, 312 bzw. kids.school@jmw.at . Weitere Informationen unter www.jmw.at/"

21. ↑ ^{21.0 21.1 21.2} Wilhelm Reich^?, in FamilySearch Family Tree
    https://familysearch.org/tree/person/LDQM-DL1/details, Accessed 13 Apr 2017.

    Birth: 24 March 1897, Doubau, Austria - Hungry
    Death: 3 November 1957, Lewisburg, Union, Pennsylvania, United States

22. ↑ "Wilhelm Reich’s synthesis of Marxism and psychoanalysis", in The Charnel-House: From Bauhaus to Beinhaus
    30 Nov 2016.

    First of all, Reich is rel­ev­ant to con­tem­por­ary dis­cus­sions of fas­cism. His work on The Mass Psy­cho­logy of Fas­cism re­mains one of the most in­nov­at­ive and pro­found Marx­ist ef­forts to un­der­stand ideo­logy as a ma­ter­i­al force that has ap­peared to date. Moreover, this forms a pivotal point of de­par­ture for a host of sub­sequent at­tempts to the­or­ize re­volu­tion­ary sub­jectiv­ity — both in terms of con­scious­ness and of de­sire. To­mor­row or the next day I hope to jot down some of my own thoughts on the mat­ter, us­ing Reich for ref­er­ence. Last but not least, Reich’s thoughts on sexu­al eman­cip­a­tion are con­sid­er­ably ahead of their time.

    Reference includes a comprehensive list of primary sources in multiple languages, secondary sources (biographies and essays), over 50 photos, a well-written biographical essay written by Alessandro D'Aloia (2004), and thoughtful comments and critiques on the essay.

23. ↑ His outspoken ideas on sexuality and his open opposition to the Nazis led to Reich's public denunciation and his forced flight from Austria in 1933 when Hitler came to power. Reich moved to Norway where he continued his research.
24. ↑ On March 22, 1957 Reich was moved to the Federal Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania where he died on November 3, 1957. His obituary lists the cause of death as heart seizure and his next of kin at death as his daughter, Dr. Eva Moise.
25. ↑ On March 8, 1957, four days before he was taken to a federal prison, Wilhelm Reich signed his Last Will and Testament. By this time his orgone energy accumulators and many of his publications had already been banned and destroyed by order of a United States Federal Court injunction, starting on June 5, 1956 when three orgone energy accumulators were destroyed outside of Reich's Student Laboratory at Orgonon in Rangeley, Maine.
26. ↑ In August 1939, Reich sailed out of Norway on the last boat to leave before the war began.
27. ↑ ^27.0 27.1 Austrian psychiatrist and biophysicist. He founded the Orgone Institute in New York and is credited with the discover of Orgone Energy.
28. ↑ The Orgone Energy Observatory became the Wilhelm Reich Museum.
29. ↑ The museum at Orgonon, the idyllic site of Reich's Maine lab, observatory, and home, contains equipment used in orgone experiments, as well as orgone accumulators, personal memorabilia, and original editions of publications burned by the FDA. Outside, a short walk into the woods, is a cloudbuster aimed directly at Reich's tomb.
30. ↑ Two weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War, Reich moved to New York.
31.   Summary also at Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing site.
32.   English translation: Vienna (RK). "I am pleased that the interest in the exhibition and in the professional world is so big, and I am proud that we can show numerous very valuable loans from the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust for the first time in Europe in the context of the show. The Jewish Museum is also the first institution that, for the first time accessible by the public exhibition makes numerous documents that were banned until now, "said director Karl Albrecht-Weinberger in his statement at the opening of the exhibition" Wilhelm Reich. Sex! Pol! Energy! " the Jewish Museum Vienna. Exhibition curator Birgit Johler emphasized in her introduction to the exhibition that Empire was important in many theoretical approaches for the current academic discourse today. His work on sexuality and psychotherapy, as well as his writings from the "Sexpol" time in reception and history of psychoanalytic research still relevant. Lore Reich Rubin, who was born in Vienna in 1928 daughter of Wilhelm Reich, held as a special guest the opening lecture "Wilhelm Reich's Changing Theories of Child Raising" (Wilhelm Reich varying theories of child rearing) on ​​the concepts of parenting, developed her father over the years. She explained that his theories about mother-child relationship and parenting style to constant change subject, while his ideas about sexuality and parental authority showed a uniform development.
    
    
    
    The exhibition "Wilhelm Reich. Sex! Pol! Energy!" contains all essential aspects of Wilhelm Reich's theories in the context of his biography. "Wilhelm Reich. Sex! Pol! Energy!" is to 9 March 2008 at the Jewish Museum Vienna (1010 Vienna, Dorotheergasse 11) to see. The counting the culture cluster of Wien Holding Jewish Museum is open from Sunday to Friday from 10h to 18h. The entrance fee is 6.50 / 4 Euro reduced. School classes have free admission, guided tours and educational programs: Tel .: + 43-1-535 04 31-311, 312 or kids.school@jmw.at. For further information www.jmw.at/
33. ↑ Naturalization Record Index Card
34. ↑ Immigration Passenger List
35. ↑ Death Certificate