Thinking Outside the Box: In Defense of Wilhelm Reich (Part 1)

Part 1 of a larger piece!

Thinking Outside the Box: In Defense of Wilhelm Reich

By Chris Gabriel

‘Love, work, and knowledge are the wellsprings of our lives, they should also govern it.’
-Wilhelm Reich

To start at the End

The date is November 3rd,1957, Wilhelm Reich dies of heart failure at 60 years old in a United States Federal Penitentiary. He was given two oddly colored “Aspirins” after complaining of chest pain two days before. As he had predicted, his brain was kept after his death. It weighed 1400g. His daughter Eva attested to the medical neglect of her father, she believed it was intentional.

The date is August 23rd, 1956, after violating a federal injunction against the transport of his products, the federal government had most of Reich’s devices destroyed (Orgone Accumulators). They then had his promotional literature burned. But today is different, today 6 tons of Reich’s literature are burned under Federal command at the Gansevoort incinerator. To date, this is the worst case of government censorship in US history.

Before this Reich had been run out of Austria and Scandinavia, attacked by both Nazis and Communists (Soviet NKVD deemed him a Trotskyite and hostile element). He was on both Comintern and Nazi death-lists and his books were censored.

Why did this happen? What was it in Reich’s writing that made him the target of such egregious censorship and persecution? The most common view is that Reich was a “mad scientist” turned charlatan. One who peddled his pseudo-scientific wares, preaching of the “better orgasm”. Another is that he was an innocent researcher attempting to improve the world. While both are incomplete, this piece will showcase the substance of Reich’s thought. 

Orgasm

Orgasm takes on a primary role in the philosophy of Wilhelm Reich. It is a vector for great forces that act through physical expansions and contractions. Reich saw that many neuroses had their basis in an inability to climax. He considered two different types of sexuality, one that had Orgastic Potency, another with Orgastic Impotence. Potency was characterized by a flowing, spontaneous, openness, a giving in to the automatic convulsions that occur in an orgasm. Orgastic impotence was mechanical, harsh and rough. The individual never fully experiences the orgasm. He believed these two forms of sex could either alleviate neurosis, through potent free flowing libidinal energy, or through impotence, dam up libido, and lead to various other physical and mental ailments.

The control of libido begins at home, the patriarchal/Oedipal family structure seeks to control their children’s sexuality for the sake of maintaining control and power over the child. “Behaving” is in essence the suppression of the child’s life energy. Taking organisms that are born to move freely and well, and forcing stillness upon them. This suppression continues throughout life and repeats endlessly through the generations, each parent and child in a relationship of unconscious hatred and repression.

He observed this damming of libido in nearly every social institution throughout history. These few had mastered the Sex Economy, and directed the masses repressed libido toward their own goals, leaving the “little man” unable to fulfill their personal sexual needs, and thus deeply neurotic, violent, sick, and unhappy. He sought to remedy this through a new form of therapy “Character Analysis”. Character Analysis studied how the body and mind reacted to the damming of libido.

The theory states that there were segments of the body that were more affected than others, each characterized by various ailments. He used the analogy of a worm or hose, which, in their natural form, would move about freely and unimpeded, but when repressed, would build up “Armor” that prevented free flow. For the hose this would be tying off a part of it, preventing the flow of water. For the worm, this would prevent them from having a full range of movement. Through talk therapy and various physical exercises, one could slowly shed this biological armor, leading to a healthy individual, capable of potent orgasm and a greater vitality, no longer requiring therapy at all.

Reich believed that these individual neuroses had a macrocosmic effect as well, and that armoring and repression were responsible for a great deal of tragedy and misery in history. He did not believe the masses were born masochistic, as Freud did, but that it was through familial, political, and religious suppression that people accepted their smallness, their vulgarity. This split from Freud was extremely important, Freud attributed this inherent masochism to Thanatos, the Death Drive. Reich did not accept a Death Drive, but believed masochism was due to a perversion of the primary sexual drive, a diversion. 

Even worse, the People *enjoyed* being small and vulgar, and sought punishment.  Reich was amazed how the masses accepted humiliation at the hands of essentially any master. He called this the “freedom to be anybody’s slave”. It’s apparent  why he admired Marx’s desire to liberate the masses from their masters. But even in Marxism, he saw sexuality become increasingly repressed by the authorities. He saw that there was an intrinsic opposition between natural sexual desires and social institutions. This conflict would become the foundation of Reich’s politics. 

If you want to check out the full article, consider buying a monthly subscription!