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ADVENTURES in the ORGASMATRON, HOW the SEXUAL REVOLUTION CAME to AMERICA by Christopher Turner

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ADVENTURES in the ORGASMATRON, HOW the SEXUAL REVOLUTION CAME to AMERICA by Christopher Turner Book Review ADVENTURES IN THE ORGASMATRON, HOW THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION CAME TO AMERICA by Christopher Turner. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, N.Y., 2011. 532 pages including index. $35.00. review by Richard A. Blasband, M.D. Keywords: book review, Wilhelm Reich, orgone, sexual revolution, ORAC, psychoanalysis Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine • Volume 21 • Number 2 • Page 63 hristopher Turner writes for Cabinet magazine, association. In addition to character analysis, Reich’s Ca British quarterly that publishes articles about major discovery during the psychoanalytic phase of his many facets of society, culture, science, and what work was the clinical finding, made through detailed have you, some of them allegedly rendered in a questioning of the sexual practices of his patients, that scholarly way. the majority of them by far were sexually impotent, that is, incapable of true gratification from the sexual The present book, Turner’s first, is, I believe, intended act. Women were anesthetic or focused exclusively on to be scholarly in that Turner sets out in some detail clitoral climaxes rather than vaginal orgasm; men were the historical background for what he perceived to be often erectively impotent or suffered from premature the sexual revolution. In it, he provides interesting, ejaculation. When they were potent, too often they reasonably well written information about political and were incapable of surrendering emotionally to their cultural conditions in Europe and the United States in partner. In all cases there was a great fear of giving in the early and middle part of the 20th Century, when to orgastic pleasure. When, through the character the modern sexual revolution germinated and came analytic process, they overcame this fear they rapidly into full force. lost their neurotic symptoms. Following Freud’s original thinking, Reich thought that this fact indicated However, it is difficult to decide whether the central that there was an “economic” factor in neurosis: if the theme of the book is the sexual revolution, per se or patient became capable of discharging stored excessive the life and work of Wilhelm Reich. Of course, the quantities of libido, neurotic fixations lost their energy two are inextricably bound together, as it was Reich source and, as a result, their power to influence the who laid the scientific foundation for understanding individual. This quantitative energetic factor became sexuality in depth and for actively educating a cardinal element in all his following work. professionals and the masses about these facts and their significance for physical and emotional health and Extensive deep investigations of social practices societal functioning. It is Reich’s book, The Sexual convinced Reich that neurosis might be treated on a Revolution that originally documented this shift in mass level through education about healthy sexuality. societal mores. Other pioneers in modern times who Therefore, through a temporary alliance with the worked toward changing our sexual mores - Freud, Communist Party in Berlin, where he was practicing other psychoanalysts, Kinsey, Marcuse and Perls, are at the time, he organized clinics and rallies where also mentioned and their work reasonably described, people, including adolescents, could receive but they are given short shrift compared to Reich. It is information about healthy sexual practices including here, however, that scholarly objectivity disappears. contraception. The rallies were attended by thousands eager for scientific information about sexuality and life. Before offering the reader my critique of Turner’s book, I think it well worthwhile to offer a very brief synopsis In Reich’s practice of psychoanalysis this meant that the of Reich’s work since some readers of this journal may goal became increasing the capacity of patients to not be familiar with its scope. surrender to their deepest impulses. When this could be done in the sexual embrace with a loved partner, Wilhelm Reich was born in Austria in 1897 and, as a bound energy would be adequately discharged and physician, became a practicing psychoanalyst in Vienna neurosis cured or prevented. This could not be done, in 1919 at the age of 22. His elders and peers, however, simply by wish or command because patients including Freud, recognized his brilliance, and his consciously and unconsciously resisted such surrender. seminal work on the analysis of character was accepted The resistances took the form of character attitudes on in large part by the psychoanalytic community as a both psychological and somatic levels. The major modification of the standard technique of free psychological attitudes, the “character armoring” Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine • Volume 21 • Number 2 • Page 64 described by Reich, was rather well known, but Reich light phenomena such as lightening-like tiny rays, a also discovered that the psychological attitudes were blue glow in the air, the magnetization of metallic anchored in chronic muscular tensions (muscular instruments and light impressions on closed film armoring). Complimenting the analysis of the patient’s cassettes without exposure to light. There were also character, dissolution of the muscular armoring was strong biological effects such as “sun burned” skin now utilized as a means of helping the patient exposed to the bions, and conjunctivitis in the eye overcome his/her resistances. This innovation became Reich used to view bions in the microscope. Fearing the basis of what is now known as “body work” in some form of nuclear radiation, Reich had the bion therapy, utilized by thousands of practitioners cultures tested by a radiation specialist at a nearby independent of those studying and utilizing Reich’s Oslo hospital. Nuclear radiation was ruled out as were methods on a more formal basis. all possible other known forms of radiation. Reich was forced to conclude that he had discovered a previously In the process of conducting “vegetotherapy”, as Reich unknown kind of radiation, which he called “orgone” initially called the method, he noted that with the because he discovered it in the course of his study of dissolution of the patient’s armoring strong clonisms the sexual orgasm and because it was absorbed by and pulsations appeared along with “electric currents” organic materials. Metals attracted and repelled it as that patients described coursing through their body. revealed by electroscopic investigations. Following a bioelectric theory of life extant at the time, Reich postulated that the libidinal energy was electrical In order to examine the luminations more carefully, in nature and that the fundamental life process was its Reich built an enclosure consisting of non-metallic walls spontaneous pulsation, its rhythmic expansion and and an inner metal lining. He reasoned that, with the contraction. In the 1930s Reich studied this bion cultures within the enclosure, the orgone radiation phenomenon experimentally with a DC would be concentrated inside. The light phenomena millivoltmeter of his own design. Readings on were more readily seen, but to Reich’s surprise the subject’s bodies, when in acute emotional states of phenomena remained after removing the bions and anxiety, anger, or pleasure, confirmed Reich’s concept even after washing down the inner metal lining. Even of spontaneous organismic pulsation. Certain of the building a new enclosure without placing bions within objective findings did not, however, fit an electrical it showed the same luminations. It was clear to Reich concept. This set Reich on the path to the discovery that the enclosure was somehow concentrating a of what he later called “orgone energy”. radiation that existed in the atmosphere. Reich named the enclosure the “orgone energy accumulator” By examining boiled food stuffs, a natural source of (ORAC). He demonstrated many powerful biological life energy, Reich found under sterile conditions using effects, including prolongation of the life of mice with high magnification microscopy that, no matter what cancerous tumors as well as anomalous physical effects the original source, all foods broke down into within the enclosure such as a spontaneous elevation of microscopic vesicles that Reich called “bions.” The temperature and an anomalous prolongation of bions consisted only of a membrane and some inner discharge times of statically-charged electroscopes. Later fluid, water. They glowed blue and moved from place he found that Geiger-Mueller Counters could also to place in the microscope field. Bions could also be detect the orgone. In the next decade, Reich was able secured from non-organic sources such as carbon, iron to experimentally demonstrate a motor force by filings, and ocean sand by heating them to hooking specially prepared devices to accumulators; incandescence and placing them in sterile nutrient anomalous interactions between nuclear radiation media. Remarkably, they divided. Cultures of bions sources and concentrated orgone energy; and weather from ocean sand seemed to luminate strongly and the modification by a device that could alter the laboratory containing them showed anomalous effects; distribution of orgone energy in the atmosphere. Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine • Volume 21 • Number 2 • Page 65 All of these experiments, including aspects of the tenable for Reich to stay in Norway where he had made nuclear radiation experiment, have been independently his major biological discoveries. Reich came to the U.S. replicated by scientifically competent investigators on the invitation of Theodore Wolfe, M.D., a Professor including myself and have been published in a variety of psychiatry at Columbia University, to lecture on his of scientific journals. medical discoveries at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Still in the introduction, Wilhelm Reich died in 1957. Since then there have been the ORAC is described as, “a box in which...his (Reich’s) three books published on Reich and his work, ideas came almost prepackaged...an almost magical orgonomy, to the present time. The first was Wilhelm device that could improve its users orgastic Reich and Orgonomy by Ola Raknes, a student of Reich, potency...and their mental health,” both of which in 1970.
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