Wilhelm Reich: Fifty Years Later

A student of Freud, Wilhelm Reich is perhaps best remembered for his theories on orgone¹ and his invention of the orgone accumulator which collected orgone and was supposed to treat various ailments. Einstein tested it, but found it lacking, but the FDA was concerned, and after failing to appear in court he was arrested and eventually imprisoned. Shortly afterwards, FDA officials destroyed his orgone accumulators proceeded to burn what books and manuscripts they could find. Reich died in a federal penitentiary on November 3rd, 1957.

Fifty years later Reich finally has his supporters².

In addition to a major exhibition in Vienna and a conference in New Jersey, new material is finally due to be released for the first time since his death. Boston.com writes that “archives comprised of nearly 300 boxes of Reich’s unpublished papers that were placed in storage at the Countway Library at Harvard Medical School will become available to researchers for the first time”. As per Reich’s wishes, the boxes were not to be opened until fifty years after his death.

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Footnotes:

1. Reich’s term for “primordial cosmic energy” [back]
2. Discovered via lupabitch. [back]

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