Books in Brief: The Quest for Wilhelm Reich: A Critical Biography

The Quest for Wilhelm Reich: A Critical Biography, by Colin Wilson (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 272 pp., $12.95). The psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich spent the better part of his life spreading ideas that enraged his colleagues and the public. He died in 1957 while serving a jail term for transporting “orgone accelerators” across state lines. The accelerator, to all appearances an oversized packing crate, supposedly increased the human body’s supply of orgone, Reich’s word for the substance, or quality, other people have called vitality, or spirit, or soul. The device consisted of alternating layers of wood and metal. Wilson reports the contraption actually improved the condition of certain cancer patients, a fact not disputed by the FDA, the agency responsible for Reich’s arrest. What incensed the bureaucrats was his attitude. He first ignored them, then openly abused them, saying they ought to keep their noses out of his intellectual business. When summonses arrived, he refused to appear in court. Finally, the police hauled him off in handcuffs. He was convicted of misleading the sick—the accelerator didn’t work for everybody. It was an unjust verdict, as Wilson points out, though weakly, for he feels Reich brought it upon himself. He is more comfortable defending the blustery psychiatrist’s plunge into the occult. In his last years Reich became convinced UFOs were roaming the heavens raining “emotional plague” upon mankind. He lost no time in devising a weapon to combat them. As with the accelerator, simplicity was his byword. The “space gun” was a bank of hollow metal tubes. It got rid of UFOs, though, if Reich’s devotees can be trusted, and Wilson seems to feel they can. Wilson, in fact, suspects Reich might have been onto something. People were too busy reviling him during his lifetime to take the trouble to examine his claims seriously. Orgone energy just might permeate the atmosphere, Wilson suggests with a great deal of qualification. He realizes—and the book is better for it —that the allure of “just might” stops at the slightest hint of belief.

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Paul T. Hornak

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The Quest for Wilhelm Reich: A Critical Biography, by Colin Wilson (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 272 pp., $12.95). The psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich spent the better part of his life spreading ideas that enraged his colleagues and the public. He died in 1957 while serving a jail term for transporting “orgone accelerators” across state lines. The accelerator, to all appearances an oversized packing crate, supposedly increased the human body’s supply of orgone, Reich’s word for the substance, or quality, other people have called vitality, or spirit, or soul. The device consisted of alternating layers of wood and metal. Wilson reports the contraption actually improved the condition of certain cancer patients, a fact not disputed by the FDA, the agency responsible for Reich’s arrest. What incensed the bureaucrats was his attitude. He first ignored them, then openly abused them, saying they ought to keep their noses out of his intellectual business. When summonses arrived, he refused to appear in court. Finally, the police hauled him off in handcuffs. He was convicted of misleading the sick—the accelerator didn’t work for everybody. It was an unjust verdict, as Wilson points out, though weakly, for he feels Reich brought it upon himself. He is more comfortable defending the blustery psychiatrist’s plunge into the occult. In his last years Reich became convinced UFOs were roaming the heavens raining “emotional plague” upon mankind. He lost no time in devising a weapon to combat them. As with the accelerator, simplicity was his byword. The “space gun” was a bank of hollow metal tubes. It got rid of UFOs, though, if Reich’s devotees can be trusted, and Wilson seems to feel they can. Wilson, in fact, suspects Reich might have been onto something. People were too busy reviling him during his lifetime to take the trouble to examine his claims seriously. Orgone energy just might permeate the atmosphere, Wilson suggests with a great deal of qualification. He realizes—and the book is better for it —that the allure of “just might” stops at the slightest hint of belief.