Wilhelm Reich Today http://orgonomist.blogspot.com

Wilhelm Reich Film Screening in Hopewell, NJ

2020-02-26T12:58:00.001-05:00

On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, at 7:00 PM, a wonderful critically-acclaimed film, The Life and Trials of Wilhelm Reich, will be screened and a panel discussion will follow. The event will be taking place at the Hopewell Theater in Hopewell, NJ. I look forward to being on the panel. Given the proximity to Princeton and Rutgers Universities, those organizing the screening are publicizing the event in and around the campuses. Hope to see faces old and new!

Using Live Video Sessions for Remote Orgone Therapy

2019-09-18T11:45:00.001-04:00

The greatest challenge for patients wishing to undergo orgone therapy has always been access to a qualified practitioner. Thankfully, and surprisingly, I’ve found therapy can be conducted quite effectively even when patient and therapist are in different locations though live video sessions.

Many call themselves “Reichian therapists” but scarce few employ the specific and unique method of treatment Wilhelm Reich pioneered. I, and others, have engaged in considerable efforts to maintain standards, train new therapists, and get the word out about the benefits of this treatment. Still there are just a handful of us who are qualified to do this work. Lack of access to orgone therapy presents a significant barrier for many.

Some years ago, a training therapist I’d been working with for years, and who had been coming to see me from Europe, suggested we try video calling for some sessions. Initially I was skeptical. I had used video conferencing to lecture abroad, and conduct meetings, but didn’t see how this could be applied to therapy sessions which are an integral part of training.

In the course of orgone therapy I don’t just talk with my patients. They’re also allowed to express powerful emotions, such as sadness and anger. There is in addition a “hands-on” aspect where I relieve areas of bodily tension by applying direct pressure to specific muscle groups.

Despite my reservations about video sessions, the need was real for this training therapist and, I have come to realize, for many others. Even the most dedicated patients and training therapists may not have the resources to regularly travel great distances.

Although we both had our doubts, my European trainee and I were pleasantly surprised by how well sessions went. The connection between us proved excellent. It was almost as if were together in the same room. For the hands-on work, we found ways to manage that. I instructed the trainee to apply pressure, themself, to specific muscle groups. It worked.

Today I conduct video sessions with many patients and training therapists. Although I still prefer to treat and train in person, I’ve learned it isn’t necessary. Not everyone is a candidate for remote therapy and training but many are.

Short-Burst Therapy

When preparing for remote therapy, it's best to begin with a series of in-person sessions. These can be conducted in a short period of time, for example one session each day over the course of a week. I call this “short-burst therapy” or “intensive intermittent orgone therapy,” and it’s something I’ve written and lectured about. An obvious benefit of short-burst therapy is convenience. A patient can receive several sessions in a single trip. There are other benefits as well. I've found some patients do better with this more concentrated approach. Again, it isn't for everyone. Sometimes it's best to move slower. It all depends on the patient.

When I was seeing Dr. Elsworth Baker as part of my own therapy and training, I drove every week from Center City Philadelphia, where I lived at the time, to his office in Red Bank, New Jersey. It was an hour and a half each way and certainly worth the travel time. However, had it been much farther, I doubt I would have been able to make the trip given the demands of my own work. I’m sure there are many people over the years who would have had therapy or training, but ultimately didn’t, because of lack of access to a therapist.

The distances one had to travel for training no doubt also hampered the progression of the work. There were so few of us and we were so far apart that it prevented the formation of a critical mass that could continue to grow. I travelled many times to Italy, Germany, and Greece to treat and train therapists, and to the U.S. West Coast to connect with colleagues. I can't help but wonder how things might have been different if online communication and video calling had been around back then, when we all struggled to connect, learn, teach, and spread the word about Reich. Maybe orgone therapy would have become a widespread method of treatment.

I’ve always been concerned that orgone therapy will end when the last of its true practitioners is gone. Today, I’m encouraged that there are still therapists in the U.S. — and many more abroad — who are interested in training to do this work. I’m fortunate to still be training orgone therapists in Reich’s unique method, and I’m glad to be able to conduct live video sessions.

Upcoming Orgonomy Conference in New York City

2019-09-09T11:31:00.002-04:00

A conference about Wilhelm Reich and the science of Orgonomy will be held at Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan on Saturday November 9, 2019, beginning at 8:30 a.m. Speakers include Philip Bennett, Conny Huthsteiner, Harry Lewis, Stephan Simonian, and James Strick. Click here for further information and a link to register.

Where is the Truth About Milk?

2019-04-09T15:51:00.001-04:00

Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

By JOSEPH R. HECKMAN
Guest Blog

Readers of Wilhelm Reich’s book, The Cancer Biopathy, (pages 63-64) may recall that Reich examined many fluids fluorophotometrically as an indicator of their “orgonotic potency,” i.e., their energetic charge. On a scale of 1 to 100, distilled water was set at 1. When comparing milks on this scale, pasteurized had a value of 55 and milk that was not pasteurized had a value of 100+. Among all fluids, milk that was not pasteurized measured well above all others. Except for reporting of this data in a table, Reich did not discuss the specific findings as related to milk. But it is not unreasonable to assume that, concerned as he was with natural energy, he valued highly charged foods. As an interesting side note, Reich’s son Peter wrote a book entitled A Brief History of Milk (published at Smashwords) in which he recalls drinking Certified Milk — unpasteurized milk produced under supervision of a Medical Milk Commission.

In 2006 in response to increasing public interest, I began organizing educational programs that dealt with local, natural, and organic foods. These presentations evolved into a series of seminars focused on raw milk and the need for informed consumer choice. I had also wanted to address the concerns of New Jersey dairy farmers who wanted to be able to legally market fresh unprocessed milk. In New Jersey it is illegal to distribute raw milk, which is not the case in most other states as well as most countries in Europe.

Once this raw milk educational program was announced, I soon found myself at the center of a huge controversy. To deepen my understanding of the subject matter in question, I conducted an extensive literature search to uncover the scientific, legal, political, and historical facts concerning fresh unprocessed milk. I wanted to be able to thoroughly address the opposition to my outreach program and do so with documentation. My literature search turned up a number of essential facts that must be understood regarding raw milk.

First, there are two kinds of raw milk: raw commodity milk intended for processing and fresh unprocessed raw drinking milk for human consumption. Commodity milk is mass-produced — with the understanding that it will be pasteurized. Raw drinking milk is produced for those who want their milk fresh—not processed. Unpasteurized drinking milk requires a much higher standard of production. In some respects “raw milk” is an unsatisfactory term but it is a commonly used term. Although rather long and wordy, we sometimes instead refer to it as Whole Fresh Unprocessed Milk.

With freedom comes responsibility. The careful production of fresh milk is carried out chiefly by dedicated dairy farmers who are proud of their product. However, unscrupulous producers can provide unsanitary milk to the public, putting both the customer and the fresh unprocessed dairy business at risk. To remedy this situation, several non-government organizations have, in a self-regulated way, stepped forward to provide education and training on how to provide careful production practices. Rather than banning access to fresh, unprocessed milk — too often the first impulse of government officials — this type of coordinated oversight is incumbent upon the producers. However, in its absence, there may be a legitimate role for government to inspect and regulate its production.

Secondly, it is widely assumed that no illnesses or deaths are ever linked to pasteurized milk. This is not surprising since the proponents of mandatory pasteurization imply that this treatment of milk guarantees its safety. However, the food safety record for pasteurized milk clearly shows otherwise. Here are just a couple of notable examples documented in JAMA: In 1985 a massive outbreak of salmonellosis traced to pasteurized milk resulted in over 168,000 illnesses and in 2007, Listeria from pasteurized milk was linked to three deaths.

Thirdly, roughly 12 million people in the US population drink unpasteurized milk regularly and on average less than 150 illnesses per year are associated with its consumption. A recent study of the frequency of outbreaks associated with unpasteurized milk has declined significantly since 2010. This seems remarkable since during that same period legal distribution and the number of consumers have both been steadily increasing. This particular study concluded that, “Controlling for growth in population and consumption, the outbreak rate has effectively decreased by 74% since 2005.” The study suggests that the improving food safety record is the result of expanding safety training for raw milk dairy producers.

Fourth, dietary health benefits can only come from foods that people choose to eat. Among the many reasons people give for choosing to drink fresh unprocessed milk, taste ranks highest. This fact may partly account for the steady decline in market demand for highly processed pasteurized milk over the last 40 years.

Fifth, in my search and review of the scientific literature (1917 to present) comparing the health benefits of unpasteurized versus pasteurized milk, I found over twenty studies providing evidence for health benefits uniquely associated with unpasteurized milk. Some of the evidence comes from studies with unpasteurized human breast milk. In instances where the mother cannot breast feed, hospitals nearly always recommend pasteurization of the donor milk even though the research shows that babies have better health outcomes from being fed unpasteurized breast milk. Recent studies with bovine milk, mostly from research conducted in Europe, finds increasing evidence that drinking unpasteurized milk provides protection from allergies, asthma, and respiratory infections.

For context, it is useful to know that leafy greens — and not raw milk — are at the top of the list of most risky foods. Education and training programs are now being offered to vegetable producers to address this concern. When the Food Safety Modernization Act became law, it was assumed that this new FDA authority would lessen the number of outbreaks, yet numerous illness and deaths continue to be linked to eating leafy greens. In a November 2018 FDA press announcement Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. released this statement: “Earlier this year, we experienced the largest E. coli O157:H7 outbreak the country has seen in the last decade, leaving hundreds sick and claiming the lives of five people who consumed contaminated romaine lettuce.” Outbreaks like this raise an interesting question: why despite having the highest safety risk of any food, has no one called for a prohibition against eating raw leafy greens or any other food for that matter?

No other fresh food has been singled out and is so disparaged as fluid raw milk. The irrational behavior of regulatory agencies towards raw milk dairy farmers is recorded in several excellent documentary films: Farmagedon, Organic Hero or Bioterrorist, and Milk War.

Since there is no way to guarantee the safety of any food, one is compelled to ask, why are government agencies like the CDC and FDA so strongly opposed to the consumption of raw milk? Why does it elicit such strong emotional reactions? The reasons remain obscure, but could it be that “natural, unprocessed milk” brings with it sexual connotations, particularly as it relates to human breast milk? Or possibly the reason lies in raw milk being a highly charged “alive” food?

Ten years ago, after attending one of a series of lectures I hosted at Rutgers University, Richard Schwartzman, D.O. wrote a blog post entitled Government vs. Raw Milk. In that post he suggested that irrational opposition and legal challenges that producers and customers of fresh unprocessed milk are met with may be explained by what Wilhelm Reich called the Emotional Plague. To have an understanding and appreciation for the nature of the emotional plague, the reader should read not only Dr. Schwartzman’s post which summarizes it, but should also become familiar with Reich’s original writings on the subject. They can be found in the following five books: The Emotional Plague of Mankind Vol 1 (The Murder of Christ) and Vol 2 (People in Trouble); The Function of the Orgasm; Character Analysis; and Listen Little Man.

Taken together, these facts suggest the opposition to the sale of raw milk and the public’s freedom to choose what they wish to consume is in reality driven by the emotional plague. As Dr. Schwartzman said in his blog post, the emotional plague is “a force that drives authorities to exert control over the lives of others for their own good.… Those suffering with the plague cannot tolerate actions that don’t conform to their rigid ways of thinking.”

Beneath the stated motive that these individuals act purely for the benefit of others there is always an unconscious intolerance of natural functioning. Reich believed that fighting back against the emotional plague was central to establishing greater health and wellbeing among people. To be effective in this battle one must stand up for the truth and have the courage to expose the falsehoods used by the emotional plague.

My academic research and teaching about raw milk has since evolved into a scholarly article based on this experience. Published as an open access journal article, I reference and briefly discuss Dr. Schwartzman’s blog post titled Government vs. Raw Milk. My article, available on the web, is published in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, Cambridge University Press: Securing Fresh Food from Fertile Soil, Challenges to the Organic and Raw Milk Movements.

Joseph Heckman, Ph.D. Professor of Soil Science, Rutgers University, teaches courses in Soil Fertility, Organic Crop Production, and Graduate Student Seminar. He conducts research and extension programs on optimizing nutrition and soil quality in support of plant, animal, and human health. Dr. Heckman has authored numerous publications on soil fertility and organic farming. He was the lead author of a chapter on Soil Fertility in Organic Farming published by the American Society Agronomy. He is co-author of the books Fresh Milk Production, The Cow Edition and Fresh Milk Production, The Goat Edition. Most recently he published a review and analysis of the raw milk movement: Securing Fresh Food from Fertile Soil, Challenges to the Organic and Raw Milk Movements.

Raw Milk for Real Health, Wealth

IAFP Raw Milk Debate

Summer Conference at Orgonon

2017-01-30T08:34:00.000-05:00

This summer, from July 10-14, the Wilhelm Reich Museum is offering a unique program, "The Voice of Wilhelm Reich," which offers an opportunity to participate in a conference with Reich himself.

Reich recorded a series of lectures and meetings with his students between 1949 and 1955. Now "The Voice of Wilhelm Reich" will present five of those audio tapes for study and discussion. Topics include: The importance of Method in Scientific Research and Reich's Discovery of the Armor; Reich Speaks of Freud; Problems of a New Medicine; The Oranur Experiment; and Man’s Roots in Nature.

The tapes will be introduced by science historian James Strick, Ph.D., author of Wilhelm Reich, Biologist (Harvard U. Press, 2015). Programs will take place during the morning hours and there will be special evening activities. Afternoons will be free so that participants can vacation in the beautiful Rangeley Lakes Region in the Western Mountains of Maine.

Preserving or Improving on Wilhelm Reich's Work?

2016-10-22T21:15:00.000-04:00

I was recently asked by a prospective student of orgone therapy if the Institute of Orgonomic Science (IOS) has as its mission to preserve Wilhelm Reich’s work or to build upon it. For those who are not aware, the IOS was founded in the early 1980s and I've been an honorary member of this organization for some years.
This is such an important issue for any organization dedicated to the study of Wilhelm Reich’s findings, and especially for those that train orgone therapists.

Orgonomy is the study of what Reich termed "orgone energy"—the life energy he scientifically proved to exist. He found it first in living things, then later in the atmosphere, and finally theorized that it extended through the cosmos. Reich felt his discovery of orgone energy was his principal finding and all his other work flowed from this.

An analogy can be made to Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, whose work led to the development of the laser, transistor, MRI, and so much more. Just as the field of quantum mechanics has grown and developed over time, and will continue to do so, its foundation, quantum theory, remains essentially unchanged.

Here is where the question of whether an organization is—or should be—preserving Reich's work or building upon it has relevancy. The theory governing the practice of orgone therapy needs no modification. The central element of treatment is the removal of the body’s chronic muscular contractions that Reich called “armor.” This process re-establishes the free flow of the body’s energy and moves patients forward to living a more natural, satisfying life.

Methods to make orgone therapy more effective are welcomed, and certainly needed, but they should only be in the service of advancing the therapy more quickly to its goal and end point as outlined by Reich.

There is a line between preserving and furthering Reich’s work—and distorting it. This is the challenge. It's been my experience that those groups that will preserve and further his findings have as their focus a rigorous study of the body of his work. This includes the scientific experiments that test the validity of his observations and his assertion that the effects of orgone energy are real and measurable.

Fundraising Continues for Film on Wilhelm Reich

2016-05-10T09:34:00.001-04:00

In November of 2014, I alerted blog followers to a documentary film that is in the works about the life and work of Wilhelm Reich. More than $180,000 was raised on Kickstarter and production went forward. The film is now ready to go into the editing and post-production phase and another fundraiser is underway. Please consider supporting this groundbreaking film.

Summer Conference on Wilhelm Reich's Research

2016-03-12T15:34:00.000-05:00

The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust will sponsor a very valuable course on Reich’s origin of life and cancer research. Lectures and hands-on laboratory work will allow students to gain an understanding of some Reich’s most important discoveries.

The conference will be held at Orgonon in Rangeley, Maine July 11-15, 2016. Early registration is advised.

For more information visit WilhelmReichTrust.Org

New Book on Wilhelm Reich Could Be The Game-Changer

2015-09-08T13:30:00.000-04:00

Wilhelm Reich, Biologist (Harvard University Press, 2015) by James E. Strick is an extremely important book because it has the potential to overturn a number of fundamental beliefs in science. One of these, that is set in stone and if refuted will prove a bombshell, is that life must develop from preexisting life. Reich certainly appears to have proved this age-old maxim false. Exactly how he conducted his groundbreaking experiments—almost 80 years ago—can now be found in this book.

Drawing upon archival material never before available, Strick has provided documentation that confirms Reich was a serious scientist. Material taken from unpublished laboratory notebooks and published reports show his research was conducted with meticulous care.

Working with living matter rather than with dead preparations that had been fixed and stained, Reich was able to produce microscopic vesicles that were non-living, yet capable of replication in culture media. This, according to classical scientific theory, is impossible. If these experiments can be duplicated—and this should not be too difficult as Reich’s methods are clearly set forth in Professor Strick’s book—the implications are staggering!

These “bions” as Reich called them were not just transitional life forms. More importantly, they appeared to be involved in health and disease. This finding has opened the way to an entirely new understanding of why people become ill, or remain well.

Later, taking it even a step further, Reich was able to record with time-lapse filming that dying autumnal moss could lead to the natural organization of life as protozoa. Life from non-life! From this he hypothesized that cancer cells might form in a like manner from dying animal tissue that had disintegrated into bions.

Wilhelm Reich, Biologist calls into question other accepted tenets of biology and medicine, too many to cite here. We can only hope this new publication will interest researchers worldwide and stimulate their curiosity. What remarkable benefits might come from examining health and illness from this different perspective remains to be seen. Now, those wishing to test Reich’s findings need only familiarize themselves with his concepts and then exactly follow the straightforward steps outlined for each experiment.

James Strick has done a masterful job in presenting the development of Reich’s research in a most engaging way. He has deftly interwoven science with history and set both against a backdrop of what Reich was to experience all his life—the reactions of the established “experts” who refused to examine findings they “knew” to be wrong.

Wilhelm Reich, Biologist is so well written that readers may not realize they are absorbed in a scholarly book about a scientific revolution. Rather, to their surprise and enjoyment, they may think they are involved in a fascinating mystery novel, and are eager to find out how the plot unfolds.

For more information, visit the book's website.

Annals of the Institute for Orgonomic Science

2015-08-26T11:01:00.000-04:00

Volume 12, No. 1, (2014)

The latest issue this valuable journal is now available. It is dedicated to the science of orgonomy and the work of Wilhelm Reich, M.D. Since 1984 it has been providing information to the public on topics related to all aspects of the science of orgonomy.

This volume of the Annals of the Institute for Orgonomic Science is reasonably priced and available online.

This issue includes the following five articles and one major book review:

Contents:

• Toward a Scientific Study of the Healthy Child: The Orgonomic Infant Research Center (1948-1951)

Philip W. Bennett, Ph.D. reviews the background, development, promise, and achievements of this research project on infant and child development that was initiated by Reich and his professional colleagues. He also describes the factors that ultimately led to the project’s demise.

• The Relevance of Wilhelm Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism to the Struggle Against Fascism, a Project Shared by Herbert Marcuse

David Brahinsky, Ph.D. describes significant parallels between the social visions of both men, while also detailing the potential significance of Reich’s later discoveries for achieving these goals; discoveries which were, however, dismissed by Marcuse.

• Orgone Therapy: Functional Method, Creative Art, and Open Questions

Dorothea Fuckert, M.D. describes marked changes in the nature of armoring and character structure in her patient population in recent decades, and the modifications of therapeutic technique that she has introduced to address the needs of her patients.

• Emotional First Aid: Applications of Orgone Therapy in a General Medical Practice

Drawing on clinical vignettes from her medical training and from her long-term private medical practice in rural Maine, Eva Reich, M.D. movingly describes her therapeutic use of expression of repressed emotion in patients presenting with acute somatic symptoms.

• Addressing Disturbances in Contact in the Beginning Phases of Orgone Therapy

Daniel J. Schiff, Ph.D. employs a case study to illustrate the essential role of contact in the early phases of therapeutic process, describing a pivotal session in which the client was encouraged to maintain contact with emerging emotion in his eyes by means of focused awareness and direct expression of feelings toward a distinct object.

• Adventures in Defamation

Morton Herskowitz, D.O. provides a detailed review of journalist Christopher Turner’s recent book Adventures in the Orgasmatron, and its historical antecedents in the distortion and misrepresentation of Wilhelm Reich and his work.

• In Memoriam

Memorial tributes to two late founders of the Institute for Orgonomic Science, Courtney F. Baker, M.D and Louisa Lance, M.D.

Communications and Notes:

• Recent lectures and publications by members of the Institute

• Announcements of forthcoming conferences and educational programs involving members of the Institute

• Listings and / or brief descriptions of recent orgonomy – related books

• An announcement of the Training Program in Orgonomic Therapy offered by the Institute

• Manuscript preparation instructions for papers submitted to the Annals

Upcoming Orgonomy Conference: University of Pennsylvania

2015-03-06T16:45:00.002-05:00

On Saturday, April 11, 2015, a one day conference titled "Science, Love, and Society: An Introduction to Orgonomy, the Work of Wilhelm Reich" will be held at the University of Pennsylvania.

The conference is being sponsored by the Institute of Orgonomic Science (IOS). These conferences for the public are rare, and it's an excellent opportunity to learn more about Wilhelm Reich and his legacy. I will be attending the conference and look forward to meeting friends old and new.

Location:

249 S 36th St, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 – Claudia Cohen Hall, room G17

Cost:

$40, students $15. No one will be turned away due to financial hardship. Early registrants receive a discount. For more information, map to the location, pre-payment option, etc., click here.

Schedule:

9:30 AM – 10:00 AM: Registration

10:00 AM – 10:30 AM: Welcoming: An introduction to the IOS, the speakers, the format of the day.

10:30 AM – 11:30 AM: Who was Wilhelm Reich and what is Orgonomy? An Overview.

(Presenter: Harry Lewis, Ed.D, LCSW)

11:30 AM – 12:30 PM: What is Psychiatric Orgone Therapy?

(Presenter: Hugh Brenner, MSN, CRNP)

12:30 AM – 1:30 PM: Lunch Break (on own)

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM: Wilhelm Reich’s Social and Political Insights.

(Presenter: Philip W. Bennett, PhD)

2:30 PM – 3:30 PM: Orgone Energy: Theoretical and Practical Implications.

(Presenter: Kevin Hinchey, MFA)

3:30 PM – 3:45 PM: Break

3:45 PM – 4:15 PM: Round table discussion with presenters: Current and past misrepresentations of Reich’s life and work and its influence on the current teaching of orgonomy.4:15 PM – 4:30 PM: Closing

Presenters:

Philip W. Bennett, PhD: Philip W. Bennett has a PhD in philosophy from New York University. He has published a number of articles about aspects of Reich’s life, including recent ones in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalysis and History. He has lectured about Reich here in Philadelphia, in New York City, at the Reich Museum center in Maine, and in Germany, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, and most recently in Finland. When not traveling and lecturing, he continues to work on his book, From Communism to Work Democracy: the Development of Wilhelm Reich’s Social and Political Thought.

Hugh Brenner, MSN, CRNP: Hugh Brenner was born into the Orgonomic Infant Research Center. He started Nursing School in 1980 and spent over 15 years working in various psychiatric settings. In 1994 he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing with a MSN in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing and soon started a private practice, combining traditional psychiatric modalities with psychiatric orgone therapy. In 2010 he graduated from Rutgers University with a post-graduate certificate as a Family Nurse Practitioner. He holds three Board Certifications. He has been involved in The Institute for Orgonomic Science for 15 years and is the current President.

Morton Herskowitz, DO: Dr. Morton Herskowitz, DO, graduated Temple University in with a BA in 1938. He attained his D.O. from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1943. After his internship at Harbor Hospital in Brooklyn, NY he worked as a General Practitioner for 3 years. In 1945 he began formal supervision in psychiatry. He began his personal therapy and training with Wilhelm Reich, MD in 1947, continuing until Dr. Reich imprisonment. Board Certified in Psychiatry, Dr. Herskowitz has been practicing psychiatric orgone therapy for more than 60 years. Currently he has a practice consistent with his age and energy. He is the author of the book Emotional Armoring: An Introduction to Psychiatric Orgone Therapy.

Kevin Hinchey, MFA: Since 2002, Kevin Hinchey has been one of the directors of the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust which administers Reich’s archives at the Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard University; works with New York publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux to publish Reich’s books; and operates the Wilhelm Reich Museum in Rangeley, Maine. He has an M.F.A. in Film from the New York University Graduate Film School and over the past ten years has been a film professor in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Mr. Hinchey is now involved in the production of a full-length documentary on the life and work of Wilhelm Reich with location filming and on-camera interviews in the United States and Europe.

Harry Lewis, Ed.D, LCSW: Harry Lewis is an orgone therapist in private practice and the co-director of The Institute for the Study of the Work of Wilhelm Reich. He has been a member of the faculty at the New School for Social Research for the past twenty-six years.

A Discussion of Children, Circumcision and Trauma

2014-11-27T14:22:00.001-05:00

The following interview was conducted after my presentation at the 13th International Symposium on Genital Autonomy and Children’s Rights, held at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, Colorado July 24-26, 2014. James Loewen, the filmmaker, has been documenting intactivist issues since 1993.

Wilhelm Reich Film Project

2014-11-02T19:16:00.001-05:00

A documentary film on the life and work of Wilhelm Reich is planned for production under the auspices of the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund. Kevin Hinchey, who is its co-director, has written the storyline and will head up the project.

Mr. Hinchey may be the only person who has had full access to Reich’s closely held archives that are stored in the medical school library at Harvard University. Because of this the film will present facts, not theories about Reich and his scientific work. It will also set the record straight by dispelling the many myths that have been repeated through the years—the falsehoods that have painted Reich and his work in a bad light.

Should this film become a reality and have wide distribution, it will go far to make people aware of a remarkable man who for too long has been an unappreciated genius whose discoveries could benefit all humankind. It would also be a stimulus for scientists worldwide to undertake a fair examination of Reich’s work.

A Kickstarter campaign is underway to fund the production of the film. As of this writing, there are 19 days left to fund the project. Below is the Kickstarter video. The full campaign can be accessed by clicking the "K" on the upper left corner of the video box.

Exploring the Emotions Behind Genital Cutting

2014-09-05T14:49:00.002-04:00

62 years ago, in 1952, Wilhelm Reich said, “Take that poor penis. Take a knife—right? And start cutting. And everybody says, “It doesn’t hurt.” Everybody says, “No, it doesn’t hurt.” Get it? That’s an excuse, of course, a subterfuge. They say that the sheaths of the nerve are not yet developed. Therefore, the sensation in the nerves is not yet developed. Therefore, the child doesn’t feel a thing. Now, that’s murder! Circumcision is one of the worst treatments of children. And what happens to them? You just look at them. They can’t talk to you. They just cry. What they do is shrink. They contract, get away into the inside, away from that ugly world.”

Reich lived from 1897 to 1957. He was an Austrian physician who was a pioneering psychoanalyst and considered one of Freud’s best students. However, over time, he became disappointed with the results that could be achieved with Freud’s method of free association. This prompted him to develop a very different framework for understanding people and emotions.

I am a board-certified psychiatrist and for more than 40 years have been using the unique and very effective treatment that Reich created. I also train psychologists and other psychiatrists to practice this therapy. It’s very different from any other treatment for emotional disorders that you may have heard of. And even if you have heard of Wilhelm Reich, or have some knowledge of the therapy that he pioneered, his method of treatment is often misunderstood and, unfortunately, misrepresented. It makes use of a verbal interchange that’s different from other methods of psychotherapy. It seeks to make the patient aware of the particular manner in which they approach the world. Reich called it “character analysis.” The treatment also allows the release emotions, primarily sadness and anger, in a controlled way, in the safety of the therapist’s office.

Reich discovered that emotional traumas are not forgotten, even when they occur very early in life and remain out of conscious awareness. Physical pain is traumatic for everyone, but for an infant or young child, the shock to their system can be terrible. This is the reason why Reich, although Jewish, spoke out so vehemently against circumcision.

Just how it is that events from the distant past can be locked away somewhere in the body remains a mystery. Nevertheless, the traumas of childhood, if severe enough, are never forgotten. They stay stuck in us—in our “armor” as Reich called it—and exert their damaging effect throughout life. This fact, that the past is not forgotten, is virtually unknown. Early childhood traumas, not chemical imbalances, are the root cause of lifelong dissatisfaction and unhappiness, as well as many severe emotional disorders, including schizophrenia.

Now what is very interesting and remarkable (and in fact this still amazes me, as it did Reich) is, in the course of this therapy, patients may actually re-experience their earliest traumas. I have seen men re-live their circumcision, with all the pain and terror they suffered. In a few minutes I am going to play a clip of one of my patients speaking about his experience when he re-lived his circumcision during therapy. I had him filmed for this conference.

But first, I am going to show you a clip of him on the therapy couch during the course of a typical session. This clip comes from a documentary film that was made some years ago. What you are going to see may be a bit shocking, but please know that Bob has always left every session much relieved and in fine shape.

As this clip showed, the past remains alive. Now as for circumcision, it is so extremely harmful because it occurs so early in life. The younger the child, the less are the defense mechanisms to deal with pain. As an adult, or even an older child, we have the sum of our intellect and our experiences to put shocking events in some context and perspective.

The next clip I am going to play shows Bob telling about re-living his circumcision. This was just filmed.

So now I want to turn to a different subject, and the topic of my talk, which is the unconscious cruelty that drives humans to circumcise newborns and children.

All of us here today understand that cutting the genitals of children is not just unnecessary—-but barbaric—-and there’s not a single, rational argument to support it. However, because there are so many sides to the issue, people can’t see circumcision for what it really is. They are confused because of the social and cultural factors, the demands of religion, the medical justifications—and so on. But I’d like to touch on one aspect that is almost never considered— the forces that drive people and institutions to support this practice.

Can any sense be made of what it is that impels people to brutally cut the genitals of defenseless newborns and young children, male and female alike? For the answer to this question I again look to the work of Wilhelm Reich. One of his most important contributions is his exposition of what he termed the “emotional plague.” It’s a very complex subject and I will try to do it a bit of justice in the next few minutes. But if any audience can grasp this concept, I think this one will.

Reich maintained that within our society, and in fact in all patriarchal societies, there are certain individuals that he called emotional plague characters. These people have very specific characteristics and ways of behaving. They are intelligent, extremely competent, aggressive, and endowed with a high energy level. And they are very good at getting themselves into positions of authority and power so they can tell others what to do for their own good.

Emotional plague characters, big and small, have existed throughout history. They are not just the Hitlers and Stalins, but also the petty tyrant school teachers who terrorizes the children in their class; the religious leaders, who mandate right and proper behavior; the supervisors everywhere that keep those under them in constant fear; the heads of organizations that put into effect policies that restrict personal freedom, and so on.

The emotional plague is not just confined to individuals but also becomes institutionalized. This can be seen in many of our law-making bodies that, more and more, dictate how we should live, again, for our own good.

The reasons behind this behavior are too complex to go into here, but what can be said is that plague characters, because of the particular way they were raised, are disturbed and very angry people. But they are unaware of their anger. They are not like the average neurotic who suffers quietly to themselves. In fact, they don’t suffer much at all because they act out their anger, which is unconscious, on the social scene. This is not something they choose to do. They are driven to act this way. And they really believe they are doing the right thing.

Seeing others who are lively, happy, and enjoying themselves creates in them not pleasure, as it would with a healthy person, but jealousy and resentment. These feelings are so intense that the only way they can stop them is by going out into the world and stopping people from having pleasure. This is what makes these individuals feel better.

What makes the emotional plague so effective, and so dangerous, is that their arguments are extremely well rationalized and always “partly right.” We can see with regard to circumcision how this “partly right” confuses: Maybe my boy should look like the other boys. Maybe, as a Jew, I should have my son circumcised. Maybe the doctors are right that my boy could get infections. It’s the partly right that confuses, and prevents us from seeing what’s right in front of our eyes.

Because the emotional plague hates pleasure in others, and seeks to stamp it out, children, who by their very nature are lively, happy people are a prime target. So is natural sexuality. Circumcision targets both children and natural sexuality.

So what can be done? Reich said the only way to combat the emotional plague is to expose it. This doesn’t mean pointing fingers and calling people “plague characters.” It means exposing the work of the plague to the truth. Consistently making people aware of the lies that allow this practice to continue.

Also, to keep our focus on educating the public and the upcoming generation of doctors and others who will re-shape existing policies. We have truth on our side, and the children of the future will be the beneficiaries of our efforts.

This lecture was presented at the 13th International Symposium on Genital Autonomy and Children’s Rights, held at the University of Colorado in Boulder on July 24-26, 2014. The conference provided a forum for discussion about the genital alteration of infants and children from religious, medical, human rights, and other perspectives. Speakers from around the world reported on the approaches they have taken, and the progress that has been made, for protecting male, female, and intersex children from medically unnecessary genital alteration.

International Symposium on Genital Autonomy and Children’s Rights

2014-07-07T10:25:00.000-04:00

The 13th International Symposium on Genital Autonomy and Children’s Rights will be held on July 24-26, 2014 at the University of Colorado in Boulder Colorado, USA.

The conference is being presented by the U.S. groups NoCirc and Intact America, as well as several other European groups.

With respect to infant circumcision in the U.S. and Israel, what has been an accepted procedure is now being questioned, and the movement against it is now worldwide and growing.

I will lecture on Unconscious cruelty: Exploring the emotions behind genital cutting. The central themes will be Reich’s discovery of the lifelong effects of early infant trauma and the central role the emotional plague plays in continuing this brutal practice. A video will be shown of a patient in a typical orgone therapy session and another of him describing what he experienced when he relived his circumcision in treatment.

My daughter, Rebecca Wald, is a pioneer in the movement to question Jewish circumcision. Her topic, An unlikely activist’s journey Beyond the Bris, will discuss her website, which provides timely news and opinion articles on this topic.

In a second lecture she and her co-author will talk about their forthcoming book, Celebrating Brit Shalom. The book provides the information needed to enable families to welcome their infant boys into the Jewish religion—without circumcision. There is an active Kickstarter campaign to help fund and promote the completion of the book.

Conspiracy Theory: Fact or Fiction

2013-08-22T12:33:00.000-04:00

August 23, 2013

The role Frederick Wertham and Mildred Edie Brady played in the FDA’s investigation that led to Wilhelm Reich’s imprisonment (see previous post) has more than historical interest. Reich claimed the communists were behind the New Republic’s attack on him and that both Brady and Henry Wallace, the magazine’s editor, were communists. Reich said she was a “communist sniper” and wrote “Wallace-Stalinist” in his diary. These assertions of a plot against him by Soviet intelligence have been repeatedly cited as evidence Reich was paranoid.

Branding Reich as crazy has, to no small extent, prevented further investigation of his findings. No one in the established scientific community considers examining the work of the deranged. The result is that many of Reich’s scientific claims, which could be proved valid, remain dismissed as nonsense.

But what if Reich wasn’t paranoid regarding Brady and Wallace? What if this often repeated “fact” isn’t true and there was a communist conspiracy within the New Republic? If this was the case, at least this piece of “proof” that Reich was delusional could be called into question.

1. Biographers with an Agenda

Is there no end to self-appointed experts on Reich? There have been more than a dozen biographies of the man and all but two have asserted he was mentally ill.¹ The authors of two relatively recent supposedly “authoritative” biographies have variously diagnosed Reich as having: a severe clinical depression; having borderline traits; a decentered ego; of suffering from psychic inflation; hypomania; megalomania; delusions of grandeur; and paranoid schizophrenia.²

Both of these accounts of Reich and his work are written with a patronizing tone and unconcealed contempt. Again Reich has been portrayed as a delusional crackpot scientist, someone to be ridiculed.³ However this perception of the man and his work might change, at least in the minds of some, with an examination of some well established facts and new information that has come to light since Reich’s death.

2. Connections with Communism

Frederick Wertham and Mildred Edie Brady were recruited by the New Republic to write about Reich. Wertham’s connection to the Soviet-American friendship league, his defense of the Rosenberg communist spies, and his plans to write a book that would make Freud’s findings compatible with Marxism leave little doubt about his feelings toward Stalin’s Russia. His scathing review of Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism in the magazine was followed just a few months later by Brady’s article, The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich.

It has been established Brady and her husband were known to be well connected in communist circles, but now there is information linking her to the Soviet intelligence and the FDA⁴. The executive officers of the New Republic also had connections to the communist party. Henry Wallace, the magazine’s editor, was clearly sympathetic toward communism and was even believed to be a KGB agent⁵. As to Michael Straight, the publisher of the magazine, he had been recruited by Soviet intelligence in the 1930‘s⁶. All of this does not prove there was a communist conspiracy whose aim was to destroy Reich. But as Thoreau said, “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”

3. Was Reich That Important?

Was Reich really so important that communists would see him as a significant threat to their goal of world dominance? We probably will never know but they might have been, given the considerable impression Reich was having on highly influential individuals here and abroad. Wikipedia states: “His early psychoanalytic work, his writing about fascism, and his later writings about orgonomy influenced several generations of intellectuals, including the writers Saul Bellow (1915–2005), William Burroughs (1914–1997), Norman Mailer (1923–2007), and the founder of Summerhill School in England, A. S. Neill.” Wikipedia also says that Reich influenced, among others, Orson Bean, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, J. D. Salinger, as well as Alexander Lowen (Bioenergetics) and Fritz Perls (Gestalt Therapy). Both of Lowen and Perls were patients of Reich.

4. Involvement with Communism

Reich had joined the Party in 1928 for two principal reasons: the belief it would counteract German fascism and to further self-determination for its people. When in the Party he was the spokesman for free contraceptives, birth control, abortion on demand, and sex education in schools. He believed with these in place sexual self-regulation could gain ground and help relieve the people’s misery. But as Reich was soon to see these programs were not implemented when they came to power, and neither were other reforms pledged by its leaders. Quite the opposite was true. A dictatorial regime took absolute control of the lives of its people.

The direction they had taken brought Reich into sharp conflict with its leaders and he was expelled from the communist party in 1933. The Sexual Revolution appeared in 1935. In it he denounced red fascism, showing it for what it was--a betrayal of all that was promised by the Russian revolutionists when they came to power in 1917.

Reich’s book had a large readership in Europe and, in 1945 after he had emigrated to America, it was translated into English. It was enormously popular here and widely read by the intelligensia, many of whom were then sympathetic to Soviet communism. It was just two years later, in 1947, that Brady’s article appeared in the New Republic.

Taking into account what is now known about Wertham, Brady, Wallace and Straight and the wide influence Reich’s book was having, as well as the impressive results orgone therapy was producing for so many influential people, it’s not so far-fetched that Soviet intelligence could have indeed targeted Reich⁷.

5. Conclusion

No claim is made here there definitely was a Soviet conspiracy to discredit Reich. Only an opening of the records still held in Russia could confirm this speculation. As to Reich’s mental state, here too it would be presumptuous for me to pass any judgement. However, standing in contrast to those who never met the man, there are the opinions of psychiatrists Elsworth F. Baker, M.D. and Morton Herskowitz, D.O. Both were treated and trained by Reich and they have said they thought him perfectly sane. They are two of the most rational, clearheaded individuals I have had the good fortune to know and, given their long and intimate association with Reich, I value their thinking.

6. References

These two are: Wilhelm Reich and Orgonomy by Ola Raknes and Wilhelm Reich: Life force Explorer by James Wyckoff.
Wilhelm Reich by Robert Corrington and Adventures in the Orgasmatron by Christopher Turner.
The assertion Reich was schizophrenic began in Europe and when he came to the United States, in 1939, a rumor was circulated he had been institutionalized at the Utica State Mental Hospital.
In 1999 there appeared “New evidence Brady was a Stalinist agent with deep influence within the FDA.” This information is presented in John Wilder’s valuable report on “CSICOP, Time Magazine, and Wilhelm Reich” (http://librelivre.net/read/1ptuv) where he referenced as his source Jim Martin’s treatise, Wilhelm Reich and the Cold War, published by Flatland Books in Mendocino, California
It was Wallace’s pro-Soviet speech at the Madison Square Garden in 1946 that led President Truman to remove him as a cabinet member.
“Michael Straight, the last of five Cold War spies recruited by the Soviets...” by Richard K. Brunner, as it appeared in February 2004 (http://articles.mcall.com/2004-02-08/opinion/3524576_1_soviet-spy-blunt-burgess-and-maclean)
Reich had a growing reputation as a remarkably effective therapist by 1947 when Brady’s article appeared. He and the psychiatrists he was training here in the United States were seeing large numbers of patients.

Bonfires of the Humanities

2013-05-06T14:13:00.002-04:00

Fredric Wertham, M.D., Wilhelm Reich, M.D., and American Book Burnings

By Stephen Wahrhaftig

May, 6, 2013

On an August day in 1956 the US Food and Drug Administration sent a dump truck to a warehouse in Greenwich Village. It picked up six tons of literature comprised of thousands of books and scientific journals. Proceeding to the Gansevoort Street incinerator, decades of Wilhelm Reich's printed work were burned to ashes.

Students of Reich are familiar with the popular articles of the late 1940's written by Mildred Edie Brady for Harper’s Magazine and The New Republic. Brady, a model-turned-leftist journalist, wrote The New Cult of Sex and Anarchy for Harper’s, discrediting the West Coast intellectuals who were extolling literary and sexual freedom, and said Reich was influencing a generation of hedonists. The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich appeared a month later in the NR, and both articles contained fabricated tales about Reich. In this piece she portrayed him as a crackpot scientist with crazy theories about sexuality. She ended her article saying appropriate laws were needed to protect the public, and if this was done people like Reich could be stopped from practicing any therapy not approved by the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Mildred Brady was a sensationalist writer and her work, by itself, might have been largely disregarded--if it did not have the support of someone not so easy to dismiss. This was Dr. Fredric Wertham, a New York psychiatrist. Born Fredric Wertheimer in Munich, he came to the USA and taught at John Hopkins, and eventually headed a psychiatric clinic that treated criminals.

Crime Explained

In the late 40's and early 50's one of America's two unique art forms, comics books (the other being jazz), was at its peak of popularity. The monthly titles of the comics often sold millions of copies and Dr. Wertham’s criminal patients sometimes read comic books. Looking over the panels of flying superheroes, machine gun-toting mobsters, and bikini-clad jungle princesses shocked his Bavarian sensibilities. Since his patients read comic books, he put two and two together and a saw tremendous career opportunity opening before him. Criminals read comics. Comics caused criminal behavior.

Wertham wrote articles promoting this idea. But here is where his line of work took a strange turn. He had built his reputation upon protecting young, innocent readers from stories of imaginary ghosts and monsters. Yet Wertham now was paying his bills by writing books like Show of Violence. Based on his experience of working with the mentally ill, he wrote lurid accounts of people who murdered their children, each story more terrible than the last. Every chapter of Show of Violence is told in graphic, prurient detail. Wertham saw no conflict between what he was writng and what he condemned in comic books. This ability to rationalize his thinking and do what best served his own interests--combined with his skill in presenting pseudo-scientific evidence--came in handy when building a case against Wilhelm Reich.

Wertham first wrote about Reich via a paid commission from (no coincidence) The New Republic. This influential magazine was far to the political left and, because Reich had become increasingly critical of communism, his position was at odds with its editor, Henry Wallace. NR wanted to bash Reich and needed a prominent figure to do their bidding. They chose Paul Goodman, a best-selling writer and critic, to review Reich’s The Sexual Revolution and The Mass Psychology of Fascism. They had expected a hatchet job, but to NR's tremendous disappointment Goodman enthusiastically endorsed both of Reich’s books. Now NR was in a bit of a fix. Infuriated, they refused to publish Goodman’s positive review and were in need of someone sympathetic to their agenda. Wertham, as a member of the American-Soviet Friendship League, and as a qualified psychiatrist with suppressive theories, was made for the job.

Wertham’s Influence

Reich’s ideas of promoting freedom, personal accountability, and work democracy as presented in The Mass Psychology of Fascism agitated Wertham in the same way Rulah of the Jungle did, her bare legs and long hair exposed seductively as she swung on jungle vines. In his 1946 New Republic review of the book he viciously attacked Reich's theories, saying Reich had “utter contempt for the masses” and was a “neo-fascist.” He ended his scathing write-up by urging all progressive intellectuals to take action against Reich and his “psycho-fascism.” This set the stage for Brady's destructive follow-ups.

It was only six months after Wertham’s review that Brady’s first attack, titled The New Cult of Sex and Anarchy, appeared in Harper's magazine. And a month after that, in May 1947, The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich was published in the New Republic.

Wertham’s influence on the media continued unabated for, in a 1948 Collier’s Magazine article, there appeared a piece, Horrors in the Nursery, written by a Judith Crist. She sited Wertham's “findings about the evils of comic books.” Her wide assertions about how crime and horror comics led directly to juvenile delinquency and worse, fully supported Wertham’s ideas. However, throughout the article no actual science or studies were cited, and Wertham’s conclusions were accepted as fact even though they were baseless. He simply felt comics were bad for people and the media believed him. Regarding the inconvenient question of press freedom, Crist quotes Wertham, "...the publishers will raise a howl about Freedom of Speech and of the Press...nonsense. The time has come to legislate these books off the news stands and out of the candy stores."

In 1954, Wertham’s book, Seduction of the Innocent was published. He claimed it to be the result of “seven years of scientific investigation.” Yet, like his other publications, the book contains no scientific investigations. Instead, it is full of assertions based on what he believed to be true, and little else. Research done in 2010 by Carol Tilley on Seducing the Innocent: Fredric Wertham and the Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics has confirmed that, “Wertham manipulated, overstated, compromised, and fabricated evidence—especially that evidence he attributed to personal clinical research with young people—for rhetorical gain.”

Comic Books and Bonfires

Wertham's 1940's articles, and his 1954 book, led to a massive witch-hunt by the government and other authorities, culminating in a senate subcommittee hearing to investigate the terrible scourge of American comic books. Even more disturbing was the action taken around the country by local activist groups.

As early as 1950, the mayor of Rumson, NJ, along with a local cub master and others herded forty Cub Scouts (not Boy Scouts) into a commandeered fire truck. For two days, they drove the engine through the borough with the siren blaring, collecting comic books for destruction.

In Missouri, a Girl Scout troop and St. Mary's Church created a massive bonfire of comics. Children were seen crying among the gathered crowds. One child of a poor rural family recalled being made to participate in the book burnings, even though he had never read a comic book. "The thing about it is that I didn't give the comic books much thought until that time, and when we started that bonfire, I started to think something really just wasn't right about it. I thought they were trying to use us, and I didn't think that was right. It got me pretty mad. I never did think about teachers in the same way after that."

In the end, the government concluded that they had no legal reason for banning comics. It was a simple matter of free speech. But the damage had already been done. In just two years, half of the comic books published in the US disappeared. Hundreds of artists and writers lost their jobs. Stan Lee, of the Timely/Marvel group, had to fire his staff in a day, one at a time. People who had created memorable stories in a uniquely American art form found jobs bagging groceries and as security guards. The most creative company, EC comics survived by changing one of their comic book publications to something called Mad Magazine. Every other title was canceled.

In 1953, Ray Bradbury wrote his classic, Fahrenheit 451, a cautionary tale of an authoritarian future where government “firemen” sought books hidden in citizen's homes, and torched them in bonfires. It was only a few years since the Nazis had consigned thousands of books to the flames (including Reich’s), and not many years before we here in the United States burned comics and then Wilhelm Reich's books.

The part Dr. Fredric Wertham played was not directly involved in the court’s decision to burn Dr. Reich's books, and there Is no evidence he intended for schoolyards across America to host bonﬁres of comics. But his attempt to protect the public led, inexorably, to these acts of extreme censorship. The urge Wertham had to clamp down and extinguish ideas and expression of freedom not consistent with his thinking took possesion of him. It drove him, as it did religious leaders, and authoritarian parents and teachers, to use the power they had to enforce their beliefs.

As we reflect on Dr. Wertham's legacy, we can console ourselves with the fact that these book burnings took place in a different America, one that disappeared more than half a century ago. Except that this is not entirely true. In 2001 book burnings in New Mexico and Pennsylvania reduced Harry Potter novels to ashes. Reverend George Bender, of The Harvest Assembly of God Church commented, "We got some people mad at us, but it's good to have publicity.”

It is generally believed that Mildred Edie Brady, who was granted an interview by Reich by posing as one enthusiastic about his work, was the single person responsible for the US government’s campaign against Reich. It is true her article in the NR did lead, just two months later, to the FDA investigation. But Wertham’s book review in the same publication, six months earlier, may well have set the stage for Brady.

There is no hard evidence that Brady decided to visit Reich because of Wertham’s review of The Mass Psychology of Fascism. However, it’s not a far reach to question if she would have, or could have, written The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich had it not been for Dr. Frederick Wertham. If this is so, Reich’s books might not have been burned and he sent to prison where he died.

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Stephen Wahrhaftig writes from West Chester Pa. His site, www.stevewdesign.com, covers design and marketing.

Annals of the Institute for Orgonomic Science

2013-04-05T19:58:00.001-04:00

The latest issue of this important journal is now available. It is an engaging and eminently readable publication dedicated to the science of orgonomy and the work of Wilhelm Reich, M.D.

Since 1984 the Annals of the Institute for Orgonomic Science has been providing information to the public on a wide range of topics. They include: orgonomic therapy; childrearing; education; social orgonomy; studies of biogenesis; and evidence for the biological and physical effects of Reich’s orgone energy accumulator and DOR-buster.

This issue [Volume 11, Number 1 (2011)] contains the following articles:

In “Malinowski Revisited and Reich’s Children of the Future,” Morton Herskowitz, D.O., discusses Reich’s insights concerning childhood in the light of Bronislaw Malinowski’s findings in his classic anthropological
studies of the Trobriand islanders.

In “Double-Blind Controlled Experiments in the Orgone Energy Accumulator,” Philip Bennett, Ph.D., reviews the history of double-blind methods in biomedical research, noting the paucity of their use in orgonomic research. He then describes recent double-blind studies demonstrating biological effects of a device that resembles the orgone energy accumulator.

In “Onion Plant Responses to Orgone Accumulator Treatment,” Joseph Heckman, Ph.D., presents data from two field experiments on the effects of different durations of accumulator treatment of onion bulbs before planting. Although no significant differences in plant growth parameters were noted, the results suggest that orgone accumulator treatment may retard leaf senescence.

In “Politics, Religion and Human Nature,” Peter Robbins illustrates how irrationalism in politics and society have obstructed scientific research on unidentified flying objects.

In “Children as Teachers,” Dorothea Fuckert, M.D., describes her experiences of parenting that were based on self-regulation. She describes what she and her husband learned from their two sons through their infancy, the time they spent at Summerhill School, and as they matured into adulthood.

In “Foundations for a Functional Analysis of Economics,” Dean Davidson describes Reich’s use of Karl Marx’s analysis of living working power and its role in the production of surplus value. He contrasts Reich’s approach with more recent attempts to understand human economic relations that have ignored these findings.

In “Orgone Therapy – A Patient’s Perspective,” a patient movingly describes the impact of orgone therapy on her life.

The “Communications and Notes” section includes memorial tributes to Bernard R. Grad, Ph.D., Eva Renate Reich, M.D. and Ilse Ollendorff Reich; a listing of recent lectures and publications by members of the Institute; and an announcement of the Training Program in Orgonomic Therapy offered by the Institute.

The Annals is reasonably priced and, starting with this issue, can now be obtained online:

Print-on-demand hardcopy: $25 plus postage

PDF download: $15

It may be ordered at: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/378920?__r=189316.

I also recommend to my readers the website www.psychorgone.com. It provides an excellent introduction to Reich’s discoveries. Stephan Simonian, M.D., a psychiatric orgone therapist practicing in California, is its founder and editor. He, along with many other contributors, present articles (and YouTubes) on a wide range of topics related to the science of orgonomy. The article written by Dr. Morton Herskowitz in this edition of the Annals has now been reprinted in its entirety on his website.

Adding My Voice to the Circumcision Debate

2013-03-18T22:17:00.001-04:00

In 1952 Wilhelm Reich said, “Take that poor penis. Take a knife--right? And start cutting. And everybody says, “It doesn't hurt.” Everybody says, “No, it doesn't hurt.” Get it? Thatʼs an excuse, of course, a subterfuge. They say that the sheaths of the nerve are not yet developed. Therefore, the sensation in the nerves is not yet developed. Therefore, the child doesn't feel a thing. Now, thatʼs murder! Circumcision is one of the worst treatments of children. And what happens to them? You just look at them. They canʼt talk to you. They just cry. What they do is shrink. They contract, get away into the inside, away from that ugly world.” This quote appeared in the book “Reich Speaks of Freud” (1967).

Now, more than sixty years later, there are organizations in countries around the world that educate people about circumcision. Their message is that the procedure is cruel, medically unnecessary, and has lifelong consequences.

There are hundreds of websites speaking out against circumcision. Beyond the Bris: Questioning Jewish Circumcision is an intactivist site with Jewish contributors:

http://www.beyondthebris.com/

An article I wrote for Beyond the Bris in February led Intact America, in March, to ask me to be their intactivist of the month:

http://www.intactamerica.org/schwartzman

I am honored to now be a member of their Board of Health Professionals.

Introductory Seminar of Psychiatric Orgone Therapy and Character Analysis

2013-01-10T05:08:00.001-05:00

The Greek Society of Psychiatric Orgone Τherapy and Character Αnalysis is pleased to announce a new course on the theory and general principles of Wilhelm Reich’s method of treating emotional disorders. It will be the first of its kind in Europe, where Reich’s discoveries are widely studied and continue to be put to practical use.

The program will consist of monthly seminars beginning on January 27th in Thessaloniki and on February 3rd in Athens, and they will continue through June 2015.

The three members of the Society’s training committee are psychiatric orgone therapists. In Thessaloniki the seminars will be conducted by psychiatrist Nassos Teopoulos, M.D., and in Athens by child psychiatrist George Argyreas, M.D. Both trained with the American College of Orgonomy where they were clinical associates for more than ten years.

Psychiatrist Richard Schwartzman, D.O., will participate by way of regularly scheduled webinars. He trained with Morton Herskowitz, D.O and Elsworth F. Baker, M.D. who were students of Reich. He was director of The Advanced Technical Training Seminar at the American College of Orgonomy for more than twenty years and is now an honorary member of the Institute for Orgonomic Science in Philadelphia, PA.

The completion of this program is a prerequisite for physicians and psychologists who wish to be accepted for future clinical training in the practice of psychiatric orgone therapy and character analysis. For further information and an application individuals interested in applying for this initial course of study can contact the Society at: seminar@orgonetherapy.gr.

MONTHLY SCHEDULE FOR THE
“INTRODUCTORY SEMINAR OF PSYCHIATRIC ORGONE THERAPY
AND CHARACTER ANALYSIS”
1^οSession:       Introduction. General principles of orgonomy and orgonetherapy.
2^ο Session:      Erogenous zones, libidinal stages and psychic structure, and the concept of character in psychiatric orgonetherapy.
3^ο Session:      Webinar with Richard Schwartzman: Discussion on erogenous zones, libidinal stages, psychic structure and character.
4^ο Session:      The concept of armoring. Origin and segmental structure of somatic and psychic armoring. (Part A)
5^ο Session:      The concept of armoring. Origin and segmental structure of somatic and psychic armoring. (Part B)
6^ο Session:      Webinar with Richard Schwartzman: Discussion on armoring.
7^ο Session:      The concept of contact. Problems of contact, genitality.
8^ο Session:      Adolescence: treatment of problems and therapeutic interventions.
9^ο Session:      Genital character types: Genesis, character traits and symptoms, biophysical structure and general therapeutic principles. (Part A)
10^ο Session:    Genital character types: Genesis, character traits and symptoms, biophysical structure and general therapeutic principles. (Part B)
11^ο Session:    Webinar with Richard Schwartzman: Discussion on genital character types.
12^ο Session:    Phallic character types: Genesis, character traits and symptoms, biophysical structure and general therapeutic principles. (Part A)
13^ο Session:    Phallic character types: Genesis, character traits and symptoms, biophysical structure and general therapeutic principles. (Part B)
14^ο Session:    Webinar with Richard Schwartzman: Discussion on phallic character types.
15^ο Session:    Anal character types: Genesis, character traits and symptoms, biophysical structure and general therapeutic principles. (Part A)
16^ο Session:    Anal character types: Genesis, character traits and symptoms, biophysical structure and general therapeutic principles. (Part B)
17^ο Session:    Webinar with Richard Schwartzman: Discussion on anal character types.
18^ο Session:    Oral character types and Ocular character types: Genesis, character traits and symptoms, biophysical structure and general therapeutic principles. (Part A)
19^ο Session:    Oral character types and Ocular character types: Genesis, character traits and symptoms, biophysical structure and general therapeutic principles. (Part B)
20^ο Session:    Webinar with Richard Schwartzman: Discussion on oral and ocular character types.
21^ο Session:    Socio-Political character types: Genesis, character traits and symptoms, biophysical structure and general therapeutic principles.
22^ο Session:    Webinar with Richard Schwartzman: Discussion on socio-political character types.
23^ο Session:    The orgonomic concept of biopathy.
24^ο Session:    Initial examination of a patient, history and its importance, general therapeutic principles of psychiatric orgonetherapy.
25^ο Session:    Webinar with Richard Schwartzman: Discussion on the importance of history and the general therapeutic principles.
26^ο Session:    Armoring prevention, management and therapeutic intervention on newborns, babies and infants.
27^ο Session:    Webinar with Richard Schwartzman: Discussion on armoring prevention and the treatment of early armoring in newborns, babies and infants.

Examinations are mandatory for those interested in continuing into the Clinical Seminar and optional for all others.

Wilhelm Reich and Emotional Illness

2012-10-22T10:22:00.004-04:00

In a recent post I wrote about “short-burst therapy,” an intensive treatment approach that can serve as an alternative to regularly spaced therapy sessions, saying it was especially suited for those living a long distance from a qualified orgone therapist. In this post I will discuss some of the reasons why more has not been written about this unique therapy, one that makes use of emotional release in the treatment of mental disorders. I will also begin a discussion of the principles that govern the practice of orgone therapy, starting with Reich’s concept of armor.

In the past half century a fair amount has been written about Wilhelm Reich’s method of treating emotional disturbances. Many have recorded their thinking on the subject and therapists have written case histories that have appeared in various journals. Nevertheless, I feel much has been left out of the discussion.

For me, in almost every therapy session, there is some aspect of the patient that’s revealed that proves valuable in their therapy. I am never bored and am frequently amazed, even after all these years, as I see Reich’s theories and approach to treating proved time and again. Each session confirms the effectiveness of orgone therapy, and almost any session could be written up for publication.

Barriers to Publication

Those few of us who do this kind of work will understand my feeling, as their experiences must be the same. So why hasn’t more been written about this treatment? And why have some important elements crucial to its understanding been omitted in what has been published? There are many reasons for this, however a few are worth noting.

First, as therapists, our focus is on seeing patients. Establishing contact with them and staying connected, from moment to moment, session after session, is our primary goal. Writing up a case history for a professional journal is seen as a secondary task, if the thought is entertained at all. Another reason more hasn’t been written is that many of the things that occur in therapy sessions do not lend themselves to being reported, let alone to be written up. They occur all the time, and while we may share them with colleagues in conference, or in one-on-one training with students, such valuable observations passed on in this way are not being documented for the future.

Also, some orgone therapists have had concern when it comes to publicly expounding technique--the nuts and bolts of therapy. Their worry is that if too much of the actual methods are revealed to the lay audience, they will be latched onto and misused. Unfortunately this has happened, and there are a wide array of various “bodywork therapists” and “energy healers” who have taken it upon themselves to offer various therapies very loosely based on the treatment Reich employed. These have no meaningful ties whatsoever to psychiatric orgone therapy.

While I do share concerns about the potential for information about Reich’s treatment approach to be misused, I am also aware that much of what I and others know has never been written down. In light of this I have been making an effort to record some of what I know, based on my forty years of experience.

What is known of Reich’s therapeutic approach--in the true sense--comes down to us, almost exclusively, from two psychiatrists who were treated and trained by Reich. Both have written an authoritative book on orgone therapy. These important works are: Man in the Trap by Elsworth F. Baker, M.D. and Emotional Armoring: An Introduction to Psychiatric Orgone Therapy by Morton Herskowitz, D.O. These publications are especially valuable because Reich wrote almost nothing about the biophysical approach he developed long after he published Character Analysis. Even with these two excellent books, and with the contributions that have appeared in journals, there is more that can be said about the cause and prevention of emotional illness, as well as the practice of this treatment.

Purpose of Therapy

The goal of treatment is to remove the root cause of emotional illness. This differs markedly from today’s traditional psychiatric approach, which is only about symptom management with various cognitive strategies or the use of medications.

Because the principle governing orgone therapy is that emotional disturbances begin before speech develops, verbal therapies, while they can certainly be valuable, are necessarily limited in effectiveness. They can help to explore mental processes and solve some of life’s problems, but they can’t reach back to the very early traumatic events that laid the foundation for an individual’s present emotional state.

There is no question medications can be enormously valuable in the treatment of emotional disorders. They have helped alleviate suffering in untold millions--making their lives more tolerable. However medications can, at best, only relieve some symptoms associated with emotional illness, and none have ever effected a cure. What’s more the side effects are such that the trade off between benefit and drawback is a constant challenge to every patient taking these agents, as well as to their prescribing physician. Medications, like verbal therapies, are unable to strike at the source of mental disorders.

Role of Armor

The premise of orgone therapy is that “armor” develops in the body to repress the emotional and physical traumas that occurred in infancy and early childhood. Armor is the body’s way of keeping past painful events out of awareness. It is nothing less than the unconscious locked in the body. We know this is so because, as armor dissolves in the course of orgone therapy, long buried feelings and emotions spontaneously appear. Not infrequently these are accompanied by flashbacks to traumatic events that occurred soon after birth and in the first year or two of life.

Armor can be defined as the chronic muscular spasms that develop as a defense against the breakthrough of repressed feelings and emotions. It develops throughout the body and, while it lodges primarily in muscles, it also appears in other areas, such as in the internal organs and in the brain itself. However, armor is not just a physical phenomenon. It is revealed in character as well--that is, how one presents themselves to the world. For example, character can show itself as an attitude, in mannerisms, and in posture. Physical and character armor are not separate entities, but rather two side of the same coin. Together, they can often indicate how a person adapted to traumatic events when very young, and much about how they are now as adults.

Armor permeates the body, yet people are entirely unaware of its existence. They think their emotional problems exist solely because of heredity, events that can be recalled from when they were little, today’s society, and so on. But they never realize their unhappiness resides deep within them, and that their buried emotions determine how they now feel and function.

In a sense armor is a valuable mechanism, and everyone should be thankful that it does its job so well. Given that the painful past remains alive in us, as it surely does, who would want to be constantly in contact with it? However, as everything has two sides, so it is with armoring. While it does blot out the past as best it can, it also deadens. Without it people would function naturally and be able to enjoy all life has to offer.

Emotional Illness: A Different Perspective

2012-08-27T09:39:00.001-04:00

Today the treatment of emotional conditions is based upon the idea their cause lies largely in heredity, chemical imbalances and changes in the brain. From these premises, a variety of treatments have been advanced.

There are cognitive approaches, newer pharmaceutical medications, and most recently technology that allows the brain to examined and treated in various ways. Gene modiﬁcation, now in the early stages of research, is also believed to hold promise.

My next series of articles will present a very different understanding of the cause of emotional illness and how it may be treated. Also addressed will be when disorders begin, and what might be done by way of prevention. Finally I will describe what occurs in the method of therapy I practice. I will give examples of typical interventions and discuss how patients respond.

Reich's Great Gift: Health in 2012

2012-01-23T10:57:00.006-05:00

Those of us involved in carrying on the work of Wilhelm Reich often discuss the significance of his contributions and question which of them will resonate most with those new to his work. Is it his discovery of the life energy and his attempt to place it on scientific footing? Is it his insight into the workings of humankind on the grand scale with his discovery and exposition of mass psychology? Or is it the unique therapy he developed with its ability to enable those who undertake it to lead more all-embracing and joyful lives, to have better relationships, to be better parents, and to take pleasure in their work?

Solid arguments can be made for any one of these three major contributions as being the most significant. The energy provides the basis for understanding life’s processes; mass psychology provides a means for understanding everything from the politics of the playground to the politics of nations; and orgone therapy is able to provide immeasurable benefit to individuals.

Except for the interest of a handful of investigators across the globe, the scientific community remains either unaware of, or unconcerned with, Wilhelm Reich’s discovery of a universal energy, one which he explained flows through all living things and drives the cosmos. At least for now, Reich’s orgone energy remains a virtually unknown and yet untapped scientific resource, one that awaits recognition and acknowledgement so that it can be built upon for the betterment of humankind.

I think it probable that Reich will never be credited with his discovery of the energy he called “orgone,” as this energy has already begun to be recognized by one branch of today’s scientific establishment--with never a mention of Reich. Just last year three astronomers were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for invalidating decades of accepted knowledge in the field of cosmology. They demonstrated that so called “dark energy” is causing our universe to expand at an ever-accelerating speed. Just as the connection between Reich’s work and current astrophysics waits to be made, so does the connection between the dark energy in the universe and the life energy that flows and pulsates within us.

Reich’s understanding of mass psychology is of great import, and it has the potential to one day reform the structure of political and social institutions. Here too, as in the case of orgone energy, his sociopolitical work stands for future generations to “rediscover” and explore.

It is not possible to predict which aspect of Reich’s vast body of work will eventually be rediscovered to open doors for tomorrow’s research. However, the reality is there is only one contribution he’s made that can improve YOUR life, right now, in a very real way--and that is therapy.

To Our Health in 2012

Across the globe we rang in the new year with toasts to health. “Salud!” “L’chaim!” “Prost!” Many of us resolved to eat healthier, exercise, or take vitamins and other supplements. All of these resolutions, if put into action, are wonderful things to do. However, I’m always surprised by how few of the people I know--who are very knowledgable and enthusiastic about Reich’s discoveries--are actively engaged in orgone therapy. There are many “armchair” advocates of Reich, individuals who have “had some therapy” and declare they benefited greatly, but who stopped treatment somewhere along the way.

I hope to write more extensively about stopping therapy as there is much to say on the subject. Some people report having stopped because they felt “good enough.” They used therapy to get themselves through difficult times, and when they could again walk--or limp along--continuing treatment became no longer a priority. There are also often largely unrecognized factors responsible for the decision to dropout. Sometimes the relationship with the therapist grows stale, or therapy ceases to progress and prove beneficial, or resistances develop which are not properly overcome. (“Resistance” is the term for the forces within the patient, conscious and unconscious, that oppose the purpose of the therapy. It is something that almost always occurs to some degree in the course of treatment.)

If you are reading this and are someone who has had some therapy in the past, or if you have never tried orgone therapy, consider giving yourself the gift of therapy, a unique treatment that doesn’t rely on medications. Reich’s mind-body method of treatment is not just for those who are experiencing significant emotional problems. It’s for anyone who wants to feel increasingly better, with more energy to do what they love--with greater clarity of mind and an increased feeling of inner calm.

Barriers to Therapy

Of course there are real barriers to undertaking treatment, as well as “good,” well-rationalized excuses to put it off, or abandon the idea entirely. One real barrier is the difficulty in finding a traditional orgonomist, someone who was trained to practice the therapy as it was conceived by Reich. For this reason travel, sometimes long distances, may be required. Embarking on a course of this treatment requires a commitment of time and financial resources. It requires an emotional commitment as well, but it’s one that has a tremendous payoff. Barriers to therapy have always existed and therefore only those with a strong desire to feel better and lead a happier, healthier life get into therapy and stick with it. Individuals with this kind of motivation are my patients and I admire their courage and tenacity--and love them for it! It is enormously gratifying to see virtually every aspect of their lives improving. It is why I do the work that I do. I am honored to have second and now third generation patients, the children and grandchildren of individuals who embarked on a course of therapy with me more than 35 years ago.

Short-Burst Therapy

I have long been an advocate of what I call “intermittent intensive orgone therapy,” a cumbersome sounding designation which is better termed “short-burst therapy.” With this approach the patient does not come for treatment on a weekly or every-other-week basis (the traditional model) but rather has a number of consecutive sessions with long intervals in between. Years ago, in the 1980s, I was asked to treat patients in Italy and then Germany, and would travel there regularly to Europe for that purpose, as well as to train orgone therapists. At first I was unsure about the effectiveness of seeing patients for a series of sessions only four or five times a year. However, what I discovered was that my short-burst therapy patients in Europe did as well, if not better, than the patients I saw back home on a very regular basis.

On my long list of things to do is to update my article “Intermittent Intensive Orgone Therapy,” which was based on a lecture I presented in New York in 1986. In the years that have followed since the publication of that article, I have become even more convinced of the benefits of a spaced, intensive treatment approach, and today I have more evidence that confirms its effectiveness.

Short-burst therapy has proven to work well for almost all patients, but it particularly fits the needs for those who wish to embark on a treatment program with an orgonomist not in their area. I have a number of such patients who see me for fifteen or twenty sessions over the course of a year. They combine a week of therapy with a vacation away from home and their daily routine. In the interim, between visits, we can address any important issues that might arise by telephone. Recently, thanks to the wonder of technology, I have also been using Skype’s video-calling service to hold sessions with some of my long-distance patients.

It is always distressing when I hear from people that they have stopped seeing their therapist before reaching their full potential for feeling well and leading a satisfying life. I don’t in any way find fault with these individuals. While some cannot tolerate the new feelings and emotions that come up during the process, I believe the vast majority of those who enter this therapy can be helped and would stick with it, if treated appropriately. I have often wondered how many individuals who have had some therapy could have not only led fuller lives for themselves, but also could have gone on to make a real contribution to the future of orgonomy, had treatment not disappointed them. If you are among those who made it a resolution in 2012 to live healthier, and if you are not currently in orgone therapy, consider jumping back in or trying it out. While legitimate barriers exist to embarking on a journey of therapy, they all can be overcome with a willing spirit.

To your health in 2012!

There are very few orgonomists worldwide, although there are hundreds, if not thousands, who call themselves “Reichians” or who practice some offshoot of the mind-body treatment Reich originated. If you are interested in traditional orgone therapy, you can contact me directly at (215) 862-9939 and I will try to recommend a therapist in your general area.

Reich and Marcuse

2011-11-24T10:40:00.004-05:00

Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse were contemporaries and each sought to understand the workings of humankind as sociologists and political theorists. Both men were Jewish and were born a year apart in Eastern Europe: Reich in 1897 in a Galician village, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Marcuse in 1898 in Berlin. Both came from affluent families. Both served in the First World War--in 1916 Reich joined the Austrian Army and ultimately became a lieutenant at the Italian front. Also in 1916 Marcuse was drafted into the German Army but did not see combat. When Hitler came to power in the 1930s, both men fled Germany, Marcuse coming to the United States in 1934, and Reich in 1939.

Wilhelm Reich, in his lab 1944.

Although very different in their interests, approach and the scope of their work, Reich and Marcuse each, in their own way, felt sex was a key to human liberation and both advocated non-repressive societies. The ideas of Reich and Marcuse were embraced by young radicals in the 1960s. Both men have been maligned, heralded as saviors, dismissed as insignificant, and--even recently--blamed for the decline in modern America*. They share the distinction of having their complex ideas reduced to simple axioms by those who do not have the desire or patience to really read them, and both are remembered, in large part, for their discussions of human sexuality.

In my last post, I wrote of an upcoming lecture by David Brahinsky, Ph.D. titled The Relevance of Wilhelm Reich’s “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” to the Struggle Against Fascism, a Project Shared by Herbert Marcuse. The lecture was given at the 2011 conference of the International Marcuse Society. It is now my pleasure to publish this important document online, in its entirely.

Herbert Marcuse

Marcuse was highly critical of Reich. In his preface to the 1998 edition of Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization, Douglas Kellner says, during a 1978 interview, that Marcuse stated he and others within his intellectual circle believed Reich “moved too fast from subjective conditions to objective conditions” and “vastly oversimplified” fascism in claiming that sexual repression created personalities that were susceptible to fascism, and in explaining that fascism succeeds by manipulating repressed personalities and providing sexual surrogates. Indeed, in Eros and Civilization Marcuse states: “Reich’s notion of sexual repression remains undifferentiated; he neglects this historical dynamic of the sex instincts and of their fusion with the destructive impulses....Consequently, sexual liberation per se becomes for Reich a panacea for individual and social ills.”

For Marcuse, the value of Reich’s work lies only in his early writings in so far as they are an attempt, as he puts it, to develop the critical social theory implicit in Freud. Even so, Marcuse feels this effort falls short because of Reich’s “sweeping primitivism” which he says foreshadows “the wild and fantastic hobbies of Reich’s later years.” (See Eros and Civilization.)

Like so many others, Marcuse diminishes and then dismisses Reich. Also, like others, he refuses to even entertain Reich’s idea that there exists a biologic energy that determines how humans function. But Brahinsky sets the record straight in his important paper. He begins by explaining that Reich and Marcuse had the shared goal of attempting to understand the roots and functioning of fascism. He goes on to state, “neither Marcuse himself nor Marcuse scholars, as far as I can tell, have shown that they understand or appreciate the full measure of Reich’s contribution to this important project.” Brahinsky then explains in stepwise fashion the development of Reich’s key ideas, correctly refutes Marcuse’s assertion that Reich saw sexual liberation as a panacea, and effectively demonstrates the importance of Reich’s later scientific work, namely that biological factors determine social and political conditions.

In addition to being of interest to Reich and Marcuse scholars, The Relevance of Wilhelm Reich’s “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” to the Struggle Against Fascism, a Project Shared by Herbert Marcuse also serves as a splendid overview of Reich’s work. I consider it an excellent addition to today’s scholarship on Wilhelm Reich and the science of orgonomy.

*See Patrick J. Buchanan's New York Times bestseller "The Death of the West" (2002).

Lecture on Reich's Influence on Marcuse

2011-10-09T09:58:00.003-04:00

David Brahinsky, Ph.D. will be presenting his paper The Relevance of Wilhelm Reich's ‘The Mass Psychology of Fascism’ to the Struggle Against Fascism, a Project Shared by Herbert Marcuse at the University of Pennsylvania on Saturday, October 29th. His lecture is part of the 2011 conference of The International Herbert Marcuse Society.

David Brahinsky, Ph.D.

Dr. Brahinsky is a professor of Philosophy and Comparative Religion at Bucks County Community College and has had an interest in Reich’s work since the 1960’s. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from S.U.N.Y. Binghamton.

Dr. Brahinsky told me the focus of his lecture will be twofold. “First to express the fact that Reich's later work (the discovery of orgone energy and all that this entails) has been casually dismissed and ignored by Marcuse and Marcuse students and followers; the second that this later work is central to understanding the significance of Reich's contribution to our understanding of Fascism and so how to overcome it. I do this by tracing the evolution of Reich's understanding from his early days with Freud and onwards,” he said.

Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. His best known works are Eros and Civilization, One-Dimensional Man and The Aesthetic Dimension.

Dr. Brahinsky’s lecture will be held at University of Pennsylvania’s Houston Hall, located at 3417 Spruce Street. The conference is open to all however advance reservations are required. The link to the conference is www.MarcuseSociety.org.