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Dr. Wilhelm Reich
Scientific Genius or Medical Madman?
By ALAN CANTWELL, Jr., M.D.
In my medical research into the infectious cause and origin of cancer,
I never imagined I would become enmeshed in the strange world of
Wilhelm Reich. For two decades I had studied the work of scientists linking
bacteria to cancer, but never once did I come across Reich’s important
experiments with the deadly “T-bacilli” that he discovered in
cancer.
I first learned about Reich in 1982 from Lorraine Rosenthal who heads
the Cancer Control Society in Los Angeles. Her mother worked in his
laboratory in the 1950s, and Lorraine was sure his cancer work was related
to my cancer microbe research. She recommended I read Reich’s two
most revolutionary books: The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life
(1938) and The Cancer Biopathy (1948). These two volumes provide valuable
and fascinating insights into the origin of the cancer cell and his
discovery of cancer “T” bacteria.
During his life, Reich was portrayed as a mad psychiatrist and
scientist who advocated free love, abortion, communism, and a multitude of
other so-called perversions. The medical establishment regarded him as
quack who tried to dupe the public into believing he had a cure for cancer.
Eventually the US government took legal action to suppress Reich’s
research, and the closing years of his life were filled with tragedy.
Persecuted and hounded by the government, he was finally sacrificed on
the altar of science.
Who was Wilhelm Reich? And why was he condemned for his beliefs? Was he
merely a crack-pot psychiatrist? Or was he one of the greatest and
most misunderstood scientific geniuses of the twentieth century?
Reich’s Sex Experiments and Orgone Energy
Reich was born on March 24, 1897, on a small farm on the eastern
outreaches of the Austro-Hungarian empire in what is now known as the
Ukraine. At age twelve his childhood was shattered by his mother’s suicide.
Provoked by marital unhappiness and infidelity, and beatings by her
husband, she swallowed a kitchen poison. Reich watched her die a slow and
agonising death. His father died of tuberculosis in 1914, and twelve
years later his only brother also died of TB. Orphaned at age 17, Reich
entered the Austrian army and experienced the brutality of World War One
and the ensuing breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
After the war he resumed his studies in Vienna and entered medical
school. He was a brilliant student who developed a strong liking for the
new speciality of psychiatry. At age twenty-three he became one of
Sigmund Freud’s prized associates and began private practice as an analytic
psychiatrist.
As a pioneer in the study of human sexuality, he used novel
experimental methods to examine, analyse and measure various aspects of physical
lovemaking. He concluded that the ability to love was dependent on
one’s physical ability to make love with “orgastic potency.” Reich
coined this term to denote a kind of super-lovemaking in which the mental,
physical and emotional aspects of sexuality were all functioning at a
high level. Experimenting with electrical stimulation of erogenous
zones, he showed that sexual feelings of touch, pleasure, and pain could
all be measured in the laboratory.
The physiologic process of erection of the male penis provided the
beginning formula for Reich’s great scientific discoveries. Before male
orgasm, he noted four distinct and separate processes that had to take
place physiologically. First is the necessary psychosexual build-up or
“tension.” Second, the “charge” that accompanies tumescence of
the penis, which Reich measured electrically. Third, the electrical
“discharge” at the moment of orgasm. And fourth, the final
“relaxation” of the penis.
Reich observed these four essential stages (tension, build-up,
discharge and relaxation) in all aspects of life forms he examined. In the
orgasm process of sex, he discovered a unique energetic life force that
pervaded all nature. Reich named this force “orgone energy.”
With Freud’s professional support, Reich quickly rose to the highest
ranks of academia. His classic book, Character Analysis (1933),
recounts his original contributions to psychiatry and introduces Reich’s
novel concept of “body armoring.” Reich discovered that unreleased
psychosexual energy could produce actual physical “blocks” within the
muscles and organs of the body. These blocks act as an unfortunate
“armor” preventing the release of blocked sexual energy. The orgasm,
along with the convulsive body spasms which accompany orgasm, is the
mechanism through which “orgone energy” is released by the body.
Reich believed a healthy and loving sex life is everyone’s right. In
fact, he considered a good sex life absolutely necessary for the proper
functioning of the body. He stressed that the social and political
ills of the world stemmed largely from society’s repression of
sexuality. This repression leads to unhappiness, depression, and the inability
to express joyous sexual love. For countless people the sexual energy is
blocked because of personal body armoring. As a result of this
armoring, such people often fall victim to various aspects of the “emotional
plague.”
In his practice of analytic psychiatry Reich broke with tradition.
Instead of sitting passively, notebook in hand while his patients talked,
Reich took an active role in the therapy. He frequently touched his
patients, felt their chests for breathing, and repositioned their bodies.
Sometimes he badgered and goaded them to physical action. In order to
observe their body response during analysis, he sometimes insisted that
all or part of the clothing be removed. Men were often reduced to
shorts; women to bra and panties. Reich’s colleagues publicly protested
against these unorthodox and radical psychiatric practices, and his most
vociferous opponents accused him of immorality.
Reich, Communism and the Nazis
As a young man in post-war Vienna during the 1920s and 30s, Reich was
active politically. Disliking the anti-sexual right-wing conservatives
and repelled by the fanaticism of the fascists, he migrated to Marxism
and the sexual freedom proclaimed by the communists. Although Reich was
a sex expert, his expertise did not carry over to the state of
matrimony. In 1922 he married Annie Pink, a psychiatrist. Their first child Eva
was born in 1924, and a second daughter in 1928. No matter how hard he
tried, it was impossible for Reich to conform to marital convention
and the marriage was chaotic.
In his writings the outspoken Reich went so far as to propose that a
series of romantic relationships (“serial monogamy”) was a better
alternative to marriage. In The Function of the Orgasm (1927) he declared:
“Marriage is only one of the many issues where social scientists go
astray, especially since they fail to see marriage for what it really
is – a sexual union, based primarily on genital love. They prefer to
ignore that fact and merely view it as an economic union or means to
perpetuate the human race. Actually very few people marry for money or to
have children; marriages of today really limit peoples’ freedom and
may lead to economic deprivation.”
For professional, political, and social reasons, Reich moved his
practice to Berlin in 1930. He joined the German Communist party, convinced
the sexual freedoms of Marxism would liberate the common man and foster
his mental health. As a spokesman for the Party, Reich advocated free
contraceptives, birth control, abortion on demand, and sex education in
schools.
By 1933, Reich’s marriage was on the rocks and he was already in
another passionate love relationship. The German communists were
increasingly disenchanted with the controversial Reich due to some of his
outrageous ideas on sexual-political matters. The Party finally expelled him.
He was also in a career crisis. His psychiatric writings and left-wing
political activities became progressively more out of tune with
Freud’s ideas and their relationship cooled considerably. In a supreme blow
to Reich’s career, the Psychiatric Association revoked his
membership.
All this personal turbulence was compounded by the rise of Hitler and
Nazism. The Nazi press damned Reich as a radical psychiatrist, an
anti-Nazi communist, a womaniser, and a Jew. Berlin was no longer safe.
Disguised as a tourist on a ski trip to Austria, he luckily got out of the
city by the skin of his teeth.
Returning to Vienna, he soon realised he was no longer professionally
welcome there either. He emigrated to Denmark but soon became embroiled
in disputes with Danish communists. From there, he relocated to Sweden,
but was again harassed by the authorities. Finally, through the help
of Norwegian colleagues, he secured residence in Oslo, where he had a
new laboratory and enough money to continue his research.
By 1934 Reich’s divorce was finalised. Escaping the Nazis, Annie and
his children resettled in Austria. Reich was madly in love with Elsa
Lindenberg who had dutifully followed him in his exodus to Austria,
Denmark, Sweden, and finally to Norway. In Norway he was determined to
continue his research into the orgone life force that he had discovered in
his orgasm experiments.
The Bion Experiments and the Origin of Life
His experiments began simply by close microscopic examinations of the
smallest form of cell life known to man: the so-called “protozoa.”
Reich marveled at the squirming amoebae that developed from his grass
and water “infusions.” Swimming in his microscopic preparations, the
one-celled organisms were seemingly structureless blobs, yet they were
also exceedingly complex forms that ate, digested, contracted,
expelled, and multiplied. He playfully applied a small electric current and
watched the protozoa contract and elongate.
During the years 1934-1937 Reich was totally absorbed in his
experiments on the origin of life. His preparations consisted of infusions of
various substances, such as grass, beach sand, earth, coal, iron fillings
and animal tissue. He tested various combinations and added potassium,
gelatin and other biochemicals to the mixtures. Boiling the
preparations resulted in a marked increase in the number of “vesicles” that
could be cultured.
After much experimentation, Reich concluded the cultured vesicles were
intermediate “transitional” forms which were “midway between life
and non-life.” “Dead” inorganic substances (such as sand, earth,
and coal) gave birth to vesicles which pulsed with life. Reich named
these energetic vesicles “bions.” He suspected bions were a
heretofore unrecognised elementary stage of life.
After cooling the boiled bion cultures, he poured some of the boiled
material onto laboratory nutrient culture media designed to grow ordinary
bacteria. An unbelievable phenomenon resulted: the boiled bion
cultures gave birth to peculiar-looking bacteria, and amoeboe!
To eliminate the possibility of contamination, Reich heated the
cultures to the intense, flaming, glowing temperatures of incandescence (150
degrees Centigrade), and repeatedly sterilised his lab culture media by
autoclaving it at a high temperature (180 degrees Centigrade) and
pressure. At the time it was thought no known bacteria or any other life
forms could possible survive such a high temperature and pressure.
Reich believed he had discovered an indestructible life force that
defied death. He concluded: Bions are preliminary stages of life; they are
transitional forms from the inorganic and non-motile – to the
organic, motile, and culturable state.
When Reich’s The Bion Experiments On the Origin of Life was published
in Oslo in 1938, the book created a furore. His critics latched onto
one paragraph in the book that intimated Reich might have inadvertently
found a cancer cure. Reich wrote that preliminary studies showed
bion-like structures could be cultured from human blood and “bion research
proved particularly fruitful for an understanding of cancer.” He was
attacked by the scientific and lay press as a “Jew pornographer”
who was tinkering with life and promoting a quack cancer cure.
Instead of discouraging him, the attacks lured him deeper and deeper
into orgone research. Reich was determined to prove, beyond doubt, the
reality of the new life energy forms he had discovered.
The T-Bacilli, Cancer and Reich’s Bions
The unfair accusations surrounding the publication of The Bion
Experiments goaded Reich into trying to solve the mystery of cancer. Weeks
earlier he had placed some sterile cancer tissue (provided by the surgeons
at a local hospital) into flasks containing liquid nutrient broth. Now
in his anger, he scurried around to retrieve the bottles. To his
astonishment, “all these cultures showed a green-blue coloration. Taking
material from the margin, [Reich] inoculated a new agar plate and saw,
for the first time, the T-bacilli, the discovery of which would help
break down the mystery surrounding the cancer problem.”
The finding of bacteria in cancer filled Reich with a curious mixture
of fear and awe. With fear because he knew that solving the secrets of
cancer would be a Herculean task, further antagonising the medical
establishment against him. With awe, because he intuitively knew these
bacilli were involved in the agonising cancer deaths that affected countless
millions. After much study, Reich named his newly-discovered cancer
microbes “T” bacilli, after the German word “Tod”, meaning death.
The years 1934-1937 in Norway were Reich’s happiest. The bion work
was exceedingly productive, and he was deeply in love with Elsa
Lindenberg. In August 1938, Hitler annexed Austria. Miraculously, Annie and his
children had emigrated to America the month before. Reich’s lingering
presence in Norway increasingly angered the authorities, and the
newspaper attacks against him were unrelenting.
Aggravated by depression and bouts of jealously and pettiness, his
relationship with Elsa cooled. An American colleague strongly urged Reich
to emigrate to the United States. In August 1939, on the last boat to
leave Norway before the war, Reich left for America. Half-heartedly he
had asked Elsa to come, but their tempestuous love affair was over and
beyond repair. By this time Reich was also completely disillusioned with
the communists and their false promises and their perversion of
Marx’s humanitarian ideals. Never again would their philosophy interest him,
and he became an ardent anti-communist.
When he embarked for America, Wilhelm Reich was no longer young. He was
42 years old and he would again be a stranger in a strange land. He
rented a house in Forest Hills, Long Island, and soon began a new love
affair with Ilse Ollendorf, who was extremely helpful in assisting him
with his research. They were married in 1946 and Ilse bore him a son,
Peter.
The cancer work continued with the T-bacilli proving to be the key to
the origin of cancer. Reich’s experiments showed that all life
contains orgone energy and when this energy diminishes in the cells, either
through injury or aging, the cells undergo a death process that Reich
termed “bionous degeneration.” As a consequence of this degeneration,
the deadly T-bacilli begin to form in the cells.
Reich could demonstrate these bacteria microscopically in living (and
unstained) cancer cells. Cultures of T-bacilli injected into mice caused
inflammation and eventual death from cancer. The T-bacilli that formed
in the cells provoked a reaction in the tissues resulting in the
formation of vesicular swellings. Microscopically, these vesicles gave off a
bluish glow, and Reich called them “blue PA bions” because they
resembled the clumped “PAcket” bions that were experimentally
produced when he heated substances (such as grass and coal) to high
temperatures.
In degenerating cancerous tissue, the blue PA bions seriously affected
the orgone energy of the cells. In other mouse experiments, Reich
injected blue bions into the tissue and observed the resulting cancerous
cell changes and the development of actual protozoa. These cancerous
changes were similar to what had occurred in Reich’s earliest experiments
during the death process of cut blades of grass immersed in his water
infusions. First the tissue cells swelled and formed vesicles; and
eventually transformed into protozoa.
Reich found that cancer cells have less orgone energy than normal,
healthy cells. As the energy-depleted cancer cells break down and
degenerate into T-bacilli, putrefaction of the body occurs. It is the
overwhelming infection with T-bacilli and the massive breakdown of cancer tissue
that causes most deaths from cancer. Cancer is literally death in the
living body.
Reich discovered T-bacilli not only in the cancer tumours, but also in
the blood, the body fluids, and the excreta of cancer patients. He
originally thought the T-bacillus was the specific infectious agent of
cancer. But these cancer microbes were eventually found by Reich in persons
with other diseases – and Reich also observed the T-bacilli in the
blood and excreta of normal healthy people!
The blood of cancer patients produced T-bacilli easily and quickly. In
contrast, normal blood produced the bacilli slowly. Reich concluded
“the disposition to cancer is therefore determined by the biological
resistance of the blood and the tissues to putrefaction. This biological
resistance, in turn, is itself determined by the orgone energy content
of the blood and tissues, which is to say, by the organotic potency of
the organism.”
Reich in America, the Oranur Experiment, and Orgone Energy
Reich’s early years in America were comparatively quiet compared to
his turbulent years in Europe, but his biomedical activities did not go
unnoticed by the authorities. In December 1941, under the guise of
subversive activity, the FBI arrested Reich and detained him at Ellis
Island for three weeks. The exact reasons for the arrest were never made
clear, but the harrowing experience further embittered him against his
real and imagined enemies.
Along with his cancer discoveries, Reich had first noticed biological
energy radiating from a beach sand bion culture in his Oslo lab back in
January 1939. Now, in America, Reich would follow his hunches that
would lead him to discover a new energy pervading the entire planet.
Reich and his lab co-workers frequently experienced headaches,
irritability, and other unpleasant psychological and physical effects when
working with certain radioactive bion cultures. It was theorised the beach
sand had absorbed considerable quantities of radiation from the sun.
When the sand was experimentally heated to incandescence (1,500 degrees
Centigrade), Reich believed the solar radiation energy contained within
the sand was released. Whatever the reason, there was no doubt orgone
radiation was real and bion cultures had to be handled with extreme care
because of their radioactivity.
In July 1940 Reich discovered orgone energy in the atmosphere! In order
to study the effects of this radiation, he designed a
specially-constructed box to house and concentrate this energy. Boxes were constructed
to house lab animals. Eventually larger boxes were constructed in which
a person could sit comfortably. Reich was interested in determining
the effect of atmospheric orgone energy on humans, particularly persons
with far-advanced and incurable forms of cancer.
It was this “orgone accumulator box” and its use in human cancer
experimentation that caused the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to
begin an intensive investigation of Reich’s scientific activities in
the late 1940s. There were all sorts of rumours that the accumulator
was a “sex box” which induced uncontrollable erections and stirred up
intense and immoral sexual passions. As a result, Reich was harassed
and intimidated by the authorities. Condemnatory articles in the
professional and lay press added fuel to the fire by alluding to Reich’s
mental problems and his sex-tinged research.
In the early 1940s Reich bought a summer house and acreage in Maine. He
dearly loved the clean air, the clarity of the atmosphere, and the
peacefulness of the place. A research lab was eventually built on the
site, and in 1950 he moved permanently to the site he named Organon. He was
fifty-three years old and tired of the stress of his psychoanalytic
practice. Over the years his continuing practice had helped tremendously
to support Reich’s studies and family, but now he wished to devote
the remaining years of his life exclusively to orgone research.
At Organon a dangerous experiment began. Reich was deeply concerned
with the planetary dangers unleashed by atomic warfare at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and in the early 1950s it was feared the Korean War might
provoke another nuclear holocaust. Reich believed orgone energy could be
harnessed as a possible antidote for nuclear radiation. He began testing
the effects of orgone energy (OR) on nuclear energy (NR), and named the
experiment “Oranur.”
During the Oranur experiment, radioactive radium was brought to
Reich’s lab and housed in a special room containing orgone energy. The slow
mixing of the two energies produced a nuclear chain reaction with
devastating consequences. As a result of this nuclear accident, Reich
learned that nuclear energy drastically changes orgone energy – converting
it into “deadly orgone energy” (DOR). The laboratory accident
seriously affected the physical, mental, and emotional health of Reich and
his co-workers and necessitated a complete shut down of the lab until
the dangerous radiation levels cleared.
Reich’s daughter, Eva, almost died in the mishap. Eva had been
estranged from her father for years, but after finishing medical school, she
joined him at Organon to help with the Oranur experiment. The stressful
changes wrought by Oranur, and the increasing harassment by the FDA,
put Reich under great pressure. He was never quite the same again.
The experiment undoubtedly contributed to Reich’s worsening
relationship with Ilse. The marriage become more and more stormy as he tormented
Ilse with accusations of infidelity and was physically abusive. Few
people understood the clinical nature of feelings and emotions better
than Reich; and yet he could be cruel, unyielding, and insanely jealous in
his love relationships. He preached sexual freedom for all but he
practised a sexual double standard in marriage that allowed him to be
unfaithful, but never his mate.
While Reich was immersed in the problems of Oranur, Ilse developed
uterine cancer. She was convinced her cancer was connected with the
radiation experiments at Organon. While she convalesced from surgery, Reich
cruelly filed for divorce. After it was finalised in September 1951, he
began another relationship. The following month he suffered a major
heart attack.
According to David Boadella’s biography of Reich, “The Oranur
experiment had exposed Reich and all those who worked with him to severe
strains. The remainder of his life was to be devoted to working on the
many problems that the atmospheric chain reaction provoked by Oranur
opened up, and it was particularly unfortunate for Reich that just at the
time when he was struggling to cope with the dislocation to the normal
activities of the Institute, he should become victim of a sustained
campaign to belittle, discredit and attack his work on many fronts.”
Reich’s Trial, Book Burning and Imprisonment
Despite constant attacks by the FDA, Reich pursued his experiments
undaunted. He built a “cloud buster” in order to affect the orgone
energy in the atmosphere. In the Arizona desert he induced rain by forcing
clouds to form and disperse. Like a god, he began to control the forces
of nature, as no one before him had ever done.
He was convinced the scientific world would recognise the value of his
work and would appreciate the great benefit orgone energy could bring
mankind. Long before such subjects were popular, Reich was concerned
about toxic waste, nuclear energy, and planetary pollution; he knew their
detrimental and damaging effects on the atmospheric orgone energy. He
was sure the FDA would never destroy his research which held so much
promise for the planet and its healing. Reich also had implicit faith in
the fairness of the American legal system. He fully believed that
American justice would never allow his important work to be discontinued.
Whether from ignorance or arrogance, or both, Reich severely
underestimated the power of the FDA and the campaign against him. In February
1954 the FDA issued an injunction forbidding the interstate shipment of
orgone accumulators. The injunction also denied the existence of orgone
energy, and proclaimed all Reich’s books and publications were
promotional materials for the worthless accumulator.
As demanded by the terms of the injunction, Reich foolishly refused to
appear in court. He was adamant his scientific work could never be
properly argued or evaluated in court. His legal counsel pleaded with him
to reconsider, but he stood firm in his position. His unyielding
decision had disastrous consequences. The FDA won the injunction by default.
The legal maneuverings culminated in a trial that took place in
Portland, Maine, in May 1956. Reich was arrested in Washington, DC, on
contempt of court charges, and was forcibly brought to Portland in chains. His
refusal to cooperate with the court did not bode well with the judge.
Time was running out for Reich. Years earlier he had been abandoned by
the psychoanalytic establishment. The communists drummed him out of the
Party, and the Nazis wanted him dead. He had offended the Austrians,
the Danes, the Swedes and the Norwegians. Now the Americans would have
the opportunity to destroy the mad psychiatrist and his new god of
orgone.
Reich was finally done in. He had played into the hands of his enemies,
and now they had him where they wanted him. Reich was sentenced to two
years in federal prison.
Before imprisonment, the FDA had its final vengeance. On June 5, 1956,
FDA officials came to Organon. Reich and his young son Peter watched in
silence as the federal officials axed the accumulators. On June 26,
Reich’s many books and journals at Organon were burned by government
authorities. On August 23 in New York City the final destruction of
Reich’s literature took place. Six tons of books, journals and papers were
burned in a scientific holocaust. And not a single major newspaper in
the Land of the Free protested this unprecedented action, so
reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
In early March 1957 Reich was imprisoned at Danbury Federal Prison. The
psychiatrist who examined Reich recorded the diagnosis: “Paranoia
manifested by delusions of grandiosity and persecution and ideas of
reference.” A few weeks later, Reich was transferred to the federal
penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
The United States government won. Officially, orgone energy did not
exist. Reich was certified as a mentally ill, quack psychiatrist who tried
to foist a sex box and a cancer cure on the American public. The Reich
affair was terminated.
In his prison cell towards the end of October he began to feel poorly,
but he was afraid to bring the matter to the attention of the prison
officials. He told friends that his jailers would try to kill him in
prison, and believed he would never get out alive. On November 3, 1957,
Reich was found dead in his cell, an apparent victim of a heart attack.
Reich’s Scientific Legacy
The body was taken to Organon for burial. A small band of loyal
followers, including Ilse, Eva, and Peter, paid their last respects. Elsworth
Baker, M.D., who had studied with Reich for eleven years, gave the
eulogy. “Friends, we are here to say farewell, a last farewell to Wilhelm
Reich. Once in a thousand years, nay once in two thousand years, such
a man comes upon this earth to change the destiny of the human race. As
with all great men, distortion, falsehood, and persecution followed
him. He met them all until an organised conspiracy sent him to prison and
there killed him.”
Years later, Dr. Baker also wrote: “Reich’s attitude, in fact his
entire life, was unconventional and as difficult for the world to
understand as were his discoveries. Many legends, probably even religions,
will develop about him. Already, some people look upon him as a superman
who could not err, or as a spaceman come to earth; others have
rationalised and written articles attempting to prove him insane, a charlatan,
or a fraud, He was very human, natural, and open, and foremost, a great
and genuine scientist. He could be as soft and warm as a summer breeze
or as violent and angry as a thunderstorm.”
Was he a genius or a madman? For those who consider Reich an enemy of
the people, his official sins are duly recorded in the dusty archives of
office buildings in Vienna, Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo and Washington.
For those willing to take the time to investigate Reich’s writings, a
different sort of man emerges.
It is my feeling that Reich desperately wanted to show the world God
existed in the realm of the orgone. Through the study of orgonomy, Reich
believed man and science could prove, beyond doubt, that God is real.
Like God, the orgone is indestructible. And like God, orgone energy
exists everywhere in the universe. Man’s spirit constantly reflects the
orgone, eternally imbued with new life rising from the ashes of death.
Almost a half-century after his death, his scientific legacy persists.
Reichian (Orgone) therapy is practised by some psychiatrists and
psychologists. The American College of Orgonomy publishes the Journal of
Orgonomy devoted to his work, and maintains a web site ( www.orgonomy.org
). Reich’s laboratory and burial place at Organon is now a Museum with
a bookstore open to the public. Cloud-busting followers like Jim DeMeo
have established an Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory in Ashland,
Oregon. The lab conducts yearly seminars reproducing Reich’s bion
experiments and demonstrating Reich’s blood test procedures.
Reich’s T-bacilli are obviously connected to still controversial and
current bacteriologic findings of so-called nanobacteria, pleomorphic
bacteria, cell-wall-deficient bacteria, and mycoplasma. In addition,
newly discovered bacteria have been found in the blood of all human
beings. All of these microbial life forms have been implicated as possible
cancer-causing and disease-causing agents.
In some ways Reich was childlike and surprisingly naïve. His downfall
was overestimating the goodness of science; and underestimating the
dark forces of science. In human terms, he paid for this error with his
life.
Science, as we know it, is becoming increasingly “dark.” As this
new century begins, scientists continue to discover all sorts of new ways
to kill mass numbers of people and other living things with chemical,
biological, and nuclear warfare. Perhaps it is time to take another
look at Reich’s discoveries and his dream to harness orgone energy for
planetary healing. Rather than automatically placing Dr. Wilhelm Reich
in the trash bin of medical science, he might eventually prove to be the
most inventive and far-sighted physician-scientist of the twentieth
century. H
References:
Baker EF: "My eleven years with Reich". Journal of Orgonomy 18:155-171,
1984.
Boadella D: Wilhelm Reich: The Evolution of His Work. Vision Press,
Chicago, 1973.
Cantwell AR, Blasband RA: "Bionous tissue disintegration in AIDS".
Journal of Orgonomy 22:220-228, 1988.
Cantwell AR: The Cancer Microbe. Aries Rising Press, Los Angeles, 1990.
Cantwell AR: "Bionous breakdown in degenerative disease". Journal of
Orgonomy 25:191-202, 1991.
Cantwell AR: "Bacteria, cancer and the origin of life". New Dawn,
November 2003, pp 71-76.
Reich W: The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life. Ferrar, Straus and
Giroux, New York, 1979.
Reich W: The Cancer Biopathy. Ferrar, Straus and Giroux, NY, 1973.
Reich W: Passion of Youth; An Autobiography, 1897-1922. Ferrar, Straus
and Giroux, New York, 1988.
Sharaf MR: Fury On Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich. St. Martin’s
Press/Marek, New York, 1983.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Alan Cantwell MD is a retired physician and cancer researcher who
believes cancer is caused by bacteria and AIDS is man-made. There is
probably no other physician on the planet whose publications are as
controversial. Many of his published writings can be found on google.com; and
thirty of his published papers can be accessed at
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/ (type in Cantwell AR).
In 1984 (the year HIV was discovered), his book AIDS: The Mystery and
the Solution was published, showing the presence of cancer-associated
bacteria in this syndrome. And in 1990, The Cancer Microbe: The Hidden
Killer in Cancer, AIDS, and Other Immune Diseases was published, which
documented a century of suppressed cancer microbe research. His other
books are AIDS & The Doctors of Death and Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS
Genocide Plot.
Dr. Cantwell is now happily retired from the clinical practice of
dermatology for 10 years. He lives in Hollywood, California, with his
partner of 30 years, and their five cats. To contact him, write: Aries Rising
Press, PO Box 29532, Los Angeles, CA 90029, USA. Email:
alancantwell@sbcglobal.net