The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust

History of The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust

On March 8, 1957, a few days before he was taken to a federal prison, Wilhelm Reich, in the presence of witnesses William Moise, William Steig and Michael Silvert, executed his Last Will and Testament. By this time a number of his orgone energy accumulators and component parts had been destroyed at various locations, and many of his publications which had been banned as “labeling” for said accumulators, were burned by order of a United States Federal Court under the supervision of Food and Drug Administration agents.

These events undoubtedly weighed heavily on Reich on March 8, 1957, four days before he would begin a two year prison sentence for criminal contempt of court. The opening paragraph of his Last Will and Testament states:

“I made the consideration of secure transmission to future generations of a vast empire of scientific accomplishments the guide in my last dispositions. To my mind, the foremost task to be fulfilled was to safeguard the truth about my life and work against distortion and slander after my death.

To accomplish this task, in his will he created a Trust, originally known as the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund. This Trust was so-named because of Reich’s belief that the best way to eliminate psychological and somatic disturbances—chronic characterological and muscular armoring—was prevention, and that this prevention was possible only by safeguarding the “unarmored life” of infants whom he called “The Children of the Future.”

On March 12, 1957, Reich entered the Federal Penitentiary in Danbury, Connecticut. Ten days later–two days before his 60th birthday–Reich was transferred to the Federal Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania to serve his two-year sentence. Seven-and-a-half months later–on November 3, 1957–he died in the Lewisburg Penitentiary of heart failure and was entombed several days later at Orgonon.

In his Last Will and Testament, Reich had named his daughter, Dr. Eva Reich, as the sole Trustee of The Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund. She was the individual now charged with carrying out Reich’s final wishes:

“To operate and maintain the property at Orgonon under the name and style of The Wilhelm Reich Museum.”

In the will, Reich elaborated on this stipulation, by enumerating some specific responsibilities. He wrote:

“I have collected all of the pertinent materials, such as instruments which served the Discovery of the Life Energy, the documents which were witnesses to labors of some 30 years the library of a few thousand volumes, collected painstakingly over the same stretch of time, and amply used in my researches and writings.

“All of these things and similar things should remain where they are now to preserve some of the atmosphere in which the Discovery of the Life Energy has taken place over the decades. The grounds should be kept neat and clean, and repairs should not be neglected.”

What is heartbreaking about Reich’s will is his implicit hope that his daughter–with the support of his colleagues and students, and fueled by a singular vision and resolve–would work together to carry out his final wishes regarding the transmission of his legacy to future generations.

In that hope Reich was mistaken.

Eva Reich, shocked and emotionally devastated by the tragedy of her father’s death, became very much involved in the affairs of the Trust for a period of time, but ultimately let it be known that she preferred not to assume the awesome long-term responsibilities of the Trusteeship–that someone else had to be found to do this.

With no obvious candidate emerging from among Reich’s colleagues and students to assume the mantle of the Trusteeship and carry out the specifics of Reich’s Last Will & Testament, that task ultimately fell to a woman, barely 34 years old, a former patient of Dr. Chester Raphael, a woman who was unwilling to see Reich’s historical legacy possibly lost forever and who stepped forward to offer her services.

That woman was Mary Boyd Higgins.

In the winter of 1959, Mary traveled to rural Rangeley, Maine to visit Reich’s over-200 acre property at Orgonon for the first time. The Students’ Laboratory and the Orgone Energy Observatory were abandoned, boarded up, unattended and unprotected for nearly two years against the harsh New England elements.

When Reich’s Last Will and Testament was finally probated and all specific personal bequests were fulfilled, $823 was all that was left for Mary Higgins to turn this situation around and carry out Reich’s final wishes.

Today, that would translate into approximately $7,000 to take over the complex legal administration of the Trust’s affairs and transform Orgonon from its dilapidated state into the beautiful and vibrant property and museum that it is today.

In terms of Reich’s final wishes to establish a Museum: living in Rangeley was a gentleman by the name of Tom Ross who for years had been the caretaker at Orgonon while Reich was alive. In fact, for a time he and his wife Bea and their daughter Kathy lived in one of the cottages at Orgonon (which until it was sold in 2019, was our rental cottage called Bunchberry). The entire Ross family became close friends with Mary Higgins, and with their assistance, their generosity of time and hard physical work, Mary was able to open Orgonon to the public in 1960 as The Wilhelm Reich Museum.

Today, Orgonon comprises 175-acres of fields, forests and trails which are open daily to the public. The Orgone Energy Observatory is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is open for public visitation in the summer and early fall, and for special tours by appointment.

The Students’ Laboratory is now the Conference Building and houses the Museum offices.

Jumping back now to 1959, the first year of Mary Higgins’ tenure as Trustee, another area of responsibility began to emerge, and that was the re-publishing Reich’s books.

A young scholar named Leo Raditsa–who was interested in Reich’s work–approached Roger Straus of Farrar, Straus & Giroux which, at the time, was a flourishing 13-year old New York publishing house. In 1959, there was still considerable interest in Reich’s work. But it was difficult or impossible for people to find copies of Reich’s books– except maybe in second-hand bookstores–because a 1954 Court Injunction had banned Reich from distributing them and because tons of Reich’s books, from his Orgone Institute Press in New York, had been burned in 1956.

Raditsa explained to Straus that perhaps there was an audience for these books, and he wondered if Straus might explore the possibility of bringing them back into print. The result of this was a wonderful and productive 45-year professional relationship between Roger Straus and Mary Higgins, as well as a genuine personal friendship, during which time all of Reich’s hardcover books were re-published and several new titles were brought out. Starting in 1960 with the publication of Selected Writings – An Introduction to Orgonomy.

The concept of this book was actually Roger Straus’s who felt that an anthology of excerpts from Reich’s books might be the best way to introduce his work to a broader, more mainstream audience. The books published by FS&G include:

• Selected Writings – An Introduction to Orgonomy (1960)
• The Function of the Orgasm (1961)
• The Sexual Revolution (1962)
• Character Analysis (1963)
• Listen, Little Man! (1965)
• The Murder of Christ (1966)
• Reich Speaks of Freud (1967), an entirely new book which was published over the vehement objections of Dr. Kurt Eissler of The Sigmund Freud Archives
• The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1969)
• The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality (1971)
• Ether, God and Devil / Cosmic Superimposition (1973)
• The Cancer Biopathy (1973)
• Early Writings – Volume One (1975)
• People in Trouble (1976)
• The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life (1979)
• Genitality – Early Writings, Volume Two (1980), Reich’s revision of his 1927 German-language book Die Funktion des Orgasmus
• Record of a Friendship: Correspondence of Wilhelm Reich and A.S. Neill (1981)
• The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety (1982)
• Children of the Future (1983)
• Passion of Youth – An Autobiography (1988)
• Beyond Psychology – Letters and Journals, 1934-1939 (1994)
• American Odyssey – Letters and Journals, 1940-1947 (1999)
• Where’s the Truth? – Letters and Journals, 1948-1957 (2012)

At the time of Mr. Straus’s death in May 2004 at the age of 87, Farrar, Straus & Giroux had published 21 titles by Reich, including three volumes of his diaries and journals (one final volume of letters was published in 2012), and the correspondence between Reich and A.S. Neill. Due to the publishing house’s strong international presence, Reich’s books now appear in over 21 languages.

What is so striking about Mr. Straus’ relationship with the Trust is this: while he had no great personal interest nor understanding of Reich’s work, his decision to publish Reich’s books was because of his sense of outrage and his need to take a principled stance against book-burning in America.

Roger Straus is truly one of the unsung heroes in transmitting Reich’s legacy to future generations.

In addition to its other activities, the Trust works to safeguard the truth about Reich’s life and promote the dissemination of his work and legacy through its presentation of summer conferences at Orgonon, fundraising events, and at the invitation of other organizations. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 Summer Conference has been transformed into an online webinar.  While attendees will miss the physical gathering in the mountains of Western Maine that typically accompanies a summer conference at Orgonon, the virtual format allows attendees from all over the world to participate—an exciting new development!