Wilhelm Reich and the Sexual Revolution

[salvorhardin]

Excellent interview on Pacifica's Against The Grain with Christopher Turner, author of Adventures In The Orgasmatron, about Wilhelm Reich -- father of the sexual revolution, pseudoscience crank extraordinaire, and poster child for not mixing your politics with your science.

Wilhelm Reich fused Marx with Freud, had an enormous influence on the New Left and the counterculture, and provided the intellectual underpinnings for the sexual revolution. Yet he's almost forgotten today. Writer Christopher Turner discussses the complexities of the psychoanalytic pioneer, who invented the infamous orgone accumulator box -- used by William Burroughs and Norman Mailer amongst others -- and examines his legacy in hindsight.

Listen online at: http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/591/mon-82012-wilhelm-reich-and-sexual-revolution
Download the mp3: http://www.againstthegrain.org/files/files/atg/atg_2012.08.20_wilhelm_reich.mp3

[LeftishBrit]

1. Very bizarre character

I think I may have previously quoted Stuart Sutherland on his visit to a Reich commune, which he described in his book 'Breakdown'.
Sutherland was a research psychologist at Sussex University, who suffered from bipolar disorder and wrote this book, of which the first half is about his own illness and its treatment, and the second half more generally about mental illness and its treatments, conventional and unconventional.

On Reich:

"The flavour of dottiness that surrounds Reich can be brought out by a personal experience of my own. In 1954, out of idle curiosity, I visited a community of Reich's disciples. They lived in a commune some time before this style of life became fashionable with the young. The commune occupied several Nissen huts in a pinewood in a deserted airfield. Leaving my car outside a gate bearing the name "Communitas", I walked through the trees toward the nearest hut. On my way, I stooped to pick up a pine-cone. A window shot up and a voice bellowed: "Put that down - it's mine!" Evidently, their ideas about sharing property did not extend to me. Nevertheless, I was received with kindness and given a cup of tea.

The commune had been founded by 11 adults - 5 men and 6 women. They were vague about the number and the parentage of the children, but there appeared to be about thirty or forty running about naked and unkempt. Walking round the airfield, I was puzzled by the fact that one strip of runway had been carefully weeded and levelled - the other runways were long since disused, and were covered with weeds and cracks. The inhabitants, so they told me, had received a message from the master (Reich) that if they tended a runway they might receive a visit from a flying saucer. When I asked if they were looking forward to this visitation, they said, "Of course - the crew will be Martians dressed in green, and they will bring a free issue of orgones, enough to last us for years."

They proudly showed up their orgone box, conveniently placed next to an excessively large double bed... I regretfully declined their invitation to spend half an hour in the box, largely because in order for the treatment to be efficacious, one had to sit in the nude and the temperature was little above freezing...

The group with whom I was talking (four women and a man) had told me that they had an exceptionally good library of the works of Reich and his disciples, and I expressed an interest in seeing it. They explained, somewhat shamefacedly, that although they had originally intended to share everything, there had been a schism in the commune over a doctrinal point: the remaining four men and two women were in a separate building; so was the library, and the two groups were not on speaking terms. They pointed out the building, where I was again treated with kindness and was given an opportunity to inspect the library. The second faction pointed out with sadness that they were excluded from the orgone box and described the suffering they were undergoing as a result. Since the first group had more academic inclinations than they had, it would have been a better arrangement if they had occupied the hut with the orgone box while the others had had access to the library. I was reminded of W. S. Gilbert's tale of the two castaways who divided a desert island between them to their mutual disadvantage:

On Peter's portion oysters grew - a delicacy rare.
But oysters were a delicacy Peter couldn't bear.
On Somers' side was turtle on the shingle lying thick,
Which Somers couldn't eat because it always made him sick."

[salvorhardin]

2. Thanks for reposting that!

I don't recall having seen it before. What a great description of a Reich commune.

As nutty as Reich sounds to our ears now, his ideas were so influential that they've utterly permeated society, especially on the left. So much so, as the guest notes, that we don't even remember that Reich originated them.

BTW: I had to google what a Nissen hut is. Now I want to live here:

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. That looks better than most

This is more typical - the original state:



Made from corrugated iron.

[Warpy]

3. Kinsey did more than Reich to blow the lid off prudery

and expose the fact that everybody was doing it like bunnies even if they portrayed themselves as the type who never shit, let alone were sexual.

Then the pill came along and released women from the dread and worry of unplanned pregnancy and the genie was out of the bottle.

Some people are still heavily traumatized by those two things. We call them Republicans.

[Odin2005]

4. Reich was a nutjob who deserves nothing but mockery.