Wilhelm Reich: A Life of Controversy and Innovation

Born in 1897 in what is now Ukraine, Wilhelm Reich was a controversial scientist and psychologist known for his unconventional theories and experiments on character analysis, sexual health, and "orgone energy".

Reich grew up in a turbulent household dominated by his father’s strict demeanor and his mother’s tragic suicide. These early experiences fueled his interest in human sexuality and emotional repression.

After serving in World War I, Reich studied under Sigmund Freud at the University of Vienna, earning his medical degree in 1922, at age 25.

Reich's early work in psychoanalysis focused on character structures and the role of sexuality in mental health. Reich believed that psychological problems stemmed from sexual repression.

Reich's concept of "character armor" proposed that repressed emotions manifest as physical tension. This mind-body connection led him to develop techniques for releasing tension through physical and emotional expression. However, Reich's radical views increasingly diverged from mainstream psychoanalysis.

In the 1930s, Reich’s interests also expanded beyond psychoanalysis into politics. He joined the Communist Party in Germany and argued that sexual repression was a tool of societal control.

His book The Mass Psychology of Fascism examined how authoritarian governments manipulate repressed sexual energy to control the masses. This period also saw him develop "sex-economic" theories, asserting that healthy sexual expression was essential to mental and physical well-being.

His views alienated both the psychoanalytic community and political groups. He was expelled from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1934, and his books were banned in Nazi Germany.

Forced to flee Germany, Reich continued his research in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway before settling in the United States.

Reich's experiments led him to believe that a bluish, pulsating energy called "orgone" was a primordial life force present in all living things and the atmosphere. He claimed it was measurable and influenced everything from weather to human health and its blockage caused diseases, including cancer.

To study it, he built "orgone accumulators," box-like devices, which he believed could concentrate this energy. Patients would sit inside these accumulators, allegedly to cure ailments ranging from depression to cancer. Though dismissed by scientists, the accumulator attracted curiosity, even influencing figures like writer William S. Burroughs.

Reich even asked Albert Einstein to validate his claims about "orgone energy". Einstein experimented with the orgone accumulator and found a slight temperature difference, but concluded it was due to convection currents, not a new energy form.

Reich’s experimental methods grew increasingly audacious. In the 1940s, he established Orgonon, a research center in Rangeley, Maine, where he conducted his most ambitious projects. One involved the "Cloudbuster,” which he claimed could manipulate orgone in the atmosphere to induce rain. Reich reported success in several trials, including an instance in 1953 where he allegedly ended a drought in Maine.

Mainstream scientists dismissed his theories as pseudoscience and Reich’s unorthodox practices drew scrutiny. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an investigation into his orgone-related experiments and labelled him a fraud. In 1954, the FDA issued an injunction against Reich, banning the sale and transportation of orgone accumulators. Reich defied the order, leading to his arrest in 1956 for contempt.

He was sentenced to two years in prison and died of heart failure in Lewisburg Penitentiary on November 3, 1957, just days before his parole hearing.

The FDA subsequently oversaw the destruction of Reich's books, journals, and equipment, an act that remains one of the most infamous cases of government censorship in American history.

Reich's legacy remains complex and contested. While his theories about orgone energy have been widely rejected by the scientific community, his contributions to character analysis and the understanding of the body-mind connection have had a lasting impact on psychology and body-oriented therapies.