Research 1928-1930

Towards the end of 1928 together with communist physician Marie Frischauf, Reich founded the Sozialistische Gesellschaft für Sexualberatung und Sexualforschung (Socialist Society for Sex Counseling and Research, hereafter SgSS). The SgSS marks the beginning of what Reich would later call “Sexpol,” meaning an organization that brought together a commitment to a liberatory human sexuality, one freed from the constraints of religious moralism and compulsive patriarchal monogamy–that is, an organization that brought together sexuality and socialism. The SgSS opened free clinics, which provided sexual counseling; sponsored public lectures; engaged in scientific research on sexual dysfunction; and published a number of pamphlets, including Reich’s Sexual Excitation and Sexual Satisfaction (1929), and his Adolescence, Abstinence, Marital Morality: a Criticism of Bourgeois Sex-reform (1930).

During this time period Reich wrote “Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis” published in Russian in Moscow and in German in Berlin in 1929. In September of that year Reich and his wife, Annie Pink Reich, who was also a communist and psychoanalyst, traveled to Moscow. While there, Reich lectured at the Communist Academy, a highly prestigious site of Marxist scholarship. Upon his return to Vienna, he spoke of his trip to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and published a report about it in The Psychoanalytic Movement.

In September of 1930, Reich spoke at a huge congress of the World League for Sexual Reform held in Vienna. There he delivered a paper entitled, “The Sexual Misery of the Working Masses and the Difficulties of Sexual Reform.” This essay includes Reich’s claim that sexual neurosis cuts across class lines and can be found in the proletariat as well as the bourgeoisie. This comment surely did not endear him to his doctrinaire Communist comrades. 

Research 1930-1933

At the end of 1930 Reich moved to Berlin and advocated for radical social change within the German Communist Party. He developed a list of demands which were published anonymously in a pamphlet called Forbidden Love; over 100,000 copies of this publication were circulated. This pamphlet announced the formation of the Communist Party’s Einheitsverband für proletarische Sexualreform und Mutterschutz (Unity Association for Proletariat Sexual Reform and the Protection of Mothers); Reich published at least six articles in the group’s organ, Die Warte (The Lookout), more than any other identifiable author. In addition, he taught at the MASCH, the Marxist Workers’ School in Berlin, and spoke out against the legal prohibition of abortion and for the decriminalization of homosexuality.

Early in 1932 Reich self-published Der Einbruch der Sexualmoral: Zur Geschichte der sexuellen Ökonomie (The Invasion of Sexual Morality: On the History of Sexual Economy). He also wrote and prepared for publication Der sexuelle Kampf der Jugend (The Sexual Struggle of Youth). Originally to be printed by the Party’s publishing house, Reich self-published this text after long delays awaiting approval from Moscow. Initially the Communist Party distributed Sexual Struggle of Youth, but in the December issue of Red Sport, a Party publication for its younger members, an order appeared prohibiting the distribution of this and other books by Reich. Soon thereafter, in January and February of 1933, extensive Communist Party hearings were held that eventually led to his ouster from the Party later that year.

After the burning of the Reichstag in February 1933, Reich fled Berlin.  Though now through with Party politics, he continued to write within a Marxist framework, and his Massenpsychologie des Faschismus (Mass Psychology of Fascism), was dedicated to “the fallen Austrian fighters for a Socialist Future.” Also in 1933 Reich published the first edition of his Charakteranalyse (Character Analysis); it was originally to be published by the International Psychoanalytic Publishing House, but after the contract was withdrawn Reich self-published this as well.

Research 1934-1939

In the summer of 1934, Reich wrote Was ist Klassenbewußtsein? (What is Class Consciousness?) and published second editions of both Mass Psychology of Fascism and “Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis.” At the invitation of Harald Schjelderup to lecture at the University of Oslo, Reich moved to Norway and continued to write politically oriented treatises including: a second edition of Der Einbruch der Sexualmoral (1935), Masse und Staat. Zur Frage der Rolle der Massenstruktur in der sozialistischen Bewegung (The Masses and the State: On the Question of the Role of the Structure of the Masses in the Socialist Movement) (1935), and Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf. Zur sozialistischen Umstrukturierung des Menschen (Sexuality in the Cultural Struggle: on the Socialist Restructuring of People) (1936), later translated into English as The Sexual Revolution: Toward a Self-Governing Character Structure.

He also started a new journal, the Zeitschrift für politische Psychologie und Sexualökonomie (The Journal for Political Psychology and Sexual-economy) (1934-1938), the articles in which were, initially, mainly politically oriented.

Reich’s natural scientific mind-set led him to initiate controlled investigations of biological functions; facilitated by his position at a university, and further supported by Schjelderup. In the new journal he published three articles of importance; the first two were:

• “Orgasm as an Electrophysiological Discharge” (1934). (Also distributed as a stand-alone pamphlet.) This article is devoted to the four-beat orgasm formula, tension/charge/discharge/relaxation.

• “The Basic Antithesis of Vegetative Life” (1934). (Appeared in his journal and again later in 1935, as an expanded free-standing pamphlet.) In this article Reich postulates that feelings of pleasure and anxiety correlate with the parasympathetic effects of the autonomic nervous system in sexual arousal and the sympathetic effects of the autonomic nervous system in anxiety.

In 1935, Reich began his first direct laboratory experiments into measuring organismic energy in human subjects, summarized in the third article, “Experimental Results on the Electrical Function of Sexuality and Anxiety” (1937). Reich set out to show that Freud’s libido was not just a hypothetical explanatory concept, but real and measurable.

Reich then turned to exploring micro-organisms, to see if the energy measured in humans could also be detected on the cellular level. He first published the results of his experiments in “Dialectical Materialism in Life-Research. Report on the Bion Experiments” (1937). This was followed by the book, Die Bione – Zur Entstehung des vegetativen Lebens (The Bions: On the Origin of Vegetative Life)  (1938).

In 1938, Reich gave a lecture to medical students in Oslo entitled, “Bion Experiments on the Cancer Problem,” in which he explored medical applications of his bion work. During this period Reich concluded that he was studying an energy with different properties than electricity, which he came to call orgone energy in 1939.

Additional experiments with bions were reported in a pamphlet entitled Drei Versuche am statischen Elektroskop (Three Experiments at the Static Electroscope) (1939). Study of the properties of bionous solutions within a Faraday cage led to his orgone energy accumulator, an enclosure consisting of a metal lined inner core (a Faraday cage), surrounded by alternating layers of non-conducting material (such as wool) and conducting material (such as steel wool).

Therapeutic Technique

While in Oslo, Reich did not neglect the treatment of neuroses. He expanded his understanding of character structure to incorporate what is often called “somatic psychology” or “body psychotherapy.” Reich began using a new form of therapy, based on the assumption that character armor–the totality of a person’s chronic, characterological defenses–was identical to muscular armor–the physical manifestations thereof in the body. In The Function of the Orgasm Reich reports that he observed deep vegetative reactions in his patients as he worked on their resistance, and out of this observation came the assumed identity.

He described the new therapy, “character-analytic vegetotherapy,” in terms of both the theoretical basis and the practice in Orgasmusreflex, Muskelhaltung und Körperausdruck. Zur Technik der charakteranalytischen Vegetotherapie (Orgasm Reflex, Muscular Posture, and Bodily Expression: On the Technique of Character-analytic Vegetotherapy), published in 1937. Reich practiced this form of therapy and trained a handful of Norwegian colleagues to do the same. Subsequent body oriented therapies, including primal scream, bio-energetics, and other so-called “somatic psychologies,” owe a continuing debt to Reich’s pioneering work.

Before leaving Oslo for the United States, Reich wrote a second pamphlet meant for limited circulation among friends and colleagues, Die natürliche Organisation der Arbeit in der Arbeitsdemokratie (The Natural Organization of Work in Work-Democracy) (1939). That is to say, in the midst of his laboratory work and his newly formed therapeutic modality, Reich was still interested in the social dimension that undergirds the sexual dysfunction of society.

Research 1940-1947

Upon arriving in the United States, Reich began to teach at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He began to build a following in the United States, saw patients, trained a few doctors in his new form of therapy, and continued his laboratory work with orgone energy. The very first thing he published while living in the United States was in the realm of his social thought, Weitere Probleme der Arbeitsdemokratie (Further Problems in Work-Democracy) (1941).

Reich began work on what would become his first English language book, and in 1942 he published a scientific autobiography whose full title is The Discovery of the Orgone–Volume One: The Function of the Orgasm: Sex-Economic Problems of Biological Energy. It was translated from the German by Theodore P. Wolfe, a medical doctor who would be Reich’s translator through the 1940s, and also the editor of Reich’s first English language journal, the International Journal of Sex-Economy and Orgone-Research, the first issue of which also came out in 1942. (The International Journal was published through 1945.)

In 1945 Reich published in English Character Analysis: Principles and Technique for Psychoanalysts in Practice and in Training, based on the 1933 German text but with additional material; that same year, he published The Sexual Revolution: Toward a Self-Governing Character Structure, labeling it the third edition, treating the aforementioned Adolescence, Abstinence, Marital Morality: A Criticism of Bourgeois Sex-reform (1930) and Sexuality in the Cultural Structure: On the Socialist Restructuring of People (1936) as the first two editions. In 1946 he published his English language version of the 1933 Mass Psychology of Fascism, greatly expanding the text to include an edited version of the 1935 Masses and the State, and newly written articles on work-democracy; the text was also freed of the former use of Marxist language, on the grounds that it no longer had any clear meaning, given the distortions of it under Stalin.

In 1947 Reich brought out a new serial, The Annals of the Orgone Institute.  Volume I, again edited by Wolfe, included a new article on work-democracy, and a number of articles on child-rearing. The Annals was advertised as continuing the role played by the International Journal, but would not be committed to a regular schedule of publication. Only two issues were published: the one just described and, in 1949, the second volume, devoted entirely to Reich’s Ether, God and Devil; this manuscript was later published as a cloth-bound companion to the 1951 Cosmic Superimposition.

Research 1948-1954

In 1948, Reich brought out The Discovery of the Orgone Vol. II: The Cancer Biopathy. Along with an exposition about his cancer research with mice and humans, Reich described the relationship of that work with bions, now called “orgone energy vesicles,” as well as his discovery of orgone energy and its presence in the atmosphere. He also briefly discussed a possible “motor force” of orgone energy.

Reich also published a radically different kind of book, Listen, Little Man!. This text, superbly illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist, William Steig, was an emotional venting of Reich’s frustrations and anger towards the “little man” in humanity. The text can be read as a history of his encounters with irrational responses to his work from its very beginning in psychoanalysis.

By the mid-forties, Reich retired the term “Sex-Economy” in favor of the term “Orgonomy” to refer to his work in its entirety. Orgonomy was defined as the natural science of orgone energy phenomena. By 1948 Reich had attracted many physicians as trainees, and that summer the first Orgonomic Conference was held at his summer home in Rangeley, Maine, Orgonon.

In 1949, Reich published the third expanded edition of Character Analysis, which includes material devoted, at least in part, to orgone therapy as it had developed from character-analytic vegetotherapy. That same year Reich began publishing a new periodical, The Orgone Energy Bulletin (1949-1953), which included articles by his recently trained colleagues on their experiences with orgone therapy, both psychiatric and medical.

In 1951, Reich initiated the oranur experiment, to study the relationship between orgone energy and nuclear radiation. The details are described in the photocopy edition of The ORANUR Experiment. First Report (1947-1951), available in our store.

After the oranur experiment, Reich devised a device to clear the stagnant atmosphere in the vicinity of Orgonon, which consisted of an array of hollow metal pipes, grounded in water via flexible tubes. He used this device to mobilize the stagnant energy in the atmosphere, which he called DOR clouds. Reich surmised that clouds and other atmospheric conditions might be manipulated through the use of his device, which he came to refer to as a “cloudbuster.” At this time the Orgone Energy Bulletin was renamed CORE (Cosmic Orgone Engineering), and included numerous reports on the work with the cloudbuster.

Reich began to speculate that orgone had galactic dimensions as well, and in 1951, along with publishing the results of the oranur experiment, and an extensive pamphlet on the use of the orgone energy accumulator, he brought out Cosmic Superimposition: Man’s Orgonotic Roots in Nature. In this text Reich explores the parallels between hurricane formation and the formation of galaxies, noting the common functioning principle of both, namely the superimposition of two orgone energy streams.

During this period Reich revised certain texts which appeared only after his death. They include: Der Einbruch der Sexualmoral, now entitled The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality (new Preface dated 1951), published in 1971; a revised version of the original 1927 Function of the Orgasm with a new foreword dated 1944, and now published under the title, Genitality in the Theory and Therapy of Neurosis, 1980; The Bioelectrical Investigations of Sexuality and Anxiety, which brought together three separate publications from the 1930s, with editorial notes dated 1945, published in 1982. Other texts published after his death include The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life (1979), from the German Die Bione, Children of the Future: On the Prevention of Sexual Pathology (1983), and Reich Speaks of Freud (1971).

In 1953 Reich published a two volume collection, labeled The Emotional Plague of Mankind. Volume one consisted of The Murder of Christ, which uses the Biblical narrative as an extended metaphor for the ways in which society destroys the ‘Christ’ in each of us. Volume two was drawn from a long autobiographical text, written while Reich was still in Norway, now published as People in Trouble, edited in the mid-forties and with further additions in 1952. People in Trouble covers his politically charged life from the mid-twenties through the Lucerne conference in 1934.

Finally, after his continued success with weather modification using the cloudbuster, he designed a smaller version to use on human patients, the medical DOR buster. At one point he speculated that armor and accompanying neurotic thoughts and behaviors could be addressed solely by its use. Subsequent experience showed this not to be the case.

Research 1954-1957

Late in 1954 Reich embarked on an expedition to Arizona to conduct cloudbusting experiments in an effort to study whether an arid desert environment could be affected by manipulating atmospheric orgone energy. The result was that January 1955 brought with it more moisture in the Tucson area than recorded for many years. (For more, see Reich’s Contact with Space: ORANUR Second Report 1951-1956). 

Throughout this period, Reich had been ensnared in legal battles originating with the United States Food and Drug Administration’s extensive investigation of the orgone energy accumulator. While no negative information had actually been found, Reich chose not to appear in court and the judge granted an injunction against certain of Reich’s publications and activities by default. While Reich was in Arizona conducting weather experiments, the injunction was violated by a co-worker.  A trial ensued which resulted in fines and a prison sentence for Reich and his co-worker. Reich’s productive output remained surprisingly undiminished throughout this ordeal, but the legal entanglements did require much of his attention.