Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Quick housekeeping note if he
Speaker 1: didn't see the title of this Tuesday's episode, this is
Speaker 1: part two of a two part series on a very
Speaker 1: interesting sexual revolutionary. As a matter of fact, the guy
Speaker 1: who invented the term sexual revolution, Mr Wilhelm Reich. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's shout out our super producer, Mr Max Williams. They
Speaker 1: called me ben Noel. We have been We've been taking
Speaker 1: our time with this. I think we did our due
Speaker 1: diligence with the excellent help of our research associate, Mr
Speaker 1: Zach Williams. No relation, and uh, we saved a lot
Speaker 1: of crazy stuff for part two. Wouldn't you say? This
Speaker 1: is where we uh is where we get weird with it.
Speaker 1: We we you know, we're just gonna kind of go
Speaker 1: along for the ride in this magic school bus of weirdness.
Speaker 1: But Dr Reich is is the one who truly originates
Speaker 1: the weirdness here in nineteen thirty three, the Nazis, Uh,
Speaker 1: they've he's already been on their radar. Ke you know.
Speaker 1: It was to mention at the end of the last episode.
Speaker 1: He's got some ideas that flat completely counter to the puritanical,
Speaker 1: you know, repressive kind of views uh and ideologies of
Speaker 1: the Nazi Party. And Rich has become a figure of
Speaker 1: some note in this neck of the woods, and the
Speaker 1: not sees do not care for it, and they have
Speaker 1: decided that he is persona on grata a burn his
Speaker 1: works along with the works of Sigmund Freud, who was
Speaker 1: his mentor, uh and uh and the works of Magnus Hirschfeld.
Speaker 1: He is compelled to flee. Um. He and his mistress escape.
Speaker 1: They make haste to Denmark, but the Danish Communist Party
Speaker 1: they've gone too far for even them at this point
Speaker 1: does some of these ideas, this idea of the orgasm,
Speaker 1: you know, being a source of pleasure, you know, and
Speaker 1: then not just procreation. Um. So there they though that
Speaker 1: you can't come in. Sorry, uh, no, no room at
Speaker 1: the end. Um. So they then have to go to Sweden,
Speaker 1: where Dr Reich is admitted, but he is placed under surveillance. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is a weird story. This is a this is
Speaker 1: a moment, right or should I say Reich for re enactments. Uh.
Speaker 1: The the police who are surveilling the good doctor see
Speaker 1: that he has multiple patients coming and going from his hotel,
Speaker 1: and this convinces them that he is, to put it bluntly,
Speaker 1: that he is a pimp, that he is operating some
Speaker 1: sort of um sex worker ring. And the authorities say, look,
Speaker 1: you can't stay here any longer. We know what you're
Speaker 1: up to. Uh. And as you know, folks in every life,
Speaker 1: when it rains, it pours. He loses his contract to
Speaker 1: publish an upcoming book called Character Analysis, and he shows
Speaker 1: up to a conference in nineteen thirty four at the
Speaker 1: International psycho Analytic Association in Lucerne, and when he shows up,
Speaker 1: he is told once again there is no room at
Speaker 1: the academic in They tell him doctor, you cannot be here.
Speaker 1: We expelled you from our association, from the I p A.
Speaker 1: We would call it in English. We expelled you last year.
Speaker 1: You should have you didn't know. You didn't get the letter.
Speaker 1: And he sticks by it though. He stays despite the controversy,
Speaker 1: and he lectures on a paper that he has produced.
Speaker 1: H lectures as a guest. But this marks the partying
Speaker 1: of ways between him and what we would consider mainstream
Speaker 1: psycho analysis of the day. We've got a pretty crazy
Speaker 1: quote about it. It's been a long time coming. I
Speaker 1: think we've we've we've sort of seen this in the cards.
Speaker 1: And just to site once again the fantastic article the
Speaker 1: scientific assassination of a sexual Revolutionary. That headline alone, it's
Speaker 1: worth the price of admission, which is free. You can
Speaker 1: find this on Motherboard via vice by Jason louve um
Speaker 1: On on the internet. But yeah, really, really great quote,
Speaker 1: and this has exactly we've been describing why the fascists
Speaker 1: were so against uh Reich's whole deal. And he saw this,
Speaker 1: and I think he's, uh, he's he's stating a pretty
Speaker 1: even handed view of the whole situation. Um he says, quote.
Speaker 1: I was told that my work on mass psychology, which
Speaker 1: was directed against the irrationalism of fascism, had placed me
Speaker 1: in a much too exposed position. Hence my membership was
Speaker 1: no longer tenable. Four years later, Freud had to flee
Speaker 1: Vienna for London, and the psychoanalytic groups were crushed by fascists. Subsequently,
Speaker 1: I avoided contact with my earlier colleagues. Their behavior was
Speaker 1: neither better nor worse than as usual in such cases,
Speaker 1: it was low and uninteresting. A good dose of banality
Speaker 1: is all that is needed to hush up a matter nice.
Speaker 1: So this is uh. This is especially enticing to me
Speaker 1: because is uh. I will tell you, fellow ridiculous historians,
Speaker 1: if you really want to cut someone to the core,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't waste your time trying to viscerally insult them.
Speaker 1: You can just look them in the eye and tell
Speaker 1: them they're not being interesting. I'm telling you that that
Speaker 1: is that is nuclear weaponry. In an acrimonious conversation. Hearing
Speaker 1: Reich say that this particular Ivory tower is low and
Speaker 1: uninteresting would have been quite a cutting insult for them.
Speaker 1: At this point, we see Reik escaping through happy accident.
Speaker 1: The horrors and atrocities of the Second World War we
Speaker 1: mentioned in part one a Guardian article. I want to
Speaker 1: go back to shout out to Christopher Turner, who wrote
Speaker 1: wrote a fantastic piece Villain Reich, the man who invented
Speaker 1: free love. This piece, the journalist says, the most brilliant
Speaker 1: of the second generation of psychoanalysts, the folks have been.
Speaker 1: Freud's pupils arrived in New York in August in nine nine,
Speaker 1: and this was keep in mind, just a few days
Speaker 1: after the war officially broke out. Right is feeling good.
Speaker 1: You know, He's got the wind at his back, the
Speaker 1: sun is shining on his career, and he is thinking, Hey,
Speaker 1: maybe things aren't that bad. Maybe this country is the
Speaker 1: place for me. Maybe they will understand what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to teach people about sex and politics. Maybe, because this
Speaker 1: is not fascist Europe, my ideas, my thoughts, my studies
Speaker 1: will be given the deference they deserve. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: like that you mentioned Kinsey Alfred Kenzie in part one. Uh, here, Nold,
Speaker 1: because what you see is that just a year before
Speaker 1: Kinsey has started his own historically significant investigations into into
Speaker 1: sex society and all the associated baggage. But he was
Speaker 1: on the heels He was on the heels of of Reich,
Speaker 1: but but not purely contemporary. Reich was kind of ahead
Speaker 1: of his at least it was parallel maybe, but like
Speaker 1: Rich was already out there with this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: before Kinsey made his debut. Right, Reich had been working
Speaker 1: in this field for some time. Yeah, And his decision
Speaker 1: to move to America was largely largely triggered by a
Speaker 1: psychiatrist based in New York, a guy named Dr Theodore Wolfe.
Speaker 1: Dr Wolfe had studied in Oslo for one year and
Speaker 1: he was a fan of Reich's work. He thought it
Speaker 1: led an interesting directions, so he pulled some strings and
Speaker 1: he got Dr Reich a two year gig as an
Speaker 1: associate professor of medical psychology at the New School for
Speaker 1: Social Research in New York. Again, the sun is shining right.
Speaker 1: You just got kicked out in the Ivory Tower. Your
Speaker 1: papers are getting canceled, your books aren't publishing. But now
Speaker 1: you're in a new country. You're making a new start,
Speaker 1: you know, to the Perfect Stranger's theme song. That's how
Speaker 1: I see Dr wolf and Dr Reich right now. Hey everyone,
Speaker 1: this is future Max here. I just want to let
Speaker 1: you know that I am not going to play the
Speaker 1: Perfect Strangers to me right here. It just doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like smart for a five second joke to riskless king suit.
Speaker 1: So instead you're gonna get this. I should probably say
Speaker 1: ahead of time, I'm very sorry for what you're about
Speaker 1: to hear. And dreams not. It's a classic jam, it's
Speaker 1: and I'm not not kiding. I really do think that,
Speaker 1: especially the whole like come with the Swiss police monitoring
Speaker 1: the Cummings and goings from there. You know, hotel that
Speaker 1: could be the Friends apartments. You know, that could be
Speaker 1: the sign fell Jerry's place. You know, this could be
Speaker 1: the center of the Wilhelm Reich and Friends UH sitcom
Speaker 1: that never was, that no one asked for. But I
Speaker 1: think we deserve. But we're giving it to you because
Speaker 1: you earned it, folks, You earned ito and uh and yes,
Speaker 1: shout out to that golden era of sitcom themes. I
Speaker 1: I love it. I gotta tell you, I liked the
Speaker 1: theme songs more than the actual shows. And and rich
Speaker 1: Is Reich is feeling warm fuzzy dare I say, sexually
Speaker 1: and politically unrepressed when he rents a house in Forest
Speaker 1: Hills in nineteen nine and then he starts u n
Speaker 1: seen and repeating his earlier patterns of scholarship, the same
Speaker 1: things he did in Oslo and Vienna and Berlin. He
Speaker 1: starts an institute, and he starts a publishing outfit called
Speaker 1: the Orgone Press for his various uh, his various publications,
Speaker 1: his books, his articles and whatnot. He also sets up
Speaker 1: a laboratory guys, and he hires Ilsa Olindorf we recognize
Speaker 1: from part one as the woman who will become his
Speaker 1: third spouse. Uh, he starts quoting her. Oh, we're closing
Speaker 1: up the lab. You want to get a coffee like
Speaker 1: they do in Vienna. Anyway, whatever his dating game was,
Speaker 1: it works. Uh. They decide to get married. And I'll say,
Speaker 1: is step in step, handing glove assisting Reich in his research,
Speaker 1: which is considered to to his supporters, it is considered
Speaker 1: groundbreaking new science and to his critics, as we'll see,
Speaker 1: it's considered not science at all totally, and like like
Speaker 1: we said, like you know that that that that that
Speaker 1: kind of thumbing of his nose the scientific community talking
Speaker 1: about how hey just add a little banality. It's a
Speaker 1: great way to ruin a good thing. That really was
Speaker 1: his like official f you to you know what had
Speaker 1: what had been his his colleagues. You know, he is
Speaker 1: now going his own way. He's going the way of
Speaker 1: more of like let's just say what today we might
Speaker 1: consider new age healer thinker types. And again there's some
Speaker 1: that are way more reputable than others. That are some
Speaker 1: that are pure snake oil salesman. I I the jury
Speaker 1: is out in my opinion on on this, Uh, this
Speaker 1: period of Reik's career because he really is, you know,
Speaker 1: starting to harness this idea of these you know, sexual energies,
Speaker 1: and he has dubbed them orgone energy uh, and he
Speaker 1: has decided that he can harness, he can accumulate these
Speaker 1: energies to do what what what with I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 1: The idea is that they could be used to treat
Speaker 1: certain cancer, radiation, poisoning, different ailments. We have no real data,
Speaker 1: you know, proving the efficacy of any of this stuff.
Speaker 1: But he essentially designs what he considers like a greenhouse
Speaker 1: that can like capture these energies you know when a
Speaker 1: person like hangs out inside and presumably does sexy stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't know, we'll get there, um. But he he
Speaker 1: designs this thing called the orgone Energy accumulator, which is
Speaker 1: essentially just like a wooden cupboard um around the size
Speaker 1: of a phone box, you know, a telephone booth um
Speaker 1: lined with an insulated material of of metal um and
Speaker 1: steel wool and in it um. The idea would be
Speaker 1: that he that that he could capture this stuff the
Speaker 1: way you might capture your solar power on us on
Speaker 1: a solar cell, or the way you might store electricity
Speaker 1: in a battery sure, yeah, yeah, or the way you
Speaker 1: can get energy from wind power. Right, You're you're you're
Speaker 1: taking ambient energy and you're sort of redirecting and accumulating it. Now,
Speaker 1: let us be clear, ridiculous historians, none of us are
Speaker 1: saying that the orgone energy accumulator worked to the same
Speaker 1: scientific rigor of a hydroelectric dam or a wind turbine.
Speaker 1: But we also promised some etymology here. If you are
Speaker 1: wondering what orgon is it, Uh, it was defined as
Speaker 1: a vital energy that was anti entropic. It's a generative
Speaker 1: force and it's meant to at least in Reich's mind,
Speaker 1: it is something that is all around us. It's like
Speaker 1: um medicalaureans or the force in the Star Wars universe. Right.
Speaker 1: It affects people in a gstaltic, you know, like comprehensive way.
Speaker 1: And so his idea is that you can harness the
Speaker 1: force for lack of a better word, and you can
Speaker 1: improve people's orgastic potency. Right, you can improve their orgasms basically,
Speaker 1: and this will therefore improve not just their mental well
Speaker 1: being but their physical well being. Uh. This argo and
Speaker 1: energy that he concentrates per you know, his reasoning in
Speaker 1: his accumulator it. He does a thing that a lot
Speaker 1: of doctors do in the early days, or a lot
Speaker 1: of pioneers do in the early days, where he says, Okay,
Speaker 1: I found something that I think is good. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, I like it so much. I think
Speaker 1: it is good for everything. So in you know, two
Speaker 1: shakes of a Lamb's tale, as they used to say,
Speaker 1: this guy is saying, look, I'm onto something, folks. Not
Speaker 1: only does or going help you feel better, not only
Speaker 1: is it the reason that you feel good when you
Speaker 1: are engaged in sexual activity, but this can also help
Speaker 1: you with cancer. You got radiation, sickness, no worries, let's
Speaker 1: accumulate some war going. Uh do you have you know,
Speaker 1: do you have a runny nose? Do you have a fever?
Speaker 1: Do you have dropsy? Do you have half CELEPSI? Which
Speaker 1: is a thing that I just made up. I'm doing
Speaker 1: a rich voice. Is when do you have weird foot?
Speaker 1: Is one of your feet weird? Let's get or going
Speaker 1: on it or goings on the case. Uh, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a catch all right, it's a catch cure all Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right. And that that that inherently leads to skepticism,
Speaker 1: you know, understandably. And I think we're both on the
Speaker 1: same page about this, and I think we both also
Speaker 1: agree that there is a period of Reich's life or
Speaker 1: his his studies that that does make a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: and that he really does kind of nail a lot
Speaker 1: of the whole, you know, nature of sexual repression and
Speaker 1: like all of that, and just the whole idea of
Speaker 1: of being open about sexuality. But I feel like at
Speaker 1: this point he's maybe gone a bridge too far. Um.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't feel like scientific research. It starts to
Speaker 1: feel more like the makings of a cult than it
Speaker 1: does scientific research. M Yeah, And the question is does
Speaker 1: it become at some point a cult of personality? And
Speaker 1: I think that's a question a lot of us were
Speaker 1: wondering when we were listening to part one of this series.
Speaker 1: He does something that a lot of cult leaders do.
Speaker 1: He purchases some out of the way land and he
Speaker 1: starts building his compound folks over in Maine. He opens
Speaker 1: the organ On Institute, which we refer to in Part one. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is where he can free himself from the repressive
Speaker 1: shackles of mainstream science, whatever that means. In his day.
Speaker 1: He can research full time organomy, which I think is
Speaker 1: just a beautiful, beautifully constructed word. I like the as
Speaker 1: you would say, the mouth feel of it organomy. He
Speaker 1: now expands, and he says, I didn't just find the
Speaker 1: good stuff, the good pervasive energy. I found the dark energy.
Speaker 1: I found what I call the d o R. Also,
Speaker 1: by the way acronyms initialisms, I should say, uh, they
Speaker 1: are a another indicator of cultic activity. D o R
Speaker 1: stands for deadly orgon radiation. It's it's still orgasmic matter.
Speaker 1: It's still you know, the force, but it's a little sithy,
Speaker 1: it's a little sith lord about it. It is anti
Speaker 1: matter to him, and he says, this stuff, this bad vibe,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, is responsible through all
Speaker 1: the bad stuff in the environment. This is before people
Speaker 1: knew about the dangers of plastics. This is before people
Speaker 1: knew about the pervasive nature of various um contaminants and
Speaker 1: chemicals left in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. They
Speaker 1: didn't know, for instance, about the harmful intergenerational effects of lead.
Speaker 1: So Reich, being an intelligent man by all accounts, he
Speaker 1: knew that there were stuff wrong with the environment, with
Speaker 1: the world it wasn't perfect. But he again he the
Speaker 1: bridge too far and he uh, he said, it's all
Speaker 1: due to this duo r the snacks and old rhyme.
Speaker 1: But I stand by it. No it's good. Um, but yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it is it it It does kind of take on
Speaker 1: this uh Midichlorian kind of like good force versus bad
Speaker 1: force kind of vibes, you know what I mean, like
Speaker 1: like the powers of evil versus the powers of darkness,
Speaker 1: which you can boil down, you know, if you really
Speaker 1: want to take a paint with a broad brush. You know,
Speaker 1: there obviously are forces of of of positivity and and
Speaker 1: and and healing and cleansing, and there are obviously forces
Speaker 1: of contamination and poisoning and destruction, there's no question about that.
Speaker 1: But they're not They're not these like separate entities. They're
Speaker 1: they're all. They all cut. They all stem from the
Speaker 1: stuff that we're all made of. You know. It's not
Speaker 1: like there's some evil you know, hexas from Fern Gully
Speaker 1: force out there that's just creating all of this demonic
Speaker 1: evil energy to destroy the trees. I mean, it really
Speaker 1: is just a lot of it comes from man harnessing
Speaker 1: these things and making things that then have byproducts that
Speaker 1: cause all these problems. And it seems like what what
Speaker 1: Reick is trying to do is oversimplify into these like
Speaker 1: cosmic sort of you know materials, right like like this
Speaker 1: matter antimatter kind of situation, which just feels a little
Speaker 1: bit reductive and almost kind of really further makes me
Speaker 1: kind of sort of shake my head and some of
Speaker 1: where he's going in this period. I like the I
Speaker 1: like the term reductive here because one thing that will
Speaker 1: stand out to anybody in in stem right now, anybody
Speaker 1: in a scientific field, is that you know, measurable forces
Speaker 1: of the universe of reality as we know it, they
Speaker 1: have no moral compass. Gravity is not thinking about actions.
Speaker 1: Gravity is not trending toward uh a good or a
Speaker 1: bad that could be identified by human beings. So to
Speaker 1: ascribe morality to this concept of orgon and deadly orgone
Speaker 1: d o R, it's it's a little a bit uh well,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of bit of anthropomorphizing, which is when
Speaker 1: you ascribe human framework, human cognitive framework to a thing
Speaker 1: that is only a thing, and you know, there's this
Speaker 1: is a huge part of human psychology. It's kind of
Speaker 1: the reason cars have two headlights such that they look
Speaker 1: like a face. It's kind of the reason that humans
Speaker 1: grow attachments to the oddest things. This is what we
Speaker 1: mean when we say he's getting a little off the rails. Objectively,
Speaker 1: he is aware of at this point, he is aware
Speaker 1: of the US nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Also,
Speaker 1: we had an earlier episode about the unluckiest or luckiest
Speaker 1: guy in Japan during that time. Please do check out
Speaker 1: our show on the guy who survived both of those attacks.
Speaker 1: In Reich's opinion, now he sees himself as a leader
Speaker 1: of good, almost uh messionic figure. He is fighting for
Speaker 1: life energy, not death energy, and he wants to weaponize.
Speaker 1: He wants to weaponize his concepts. And that's when he
Speaker 1: starts building what we call cloud busters. What he called
Speaker 1: cloud busters. You might call them were gone guns if
Speaker 1: you're in the right subreddit these days. But he says,
Speaker 1: look this stuff, it can make it rain. It's not
Speaker 1: a euphemism for throwing dollar bills. It can actually change
Speaker 1: the weather. And with these cloud busters, I can also
Speaker 1: reverse the process of desertification, which is when soil erodes
Speaker 1: and biome transforms into something like the Sahara that's right,
Speaker 1: and um, this kind of technolog g is where I
Speaker 1: think uh we mentioned Reich in a past Ridiculous History
Speaker 1: episode about a guy that kind of like scammed um
Speaker 1: a small drought ridden town into thinking he could you know,
Speaker 1: make it rain um because yeah, cloud seating using silver
Speaker 1: iodide or dry ice was a thing, uh since the
Speaker 1: nineteen forty. Is the idea of like being able to
Speaker 1: pull rain out of out of clouds and in times
Speaker 1: of drought even seen it harnessed like during the there's
Speaker 1: an Olympic ceremony I think where they they did a
Speaker 1: big thing where they made it rain um using this technology.
Speaker 1: He wasn't going for that. His cloud busting uh technology
Speaker 1: that he purported to have invented used this Oregon energy
Speaker 1: believe that he could pull it directly out of the
Speaker 1: atmosphere and then funnel it into the ground or into
Speaker 1: a body of water. He believed that what he was
Speaker 1: doing was akin to what you might see happening with
Speaker 1: a lightning rod, you know, where it could you know
Speaker 1: go to ground. This energy contain in his mind that
Speaker 1: same level of of powers as electricity, and he claimed
Speaker 1: to have successfully achieved this. You know again, this is
Speaker 1: all happening on his land under his watch, you know,
Speaker 1: with his data. So it's a little little questionable there.
Speaker 1: But um, he he did do numerous experiments using these
Speaker 1: cloud busters, and according to Reich, um these these experiments
Speaker 1: started to get some interest from from beyond, from beyond
Speaker 1: our our our universe. M h, yeah, he believes an
Speaker 1: extra terrestrial life. To say the quiet part out loud
Speaker 1: UFOs U A p s. They're called now a days
Speaker 1: in the West. Uh. He calls them energy alpha's and
Speaker 1: he says they are attacking the Earth with d O
Speaker 1: R again deadly orgo and radiation. He says, I've seen
Speaker 1: a number of alien crap aft over my institute here
Speaker 1: in Maine. And he even goes on to describe how
Speaker 1: he and his son use a orgon gun a cloud
Speaker 1: buster to fight a quote full scale interplanetary battle in Arizona.
Speaker 1: This is again from that Vice article, but you can
Speaker 1: find it confirmed in multiple sources, because he really did
Speaker 1: say this. Now did he believe it himself? Was he
Speaker 1: a scam artist? Was he bilking people? Or was he
Speaker 1: like Merlin in uh Mark Twain's a Connecticut Yankee and
Speaker 1: King Arthur's court. Did he believe, truly believe his own magic.
Speaker 1: That's up to history. Not everybody, surprise, surprise, agreed with him.
Speaker 1: He got lambasted in the press for his application of
Speaker 1: um orgon principles two people with serious medical conditions like cancer.
Speaker 1: One journalist in particular, Mildred Brandy, wrote two. I don't
Speaker 1: know it's you could say their hit pieces in terms
Speaker 1: of language, but Brandy here is not coming from a
Speaker 1: bad place necessarily. You can find the articles the New
Speaker 1: Cult of Sex and Anarchy and the strange case of
Speaker 1: Wilhelm Reich. These may have well, he's definitely in some
Speaker 1: way triggered a federal investigation the f D. A shortly
Speaker 1: after these articles come out. They send their agent, Charles
Speaker 1: Wood double O D. I guess w w O dB.
Speaker 1: There's a pun there somewhere, I believe. And this whole
Speaker 1: scenario really was kind of dramatized in the incredible Kate
Speaker 1: Bush song and music video cloud Busting UM. Kate Bush
Speaker 1: kind of plays Reich's son, uh and Donald Sutherland plays
Speaker 1: Reich himself, and there's this really cool kind of orgon
Speaker 1: cannon kind of thing, like one of these cloud busters,
Speaker 1: where there's like a crank and they you know, he
Speaker 1: shoots it up at the sky and like the whole
Speaker 1: deal is you're not really sure if it works or not,
Speaker 1: and the guy is just crazy scientists. Um. But the
Speaker 1: Sun really loves him. And at the end you see
Speaker 1: the men and the men in black kind of suits
Speaker 1: coming for him and taking him away, and then the
Speaker 1: Sun sort of runs out to the field where the
Speaker 1: the devices and and uses it and then makes it rain.
Speaker 1: And then you see Dad kind of looking back and
Speaker 1: like smiling and like giving the thumbs up to the Sun.
Speaker 1: And it's a really beautiful video. Um, And it really
Speaker 1: is kind of it's it's less about you know, is
Speaker 1: this real? Was this something that he actually could do?
Speaker 1: And more just about like the liberation the liberating power
Speaker 1: of like belief and discovery and things like that, like
Speaker 1: and the fact that it freaks people out, you know,
Speaker 1: when someone truly believes in their own magic. As you
Speaker 1: put in Agent double O D right, because it's still
Speaker 1: like would no, no, let's let it go. No, you're right, Max.
Speaker 1: So in the f d A goes official with their
Speaker 1: issues after their agent Charles Wood, investigates Reich and this
Speaker 1: center organ on in Maine, UH and the FDA says
Speaker 1: Dr Reich, you have violated the Food, Drug and Cosmetic
Speaker 1: Act because you are delivering miss branded and adulterated devices
Speaker 1: across state lines, and you are also making false and
Speaker 1: misleading claims. I want to stay here for a second,
Speaker 1: because we are We're at the point now where a
Speaker 1: lot of people who believe in rather conspiratorial perspectives on
Speaker 1: on the life of Reich will say, this is why
Speaker 1: he's legit. They'll say the f d A shut down
Speaker 1: and repressed his technology. Now to what degree that depends
Speaker 1: again on which forum you're in online, which conforts you
Speaker 1: go to, etcetera. But the FDA makes no bones about this.
Speaker 1: They're not being particularly diplomatic. They say these accumulators are
Speaker 1: a sham. They say Orgon Energy does not exist. A
Speaker 1: judge comes out with an injunction that says the following,
Speaker 1: All accumulators that are rented by Reich or owned by
Speaker 1: Reich and anyone working with him, must be destroyed post
Speaker 1: haste at any labeling that refers to Orgon Energy. While
Speaker 1: you're at it, burn that to throw that on the fire.
Speaker 1: And and Wright doesn't go to court. By the way,
Speaker 1: he writes a letter defending himself. But the FBI, you know,
Speaker 1: they take this pretty seriously, um as as you can
Speaker 1: again see dramatized and that that also k push video.
Speaker 1: They actually have a whole section of their website even
Speaker 1: today devoted to Wilhelm Reich um and this is what
Speaker 1: they have to say about this. This this gentleman um quote,
Speaker 1: This German immigrant described himself as the Associate professor of
Speaker 1: medical psychology, director of the Oregon Institute, President and Research
Speaker 1: physician of the Wilhelm Reich Foundation, and discoverer of biological
Speaker 1: or life energy. A nineteen forty security investigation was begun
Speaker 1: to determine the extent of Reich's communist commitments. In a
Speaker 1: security investigation concluded that neither the Oregon Project nor any
Speaker 1: of its staff were engaged in subversive activities or were
Speaker 1: in violation of any statute within the jurisdiction of the FBI.
Speaker 1: So that's good, uh. In the U. S. Attorney General
Speaker 1: filed a complaint seeking permanent injunction to prevent interstate shipment
Speaker 1: of devices and literature distributed by Dr Reich's group. That
Speaker 1: same year, doctor Wright was arrested for a contempt of
Speaker 1: court violation of the Attorney General's injunction. That kind of
Speaker 1: took a turn. Yeah, and that's why even today true
Speaker 1: believers will say he found something they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know. Uh, they're there are consequences here, whether or
Speaker 1: not you think there's something to the science, whether or
Speaker 1: not you think it has some sand to it, holds water,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to say. It's clear that the FDA
Speaker 1: was against it. They were they they were being the
Speaker 1: deadly rago and radiation. As far as Reich's concerned, they're
Speaker 1: they're a force for evil and repression. And you know
Speaker 1: the guy hates repression. Uh. It's strange because if you
Speaker 1: look at the actual accumulator, which we described briefly, it's
Speaker 1: like it's like it's as smaller than average phone booth,
Speaker 1: and even a phone booth now maybe a dated reference,
Speaker 1: but you sit in this little time out corner and
Speaker 1: you wait for the organ that has been accumulated to
Speaker 1: acree in your own body and go through you. Right,
Speaker 1: you're focusing your medicalaureans and right thinks that this can
Speaker 1: replace actual therapy. As any therapist listening along today knows
Speaker 1: that's um that could be a dangerous and unhealthy replacement.
Speaker 1: Sitting by yourself in a box, even a magic box,
Speaker 1: is not the same thing as processing, uh, your life,
Speaker 1: your past and your future. Oh and you thought it
Speaker 1: could cure cancer, right now, that's that's that's that's right.
Speaker 1: He did think it could cure all kinds of stuff. So,
Speaker 1: like we said, he's brought up on charges for contempt
Speaker 1: of court for violating the Attorney General's injunction, and he
Speaker 1: ultimately was sentenced to two years in jail in prison
Speaker 1: for refusing to stop selling his inventions on May seven
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty six, um apparently, and what what stays
Speaker 1: to this day one of the only federally sanctioned book
Speaker 1: burnings in America. His books were burned. That's wild, you know,
Speaker 1: like to your point, Ben that it does really feel
Speaker 1: like there's something more going on here than just a
Speaker 1: crotchety old mad scientists, you know, refusing to to stop
Speaker 1: selling his wares. You know, if there's really nothing to it,
Speaker 1: why does the government care so much? You know? He
Speaker 1: went to Louisbourg Penitentiary in Pennsylvania, and and six months
Speaker 1: later he passed away, um while incarcerated from a heart attack.
Speaker 1: It's a sad, sad way to go sad into his life,
Speaker 1: but apparently, up until the last he really did believe
Speaker 1: his own magic. I'm gonna keep using that because I
Speaker 1: just love that bag. I think. I think it can
Speaker 1: be a negative thing. It can be like drinking your
Speaker 1: own kool aid, you know, but it also can be
Speaker 1: believing in yourself. You know what I mean. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm of two minds here. Yeah, that is why I
Speaker 1: don't think he was a scammer. I don't think he
Speaker 1: was a confidence man. I think he genuinely believed this. Also,
Speaker 1: let's get in front of let's get in front of
Speaker 1: any correspondence here and say, yes, we know that Jim
Speaker 1: Jones gave flavor Aid, not kool Aid to his own cult,
Speaker 1: but we like the phrase drink your own kool aid.
Speaker 1: We think it makes sense. You get it, You get
Speaker 1: the gist. Dr Reich is six years old, and like
Speaker 1: you said, no, he's only in he's only incarcerated for
Speaker 1: six months before he passes away. And even now you
Speaker 1: can find people a little bit further on the conspiratorial
Speaker 1: spectrum who will say that he was murdered, but there
Speaker 1: is to be clear no proof of that at this time.
Speaker 1: It does look like a heart attack. And if we
Speaker 1: fast forward a decade later, we'll see that society is
Speaker 1: still thinking about it and thinking about his work. Time
Speaker 1: Magazine says Dr Villain. Reich may have been a profit
Speaker 1: for now. It sometimes seems that all America is one
Speaker 1: big Oregon box. Uh. And so I know, look, I
Speaker 1: want to pause because I know we have we have
Speaker 1: some folks who may consider themselves supporters, adherents, believers in
Speaker 1: Reich's work today in the audience. And you should know, folks,
Speaker 1: that you are not alone. As a matter of fact, right,
Speaker 1: got co signed by uh, some notable people, some names
Speaker 1: that might surprise you, fellow scientists, not psychoanalysts, more like physicists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we we had mentioned at the top of the
Speaker 1: of episode one of this expansive two parts series that
Speaker 1: there were definitely gonna be some way ends from some
Speaker 1: some important cultural figures, one of which, as you teas
Speaker 1: been as as a very renowned physicist Albert Einstein. Reich,
Speaker 1: through his own research and experimentation, believed that his energy,
Speaker 1: this orgon energy was was and this is a I'm
Speaker 1: gonna quote this New York Times article, Um that we've
Speaker 1: been referencing was quote reflected by non organic substances like
Speaker 1: metal and absorbed by organic substances like wood, and that's
Speaker 1: why he built this organ accumulator out of wood and metal. Einstein,
Speaker 1: though they had actually had met before. In January of
Speaker 1: Einstein believed that that Reich was barking up the wrong tree. Um.
Speaker 1: He wrote Reich a letter and told him that he
Speaker 1: had been able to replicate these findings regarding the increased
Speaker 1: temperature in the box that he was perceiving as the
Speaker 1: absorption of these um these these energies, these organ energies.
Speaker 1: But there was a much simpler explanation and then then
Speaker 1: you know this idea of of of accumulating organ energy. Um.
Speaker 1: They never wrote to each other. Again, we don't really
Speaker 1: know what that explanation was, but I did refer to
Speaker 1: this correspondence as quote the Einstein affair. I guess in
Speaker 1: a way of like almost um, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: discrediting Einstein and saying like this guy didn't know what
Speaker 1: he was talking about. This is just like a brief,
Speaker 1: you know, encounter that ultimately did not lead him to
Speaker 1: change his opinions on anything. But Einstein thought there was
Speaker 1: something there. He just thought it had a different explanation,
Speaker 1: and he was talking about you know, you could loosely
Speaker 1: call it a greenhouse effact. He said, yeah, the temperature
Speaker 1: gets warmer. I believe you that part is true. But
Speaker 1: here's why you're shutting a box, MIDDI Glorian's bros. You
Speaker 1: and I Ben have experienced this greenhouse effect we can
Speaker 1: call the podcast effects. You know, when we're in the
Speaker 1: box together. When we were doing things in person more
Speaker 1: often with inadequate air conditioning and ventilation. You know, your
Speaker 1: body temperature alone is going to raise the temperature that
Speaker 1: room over the course of you know, a session pretty significantly.
Speaker 1: So I would maybe argue that's what Einstein was was
Speaker 1: barking at. Reik's ideas have never ever been really examined
Speaker 1: by the scientific community, nor have they been really revisited
Speaker 1: by the psychoanalytical community. Um, and they still both of
Speaker 1: these you know groups, uh still kind of disown him.
Speaker 1: M yeah. Yeah, And psychoanalysts today are not looking kindly
Speaker 1: on on Reich's life and work. But we do see
Speaker 1: that he has a legacy. You know, he contributed to
Speaker 1: things like ego psychology, gastalt therapy, body psychology, even primal
Speaker 1: scream therapy, which is as metal as it sounds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's an interesting note here again from that Vice article
Speaker 1: that says you can see a little bit of Reich's
Speaker 1: academic DNA in what's sometimes called feel good body therapy, massage, yoga.
Speaker 1: There's also you can also do heavy metal yoga. I
Speaker 1: recommend it. It's yeah, oddly soothing, it's counterintuitive, but it
Speaker 1: feels good. We had mentioned that at the top of
Speaker 1: of episode one. I think here to where things like
Speaker 1: raiky energy work. You know, a lot of these uh.
Speaker 1: You know the Vice article uses feel good uh, you
Speaker 1: know whatever therapy, but I mean it could be described
Speaker 1: as holistic medicine or even like ancient Asian medicine and uh,
Speaker 1: and therapies such as reflexology and and deep tissue massage
Speaker 1: and the idea of the body storing these energies. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, Reich's whole early deal was about tension
Speaker 1: in the body and where does that stuff go and
Speaker 1: how do you get it out? And he really kind
Speaker 1: of flew in the face of the the psychiatric can
Speaker 1: unity by touching his patience. And we know that touch
Speaker 1: can be a very important part of people's uh, isolation,
Speaker 1: you know, and if people's feelings of loneliness and not
Speaker 1: sexual touch but just touch, just you know, like having
Speaker 1: someone lay hands on you. It sounds like religious experience,
Speaker 1: but just having a massage and someone touching you with
Speaker 1: to heal, you know, laying healing hands. I think that
Speaker 1: can really go a long way. Uh. And that's alive
Speaker 1: And well today, I've got a massage scheduled for this
Speaker 1: week and I cannot wait. It is one of the
Speaker 1: most you know, valuable things I think I do, other
Speaker 1: than like going to actual therapy. I think a massage
Speaker 1: is really really valuable because those tensions do get stored
Speaker 1: and then there's no questions. Do you feel fair enough
Speaker 1: to me? Okay, Well, if I pay you and I
Speaker 1: give you permission, please touch me all day long. Because
Speaker 1: when I leave that transactional I I do feel well.
Speaker 1: It's so is therapy. You know, everything is transactional in
Speaker 1: some some way or another. You're paying somebody to do something.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make it any less worthwhile or any less valuable.
Speaker 1: But I walk out of that room feeling relief. Oh well,
Speaker 1: more massages for you, my friend. I'm quite close with
Speaker 1: several professional messeurs, I guess would be the word. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it is. It is legitimate. It does do a
Speaker 1: world of good for people to each their own. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you want to take a page from Reich's book, literally,
Speaker 1: if you would like to learn more about his work,
Speaker 1: you will find that his publications are still kept in print.
Speaker 1: There is also a scientific journal, the Journal of Organomy.
Speaker 1: Probably my favorite word from this series. Uh. They have
Speaker 1: public lectures even now in the modern day. You can
Speaker 1: learn more about it. And there are Reichi and therapists.
Speaker 1: They follow Wilhelm Reich. They didn't burn them, all right,
Speaker 1: It's definitely obviously the the perspective has changed to some degree.
Speaker 1: Um whether that's because they feel like, you know, people
Speaker 1: don't take it seriously enough anymore. Again, I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: to put on conspiracy had too much from from our
Speaker 1: other show, but I really do get a sense of
Speaker 1: the government, you know, was after this guy for something
Speaker 1: other than just like he's violating food and drug laws.
Speaker 1: Like why did they burn his books? That's the thing
Speaker 1: that really blows me away. They burned his books and
Speaker 1: thankfully you can still get them, and he has been
Speaker 1: and remains. I mentioned that Kate push thing a a
Speaker 1: very uh loom was large and pop culture. You know,
Speaker 1: there are a few of these Oregon accumulator boxes that
Speaker 1: um stayed around. Uh. The writer and uh druggie weirdo
Speaker 1: william S Burrows had one and apparently invited Jimmy Page,
Speaker 1: the guitarist for Lizeppelin, to hop into one when he
Speaker 1: was interviewing him in nineteen seventy five. Reportedly Page declined,
Speaker 1: but um, the Nirvana's Kurt Cobain was a big fan
Speaker 1: of of Burrows and they hung out um a good
Speaker 1: bit at his home. And uh there's photographs of of
Speaker 1: of of Kurt Cobain inside of the accumulator when he
Speaker 1: visited his house in n There's also some you know,
Speaker 1: examples of it. The inspiration in film, like in the
Speaker 1: Jane Fonda film Barbarella, you can see something called an
Speaker 1: excessive machine and this is in eight and then one
Speaker 1: of Woody Allen's kind of lesser known films. Um and
Speaker 1: what kind of own issues there, um, but he did
Speaker 1: make some interesting films. In nineteen seventy three, the movie Sleeper,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a weird SATs here called dystopian
Speaker 1: sci fi thing. There is a machine called the Orgasmatron,
Speaker 1: So he's definitely still around. Yeah. Actually that's what I
Speaker 1: want to kind of talk about. So a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, my brother gave me this book right here.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I can't I can't say I finished it.
Speaker 1: I think I got about like a third of the
Speaker 1: way through it. I'm not the biggest reader. I think
Speaker 1: I've talked about that before unless it's about like a
Speaker 1: sports article. But I remember reading it would be like,
Speaker 1: what the hell is this about? What are these cloud busters?
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about the about it about her
Speaker 1: pillam right forehand, but I'm just reading this is so weird. Um.
Speaker 1: I will say he at least the way his son
Speaker 1: portrays him in his book, because this book was written
Speaker 1: by his son, Peter Reich. Everything says that will Helm
Speaker 1: believed what he was preaching. He was drinking that flavorade,
Speaker 1: his own flavor. Doesn't the son to describe a dream
Speaker 1: where his father came down to to to rescue him
Speaker 1: in a UFO. Isn't that a thing? So yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't make it all the way through. But like they
Speaker 1: do talk about, like going to he talks about when
Speaker 1: he went to Arizona with the cloud Buster and fought
Speaker 1: the like big thing like it's uh, it's very weird
Speaker 1: when you don't know anything about the story and you're
Speaker 1: just reading this. I'll tell you though. It was six tons,
Speaker 1: six physical tons of books that were burned by by
Speaker 1: the US government, So of course they make him a
Speaker 1: bit of a martyr right and there. I think that's
Speaker 1: a huge part of why people remain so interested in
Speaker 1: his explorations today. If you would like to learn more
Speaker 1: about Dr Reich firsthand, then I guess what. He's got
Speaker 1: a museum. It is in Maine. I believe it's pronounced rangely.
Speaker 1: Perhaps we'll actually I have to check with Andrew Howard
Speaker 1: R Pal who is from Maine to get confirmation there.
Speaker 1: But the the museum itself, I've never been there in
Speaker 1: the interest of full disclosure, but it is a repository
Speaker 1: of a lot of his work. They have an active
Speaker 1: itinerary of programs and events, and you can visit the
Speaker 1: organ on institute that's on the property. I really want
Speaker 1: to go. The website is just villam Reich Museum dot org.
Speaker 1: Check it out. And you know, more importantly, tell us
Speaker 1: if you have been, tell us if you accumulated or
Speaker 1: gone while you were there, And importantly, which kind of
Speaker 1: orgon did you accumulate? The good stuff or the d
Speaker 1: O r U the deadly orgon radiation. What a ride.
Speaker 1: Thanks again to our excellent research associate Zach Williams, who
Speaker 1: you will meet very soon. Ridiculous historians and where would
Speaker 1: we be without the man the myth of the legend,
Speaker 1: our super producer, Mr Max Williams. Max, I'll read the
Speaker 1: rest of that book if you want. I'll please not
Speaker 1: that that's about the level of reader I am. Or
Speaker 1: maybe you could produce like a little short film. I
Speaker 1: can just watch that instead. Surely there must be some
Speaker 1: cliff notes or idiot's guide to Willhelm Rank to orgon energy.
Speaker 1: I'd be down with that. I'd just be fun just
Speaker 1: to see what they think is the most important bits.
Speaker 1: Because to your point, Max, when you read something like
Speaker 1: that and it is just kind of the regurgitations of
Speaker 1: someone's mind who has been exposed to you know, a
Speaker 1: person of the stature, you know, this person's father, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine, uh what what all of that would entail.
Speaker 1: And then just like you know, um, it would it
Speaker 1: would have to have an effect you know, on on
Speaker 1: on this person in the way they think about in
Speaker 1: view the world. So I'm interested as well. Um, but
Speaker 1: let us know what you think. You can write to
Speaker 1: us on on the social media. You can find me
Speaker 1: exclusively on Instagram where I'm at how now, Noel brown Man,
Speaker 1: I think they've they've got a couple of places to
Speaker 1: find you. The rumors are true, folks. You can see
Speaker 1: me all over the internet. You can get a behind
Speaker 1: the scenes peak of stuff that I am working on,
Speaker 1: such as the book that Noel, Matt and yours truly
Speaker 1: wrote for stuff they don't want you to know. I'm
Speaker 1: holding it up in the chat even though this is
Speaker 1: an audio podcast. It's called inniverse to creativity stuff they
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. On to other adventures as well.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be going live to promote the book in October.
Speaker 1: If you ever want to meet us in person, uh
Speaker 1: find out more? You can write to me at Ben
Speaker 1: Bowlen bo w l i in on Instagram. You can
Speaker 1: also help me in my ongoing mission, my continuing mission
Speaker 1: to explore strange new foods. Do you like that? Max?
Speaker 1: A little spin on that? Okay? And and you can
Speaker 1: find me also on Twitter where I'm at Ben bullin
Speaker 1: hs W. If you know you know uh and if
Speaker 1: you know Twitter, you know the best thing about it
Speaker 1: is that's where you can find my pal, Mr Max Williams,
Speaker 1: the resident curling expert of not just ridiculous history, not
Speaker 1: just Twitter, not just the Internet. But these are modern days.
Speaker 1: I will not accept that honor. If you wanted to
Speaker 1: know more about curling, follow Matt Hamilton's the most interesting
Speaker 1: man in curling, who was just coast comes off as
Speaker 1: being a very good guy. But yes, you can find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at a t L underscore. Max Williams
Speaker 1: activity is literally just trolling Ben. So yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: I got so much I gotta go accumulate my are
Speaker 1: going guys. I didn't want to say it, but over
Speaker 1: the course of these episodes, I'm kind of persuaded. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna build the building and we're going
Speaker 1: to accumulator in my garage. Probably would also work as
Speaker 1: a good like sound booth, you know, for for voiceover
Speaker 1: or something. Who like things to be dual purpose. Let's
Speaker 1: see you next time. Books. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,