The Wilhelm Reich Archives

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I can't believe I missed this historic date!

Some years ago, I wrote a pretty substantial collection of webpages called A Skeptical Scrutiny of the Works and Theories of Wilhelm Reich (http://www.rogermwilcox.name/Reich). In a couple of the articles -- most notably the one about the Orgone Motor -- I mention that much of Reich's written work was squirreled away in the Archives of the Orgone Institute, which due to a clause in Reich's will are not to be opened to the public until 50 years after Reich's death.

Well, November 3rd of last year (2007) marked the 50th anniversary of Wilhelm Reich's death. Therefore, the Wilhelm Reich Archives should be open to the public now!



So why haven't I seen anybody clamoring over Reich's top secret "Y Factor" for his orgone motors by now?!

[tsig]

I can't believe I missed this historic date!

Some years ago, I wrote a pretty substantial collection of webpages called A Skeptical Scrutiny of the Works and Theories of Wilhelm Reich (http://www.rogermwilcox.name/Reich). In a couple of the articles -- most notably the one about the Orgone Motor -- I mention that much of Reich's written work was squirreled away in the Archives of the Orgone Institute, which due to a clause in Reich's will are not to be opened to the public until 50 years after Reich's death.

Well, November 3rd of last year (2007) marked the 50th anniversary of Wilhelm Reich's death. Therefore, the Wilhelm Reich Archives should be open to the public now!



So why haven't I seen anybody clamoring over Reich's top secret "Y Factor" for his orgone motors by now?!

They don't work?

[Sasha]

I went to your website and just had time to read the one description of orgone "therapy" and part of your own "therapy." I don't understand how this can be called anything but child abuse. Your parents must have had some really strange ideas about parenting (that's putting it kindly) and the therapists (Doctors?) should have been arrested.

I'm hoping this is all some kind of sick joke and none of it ever really happened.

[tracer]

So why haven't I seen anybody clamoring over Reich's top secret "Y Factor" for his orgone motors by now?!They don't work?

Since when has that ever stopped a True Believer in the various free-energy claims?

I expected to see multiple Google hits of the form "OMG here's the Y factor from the Reich archives: <insert orgone energy baloney> I'm going to go build one right now and put the electric company out of business!"

Instead, I got "The Reich Archives are due to be opened in November 2007" over and over again ... no actual released content from these archives seems to be available online anywhere. Darn it, where are the zealots out there who are supposed to be doing my work for me?!

[tracer]

I went to your website and just had time to read the one description of orgone "therapy" and part of your own "therapy." I don't understand how this can be called anything but child abuse. Your parents must have had some really strange ideas about parenting (that's putting it kindly) and the therapists (Doctors?) should have been arrested.

I'm hoping this is all some kind of sick joke and none of it ever really happened.

I've had direct experience with 3 different therapists certified by the American College of Orgonomy.

While a few of the techniques were similar between the 3 of them, the choice of which techniques to use when varied so widely that I have to believe each therapist was making up the course of "treatment" as (s)he went along. Scientifically established guidelines for such things are lacking for the very reason that there's nothing scientific about character-analytic vegetotherapy.

It DOES, however, provide a remarkable insight into the personalities of the therapists. The fact that it gave my first therapist (Dr. Duvall) carte-blanche to take out his obvious sadism on his patients is kinda scary -- but at least his adult patients had the option of saying "You're insane, I'm getting out of here before you hurt me any more." Children whose parents don't get to see exactly what goes on in that therapy room, and who are convinced it's for their kids' own good, are pretty much stuck with a Spanish Inquisitor.

Note that my own parents were also going through this therapy themselves, voluntarily. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that Dr. Duvall may have treated them differently than he treated myself and my slightly-younger brother, so my parents might not have suspected the real horrors he was inflicting.

[bruto]

They don't work?Since when is that an obstacle in the world of woo?

[tube]

I can't believe I missed this historic date!

Some years ago, I wrote a pretty substantial collection of webpages called A Skeptical Scrutiny of the Works and Theories of Wilhelm Reich (http://www.rogermwilcox.name/Reich). In a couple of the articles -- most notably the one about the Orgone Motor -- I mention that much of Reich's written work was squirreled away in the Archives of the Orgone Institute, which due to a clause in Reich's will are not to be opened to the public until 50 years after Reich's death.

Well, November 3rd of last year (2007) marked the 50th anniversary of Wilhelm Reich's death. Therefore, the Wilhelm Reich Archives should be open to the public now!



So why haven't I seen anybody clamoring over Reich's top secret "Y Factor" for his orgone motors by now?!

Wow, I remember finding your website some years ago! Fantastic that you also post on JREF! I think I became enamored of the far-out theories of Reich when I was in high school, I remember encountering one of those illustrated books in the "for beginners" series. This would have been the late 1970's or early 1980's. All crackpot stuff, of course, but a fantastic sci-fi drama of epic proportions!

I liked Orgonomy so much I named my website after it!

http://orgoneresearch.com/

[captain koolaid]

Strike- off topic

[Moochie]

We have some fascinating people here, in this place. Simply fascinating.


M.

[tsig]

Since when has that ever stopped a True Believer in the various free-energy claims?

I expected to see multiple Google hits of the form "OMG here's the Y factor from the Reich archives: <insert orgone energy baloney> I'm going to go build one right now and put the electric company out of business!"

Instead, I got "The Reich Archives are due to be opened in November 2007" over and over again ... no actual released content from these archives seems to be available online anywhere. Darn it, where are the zealots out there who are supposed to be doing my work for me?!

If it doesn't work and we have no information about it it must be true?

[tracer]

If it doesn't work and we have no information about it it must be true?

Naw, I just thought the woo-woo crowd would be jumping all over this a lot more than they apparently have been.

Also, I'm trying to find out what the dreaded "Y Factor" is for my own edification. It would be nice to be able to put to rest, once and for all, the question of precidely what mundane and not-at-all-useful principle was at work in Reich's Orgone Motor.

[tsig]

Naw, I just thought the woo-woo crowd would be jumping all over this a lot more than they apparently have been.

Also, I'm trying to find out what the dreaded "Y Factor" is for my own edification. It would be nice to be able to put to rest, once and for all, the question of precidely what mundane and not-at-all-useful principle was at work in Reich's Orgone Motor.

A brief google showed up this:

"The following are quotes of Wilhelm Reich:

"Theoretically and practically, the notion of genes is of no use to us" "the mechanistic and metaphysical hypothesis of heredity provices us with no possibility of understanding prenatally acquired disturbances or of eliminating them practically."
"It is apparently true that there is a "PULL" exerted by the earth upon falling bodies. But functionlly, it is not due to a pull by the inert mass of the earth - which could never be demonstrated: It is due to the primordial converging movement of two orgone energy streams."
"most pathological charactersitics can be traced back to the effects of early upbringing and especially the influence of identification and early sexual stasis"
" Not one single productive thought on the subject of medical influencing of so-called hereditary diseases emerges from the mechanistic, metaphysical theory of heredity." "the theory of heredity is not a science but an ethical alibi" "The finding that cancer is a disease caused by sexual starvation will have to be taken seriously"


I'm not buying any motors from this guy.

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You left out "Nobody has ever seen atoms, or the airgerms of amoebas."

(Written at a time when amoebic cysts had been observed microscopically.)