By Max Stirner
It was by chance that I stumbled upon the fascinating and controversial work of Dr. Wilhelm Reich — medical doctor, political activist, communist, student of Sigmund Freud, scientist and either a forgotten genius or a madman, as some people claim.
Dr. Reich is a dazzling personality who at first glance seems go along with the usual destructive ideas one would expect from a Marxist. But a closer look reveals that Reich never stuck to an ideology when it stood in his way of thinking. So it is not astonishing that he was consequently expelled from the International Psychoanalytical Association and later met with hostility from communist fellow travelers. By turning four major subjects, namely psychiatry, biology, physics and medicine upside down with his wild orgone physics he has certainly not made many friends among scientists either.
Sex and evolution – and for the PUAs – some empirical psychology of attraction seems to be a focus of the manosphere. Therefore, I would like to encourage anyone who is interested in these subjects to delve deeper in the history of psychology. Further, for the PUAs psychology is used as a tool to make ends meet. The goal is to get laid. The medium is the study of human behavior and the imitation of the traits of so called alpha males. The reason for female and male behavior is found in evolution theory. What is missing is a theory of the inner powers – the emotions – the libido, and the subconscious leading to our behavior. By sticking to a PUA worldview one regards humans as Pavlov regarded his dog. Even if it is sometimes hard to believe, human beings are not machines. They have emotions and the world of emotions is worthy of study.
The history of psychotherapy is too vast to discuss in a short article – and the author lacks the competence to do so. Dr. Reich sticks out because he has focussed his research mostly on sexuality and because his life gives a good insight into the beginnings of the so called “sexual revolution”.
Wilhelm Reich was born 1897 in a small town in the eastern part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His parents died when he was a teenager. At the age of eighteen Wilhelm joined the Austrian army to fight in the first world war. He never returned home. After four years when the war was finally over, the Reich’s farm was on Russian territory. Wilhelm joined his brother in Vienna to study medicine. The brutality of the war had opened his eyes on the sick society he lived in. “The antisocial behavior of mankind is not a crime, but should be regarded as a disease. It should not be punished but instead be cured and prevented.” Reich developed his first ideas about the causes of this emotional disease: it must be a dysfunctional sexuality.”The soldiers in strong heterosexual relationships or with equal sublimations rejected the war, on the other hand the most brutal men considered women as latrines or were latently or overtly homosexual. Even the sadist psychopath or the antisocial personality succeeded in terms of the war ideology.”
In 1919 Reich organized a workshop on sexuality with some fellow students. The few students attending the course where considered as a little bit strange. When Reich arranged a meeting room for the workshop he had to calm down a professor who was afraid that they might wanted to do “practical sex research”. At first the course was a disappointment. The lectures of a senior psychoanalyst seemed dull and far off from reality. “I had experienced sex in a different way than it was taught”. That changed when he met Sigmund Freud to ask for literature on sexuality. “Freud talked to me like a normal person .. I was nervous when I came and I was in a good mood and happy when I left.”
Reich became an eager student of Freud’s work and joined the “Wiener Psychoanalytische Vereinigung” (Viennese Psychoanalytical Association) in 1920. It was an honor for a young student of 23 years to be accepted into this close circle of senior academics. At about the same time Reich started working in a clinic providing psychotherapy for poor people, giving him a deep insight in the emotional problems of society.
There was something that troubled Reich in the psychoanalytic theory: When is a patient cured? Reich had a talent for opening old wounds and asking unpleasant questions. In 1926 for Freud’s 70th birthday Reich gave him the manuscript of his book “The Function of the Orgasm”. Freud’s reaction when reading the title was frosty. He gave the manuscript a skeptical look and finally said: “So big?”. Reich was hurt. Usually Freud read every manuscript within few days but this time it took more than two months for him to reply. In his book “The Function of the Orgasm” Reich defines the goal of psychotherapy as the patient’s ability to experience a satisfactory orgasm. The heterosexual genital intercourse was seen as the ideal, because any other form of sexual activity like masochism, fetishism or homosexuality could not provide a relieve to the libido.
From these years onward Freud distanced himself more and more from Reich. The reason for Freud’s separation from Reich may be found in the different attitudes both had towards cultural values. As a conservative Freud was afraid of the consequences psychotherapy might have on society. His standpoint was to “liberate sexuality by therapy to make suppression possible”. Freud had once remarked that “The habitual constant suppression of our natural drives refines our character” and he also wrote that “it is our best hope for the future that the intellect … will by time become the dictator of the soul”. Reich on the other hand came to the conclusion that the intellect more or less followed the flow of emotions and was not important for a healthy personality.
Further, coming from a younger generation disillusioned by the first world war – he didn’t have a high esteem of western culture. As a convinced Marxist, and member of the Communist Party he wanted to destroy the bourgeois society, which he held responsible for the “emotional plague”.
He moved to Berlin in 1930, where he intensified his political activity for the German Communist Party KPD. Reich founded the “Deutsche Reichsverband für Proletarische Sexualpolitik” (Union for proletarian sex-politics of the German Reich) among other things promoting a liberation of marriage laws and abortion, and the prohibition of prostitution. In his book “The Sexual Revolution” Reich writes about his political goals: Coercive family and marriage being the origin of sexual oppression had to be abolished. The authority of parents over the education of their children had to be transferred to the state. Reich’s succesful propaganda for Sex-Pol was met by resistance from conservative KPD members (who probably had not done their homework on the goals of Marxism). Voices were raised that Reich “will turn our assembly halls into brothels,” and he “spits on the proletarian girls”. One year after its foundation the KPD leadership shut down the successful Sex-Pol and prohibited the distribution of Reich’s writings.
The quick rise of the Nazis to power from 1930 to 1933 came as a shock to the German political left. Reich fled Germany in 1933 where many political enemies of the Nazi Party where imprisoned or killed and he finally emigrated to Denmark. As a psychological explanation for the success of fascist ideology Reich wrote the book “The Mass Psychology of Fascism”. He became alarmed about similar authoritarian tendencies in communism. The once “progressive” and “liberal” Soviet Union was turning more authoritarian day by day. In 1934 the prohibition of homosexual intercourse was reintroduced in the USSR. Abortion was made more and more difficult. Bourgeois values like the “coercive family” were held high again. In the same year Reich was expelled from the International Psychoanalytical Association for ambiguous reasons.
After his disillusionment with politics and the USSR turning into a dictatorship under Stalin, Reich dedicated his time to the further improvement of his character therapy.
Classical psychotherapy had stayed a talking cure, whereas Reich soon used nonverbal techniques and tried an integrated mind body concept. He focussed more and more on a theory of libido energy, finally coming to the conclusion that the orgasm must be a real electrical discharge, being just a
special case of a general vegetative current. A blockage in sexual energy flow not only resulted in the formation of layers of “armor” of the psyche and neuroses but at the same time in a blockage of certain muscle groups of the body. In 1935, with the help of a colleague, he was given the
opportunity to carry out experimental studies at the University of Oslo in Norway. He measured the electrical charge of the skin and erogenous zones during or in the absence arousal, coming to the conclusion that “the (…) intensity of the feeling of lust matches the physiological quantity of the bioelectrical potential.” Another field of study was the pulsation of microbes and primitive life forms.
During the rest of his turbulent life Reich will come to the conclusion that the “orgasmic energy” is a cosmic force which organizes life. He calls it “orgone energy”. For this wild concept he was despised and ridiculed by the scientific community. A smear campaign in the press prompted him to emigrate to the United States in 1939, where he first opened a laboratory in New York City and later established a private institute with the name of “Orgonon” in Maine.
Reich had a number of enemies in the US as well. As a former Communist he was viewed with suspicious by the authorities. American fellow travelers of the Soviet Union scorned him for his criticism of Communism. His studies of sexual energy made him an easy target for derision from the media.
The FDA started to investigate Reich, who was treating patients with his orgone accumulators and was experimenting with weather manipulation. Eventually in 1954 the FDA found a way to order Reich to court for formalities concerning his orgone devices. Reich – stubborn as always – refused to appear. For this disobedience he was found guilty of criminal contempt of court and was sentenced to two years in jail. Further, the court ordered that all orgone-devices and literature about orgone to be destroyed under the supervision of FDA agents. In March 1957 Wilhelm Reich lost his court appeals and was finally ordered to jail. In Lewisburg prison, Wilhelm Reich, who once held the opinion that religious feelings are a result of suppressed sexual energy, became religious. He was sending out prayers to his son Peter. Wilhelm Reich died in prison in November 1957.
The life of Wilhelm Reich is controversial and tragic and could indeed make a a great script for a hollywood movie. Putting orgone energy aside, I have to say that some of his political ideas don’t make any sense at all, expecially when it comes down to economics. Instead of reading Marx, Reich would have done himself a favor by studying Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom”.
It is strange that Reich, as a supporter of a natural flow of libido and energy, favored a planned economy. How can people act spontaneously in a planned society? Why should a Communist state be less coercive than a bourgeois family? By simply ignoring the fact that economic behavior is necessary for survival, he disregards what men and families have been doing with most of their time: managing scarce resources. In a Communist and matriarchal society there can of course be no scarcity and therefore economic laws do not seem to apply.
If a whole society is sick, why should women be sane? Reich more or less ignored the female part in the “sexually starved” society. By blaming the patriarchy for the emotional sickness of our society and seeing matriarchy as the ideal harmonic society we should all live in, he promotes misandry.
In “The Function of the Orgasm” Reich wrote:
“The character structure of the contemporary man, replicating a 6000 year old patriarchal authoritarian culture is characterised by armor of the psyche against its internal nature and against external social misery.”
In “The Sexual Revolution” he said:
“Under patriarchy sexual needs had to serve (…) the economic interests of a minority. Under the ancient Communist matriarchy the economy had to satisfy the needs (including sexual needs) of the whole society.”
In the book “Listen, Little Man” written in his late years, Reich blamed humanity for it’s “emotional plague” and obviously addressed mostly males. What role do women play in this emotional disease?
The myth of a matriarchal paradise having existed in ancient times before the evil patriarchy took over, seems to be a common dream of Marxists. We can see more clearly now that after the so called sexual liberation in the 70′s the left has finally swallowed the last bitter pill of Karl Marx. As a revenge for 6000 years of cruel patriarchy the male sex drive is now deeply mistrusted and a puritanic anti-male movement is on the way.
What has happened in the mean time? Reich is almost forgotten by now. His early writings became popular during the ’68 student movement in Germany. His orgone science is ignored or ridiculed.
Reichs former research institute “Orgonon” in Maine is now a museum, and open to the public.
http://www.wilhelmreichmuseum.org/index.html
Inspired by a book of Wilhelm Reich’s son Peter – the British singer Kate Bush wrote the song “Cloudbusting” that became popular in the 80′s. The video is a classic:
