WILHELM REICH – LIBERATION THEOLOGIAN OF COSMIC ENERGY
By Dr. Steven J. Katz
Copyright 2009, 2011
The World of Reich – An Introductory Essay
The world of Wilhelm Reich was a world struggling to emerge from the chaos and mass murder of the last 100 years. It is a world that ultimately claimed his life in a prison cell in 1957. This book chronicles an attempt to comprehend that world without the constraints of any orthodoxies or dogmas. It is an uncensored look in the face of crucified life. The probability that the human race will not survive the coming centuries, or perhaps even the 21st century, is high. The demons of nuclear and biological war are spreading and waiting their chance to be unleashed by the power mad emotional plague humans who rule the earth’s destiny. Perhaps the Russian mystic P.D. Ouspensky was right, and there are too many spiritual laws against humanity liberating itself from this plague. However, if there is a way out, Dr. Wilhelm Reich’s life and work remains a beacon of hope. [Cf. "The Book of Revelation," 13:11 - 13:18, the New Testament.] This work is a journey, and a spiritual vision quest. It consists of this introduction to the world of Reich, and a series of letters written over three years (1996-1999) between myself and the late Dr. Victor Silver (a fictitious name to preserve the privacy of my correspondent, a philosopher with a PhD from Columbia University). In order to bring out the underlying themes of the correspondence, the letters have been edited and annotated. Dr. Silver, philosopher and mystic, had written a series of articles published in the Journal of Orgonomy. He also taught Reich in his capacity as a philosophy teacher whenever he could. I was his student as a philosophy major at Adelphi University in the 1960’s, and later his friend, correspondent, and fellow philosopher during the late 1990’s. The topics covered are Orgonomy, politics, and mysticism. In the face of the chronic murder of Christ all over the planet by the anti-life humans in charge of the various power pathological societies, masked by rationalizing ideologies, this work defiantly represent the continuing search for knowledge, spirit and life. It also brings forthbefore an exploration work of followers, Wilhelm Reich’s lastnot years in a some way not attempted by any ofofhisthe orthodox certainly among (but not all) of the medical doctors who have made his revolutionary discoveries into a narrow and authoritarian medical specialty. There is no more time. This creates an opening to blast the continuum of repression and exploitation into the eternal Messianic sparks of liberation. To remain in the continuum that we are now in will mean the extinction of life. The Capitalist states are murdering, physically and spiritually, with impunity all over our planet. Pathogenic religious warfare is spreading like wildfire. Like a cancer, this plague of inhumanity and lifekilling deadly energy has spread globally. With the defeat of the deformed worker’s states in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, the only existing chemotherapy holding these cancer tumors in check has disappeared. The surgery that Trotsky recommended, world-wide revolution,
no longer has revolutionary upsurges to carry it out, and, even if it did, it has no weapons against the deadly spiritual energy. The spiritual paradigm for dealing with this plague has new weapons in future science, both cosmic and terrestrial. It needs an enrichment of subjective spiritual liberation to succeed in an ever-evolving spiral. The bio-energetic approach provides the subjective/objective fusion necessary to create revolutionary spiritual action throughout the globe. The rational core of the enlightenment given in-depth existential dimension by functional mysticism can provide us with a much needed modern revolutionary Gnosticism. This functional mysticism is dependent on the deepest revolutionary spiritual functions geared toward the liberation of the sparks of the Godhead’s oceanic energy [functional mysticism was well represented in the primitive communalism of early Christianity before it was co-opted by the Roman State]. This energy, which Reich called Orgone, was trapped in dense matter by an evil spiritual power worshipped as the God of repression and vengeance. Wilhelm Reich, in truth a healthy Jewish mystic, by gathering and uniting these sparks of the true God in the human organism and the atmosphere, demonstrated revolutionary functional mysticism. He is simply the most recent philosopher to travel this path. Jesus Christ and Sabbatai Sevi traveled it before him. Others will come in metaphysical UFOs to continue to spark the permanent revolution. [See: Hoffman, Edward, "The Way of Splendor - Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology," pgs. 43, 66, 85, 221 (Boston, Shambhala, 1981); Mann, W. Edward and Hoffman, Edward, "The Man Who Dreamed of Tomorrow - A Conceptual Biography of Wilhelm Reich," Chapter 7, "Spiritual Reawakening," pgs. 181-204 (Los Angeles, J.P. Tarcher, 1980); Reich, Peter, "A Book of Dreams" (N.Y., Harper & Row,1973); Reich, Wilhelm, "Contact With Space" (N.Y., Core Pilot Press, 1957); Reich, Wilhelm, "The Murder of Christ" (N.Y., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980); Scholem, Gershom, "Sabbatai Sevi, The Mystical Messiah" (Princton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1973); Reich, Ilse Ollendorff, "Wilhelm Reich," pgs. 131-160 (N.Y., St. Martin's Press, 1969); Sharaf, Myron, "Fury On Earth," pgs. 410-483 (N.Y., St. Martin's Press/Marek, 1983); Martin, Jim, "Wilhelm Reich And The Cold War," pgs. 377-417 (Fort Bragg, California, Flatland Books, 2000). See also: Encyclopedia of the World's Religions, edited by R.C. Zaehner, "Dialectical Materialism," by R.C. Zaehner, pgs. 393-407 (N.Y., Barnes & Noble Books, 1997); Zaehner, R.C., "Mysticism - Sacred and Profane" (N.Y., Oxford University Press, 1961).]. The Omega Point of Christogenesis, as Teilhard de Chardin put it, can be reached as one of the highest forms of civilization following the dissolution of power pathological societies. As in Kabbalistic philosophy, we are aiming at a return to the source of light and life that created us. The natural process that created the srcin of our Universe in the Big Bang contained a fundamental flaw. As the infinite orgone energy ocean of the prior Universe contracted into a quantum point, a new domain was created for the orgasmic explosion of the cosmic energies into creation [there were infinite prior Universes and will be infinite future
Universes if one can use the concept of "time" to describe an infinite and eternal process of becoming]. The dialectic of Being and Nothingness was structured into this Big Bang. This living energy eventually became “armored” and congealed into what the Cabbalists called “shells” [dense matter] and cast “down” into the material dimensions. [For the Kabbalistic explanation of this see: Ashlag, Rabbi Yehuda L., "The Kabbalah - A Study of the Ten Luminous Emanations from Rabbi Isaac Luria (The Old City, Jerusalem, Israel, 1984). See also, for the analogous process of contraction and creation from mass free orgone energy, Reich, Wilhelm, "Experimental Demonstration of the Physical Orgone Energy," pgs. 133-146, in International Journal of Sex-Economy and OrgoneResearch, Vol. 4, Numbers 2 and 3 (November 1946).] An alien natural-spiritual power, out of hatred of life, functioned to interfere with the cosmic creation of life energy. The source of our Universe is one of an infinite number of other spiritual sources in eternity, and the God of Life Energy was challenged by one of these other sources in theform of an evil natural power. The Eternal Godhead beyond this series of lower spiritual powers, both life-furthering and deadly, dances in wave/particle vibrations with absolute serenity. Reich called this evil alien power “the enemy of humanity.” Dr. Reich knew it well from the deadly orgone energy in the atmosphere of the earth, and in human armoring. He scientifically discovered its objective existence during the “Oranur Experiment” [to be described below]. Ultimately, Reich thought this deadly spiritual energy had a cosmic source, as did other heretical Gnostics [See: Jonas, Hans, "The Gnostic Religion" (Boston, Beacon Press, 1963)]. Reich wanted the creation of “Harbors for Life,” “Churches for Life,” and “Sanctuaries for Life.” He recognized that humanity had to be protected from this deadly force. Reich, Ilse Ollendorff, “Wilhelm Reich,” pg. 156 (N.Y., St. Martin’s Press, 1969).]. Exiled from the true God of life and light, we still have shards of divinity within us. The ancient Cabbalists thought that by a gathering of these sparks, both in the microcosmic and the macrocosmic, we could ascend back to the Godhead from our entrapment in material matter. As Jacques Lacarriere stated in his “The Gnostics,” “Let us sum up: we are exploited on a cosmic scale, we are the proletariat of the demiurge-executioner, slaves exiled into a world that is viscerally subjected to violence; we are the dregs and sediment of a lost heaven, strangers on our own planet.” [Lacarriere, Jacques, "The Gnostics," pg. 29 (San Francisco, City Lights Books, 1977)]. Wilhelm Reich made his initial breakthrough out of this cosmic entrapment when he discovered the function of the orgasm. He learned that full and free loving sexual intercourse lead to a complete body orgasm, resulting in the merging of the spiritual self with the partner, and that it resulted in a high degree of continuing bio-psychological health. It also produces critical truth seeking people able to challenge repressive and exploitative forces such as Capitalism or a new caste of communist party functionaries. Given that the function of the orgasm is the primary creative function in the cosmos, healthy humanity is also able to make contact with the energetic domain through cosmic contact. Cosmic superimpositions in the creation of the galaxies mirror the microcosmic
intercourse. [Reich, Wilhelm, translated by Therese Pol, Ether, God and Devil; Cosmic Superimposition (N.Y., Noonday Press, 1973).]. Repression of the orgasm reflex (the significance of which Reich first discovered in the 1920’s), and full fluid bodily movement, by the exploitative state apparatuses through the family, schools, and the police forces, produce passive uncritical masses. [Reich, Wilhelm, "The Function of the Orgasm" (N.Y., Noonday Press, 1961)]. This is the explanation for the failure of masses to permanently secure their freedoms won on the bloody battle fields of the Paris commune, the Russian revolution, and the Chinese revolution. Many people are unable to comprehend and challenge their exploitation and suppression by new castes of communist party functionaries or resurgent Capitalists. They remain trapped in the material domain with only narcotics or repressive organized distorted pathogenic religion or various political ideologies to dull the pain. Much more destructive than this mass passivity, and the dialectical complement to it, is the orgasmic impotence of highly active emotional plague individuals such as Hitler. Hitler was only able to come to orgasm by sadistic or masochistic means as prostitutes, or would be lovers, subjected him to dominating and degrading treatment. The excess undischarged bio-spiritual energy in his body resulted in demonic or deadly orgone energies that fueled his rise to power and his subsequent use by criminal capitalists to launch World War II. In pictures of Hitler giving his hypnotizing speeches to the German masses, one can see this energy displaced from his stagnating pelvic basin into the head and eyes. Pictures of Hitler interacting with children also show the wooden movement of his body. [See: Reich, Wilhelm, "The Mass Psychology of Fascism," trans. by Theodore P. Wolf (N.Y., Orgone Institute Press, 1946); Reich, Wilhelm, "The Function of the Orgasm" (N.Y., Noonday Press, 1961); Ravenscroft, Trevor, "The Spear of Destiny," pgs. 154-176 (York Beach, Maine, Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1997); Shirer, William L., "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" (N.Y., Simon & Schuster, 1990)]. The healthy individual is spontaneously an existential revolutionary. He or she is not the supporter of Capitalism as implied by the socio-political theorizing of Elsworth Baker and Paul Matthews. [Wilhelm Reich had much more in common with great libertarian anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Peter Kropotkin than he did with Ronald Reagan.] A spiritually-bioenergetically healthy person would also not support totalitarian state communism or a philosophy such as Maoism that is authoritarian and completely anti-sexual. Reich also thought Stalin embodied the emotional plague. State totalitarian corporate capitalism [Benito Mussolini: "Corporatism and the State equal fascism."], and state totalitarian communism, both represent current variants of “Babylon the Great Mother of All Prostitutes and Obscenities” foretold in the Book of Revelation [Revelation 17:5]. Reich specifically likened himself to Martin Luther when he opposed the Capitalist judicial frame-up that he had endured for shipping Orgone Energy Accumulators (to biologically recharge the organism with revolutionary energy) across state lines. He stated to Martin Bell in a bar in Washington D.C., before his imprisonment, that like Martin Luther, he could not do “otherwise” (as reported to the writer in a personal
conversation with former Orgone Institute Press worker Mr. Bell in the 1990′s). He had to nail his thesis of scientific independence to the door of the courthouse in denying the Capitalist judicial authorities the competence to judge his work. Leon Trotsky faced the same struggle with the elite caste in the Soviet Union. Meister Eckhart, the great mystic, and Giordano Bruno, the philosopher and cosmologist, were crucified by heresy trials. Dr. Reich specifically mentioned Bruno favorably in his “The Murder of Christ.” It was clear that he thought that Bruno was a precursor of his scientific and philosophic discoveries. Reich suffered the same fate at the hands of the U.S. government as did Eckhart and Bruno by the anti-life religious inquisitions of their day. [See: Yates, Frances, "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition" (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1991); and Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience,"Eckhart, Johannes (c. 1260-1327)" (Edison, N.J., Castle Books, 1991); Greenfield, Jerome, "Wilhelm Reich vs. the U.S.A." (N.Y., W.W. Norton & Company, 1974).]. In Norway, in the 1930s, Wilhelm Reich discovered the energy behind the orgasm which he called Orgone. Experiments lead him to find that it filled all of the cosmos and penetrated everything. It is the mass free energy behind all matter, both organic and inorganic. It is the regulation of this energy in the living organism that is responsible for health. The building up of this energy, because of bio-psychological defenses that Reich called armor, is held in chronic tension and can result in irrational behavior and various biopathies such as cancer, heart disease, and social pathologies such as predatory capitalism or stifling state socialism. In his discovery of an intelligent cosmic spiritual energy at the root of all that exists in the Universe, Dr. Reich discovered the substance of the Universe, hereto called “God” by the various religions. If his science of this cosmic energy, which he called orgone, delineates the laws and functioning of the universe, then it is a science of “God.” Since theology is the science of God, Reich can be rightly called a scientific materialist theologian. Reich, in his later work, attained a dialectical fusion of functional metaphysics and physics. He became a metaphysical materialist. On the verge of escaping from the trap, he was removed from the scene by the public and private powers he threatened by his very being. With the Oranur experiment, initiated in 1950-51, designed to find a way to use the life energy against atomic weapons, Reich broke through the boundary between physics and metaphysics. As stated by Dr. Victor Silver, Orgonomic Theologian: “In 1950, Dr. Wilhelm Reich conducted an experiment with Atomic energy which confirmed the objective existence of Good and Evil, God and the Devil, and their organic identification with all human health and sickness.” [Letter of Dr. Silver to Dr. Katz of May 6, 1998]. By putting nuclear energy inside a device designed to also concentrate cosmic creative mass free energy, Reich blew a hole through the barrier between physics and metaphysics. The creative spiritual energy, suppressed by the disintegrating anti-life radiation, was no longer able to flow from the metaphysical interdimensional domain to
the physical domain, and thus “went wild” into a destructive form of energy Reich called Deadly Orgone Energy (DOR). This also created in humans a form of DOR sickness, which, if overcome by Orgone energy in the organism, created vibrant emotional and physical health. It could also lead to a spiritual conversion process as described by William James in his “Varieties of Religious Experience.” With this process, Reich recovered old spiritual truths buried by scientific mechanical materialism and dogmatic religion alike. “Oranur First Report (1947-1951)” led directly to his writing “The Murder of Christ,” and then into the domain of UFOs as chronicled in his work “Contact with Space, Oranur Second Report, 1951-1956.” The emerging cosmic Oranur paradigm for this breakthrough can already be seen in his “Ether, God and Devil; Cosmic Superimposition,” published in 1949 and 1951 respectively. In “The Oranur Experiment,” Dr. Reich observed that all who worked on the project thought that they had entered: “some awful, deadly dangerous experience which we could not quite fully grasp, which had thrown us into some great depth, a heretofore wellhidden domain of cosmic functioning.” [See "The Oranur Experiment," p. 326-328 (Rangeley, Maine, Orgone Institute Press, 1951).] Reich felt that the experiment had broken down the barriers between the physical and the metaphysical. It had scientifically validated the Hindu concept of prana and other spiritual energies. It also unleashed the realm of “deadly spiritual energy” or DOR heretofore understood by the old western theologians as the “Devil.” [See Osesterreich, Traugott, "Possession and Exorcism" (N.Y., Causeway Books, 1974).]. In the Oranur process, Reich put radium inside an Orgone accumulator in order to see if it would neutralize the radiation. He was worried at that time about an attack on the United States triggered by Red Fascist North Korea. Reich wanted to see if Orgone could neutralize the effects of an atomic attack. The result of this experiment produced a form of Orgone energy that was deadly, that Reich called DOR (Deadly Orgone Energy). This clash between the Orgone energy of creation and the atomic energy of destruction may have punched holes in the space/time continuum, creating a portal between the material and metaphysical domains. In the 1956 movie, “Forbidden Plant,” a picture Reich as a science fiction movie enthusiast must certainly have viewed, the alien race of Krells evolved to a transition point between embodied intelligent energy and the mass free thought creation of matter. They forgot that in making this leap in cognition and cosmic existence, they would unleash any deadly orgone energy that they still harbored in the depths of their being. As a result, the Krell civilization was destroyed in one day. This underscores the vital necessity of the spiritual cleansing of humanity. [Forbidden Planet, MGM, 1956. Available in DVD. Directed by Fred Wilcox with Walter Pigeon as Dr. Morbius. Dr. Morbius, srcinally a philologist, took a "mind/body boost" from a Krell learning machine and deciphered some of their secrets. In the process, he released his own internalized DOR layer.]
In the introduction to the “Murder of Christ,” Reich stated that with the occurrence of the Oranur Experiment, the study of Christ was being published as biographical material. He talked about the “emotional implications” of the experiment. Reich went on to assert that Oranur provided basic spiritual solutions to the social problems of humanity. [See Reich, Wilhelm, "The Murder of Christ," "Introduction" (N.Y., Noonday Press, 1980)]. This statement, made before the OROP desert expedition (where Reich went to Arizona to increase rain and came into contact with UFOs) and the ensuing UFO discoveries, is emotional dynamite. Thus, it is astounding that the implications of this idea have gone unnoticed for more than 50 years by Reich’s students. Reich’s paradigm for the liberated human was Jesus as the embodiment of Christ-Cosmic energy. Although Reich indicated that his book “The Murder of Christ” was an emotionally immature study, he had in it already touched the cosmic spiritual dimension with a Gnostic Jesus who brought the concentrated light of the Godhead into the entrapped realm of the lower spiritual powers that is the earth plane. This Christ clearly functioned outside of the armored concepts of leadership and organization until his followers brought him down to destruction. However, the answers Reich’s “The Murder of Christ” provided to entrapped humanities’ perennial problems were isolated and individual rather than social and dynamic. Moving beyond the individual Christ solution, Oranur uncovered the technology for a massive spiritual transformation on a global level more recently described by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt in their work “Multitudes.” Marx srcinally described this humanist spiritual transformation in the mid-nineteenth century in his “Economic and Philosophic” manuscripts. Negri and Hardt, however, lacked the functional tools to make this a reality. Reich created these tools. Reich’s UFO discoveries in Maine and Arizona provided the probable materialist metaphysical (metaphysics defined as First Principles and the Supernatural domain that co-exists / sustains the material cosmos, and is behind the “Big Bang” of creation.) vehicle to apply the Oranur technology on a global scale as the basis for mass spiritual transformation and to produce eventual Christogenesis as delineated in another context by philosopher Teilhard de Chardin in his work. [Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, "The Heart of Matter" (N.Y., Harper & Row, 1978), and Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, "The Phenomenon of Man" (N.Y., Harper & Row, 1965)]. It also provided the technology for disabling hostile DOR spreading (demonic in mystical terms) UFOs. It is for this reason that Reich published “Contact With Space” as “Oranur Second Report, 1951-1956.” [Reich, Wilhelm, "Contact With Space - Oranur Second Report, 1951-1956" (N.Y., Core Pilot Press, 1957)]. Juan Posadas, the brilliant Argentinean Trotskyite, and leader in the Fourth International, speculated in an article published in 1968 in "Red Flag" newspaper that UFOs from advanced civilizations could intervene on earth and help in the world-wide permanent revolutionary spiritual process that could lead to infinitely more advanced societies beyond those presently existing. [See Posadas, Juan, "Flying Saucers," The Process of
Matter and Energy, Science, the Class and Revolutionary Struggle, and the Socialist Future of Humanity,” in Red Flag Newspaper (June 25th, 1969). This article is exceedingly hard to find. This fact is no accident. The doctrinaire left has been trying to bury the cosmic knowledge and its use for liberation on earth. The same fate of suppression was earlier visited on Wilhelm Reich. Juan’s article was sent to me by a dedicated librarian from labor archives in the U.S.]. These post-political higher civilizations could represent the global social concentration of intellectual/emotional natural spiritual energy that Christ radiated. It is the dialectical synthesis of secondary material and primary metaphysical energy that flows into our universe from inter-dimensional portals. [Wolf, Fred Alan, "Parallel Universes" (N.Y., Touchstone, 1990)]. The functional identity between the work of Reich, Teilhard de Chardin and Posadas is striking. Posadas, Reich and Chardin recognized a form of mass free psychic energy (Reich designated it “orgone,” Teilhard called it “radial energy,” and Posadas “Rays”). They all believed that a mass free form of cosmic energy could liberate humanity. They both entertained the reality of inter-dimensional travel. [Posadas believed that UFOs may have been coming from future times. This is only possible inter-dimensionally. Reich, at the end, expected to be picked up by an inter-dimensional craft.] Most importantly, with world-wide energetic cleansing by the Oranur reaction through UFO-Orgone drenched presences, as well as the use of other psychotronic spiritual energy devices, they knew that the masses would emerge in days, if not hours, to transcend both Capitalism and Stalinism wherever they existed. At one blow, the “hash of Capitalism and Stalinism would be settled.” Masses would emerge cleansed of spiritual armor and capable of work democracy in the workplaces and through mutual aid organizations in a coalition of action-oriented revolutionaries. [Dr. Katz: I now believe collective liberation impossible on any feasible time-line, but Dr.Reich did think it a potential development. However, he thought it would take 3000 to 5000 years. This is time we obviously do not now have. Humanity will destroy itself by biological or nuclear weapons long before then.] Posadas called upon beings from other planets to intervene and collaborate with life on earth to overcome misery and suffering. He wanted extraterrestrials to use theirresources to help achieve the objective of a planet where the harmonization of human relations would be a reality. This was no deus ex machina, but required theactive participation of the masses on earth. The ultimate objectives arethe harmonization of humanrelations together with nature and the cosmos. This was Trotsky's permanent revolution in the cosmic dimension. [See Salusbury, Matt, "Trots in Space," pg. 40, in ForteanTimes (December 2003)]. Advanced inter-dimensional or star system craft could also apply Oranur technology to cleanse the earth and produce deep emotional transformation in the masses. By drawing off DOR (deadly orgone energy) and massively flooding the earth with orgone energy, the deadly energy of earth’s entrapment could be broken and vibrant health brought out. Since orgone interferes with electronic energy, devices could be used to immobilize the
criminal military and police forces of the Capitalists or the religious Islamic fascists. Weather manipulation would also help in this regard. No longer will the masses passively tolerate exploitation. The barrier between physics and metaphysics would be broken and in its ultimate development humanity could travel to the land of the “dead” as well as other dimensions. As the old Cabbalists predicted, the light within us could ultimately ascend back to the Godhead and dissolve into the infinite ocean of spiritual energy. Reich stated: “Whoever knows this ocean, knows God.” The snake will ascend up the pole of entrapment and back to unarmored Adam Kadmon. [See: Scholem, Gershom, "Sabbatai Sevi - The Mystical Messiah" (N.J., Princeton University Press, 1989); and Scholem, Gershom, "On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead - Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah" (N.Y., Schocken Books, 1995)]. Just the appearance of the UFOs glowing softly and beautifully blue in the sky throughout the globe will produce a mass spiritual impact that would most likely be interpreted by local religious affiliations. In a few individuals, a spiritual conversion experience as described by William James in his “Varieties of Religious Experience” will occur. [James, William, "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (N.Y., Collier Books, 1961)]. They may become part of the spiritual vanguard if this peak experience is naturalized by Orgonomy, Core Energetics, or some other spiritual discipline such as Zen. Some of the UFOs described by Reich in “Contact With Space” come not from this universe, but from another parallel universe in the metaphysical dimension. Why else when Reich pointed his cloud buster (a device srcinally designed to dissolve clouds and cause rain) at them would they “fade out”? It is well known from occult research that metaphysical entities use the energy of our dimension to manifest and when they “leave” they fade out. Most likely they are traveling across something like the Einstein-Rosen bridge or inter-dimensional portal that exists in the quantum foam that is the grid underlying our reality. Thus, it is possible that the cosmic orgone energy ocean contains infinite dimensions in its depth. [See Tzadok, Rabbi Ariel Bar, "UFO's & Aliens - The Secret Teachings of the Rabbis and Cabbalists," in Panu Derekh - Prepare The Way (Issue No. 10, Oct./Nov. - Dec. '95/Jan. '96) (The Rabbi cites both Jung and Reich).]. Cosmologists and physicists state that the Universe is composed of only 4.6% atoms. Dark matter constitutes 72%, and dark energy 23%. The presence of these invisible yet tangible domains is inferred by strong gravitational light lensing, and by the observation of a galactic array know as the Bullet Cluster. This phenomenon shows the separation of baryonic matter [atomic] and dark matter. It is also thought that the dark domain may be composed of superstrings that embody as many as 26 dimensions. Superstrings are extremely small bands of energy vibrating at tremendous rates. [See: "Oxford Dictionary of Physics," edited by Alan Isaacs, "missing mass," pg. 303; superstring theory, pg. 481 (N.Y., Oxford University Press, 2003); and "The Road to Reality," Roger Penrose, pg. 773 (N.Y., Knopf, 2006).]
I would venture to speculate that the invisible metaphysical dimensions, including the “after-death” dimensions, are within the dark energy and dark matter. Most humans, suffering eye-block as a result of genital suppression, cannot sense these dimensions. The great mystics and mediums could and did perceive this spiritual reality. The spiritual energy, frozen and bound in matter, vibrates at a much lower frequency than the spiritual energies that interpenetrate it. The higher vibration of the free orgone particles exist in higher spiritual dimensions. In discovering the dance of the orgone particles, Reich rediscovered the old occult truth, mentioned long ago by the Cabbalists, that the infinite does indeed have higher realms of existence. [See: Scholem, Gershom, "Major Trends In Jewish Mysticism," pgs. 40-79 on Merkabah Mysticism and Jewish Gnosticism (N.Y., Schocken Books, 1995)]. Whether from this material universe, or from another dimension, it is clear from Reich’s book “Contact With Space,” that he viewed UFO intervention as a possible way forward to a more highly evolved spiritual-natural planetary society for the earth. His reference in the work to the film “When The Earth Stood Still” points to extraterrestrial intervention to immobilize the human destructiveness and allow the masses to emerge as selfregulators of life in a classless society. Leon Trotsky also had been secretly briefed by an OGPU agent during his exile on the existence of extraterrestrial craft. [See, for a description of this meeting between Trotsky and Soviet UFO researchers, Stonehill, Paul and Phillip Mantle, “The KGB, Tibet, and UFOs,” Book of Thoth Web Site (From Fate Magazine September 2002).]. Juan Posadas would later make this explicit in his theory of an advanced scientific dialectical communist civilization visiting the earth to help in the permanent revolutionary process. Lenin, described by Reich in “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” as the greatest mass psychologist in history, stated in a meeting with the novelist H.G. Wells that contact with extraterrestrials would bring us limitless technical potential and the end of violence as a weapon of progress. [Ostrander, Sheila and Schroeder, Lynn, Psychic Discoveries, pg. 397 (N.Y., Marlowe & Company, 1997)]. This extraterrestrial intervention could produce a mass natural bio-energetic liberation which would lead rapidly to a revolutionary/evolutionary change in the social, political and economic organs of human self government. Permanent subjective and objective spiritual revolution would become a reality. The subjective factor of human armor would be solved, and the tragedy of deadly counter-revolution eventually would be overcome. UFOs have been known to produce profound life-positive spiritual changes in those who come into contact with them. [Dennett, Preston, "UFO Healings - True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials" (Mill Spring, N.C., Wild Flower Press, 1996) (This indicates a high orgone radiation flowing from the craft).]. This could be produced on a mass basis through the advanced spiritual technology of Oranur by an extraterrestrial or inter-dimensional race or races. Reich sought contact with this kind of extraterrestrial intelligence. He attained this contact while in prison in 1957, and told a prison comrade, Harvey Matusow, the day before he died that the “UFOs are coming to take me away.” Matusow stated: “He talked about UFOs in a liberation sense. The question that he could leave his body was real
simple.” [See Matusow, Harvey, “The Death Of Wilhelm Reich,” Flatlands # 12 (P.O. Box 2420, Fort Bragg, Ca 95437, 1995)]. This contact in prison most likely happened by telepathic means in a mind to mind connection as intimated in Trevor James Constable’s book “Cosmic Pulse of Life.” [Constable, Trevor James, "The Cosmic Pulse Of Life" (Santa Ana, CA, Merlin Press, 1976)]. So it was in fact that he entered the metaphysical dimension. Peter Reich, in his book on his father, later describes that he apparently made contact with Dr. Reich while Reich was traveling in this dimension, although Peter thought it was a “day dream.” [Reich, Peter, "A Book of Dreams" pgs 83-86 (N.Y., Harper & Row, 1973). At the American College of Orgonomy’s 100 Anniversary of Reich's birth, held in Princeton New Jersey in 1997, Peter Reich likened his experience with his father to the relationship between young Luke Skywalker and the old Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. Significantly, Obi-Wan told Luke to "let the energy flow through you....be guided by it...let go. Obi-Wan clearly went into the metaphysical dimension after being struck down by Darth (DOR) Vader in a way that energized Luke to fight the dark DOR side]. It is interesting that the hyper-intellectualized “left” thought Dr. Reich’s study of UFOs, “Contact With Space,” was evidence of mental illness on his part. The religious right, however, has a deep contact with the UFO spiritual dimension. [See the work of Seventh Day Adventists theologian Victor Houteff in his "Shepard's Rod" treatise; and Brother Don Adair in his "Crossing the Red Sea by Flying Saucers." - MT Carmel Website]. We now know that Dr. Reich had a meeting with President Eisenhower in the summer of 1955. Jerome Greenfield, author of “Wilhelm Reich vs. The U.S.A.,” [see page 182] interviewed a woman who was a guide to Eisenhower on a fishing and hunting trip to Maine. She stated to Greenfield that she witnessed a meeting between Reich and Eisenhower during the President’s trip to the Rangeley area between June 22nd and 27th of 1955. Eisenhower had a fondness for inventors and “self-made” men [as related to this writer by the tour guide in Eisenhower's farm house in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s], and we know that Reich had been writing to the U.S. government about his UFO discoveries and the Oranur Experiment. Most importantly, prior to meeting with Reich, Eisenhower in 1954 and 1955 was briefed on UFOs and met with the representatives of one or more extraterrestrial civilizations [See Salla, Michael, "Eisenhower briefed about extraterrestrials claims former New Hampshire State Representative," Honolulu Exopolitics Examiner (May 12th).] This provides the support for Reich’s statements that he at that time was due to meet with a “high official” of the U.S. government. In preparation for this visit, Dr. Reich bought expensive furniture for his home. It was during this meeting that Eisenhower may have briefed Reich about UFOs and held him to top secrecy. All during Reich’s trial he mentioned that he had a protector in high places and that he was entrusted with secret information about national security. All of the threads of evidence support Reich’s involvement with the UFO reality. He was definitely not “insane.” Finally, Orgonomist Dr. Elsworth Baker, in a taped interview in the early 1980s, stated that he was inclined to believe that Reich did indeed meet with Eisenhower.
Reich’s metaphysical cosmic contact, as fringe as it may seem to some of his current day scientific supporters, steeped in medical materialism as they are, is supported by a statement made by Reich in “Contact With Space.” In that work, on the very first page, he speculated (on March 20, 1956 at 10:00 p.m.) that he could be an extraterrestrial being, and an offspring of an alien race. He thought his children could be part of a new inter-planetary race. He asserted his right to make such speculations without fear of being jailed by any administrative agency of the Capitalist State or Stalinist State apparatus. This intuitive speculation by Reich has been validated by the present day research work of the late Dr. John E. Mack, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and founding director of the Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER) before his probable murder by the CIA (the agency has known about the extraterrestrial craft for 60 years and uses advanced brain washing technology on the American masses). Mack found through his research subjects that there is indeed an inter-breeding experiment going on between abducted humans and alien partners. These aliens also have a spiritually transforming effect on humans, and some of them are inter-dimensional. [Mack, John E., "Passport to the Cosmos" (N.Y., Crown Publishers, 1999)]. It should also be recalled here that the birth of Jesus took place after sightings of UFOs, described by witnesses as “stars,” much as Reich at first misinterpreted some UFOs in his Arizona expedition as “stars.” The “virgin” status of his mother, never impregnated by an earth man, also points to an extraterrestrial father. Jesus makes many references to his “father in heaven.” The link here with Reich’s “Murder of Christ” is clear. [Reich, Wilhelm, "The Murder of Christ" (N.Y., Noonday Press, 1980); and see also, Bishop, Jim, "The Day Christ Was Born;" "The Day Christ Died" (N.Y., Barnes and Noble Books, 1978)]. The glowing blue energy radiated by Christ is in all of us. Once liberated, it would shake off repression and exploitation immediately. In its unarmored spiritual social expression, this energy is a fusion of the rational core of both Anarchism and Marxism in a modern day revolutionary Gnosticism. All of humanity could evolve into work democratic, mutual compassionate aid to solve the plagues of war and poverty. This primal social energy, in its social dimension, was called by Alfred Adler “Gemeinschaftsgefuhl.” [Alfred Adler was a brilliant and independent therapist, researcher, and philosopher. In his early days, he was also a Marxist, and maintained a close friendship with Leon Trotsky when the latter was an exile in Vienna. He gave a paper before Freud’s group showing that Marxism can release the aggression drive in the service of higher civilization. Adler’s wife, Raissa, remained a Trotskyite until her death. Alice and Otto Ruhle carried on the Marxist-Adlerian banner. Otto helped found the German Communist party. Otto was on the independent Dewey commission that vindicated Trotsky from Stalin’s trumped up show trial charges. Alice wrote "The Road to We," and with Otto "The Proletarian Child." The contemporary Adlerian movement has completely suppressed this history, which was the finest hour of the movement. A notable exception was the late Dr. Leo Rattner of New York. He was trained in Vienna by Adler’s earliest students. See: Hoffman, Edward,” The Drive for Self - Alfred Adler and the Founding of
Individual Psychology" (N.Y., Addison-Wesley, 1994), and Rattner, Josef, "Alfred Adler" (N.Y., Frederick Unger Publishing Co. 1983)]. Antonio Negri and Walter Benjamin would also make the connection between the stopping of profane time in the timeless revolutionary moment of the multitudes against imperialist Empire. [See: Negri, Antonio, "Multitude" (NY, Penguin Press, 2004); Negri, Antonio, "Time for Revolution" (NY, Continuum, 2003); Benjamin, Walter, "On Hashish" (Cambridge, Mass., 2006); Benjamin, Walter, "Illuminations" (N.Y., Schocken Books, 2007); and Benjamin, Walter, "Reflections" (N.Y., Schocken Books, 1978).]. Trotsky and Reich met in Norway in the late 1930’s to see if a fusion of this work could be achieved. [This meeting was verified by a researcher from Cambridge University who has visited both the Trotsky and Reich archives at Harvard University. He made a presentation at the April 2008 Conference of the Institute for the Study of the Work of Wilhelm Reich. His name can be obtained from them.] Eventually, despite the assassination of both by Russian-American double intelligence agents, this was accomplished later on by Juan Posadas, Raya Dunyevskaya, Teilhard de Chardin, Antonio Negri and others. [See: Salazar, Leandro A., "Murder In Mexico – The Assassination of Trotsky" (London, Secher & Warburg, 1950). See the implicit references therein to the FBI involvement with the assassination plot. Sheldon Harte, a guard who opened the door to the first assassination team sent in to kill Trotsky, was the son of a wealthy businessman. He was an FBI mole/ double agent recruited by the NKVD in New York. The actual successful assassin, Ramon Mercader a/k/a Jacques Mornard, was recruited by General Loenid Eitingon of the Soviet secret police (NKVD). Dr. Max Eitingon, a Stalinst, psychoanalyst, and relative of the General, was behind the scenes in the judicial murder and frame-up of Wilhelm Reich. Both Trotsky and Reich were threats, not only to Stalin, but to American Capitalism. Trotsky was a threat as an organizer of American workers for insurrection during the depression, and Reich was a mortal danger to the American drug companies and psychiatric establishment, particularly the Freudian psychoanalysts. A glimpse into the favorite tactics of both Red and Black fascists reveals that the first Trotsky assassination team dressed as policemen during the attempt on Trotsky’s life. An anti-Castro Cuban / CIA hit team, during their successful assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963, also place assassins in phony police uniforms behind the wall of the “grassy knoll” where they fired the fatal head shot into the President. See Groden, Robert J., and Livingston, Harrison, "High Treason" (N.Y., Berkley Books, 1990). It is interesting that both Reich and Trotsky had grown up on farms and had very similar temperaments. They both were highly creative and needed to be left in solitude for long periods of time. Significantly orgonomically, they both had explosive tempers. This is a sign of very mobile bio-spiritual energy. See also, on Reich, Vankin, Jonathan, & Whalen, John, The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time, “The Cloud Buster,” p. 128-139. Dr. Eva Reich speculated that Reich was poisoned in prison. Even if this cannot be proved at this late date, just putting a man like Reich into prison with a heart condition at age 60 was a known likely death sentence. See also, Martin, Jim, "Wilhelm Reich and the Cold War" (Fort Bragg, California, 2000)]. Raya Dunayevskaya, in her work, found the functional identity between the immanent and transcendent revolutionary energy. [Dunayevskaya, Raya, "Philosophy and
Revolution" (Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books, 2003), and Dunayevskaya, Raya, "The Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism" (Chicago, News and Letters, 1989)]. The masses must liberate themselves with a growth in natural revolutionary spiritual consciousness and without elite vanguard parties. In a new and higher synthesis of Marx and Hegel, she found that work democracy is possible only with the self-spiritual activity of the workers. She hated totalitarian communism and Stalin as muchas Reich did. It has been a pattern in the history of ideas that religious conceptions come to be replaced by scientific understanding. Thus, David Bakan, author of “Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition,” stated: “By separating the supernatural elements in mysticism from its other content, Freud succeeded in making a major contribution to science. We believe this pattern, from mysticism to science, is one of the more important historical characteristics in the development of general science.” [Bakan, David, "Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition" (Boston, Beacon Press, 1975). The same assertion could certainly be made of Freud's student, Wilhelm Reich. Dr. Reich, in his summary of "The Oranur Experiment - First Report (1947-1951) (Rangeley, Maine, Orgone Institute Press, 1951)," stated: "...if millions of people have developed and lived in metaphysical beliefs for millennia, had believed in a 'Prana' and such, there must be something in it. And this truth seemed urgently to want to reveal itself to us..." [pg. 326]. Also, most importantly, “ALL BOUNDARIES BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION, SCIENCE AND ART, OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE, QUANTITY AND QUALITY, PHYSICS AND PSYCHOLOGY, ASTRONOMY AND RELIGION, GOD AND ETHER, ARE IRREVOCABLY BREAKING DOWN, BEING REPLACED BY A CONCEPTION OF THE BASIC UNITY, A BASIC CFP [common functioning principle] OF ALL NATURE WHICH BRANCHES OUT INTO THE VARIOUS KINDS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE.” [Pg. 328 - Capitals in srcinal]. So it is with the “after-death” interdimension, and the implications of an eternal/infinite spiritual energy such as Orgone. Dr. Raudive, a parapsychologist, has captured the energy and consciousness of people in the after-death spiritual domain on recording tape known as the electronic voice phenomenon. [Raudive, Konstantin, "Breakthrough - An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead," (N.Y., Taplinger Publishing Company, 1971). See also: Fuller, John G., "The Ghost of 29 Megacycles" (N.Y., New American Library, 1981], and Holzer, Hans, “Life Beyond” (Chicago, Contemporary Books, 1994).] These metaphysical intelligences have confirmed the anti-matter nature of the Einstein-Rosen bridge as the connection between the material and spiritual dimensions. This also validates the nature of DOR as an anti-life creation of the clash between the creative mass free spiritual orgone and the disintegrating matter of atomic energy. This is why Oranur opened a portal to the spiritual dimension. This experiment opened a new paradigm, the “Oranur Paradigm,” to guide the human spiritual monad to eternal life and infinite exploration. The Einstein-Rosen Bridge is thought to be a portal of anti-matter leading to another Universe (metaphysical). This parallel Universe was described by the scientist William Tiller as the negative space-time dimension. [See White, John, and Krippner, Stanley, "Future Science," pgs. 257-279 (N.Y., Doubleday, 1977)].
C.J. Jung, the great Swiss mystical psychiatrist, had a near-death experience that convinced him of the reality of the metaphysical dimension. In fact, he thought that UFOs might be vehicles traveling from the metaphysical to the physical via thought projection of those in the after-death existence. [Jung, C.G., "Memories, Dreams, Reflections," Chapters X-XI, pgs. 289-326 (N.Y., Vintage Books, 1965)]. Dr. Michael Newton, spiritual hypnotherapist, has confirmed the existence of a “between lives” metaphysical dimension and reincarnation through deep hypnotic regression of patients. In fact, at one time a mechanical scientific skeptic, he first discovered the phenomenon during the spontaneous breakthrough of an ordinary patient during hypnosis. Newton has discovered basic energy functions in the metaphysical that very closely resemble Reich’s natural spiritual energy of the primordial orgone. In this dimension, there are more highly developed energy bodies to assist the human orgone energy sac in ascending back to the Godhead. The releasing of spiritual body armor is an integral part of the development of a more advanced energy soul. Newton cites the description by one of his clients of the “scrubbing of the body armor” just prior to a leap in spiritual development within the metaphysical domain. The writer has confirmed this discovery through his own first-hand experience of spiritual hypnotherapy. [See Newton, Michael, "Destiny of Souls," pgs. 317-320 (Woodbury, Minnesota, Llewellyn Publications, 2008). In analyzing Newton's work it is useful to do what Marx did with Hegel: extract the radical core from the pathogenic reactionary mystical shell. The energy functions Newton has culled from the between life memories of his clients give rise to revolutionary Gnostic implications to escape from the earth trap and ascend to the Godhead. However, Newton describes the old armored Eastern conceptions of "karma" in a way that rationalizes destructive social conditions. See also: Goldberg, Bruce, "Past Lives, Future Lives" (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1988); Goldberg, Bruce, "Spirit Guide Contact Through Hypnosis" (Franklin Lakes, N.J., New Page Books, 2005); Weiss, Brian L., "Many Lives, Many Masters" (N.Y., Fireside, 1988).] It should be remembered that Reich described the spiritual energy of orgone as coming to know itself through the consciousness of nature via humanity. Thus, we are helping the Godhead comprehend itself and fight to maintain itself among the infinite spiritual Godheads of infinite Universes. The motion picture “Contact” demonstrated travel through this portal to the after-death spiritual domain. Jodie Forster, portraying the scientist, made contact with her dead father when she reached the other dimension. This was the first contact. More would follow. During her interdimensional experience she had a functional deeply mystical experience that the politicians and mechanistic scientists would try to discredit. Like the great theologian Thomas Aquinas, author of “Summa Theologiae,” the cosmologist in “Contact” had an experience that made all of her prior scientific and philosophic training seem like so much straw. Aquinas stop writing after having deeply mystical experiences shortly before he died.
As a result of the Oranur experiment, if the person could get over the DOR sickness, he attained a high degree of health (if the capacity was there in the organism). This could have important immunizing effects in the face of an Atomic attack, and could also produce a spiritual cleansing among the DOR clouded masses exposed to high dosage Orgone energy by UFOs. Some of the UFOs that Reich observed in Arizona were not creating DOR as he thought, but were attempting to cleanse it. Those extraterrestrial craft attempting to spread DOR may have been sent by American Intelligence as part of their efforts to stupefy the masses of people. These were metaphysical vehicles, both positive and negative, projected from another dimension, as theorized by C.J. Jung in his major work on flying saucers. [See Jung, CG, "Flying Saucers – A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies" (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1978). See also, Warren, Larry and Robbins, Peter, "Left at East Gate" (N.Y., Marlowe and Company, 1997) (it is obvious from the descriptions of the UFOs that they were interdimensional).] During Oranur it was also discovered that when a person become infested with this deadly spiritual energy they functioned in a life inimical way. Any evasiveness, dishonesty and general destructiveness in a person’s character became magnified and radiated into the environment in a life negative way. Any disease entity in the depths of the organism surfaces. In its most extreme manifestation, this is very similar to demonic possession. Once the person is able to overcome this disease with orgone-spiritual energy, vibrant health is brought out. This phenomenon proves the immanent spiritual principle as a living reality deriving from the transcendent cosmic orgone. “God” [orgone energy], and the “Devil” [deadly orgone energy], have scientific proof for the first time. Dr. Reich himself fell ill during and after the Oranur Experiment. He fought DOR sickness by painting. The dialectical relationship between creation and destruction was functionally demonstrated within the human organism. This Oranur process in Reich continued until the end. It was thought that in prison he was working on a manuscript called “Creation.” It was not discovered among his effects at his death, and most probably was destroyed by prison authorities. [See: Sharaf, Myron "Fury On Earth - A Biography Of Wilhelm Reich," pg. 473 (N.Y., St. Martin’s Press/Marak 1983); Boadella, David, "Wilhelm Reich - The Evolution of His Work," the chapter on the prison period (Chicago, Contemporary Books, 1973).]. Oranur broke down the armored barrier between physics and metaphysics. The deepest implication of this discovery by Reich was that, in addition to finding an antidote to radiation sickness, Oranur opened the door to other dimensions, both demonic, and lifepositive spiritual. He also blew open the time continuum, making possible access to Messianic time. Messianic times, and the messianic messenger such as Reich, bring hope to humanity.
These discoveries created important parallels to the work of Rudolf Steiner, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Juan Posadas, Teilhard de Chardin, and Gershom Scholem. They also explored the interface between material and metaphysical liberation. As Professor Robert S. Carrington stated to this writer: “The principle of hope is a difficult one and Bloch and Chardin come at it from different directions, although Messianic Judaism is behind the curtain in both cases.” There is indeed hope in orgone energy as the primary life-positive spiritual energy flowing from the metaphysical to the physical dimension. In his last years, from 1947 to 1957, Reich became the functional equivalent of a liberation theologian. The late Dr. Victor Silver, philosopher of orgonomy, and functional mystic, was the first to point out the theological implications of Oranur. The material aspect of this dialectical fusion is apparent from Reich’s continuing use of social analysis in his work and life up to the end in the concept of work democracy; and in his realization that there was a conspiracy to put him in jail and destroy his work. In prison at the end of his life, Reich attended Protestant services and declared that he had a religious conversion experience resulting in a new faith in the great monotheistic religions. Dr. Reich declared the need for “Harbors for Life” and “Churches for Life.” He composed prayers: “”Resurrection = Life is Eternal, Indestructible,” “Prayer for Strength,” and “Prayer for Self-Realization.” Dr. Elsworth Baker told Dr. Silver that he thought Reich prayed to the cosmic spiritual energy in prison. He had, at the end, become a functional mystic of natural theology. Reich also developed a close relationship with the prison Chaplain [See Elsa Ollendorff's biography of Reich. See also, "Fury On Earth" by Myron Sharaf]. Reich’s wife, Ilse Ollendorff, speculates that perhaps he was preparing a life-positive renewal of Christ’s message while facing his own crucifixion by the American Capitalist State (i.e., their police agents in conjunction with the FDA and the courts). Again, this hooks into the connections between the murder of Christ, UFOs, inter-dimensional after death travel, resurrection, and cosmic liberation. In 1957, several weeks before entering prison, Reich told a close associate, Dr. Victor Sobey, that “I am still a Marxist!” Of course, Reich’s “Marxism” was completely rejected by the communists and socialists of the day (as most today reject it). He was referring to “work democracy” as describing existing natural work responsibility and mutual aid completely antithetical to any form of state dominated control of social processes. Reich’s conception was much closer to that of the classical anarchist Peter Kropotkin. While being interviewed in prison, Reich stated that “the Rockefellers are against me,” and that the Rockefeller Foundation made him “a tool of its socio-economic interpersonal relations.” These statements showed that Reich clearly understood the nature of the State Capitalist conspiracy that put him into prison and ultimately killed him. These final developments put Reich in the company of the great theologians Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin. [The recollection by Dr. Sobey was recorded on tape by the "Institute for The Study of the Work of Wilhelm Reich," and can be obtained from them. They can are
located in New York City and will be found on the Web. On Reich's statements about the Rockefellers, see Greenfield, Jerome, "Wilhelm Reich vs. The United States" pgs. 262264 (N.Y., W. W. Norton and Company, 1974).] Bloch’s concept of “truth as religion” fits well with Reich’s use of the truth as a spiritual weapon. His book on Thomas Muntzer, theologian and leader of the peasant wars in Germany, parallels Reich’s revolutionary interpretation of the gospel in the Murder of Christ. Bloch’s book “Natural Law and Human Dignity” presents the upright and “look you in the eye” unarmored demeanor of the truthful organism. Leon Trotsky, in his work “The Stalin School of Falsification,” also puts truth in the central position of revolutionary transformation. Telling the truth to the workers was an essential part in their self-liberation. As Reich pointed out, however, theweapon of truth could not save Trotsky from the heavily armored Joseph Stalin. Reich’s later political philosophy evolved more and more into anarchism fused with functional mystical spirituality. This creative synthesis can be called a form of scientific liberation theology. Functional mysticism, a term coined by the late Dr. Silver, is healthy spiritual contact between the self and cosmos. It is useable in daily life to maintain and enhance consciousness and love. Functional mysticism is cosmic consciousness. It can be contrasted with pathogenic mysticism which has been used to narcotize the masses, and keep them passively vulnerable to exploitation by power pathological elites. Functional mysticism is both materialistic and spiritual, equipping a person to spontaneously and vigorously fight this exploitation no matter under what ideological mask it presents itself. Liberation Theology is a political and social philosophy that places the focus on the working person’s capacity for self-regulation, mutual aid, and coordination. As such, it is rooted in the actually existing work functions distorted by both Capitalism and elite bureaucratic totalitarian State Communism. It is against vanguard parties and control from above. The work of Raya Dunayevskaya (Leon Trotsky’s secretary in Mexico), particularly her books “Marxism and Freedom,” and “Philosophy and Revolution,” and Peter Kropotkin, the great natural scientist and anarchist, illustrate this revolutionary dialectical philosophy. Unarmored functional spirituality also gives a person access to other dimensions, including the “after death” or “before birth” domain which is reachable through quantum physics by the electronic voice phenomena or naturally sensitive humans functioning as mediums. Some UFO vehicles are the metaphysical manifestations of travelers form this higher dimension. William Burroughs, the great Beat writer, in his book “Western Lands,” poetically presents this possibility of inter-dimensional travel and the emotional plague forces that seek to prevent access. In other work, he shows that the “Nova Police” (material vested interests) are interested in control of mass consciousness in all State systems to the end of making people passive and vulnerable to exploitation. This plague
is internalized by the masses and is present in both the material and spiritual domains which interpenetrate the earth plane. Oranur demonstrated the inimical interaction of the Orgone energy of life and the atomic energy of death and destruction. With nuclear war, humanity unleashed for the first time a force capable of destroying the spiritual life body or subtle soul energy, or energetic “fluid,” and preventing it from gaining ultimate liberation from reincarnation. Reincarnation is dependent on this subtle energy or “soul fluid” that inserts vital intelligent energy into the fertilized egg and can be detected in all later differentiated cell nuclei as radiation in the developed organism [See "Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain Lifted" pgs. 388-390]. Reich himself, in “Ether, God and Devil,” had pointed out the creation, dissolution and re-concentration of the life energy. As William Burroughs stated, the nuclear blast and radiation destroyed the electromagnetic spiritual body as well as the physical body. It is the ultimate in life negation. Electromagnetic energy flows in from the metaphysical dimension. As Walter Benjamin said, the Utopian breeze blows upon the back of the Angel of history. Before the Angel, in front of him, lies the shattered debris of atomic destruction, war, pestilence, and the material and spiritual prison constructed by the ideologies of sick humanity. The barrier between past and future is in fact the armor between the physical and the metaphysical. Reich penetrated this armor with the Oranur Experiment. Henceforth, the messianic “Now” will exist as the portal that will allow free travel between the domain of “life” and “death.” The classless society of the after death dimension will exist on the earth as a blow-back from beyond. [See Goldberg, Bruce, "Past Lives, Future Lives" (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1982).]. In short, in the Oranur Experiment, Dr. Wilhelm Reich provided the natural scientific and philosophic proof for God’s existence. This proof is against the supporting backdrop of 150 years of paranormal scientific research, and over 2000 years of occult philosophy. Drs. Israel Regardie (at one time a member of the occult organization “The Golden Dawn”), John Pierrakos (creator of Core Energetics), and Richard Blasband (of the Center for Functional Research and student of Russian healer Nicolai Levashov), have all carried along this general line of research [See generally, Blasband, Richard, "Talk Given In Honor of Wilhelm Reich’s Birth At the Annual Conference of the Center For Functional Research" (San Rafael, Ca, Dominican College, November 15, 1997)( CFR , 2175 Mar East, Tiburon CA 94920). See also, Yougrau, Palle, "A World Without Time The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein" (N.Y., Basic Books, 2005).]. John Keel, in his book “The Mothman Prophesies,” describes an area where this interdimensional portal made its appearance. [Keel, John A., "The Mothman Prophecies" (N.Y., TOR, 2001)]. It was an abandoned chemical plant which also had bunkers on the property built during World War II. The bunkers, with organic material on the outside and inorganic on the inside, functioned as Orgone Accumulators. The Orgone turned deadly as it was simultaneously exposed to the chemical pollution and debris from old
weapons manufacture. This tore a hole in space time, allowing the “Mothman” creature to enter the material domain. It should be kept in mind that Dr. Elsworth Baker, who was present during the Oranur Experiment, described the building housing the orgone and the radiation as “glowing.” This highlights the unusual nature of the metaphysical portal. In full withinthe eternal. It is real. The The endless finitude of the trapcontact dissolves the“Now,” light of liberation the eternalisdarkness made whole. trap,bad with its deserts, becomes the blue rocket with its shattering and pulsating convulsions. The infinite and eternal ocean of spiritual Orgone Energy, with its limitless dimensions, opens to humanity both in life and after death. The armored physical husk of a body drops away and the spiritual energy body is released as a butterfly is liberated from its cocoon. [See Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth, "On Life After Death" (Berkeley, California, 1991).]. As the great theologian Ernst Bloch stated: “…the life of the soul vibrates beyond the body; there is something like a germ plasma of the soul, and the loss of the body does not affect trans-physiological immortality. To vibrate beyond the destruction of the world, however, the soul’s life must be ‘finished’ in the deepest sense; a lucky cast must have latched its ropes to the poles of the landing beyond if its germ plasma is not to be swept down the chasm of eternal death, missing the goals that matter most in the organization of life on earth: our pinnacle, eternal life; the unlocked, established inwardness; the immortality that is trans-cosmological as well; the sole reality of the kingdom of souls; the pleroma of the Holy Spirit; the foundation in integrum out of the labyrinth of the world.” [Bloch, Ernst, "Man On His Own," pg. 69 (N.Y., Herder and Herder, 1971). Leon Trotsky reached this trans-cosmological energy process after death as reported by his wife Natalia. He came to her after death. Trotsky was dressed in a clean white tunic and appeared vibrant. He said: “It is finished.” These same words were used by Christ on the cross at the end. See Pateneaude, Bertrand M., Trotsky – "Downfall of A Revolutionary," p. 292 (N.Y., Harper/Collins, 2009).] We are here talking about the functional identity of the cosmic energy within and without the human being. This is materialism in its most powerful form. It stands to reason that the “fallen” or distorted form of this energy, called “demonic” by exorcists, would seek out the pure embodiments of the glowing spiritual body and seek to destroy them. This demonic energy, called Deadly Orgone Energy or DOR by Dr. Reich, is a desert-like armor in the human monad (to use a term from the philosopher Leibnitz). Thus, Reich was murdered in prison as a result of Mildred Brady’s yellow journalism drawing on him the FDA, the FBI, the pharmaceutical industry, the psychoanalytic establishment, and the Justice Department. Trotsky was killed by an American-Russian intelligence effort using a double agent named Jacson [See: Salazar, Leandro A., "Murder in Mexico – The Assassination of Trotsky" (where Colonel Salazar reveals FBI involvement with one of Trotsky's assassins) (London, Secher & Warburg, 1950).]. Look into the faces of both assassins. You will see identical desert lined complexions with
cacti-like layers of congealed deadly stagnated biological energy (called DOR by Reich). Deadly Orgone does indeed have a functional identity. Reich, in the Murder of Christ, presented the crucified God as a personification of life. However, unconsciously, he actually presented a functional Cabbalist of liberation. Reich’s Christ is a liberation theologian, the functional Gnostic fighting for truth and liberation. The “Murder of Christ” is a study of this Gnostic Jewish revolutionary, Jesus, who fought for the escape of humanity from the material trap. In this regard it is strikingly similar to Ernst Bloch’s essay “Aut Caesar Aut Chirstus.” Bloch also showed Jesus as striving to break down the barrier between the material and the metaphysical in an eschatological transformation. [Bloch, Ernst, "Atheism in Christianity," Aut Caesar Aut Christus, pgs. 123-195 (N.Y., Herder and Herder, 1972).]. Thus, it is in the functional fusion of the transcendent and immanent spiritual principle, cosmic superimposition and male/female superimposition, that the Absolute of spiritual liberation is actively present. This unchains the dialectic of liberation against all life negative and power pathological systems entrapping humanity. The letters that follow this introduction present a new interpretation of Reich’s work in his last years. Most importantly, they describe, via “thought experiment,” the spiritual implications of the Oranur Experiment that opened the metaphysical portal to Reich and his co-workers. Annotations to the letters are provided by me to clarify the discussion. In addition, I have provided a comprehensive research bibliography of the works that I consulted in writing this book. Dr. Silver, who died in late December 1999 of metastasizing brain cancer, had no part in this book other than the letters he sent to me. I am solely responsible for the interpretation of Reich’s work presented by this introduction, and in my annotations and responses to Victor’sletters. However, Victor did encourage me to use the letters as I wanted. Having put forth this disclaimer, I should also say that this book represents my attempt to present the “Oranur Paradigm” that Dr. Silver was working on with my assistance until the time of his death. This paradigm symbolizes the fusion of science and religion that Reich had started to make at the end of his life by developing the concept of what Aleister Crowley called “Scientific Illuminism.” Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch were philosophers of this “profane illumination.” Aleister Crowley and Dr. Israel Regardie also tried to bring this illumination into the material world by the means of Occult practice and experiment. They all endeavored to bring the transcendent spiritual principle down into the material domain in a dialectical functional fusion leading to absolute consciousness and existential liberation. As Walter Benjamin recognized, “…the true creative overcoming of religious illumination certainly does not lie in narcotics. It resides in a profane illumination, a materialistic, anthropological inspiration, to which hashish, opium, or whatever else can
give an introductory lesson. (But a dangerous one; and the religious lesson is stricter.).” [Bemjamin, Walter, "On Hashish," pgs. 132-133 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2006)]. The heavily armored doors of full bodily perception, blocking the flow of spiritual energy from the metaphysical dimension to the physical dimension, can be opened by the experimental use of psychedelic and good psychotropic drugs (which can dissolve spiritual armor). Sigmund Freud used cocaine to good effect. Theologians Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch used hashish to temporarily free themselves from the spiritual armor. Philosopher Aldous Huxley experimented with Mescaline. Dr. Stanislav Grof, Orgonomist Simeon Tropp and Timothy Leary pioneered in the use of LSD in psychotherapy. Tropp was a close associate of Reich, and used LSD in orgone therapy in the 1960’s [This phase of the work of Dr. Tropp was reported by Myron Sharaf in his "Fury on Earth." See also, Grof, Stanislav, & Halifax, Joan, "The Human Encounter With Death" (N.Y., E.P. Dutton, 1977).]. In the words of Raya Dunayevskaya, from The Philosophic Moment of MarxistHumanism (p. 52), former secretary to Leon Trotsky in Mexico, citing Hegel: “The eternal Idea, in full fruition of its essence, eternally sets itself to work, engenders and enjoys itself as absolute mind….. ‘We have entered the new society.’” Functional mysticism is eternal motion and increasing feeling –comprehension through infinity and eternity. This living ocean of spiritual energy comprehends itself through us. We are energetic droplets of this larger dynamic and evolving reality. As we explore this cosmic energy in life, and in the metaphysical dimension, we are helping it comprehend itself. We are essential expressions of the Godhead. Unity expresses itself in diversity (a dialectical law). Life is the solution of the dualism between the transcendent and immanent God. There is no completely transcendent anthropomorphic God who is concerned with the welfare of individual human beings or even humanity as a whole. There is an eternal and infinite ocean of cosmic spiritual energy, which Reich called Orgone, which is embodied in human beings, individually and collectively, and can provide internal/external guidance and wisdom. As the first liberation theologian in history, Moses, stated: “God is not a person. God is the light of eternal mind.” [See: Einstein, Albert, Out of My Later Years, "Science and Religion," pgs. 19-28 (N.Y., Wings Books, 1993); Avakian, Bob, "Away With All Gods!" (Chicago, Insight Press, 2008).]. Energy and consciousness have become the spiritual frontier of religious, medical and philosophical research. Dr. Ola Raknes was the first orgonomist to explore this frontier in his work on religion. [Dr. John Pierrakos, a student of Reich, did further pioneering work in this field and created “Core Energetics.”] Raknes explained that the mystical conversion experience occurred as a person experienced the breakthrough of vegetative energies as a “new life.” It is unification with “God.” This new life, in its healthiest manifestation, was full contact with plasmatic pulsation within the spiritual bodies, and contact with cosmic energetic spiritual life in other dimensions through the atmospheric
orgone in a burst of “light” and “love.” William James in his “Varieties of Religious Experience” describes many of these experiences. The Oranur Paradigm is the organizing template of this 21st century fusion of science and religion. It is the religion of the future that Leon Trotsky predicted (in his defense before the Dewy Commission) would arise in the face of the collapse of the Stalinist Communist States. Experiments have shown that energy and consciousness does survive death. Just like the light from a no longer existing star continues to travel through eternity, our bio-photons survive death and continue to exist in the orgone cosmic ocean with energy and consciousness. [See Schwartz, Gary E., "The Afterlife Experiments - Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death" (N.Y., Atria Books, 2002).]. Reich, in “Ether, God and Devil,” recognized that the cosmic energy of the creator within the living had a common root and expression with the cosmic energy outside the living in the Universe. This natural energy is intelligent, spiritual and eternal. It inserts itself into the organic fetus at birth, guides it to term, and survives to reincarnate again. Going further than theologian Ernst Bloch, Reich demonstrated that this Orphic wheel of death and rebirth occurs in an actually existing ocean of orgone energy. As Reich asserts in “Ether, God, and Devil,” the cosmic energy does indeed reincarnate. This is according to quantum physical laws and not by the distorted notion of karma that reinforced the mass class armoring of Eastern societies. [See "Ether, God, and Devil," p. 116 (Rangeley, Maine, Orgone Institute Press, 1949)]. We emerge from this ocean, and eventually return. At some point, the reincarnating spiritual energy soul evolves sufficiently to ascend to higher cosmic dimensions and does not come back to the earth material domain. All individuals are drops of this oceanic energy that comes to know itself and evolve through us. We are particles of the Godhead. Eternally, we will exist as living sub-atomic particles and photons in this ocean. This “Theology of Orgonomy,” with its roots in functional mysticism and libertarian Gnosticism, postulates that the necessity to reincarnate depends upon an individual’s degree of consciousness and energy. Those individuals with dense spiritual armor will of necessity reincarnate according to quantum physical laws. Those free of this armor have a choice. A great deal depends on how much the person struggled for liberation from the demonic power pathological systems on earth, and whether he or she can still help free humanity by a process of Christogenesis or will make the choice to finally leave the earth domain for higher levels of being in the Orgone ocean. It takes great courage to consciously decide to reincarnate when liberation from the earth entrapment is available, since, as the great occult philosopher Aleister Crowley stated: “Every incarnation is a crucifixion.” Christ, Moses and the Buddha, were human beings who were able to attain a high degree spiritual liberation and decide to reincarnate. The freedom from incarnation is entirely a matter of the spiritual monad’s own effort and development to be free of
spiritual armor and material entrapment, although energy-metaphysical guides are available. The letters (as edited and revised by Dr. Katz) that follow describe the efforts of Dr. Victor Silver to rethink the Oranur inter-dimensional experiment and to develop an adequate comprehension of it. It also provides a delineation of the ideas of Dr. Silver that he had hoped to use in his unfinished book on Reich and mysticism. In the process of these two profound projects, great progress was made in the further delineation of the liberation theology made possible by Wilhelm Reich’s discovery of the Orgone. Dr. Silver warned many years ago that this interpretation of Reich, bringing forth a theology of orgonomy as functional mysticism, would be rejected by the greater orgonomic community. He was right. However, this work and thought will continue. I will not let it be killed. I have no doubt that Dr. Reich, if he returned today, would be exploring the field of spiritual energy and consciousness.
THE LETTERS: AN ATTEMPTED ESCAPE FROM THE TRAP [Editorial comments by Dr. Steven Katz are presented in brackets inserted into the text of the letters]
November 1, 1996 Dear Jacob Meyerowitz: I want to thank you for sending me the address of my old friend and teacher, Victor Silver. The address was indeed accurate, and we have now revived a friendship that was dormant for the past 25 years. Dr. Silver has some writings on Orgonomy and Reich that he needs to complete, and I have offered to help him with editing, writing, and ultimately with publication. He is a fine philosopher in the old, good, srcinal sense of that term, i.e.: a human being who is concerned with the ultimate questions of cosmic existence in a real existential, functional way. In addition, I want to you for your suggestions the useand of orgonometry in the investigation ofthank the human legal system. As an on attorney, as a scientificas/ a tool philosophical investigator, I am interested in the development of orgonomic social science. I have a broad multidisciplinary background, and I find orgonomy is the only science that unifies all the separate areas of my training. Presently, I am researching an article that I hope to submit for publication to the Journal of Orgonomy on “Wilhelm Reich as Counsel for the Life Energy.” I also hope to eventually write a book on Orgonomy and Philosophy. Yours, truly, Steven Katz
November 13, 1996 Victor Silver, Ph.D. Box 140 Rangeley Maine
Dear Dr. Silver: Since it has been very many years since we last communicated, a few preliminary words are appropriate.
I studied philosophy and orgonomy with you at Adelphi University in the late 1960’s. I was a student of philosophy and also studied with Dr. Robert Knight and others. Presently, I am a philosopher-lawyer living in New York, and I edit books for Life University Press. I am writing because in the past two years I have once again become involved with orgonomy. I have attended the last two annual meetings of the American College of Orgonomy, and I have updated my library of orgonomic publications. It seems that there have been many changes in orgonomy as a scientific movement. I did not meet anyone at the College conferences that I knew from the group that was involved during the 1960’s and early 1970’s. I thought that, in addition to the pleasure of hearing from you, you might tell me what has happened since that earlier time, and particularly since the death of Dr. Elsworth Baker. I was able to find from my own research that Dr. Baker’s son now has his own group, and that Dr. DeMeo has established a group in Oregon (Where Dr. Blasband is also involved). I have been impressed with the therapists and researchers now active with the American College of Orgonomy. It seems that they have preserved, and are developing, in a fairly clean way, Dr. Reich’s therapy and natural science. It would, however, help me gain some perspective to understand the recent dynamics of the social development of orgonomy as a scientific movement. I plan on writing an article on “Dr. Reich as Counsel for the Life Energy,” and I would be pleases if you could review the manuscript when it is ready in preliminary draft. By the way, I obtained your address from Jacob Meyerowitz and he sends his “hello” to you. I hope you are well and look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, Steve Katz
21 November 96 Dear Steven: It is pleasant surprise to hear from you. There’s no sense in trying to summarize my life over the intervening decades, so let me cut to the chase. Although I was able to lecture on Reich’s work at some local schools some years back, there are no orgonomists in Vermont, sad to relate. I have maintained contact
sporadically with John Bell, and I had begun to develop a nice relationship with Paul Matthews before his death. I know for certain that John is displeased with the direction orgonomy has taken since Dr. Baker’s death (“when comes such another”), so much so that he resigned from the College of Orgonomy some years back. Apparently the new wave of younger students did not have much use for Dr. Koopman, and treated her with disrespect bordering on contempt. I never saw eye-to eye with her, but the treatment accorded her was worse than shabby. I personally find no difficulty with Dr. Christ’s leadership (to which I am not subject), or Dr. Konia’s large looming presence (I sense a real autocrat here). I also don’t find very much “new” in the literature and the ever present worshipful attitude toward Reich, something nicely counterbalanced by Dr. Baker’s common sense, is oppressive. Reich made some vital discoveries. He made some big mistakes as well. And I feel that he has never been properly integrated within the western intellectual and spiritual tradition. He was a lot more of a “mystic” than many of his followers like to hear. I am working on my magnum opus, which deals with Reich’s place among the Big Mystics of the psychoanalytic-Jewish tradition. I am also preparing to repeat the “Oranur Experiment” in order to gain access to the metaphysical dimension. I hope to live long enough to complete both the book and the experiment. I can’t imagine any of the orgonomists looking favorably on anyone who views W.R. as a mystic. But he was and that’s that. I would be delighted to read and review your paper. It is hard not having contact with thinkers who speak the language of orgonomy. We are further away than ever from its healing powers. Warmest regards, Victor Silver
November 24, 1996 Dear Victor: I was greatly encouraged by your warm and prompt response to my recent letter. It is very difficult to find mature thinkers who understand Reich and orgonomy with any degree of depth and perspective. Even beyond that, it is hard to find people with any steady focus on the “big” questions: bio-spiritual health and its implications for the social structure, and even deeper, the cosmic expression that is humanity (no matter how “fallen” it may now be). Many of the people I have met at the conferences in Princeton are young, worshipful, and without a knowledge of the history of orgonomy, or much older, guarded, and part of the organizational structure. I remember an old joke about the “Devil.” An emissary on earth of the Devil returned to warn his master that truth had been discovered on earth. The Devil replied: “Don’t worry. I will send someone there to organize it.”
I hope this follow-up letter will be the start of a fruitful contact between us. It is true that there does not seem to be much that is really new in many of the orgonomic sciences presented by the College. Martin Goldberg, however, does seem to have made a breakthrough in applying orgonomic tools to the restructuring of work organizations. I had lunch with him at the last annual conference, and he seemed far from having an uncritical attitude toward the results and possibilities of orgonomic science. Many of the other presentations seemed like old reruns, particularly in the replaying of the bion experiments, etc. Dr. Harmon seems to be carrying on where Paul Matthews left off, and I think his recent article in the Journal of Orgonomy on Edmund Burke was a real contribution. In addition, Dr. Chavis told me that some progress is also being made in cancer research, but I got the impression that they are not ready to publish any results. Some really innovative cutting-edge research is now being done by Dr. Richard Blasband out in California (San Francisco). While on vacation out there this past August, I happened to see an ad in one of the “New Age” magazines on psychic healing and listing Dr. Blasband and Ruth Scott. Dr. Blasband has become a student of a Russian biophysicist by the name of Nicolai Levashov. This healing is orgonomic in that it works with the subtle energy bodies that are underlying the human material organs and entire biophysical structure. I do not have all the details on this, but I recently spoke with Dr. Blasband by phone and he promised to send me some information and put me on the mailing list of his foundation. Apparently, there have been some changes in the clinical approach since some of the early orgonomists did their work. According to what Dr. Christ said at the last meeting, the orgonomists are now concentrating more on the character analytic part of the work. He seemed to imply that some orgonomists may have too exclusively concentrated on body-work or the biophysical dimension of treatment. The best, including Baker, always did use psychological work as well as physical, but perhaps all the orgnomists did not follow this procedure as fully. My return to orgonomy came about when I decided two years ago to seek some additional medical orgone therapy. I had several years of treatments with Dr. Blasband some years ago. Dr. Blasband discontinued his New York practice and I could not find a replacement orgonomist at that time. I did eventually find an old-fashioned psychoanalytic therapist, Dr. Hans Sachs, who had trained in Vienna and Zurich, and knew of Reich from his European period. Although not an orgonomist, he was an excellent therapist and very sympathetic to Reich and his work including the social implications. Dr. Sachs became my mentor as well as therapist and I successfully completed some 15 years of work with him. Eventually, he got me an appointment as an instructor in law and psychology at the Alfred Adler Institute in New York, where I still occasionally teach. At the same time, I maintained sporadic contact with orgonomy by reading journals. Unfortunately, Dr. Sachs died several years ago, and when I decided that as a result of a mid-life re-evaluation (“crisis” would be dramatizing it too much) I wanted to do some
more work on myself, I contacted the American College of Orgonomy for the name of a therapist. Feeling I could still benefit from medical orgone therapy, I wanted to find a very well-qualified therapist. I knew Dr. Baker always maintained the highest standards, and since the therapy is so powerful, I did not want to risk going to a “Reichian” trained anywhere else (there are many today trained by Lowen, Kelly, etc., who knows how safe their practice is?). I did get a referral to Dr. Emanuel Levine, an orgonomist trained by Reich, and I have found his treatment to be very beneficial. I find nothing shocking or irrational in your characterization of Reich as “mystic” if by that you mean an individual who sought to make contact in a subjective personal way with the fundamental forces of the cosmos, and who sought to bring this force into human consciousness for the betterment of the human race. It is in this sense that Giordano Bruno, who as you know was a favorite with Reich, was also a “mystic,” as were many of the Eastern philosophers who experimented with “Chi” and spoke of “prana” and “bioenergy and acupuncture meridians.” I was very interested to hear that you are working on a book dealing with Reich and “The Big Mystics of the psychoanalytic-Jewish tradition.” I assume that you are familiar with Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition by David Bakan and that you are doing something of that nature for Reich. It sounds, however, that you may be working on something bigger than Bakan undertook in his work. The only other person who I know of who tried to make this connection was Dr. Israel Regardie. He related the physical body as described by the Cabala to Reich’s concepts of the energy zones of the body. His work, however, in far outside in the scientific mainstream and is considered “occult.” Many orgonomists might not at first react well to our view of Reich as a mystic. This is because Reich hated the unhealthy mysticism which obscured the real sources of human misery and acted as a “narcotic” on repressed and suppressed people as he described it so clearly in the Mass Psychology of Fascism. However, the healthy cosmic contact expressed by creative philosophers, spiritual teachers and researchers, and acknowledged by Reich in The Murder of Christ, is something any open-minded orgonomist would understand (if an orgonomist is not “open-minded,” how can he or she do the work?). Be that as it may, I would like to see what you have done in manuscript if you have it available. I would be pleased to offer feedback and comments. I have spent most of my professional life editing books dealing with law, medicine and business, and would also be pleased to offer any editorial suggestions if you feel it would be helpful. I am most intrigued about your plans to do another Oranur Experiment. I look forward to hearing more about it. Your comments that we are “further away than ever” from the healing powers of orgonomy are only too true. There is an old Chassidic story to the effect that God will not destroy the world as long as there are still a few “Just People” left on earth. It is getting harder and harder to be or become one of the few.
Warmest regards, Steve December 3, 1996 Dear Steve: What a bittersweet pleasure to be in contact after so Ivery long with someone who obviously has a grasp the deep things in orgonomy. say “bittersweet” because of my personal abandonment of the orgonomic option for health with EFB in 1979. My health took a disastrous turn for the worse, two heart attacks, severe alcoholism (which I had been fooling around with since the Adelphi days), and a decade of insurmountable personal problems. It has been through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that I have regained some sanity and I have not had a drink in almost nine years. Strange, although Elsworth Baker warded off a couple of heart attacks for me, therapy never enabled me to stop drinking – undoubtedly because I did not want to stop drinking, period, punto final. But I view my 15 years off and on with Dr. Baker (alas, mostly off) as a high point in my life. Whatever Love, Work and Knowledge Ipossess trace directly back to him. About God, I once asked him if he believed in God. In his wry puckish manner he responded: “I work for him.” Reich’s mature interest in matters spiritual was not just tangential, but central to the whole thrust, the telos of orgonomy. While I now name myself a Christian, it is a species of Christian best characterized in “The Murder of Christ” and it is not necessary for me to proselytize Reich’s views any longer. The Atonement, Resurrection and eternal life give me great anguish still, but they are matters requiring the “leap of faith,” one I have yet been able to make successfully. I hope to be able to make this leap through the door opened by a new Oranur Experiment. Bye the bye, Elsworth Baker once told me he thought Reich prayed to orgone energy in prison. Why not? As you may know, Alcoholics Anonymous is based in a 12 Step program deeply steeped in spirituality. It directly replaces the mystic experience induced by alcoholism. As William James stated, alcohol, and I would add drugs, sometimes give a glimpse into the mystic reality. It is for this reason that people run after it; so that they can feel some brief fleeting contact with the ocean of spiritual energy that the great religions call “God.” Dr. Baker also told me that in the later years he sometimes would call Reich’s residence in Rangeley, Maine, only to find him completely drunk. I have always considered Dr. Blasband as Baker’s natural heir and the best doctor of the second generation orgonomists. If you could let me have his address, I should be much obliged. The Russian “discovery” of bioplasma (you must know the Sheila Ostrander book of the 1970’s?) fits perfectly the orgonomic framework and borders my happy preserve of mysticism. I did a small volume on the alcoholic’s search for God, and I am currently embarked on a sequel which – mirabilis dictum – brings in character analysis, bioenergy, biopathy (alcoholism is an outstanding example of the genre) and the Emotional Plague (EP). I should (must) complete it sometime next year and then in the destructive element immerse, as Conrad says.
I have accumulated an enormous amount of material, including an independent volume called “Essays on Orgonomy,” which Twayne accepted for publication years ago, but my collaborator, dear old John Bell, never finished his part. Elsworth Baker loved it, so did Aurora Reich (Reich’s last lover) who contacted me. However, I was so intoxicated by this contact (in more ways than one) that I scared her off, most likely deliberately. Alongside the Cabbala, Gershom Scholem’s magnificent book, “Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism,” has been my guide. “The Gnostic Religion,” by Hans Jonas provides startling parallels to Reich’s characterology and cosmology, and Ravenscroft’s “Sword of Destiny” has sold me, on one level, of the occult demonic roots of Hitler and his gang. But all this stuff is so far outside the mainstream of western psycho-spirituality (which Baker as you know was not), that I chuckle regarding any possible impact my crazy contribution can hope to make, if I live long enough to make it. I am assured by Howard Cosell (in a vivid dream) that I will, 2011 being my estimated time of departure [editor's note: unfortunately Dr. Silver passed away in December of 1999]. I am afraid of death for the first time in my life, mainly (I hope) because I have so much left to contribute, if only to other “crazies,” Stuff I am INTENTED TO DO. Please keep the old Chassidic stories coming. As I age, I feel a closer affinity to the whole Hebrew-Jewish-Yiddish tradition. How come you guys kept it quiet for so long? A face-to-face meeting is in the offing for us sometime in the future. If you feel like talking to me before then, feel free to call me at 802-974-1743, afternoons and early evenings are best. Very Warmest regards, Steve, Victor
10 December 1996 Dear Steve: APOLIGIA PRO LIBRA MEA… Enclosed is a selection of my work on W.R. [Wilhelm Reich]. It supplies the reader with neither a cohesive nor comprehensive overview of what the WHOLE work is all about. I include a couple of general summaries, some chapters from various periods in my writing career about Reich, and an experimental protocol for the replication of the Oranur Experiment. Much of my work on mysticism thus far is fragmentary and irritating to the reader who is unaccustomed to my style, comprising six and seven page bursts of inspiration which cover the waterfront from the New Physics to Barbara K. on mysticism. This material is
supplemented by an enormous carton of notes so inscrutable as to be difficult even for me, their author, to read, some dozen years worth. But IT’S ALL THERE. The papers on my planned new Oranur Experiment may be the hardest to decipher of all. The diagram and notes attempt to convey the construction of a metaphysical vehicle, cable of inter-dimensional travel. The ideas for this mass free energetic transit came to me while meditating in the Orgone Accumulator. As Oranur opens a portal between the physical and the metaphysical, travel to higher spiritual dimensions should be possible while using the transit container in the midst of the Oranur reaction. This interdimensional travel is described quite well by the Jewish Merkabah mystics, but they lacked a quantum physical vehicle. We will have to see what happens. I thought this current selection might give you an overall feeling for what I am about. It probably includes too much sociopolitical material, and I am not yet quite sure what part this stuff will play in my final version. My interests are no longer focused on the political arena; as Reich said, “Never try to do it politically, never.” I can send another substantial batch of my notes if you think it advisable. Hopefully, this compendium will clarify my path for you.
I deeply appreciate your interest and patience. Sincerely, Victor P.S.: Please to guard with your life!
11 December 1996 Dear Victor:
I have received your collection of manuscript and the experimental protocol for the new Oranur Experiment. After a first look, I would call the protocol “Oranur 2, The Metaphysical Portal.” The manuscripts are like a deep diamond mine, filled with slag, but containing many precious gems. I will have more observations when I get the time to delve more deeply. How you might ask did a Jewish left-wing intellectual like me, a former member of Students for a Democratic Society, a secularist to the bone, become a convinced metaphysician and man of the spirit? It is very simple; I stood face to face with Deadly Psychic Energy. The force that Wilhelm Reich called Deadly Orgone Energy, and the great mystics called “The Beast” or “Devil,” destroyed my brother.
In January 1978, my brother Ira, an aspiring film maker and philosopher, lived in Kew Gardens, Queens. He had an apartment over the rooms of a defrocked Lutheran Minister, who was an alcoholic and anti-Semite. One night, my brother, who loved rock music, and had a beautiful girl friend, had a small party going on. This “Minister,” son of the Devil and Father of Sin, came up to my brother’s apartment and shot all the inhabitants. My brother did not survive. [See, "The Sound of Music, The Sound of Death," p. 3, Newsday, February 4, 1978. Fallen priests are special prey to demonic psychic forces.] In the hospital, and right before he died, my brother told me he was seeing thick mist. Then, as he lapsed into coma, his eyes opened wide as he looked upon the living God. As it is told in the Book of Exodus, nobody can look upon the living God and remain alive in the material dimension. He had entered the metaphysical dimension. After the shooting, the defrocked Minister went back down to his own apartment, and using the same gun, blew his brains out. The responding police found Nazi literature and pornography in his apartment, along with many empty wine bottles. Reich, as you well know, calls this the essence of the emotional plague (EP). Those who hate life destroy the life loving with outright murder, or failing that, by slow attrition through exploitation and the mass lie. Many lie dead in the killings fields of war so that the defense contractors, oil companies, and Wall Street can feast on the illicit profits. The vampire suckers of the power elites, under rationalizing ideologies, victimize the masses of the hard working and decent. Millions of workers are thrown out of work while the Wall Street interests and Bankers feast on tax-payer bail outs. In “Listen Little Man,” and “The Murder of Christ,” Reich says it all. Humanity is indeed in a “trap,” and only painful spiritual work, one individual at a time, has been proven effective. Time is against that as a way out for the planet Earth. We need metaphysical intervention by UFOs or higher spiritual powers to provide the necessary mass spiritual enlightenment and transformation. Here Reich was also in the vanguard with “Contact With Space.”
May the Godhead of Living, Eternal, Infinite, Energy Bless Your Life and Work, Steve
18 December 1996 Dear Steve: I was moved profoundly by your letter, both because of your revelation to me as privileged listener of your encounter with The Beast, and your unexpected, but hoped for,
offer regarding our future collaboration. It is my honor to have you as my fellow Theologian of Life Energy. Our teacher Dr. Reich is proud to have us follow in his footsteps. Surely we are intended to help one another to conclude successfully our different, but oh so similar vision quests. While I am blessed with several close 12-step friends, I have been unable to hook up with a fellow pilgrim who understands and has lived the deep truths of Orgonomy. I too am of the opinion that our coming together is neither coincidence nor synchronicity. Consider yourself free to take whatever action you may deem appropriate regarding my work. Details will arrange themselves as neatly as a pattern of yarrow sticks. My tentative end-game plan has always been to finish my trilogy on alcoholism, and then move on to my magnum opus. I now feel that when Vol. II of the alcoholism trilogy is finished, I could be ready to undertake the Reich work, postponing both the third volume of the projected trilogy, “Love, Sex, Relationships and the 12-Steps, and a book of daily readings dedicated exclusively to the religious, and spiritual material from the Big Book of AA, Jung, Wm. James, and the early contributors, a book of meditations and commentary beginning with Bill Wilson’s Kierkegaardian observation, “Either God is or He/She isn’t.” I am not at all sure just how much of the material I sent you (inundated you with?) fits the schema of the proposed work on Reich and mysticism, what can be dispensed with as irrelevant or out of date, what constitutes what I characterize as my “huffing and puffing.” In all honesty, I could sit down this afternoon and begin it all without looking back except for notes and quotes; I have been hungrier than I realize to return to the gardens of orgonomy. One opening salvo, which will come as no surprise to you, is that it all began with Reich’s speculations regarding the large scale implications of Oranur. The whole of the mystical dimension opened to him in those reflections, and I think, momentarily at least, they floored him. As my spiritual taste-buds reawaken in anticipation of the forthcoming feast of Reichian ideas and mystical connections, I can find no good reason why I could not propose to complete the work, including the Oranur Experiment II, around the end of 1997, beginning of 1998. This is the first time-frame commitment I have made on this matter, even to myself. Your well-informed kindness leads me to abandon one familiar and comforting negativity – a lovely rationalization for my constitutional procrastination: “Who the hell is ever going to read this stuff anyway?” We might consider a possible tête-à-tête after the holidays, always on your schedule as mine is quite flexible. Aside from a part-time job at Johnson State College, my time is disposable. Again, Steve, thank you for the deeps of your personal sharing, and your positive and encouraging observations regarding my work and our future collaboration. Warmest regards, Victor
December 27, 1996 Dear Victor: I have started reading some of the works cited in your letters. In particular, I am now reading “The Gnostic Religion” by Hans Jonas. Thesetoancient spiritual revolutionaries, contemporaries with the early There Christians, worked hard free themselves from the material trap of the earth dimension. is indeed a close parallel to the good and evil energies described by W.R. in “The Oranur Experiment.” The Gnostics apparently sensed that space is alive with intelligent, expressive energy, and that this fundamental cosmic energy was the functional equivalent to the Godhead. They also knew that this energy is found in human emotion, and that it can be perverted, contracted, and give rise to deadly forms and destructive ways of human interaction. This reality is presented in anthropomorphic poetry. Another exciting parallel is in the correspondence between the internal gnosis (knowing) of the initiate, and the realization of the unity of God’s immanence and transcendence in the human monad (as the German philosopher Leibniz would put it). Dr. Reich would say functional identity and antithesis. The Gnostics also recognized that religions reflected the states of spiritual development present in their creators (very sophisticated for that ancient time). I have continued to review your manuscripts. I can see that you have traveled a long distance from the early essay “Reich’s Theory of Religion – Introduction to the Emotional Plague,” to your later work on 12-Step Theology. Also, your unpublished manuscript on functional mysticism represents quite a development. In the early work, you echo the orthodox orgonomic position that the crippled orgasm reflex is the basis of religious yearning. Later, after having been through the hell of alcohol addiction, and having studied the great theologians, you realized the profound implications of the Oranur Experiment. Functional mysticism, as I understand it, is spiritually healthy and gives rise to an understanding of the spiritual body. Spiritual energy flows constantly from the metaphysical domain into the physical dimension. “Armor” (muscular/emotional hypertensive blocks) stops this flow, and gives rise to physical and spiritual biopathies. After “death,” this energy returns to the orgone energy ocean, to evolve to higher more spiritual energetic states, or to return to earth incarnation for more work on liberating the cosmic-spiritual body from the material entrapment. It is our own state of development that determines this on an energetic level. “Heaven” and “hell” are energetic states, both here and hereafter. Your references to the Jewish mystics and Cabbalists are well cited. Gershom Sholem is, as you point out, the foremost historian and philosopher in this field. His seminal work, “Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism,” rescued Jewish Gnostic philosophy from being buried by mechanical scientific rationalism. The correspondence between energy zones in the body, and the cosmic influx of energy, is a striking preview of Reich’s work on character analysis and medical orgone therapy. I intend next to move on to the Jewish mystics, and to re-read everything Reich wrote on spiritual themes. You may remember
that Reich favorably cited Giordano Bruno, Western Hermetic Cabbalist, as one of his forerunners. I stand ready to edit your work, and also to make my own contribution where I think it appropriate. As to Oranur II, I will leave that to you. You will need a scientist with access to radioactive material, and the relevant clearances from the Atomic Energy Commission and other government agencies to provide the necessary oversight. Warmest regards, Steve
28 December 1996 Dear Steve: I would like to make a few general observations on your proposal. I very much like the idea of our collaboration. I have no ego problems with co-authorship whatever and wherever you feel your contributions might serve the project. I am preparing myself for the mental re-tooling necessary. I feel I have pretty well exhausted the socio-political contributions of orgonomy, and I have two good chapters (one published in the Journal of Theology and Literature, [JTL] as “The E.P. in Literature”) on literature. I did not forward you a chapter on knowledge and perception which I left unfinished, the most strictly philosophical of my speculations, wherein Nietzsche plays a major role as predecessor to Reich, along with D.H. Lawrence. The concluding section on the spiritual might well be a distilled version of the major principles of good mysticism in relation to orgonomy. If my sections on Psychoanalysis (also published in the JTL years ago), and Character seem satisfactory, all to the good. I am chary about doing any directly scientific (i.e. mathematical) analyses or, indeed – except in the most general way – the material from the New Physics. I feel orgonomic physics is by far the weakest element in the Reichian corpus – he just ignored quantum mechanics and general relativity. Reich did make a major breakthrough into metaphysics with Oranur, but never lived to revise orgonomic physics in light of the implications of the discovery. Any material you feel to be valuable, make room for it. We are still, despite the quantity of material I submitted to you – in the gestation period. Your preliminary remarks on possible avenues must elicit a couple of caveats from me. I am in no financial condition remotely to undertake expenses attendant upon desktop publication. So it must be shoot-the-moon or nothing for the moment. You are right; however, such considerations are premature.
Much of the material I sent you represents the ONLY extant copies. Please guard like a dragon in a Wagnerian opera. I am looking forward to your further observations and commitment, if that is the proper concept. Warmly, Victor
1 January 1997 Dear Victor: I agree with your observation that we need to “go for the moon” and find a commercial publisher for our book. However, since we will include the Oranur II Experiment, it will probably have to be a small experimental press. It is premature, not only because the book remains to be written, but also because we do not know where the experiment will take us. In Oranur, Reich opened the door to the metaphysical dimensions. Such openings are filled with peril. Many exorcists, parapsychologists, and occult philosophers have lost their lives or were driven into insanity (Nietzsche) by attempting such explorations. Only the cleanest and most highly qualified researchers, with training in natural science, philosophy, psychology, and theology, should even contemplate it. All great explorations, material and spiritual, carry such risks, and we should not let ourselves be deterred by them. Best, Steve
8 January 1997 Dear Steve: Your latest communication brought my work-function into sharp focus. It’s time I stopped admiring my copious note-taking and fragment-writing and get to it. I confess a real – but not overwhelming – trepidation at the outset. This whole thing is so damned big, and yes, important, the project (the experiment and book), not you or I. The long dormant fascination with the work has reawakened much – like the Gnostic pneumatic in the midst of this armored world. It is merely my rational doubt regarding my energy
reserves that causes me to procrastinate. It will be my statement for whatever it may be worth, and I realize that my end-game plan is very much bound up with orgonomy and my debt. In fact, stating my reserves right out begins to energize me. I always fear I’ll die before I’ve sung my fat lady’s song. I should know God better than that by now. The Reich/Mysticism section for our book will require less detail than in the final contemplated magnum opus, but it must make big points. You have read the Oranur Report in Selected Writings. With it Reich concludes functionally and cosmically the profoundest insights of the Gnostics and Jewish Mysticism. It should come as no surprise that the orgonomic weltanschauung is Gnostic to its roots, and yet there is always that blessed Reichian optimism. Knowing what Reich did of the metastasizing of the Emotional Plague in human affairs, and still being able to hold to the Orgone foundations of the cosmos, must give pause to one’s bitterness and sense of futility. I think including a scientific contributor is a good idea, only I should like to reserve to myself – if time and space make it feasible – a functional discussion of the New Physics (Davies, Gary Zhukov, Capra, et al), or that might be better reserved for my contemplated larger work. A lengthy get together in the spring looks like a very good idea. Details will be forthcoming on their own. All manner of thing will be well, Steve Victor
18 January 1997 Dear Victor: To turn to the personal, don’t worry about your energy or ability to finish our project. Particularly in later life, if you have a meaningful project to be involved in, it does wonders to keep the life energy flowing and strong. Many who have lived into their 80’s and 90’s did so because they continued to work instead of vegetating in one of the senior’s enclaves in Florida. I understand Dr. Baker continued to carry a full case load into his final years. Israel Regardie, chiropractor and occult philosopher, also lived into his early 80’s. On a more spiritual note, I don’t think we would have been brought together at this late date unless the Higher Spiritual Powers that guide our destinies intended us to do our work. As Stephan A. Hoeller stated in his book The Gnostic Jung” “….The night is still long and the watchman are few. Will the magnum opus be carried forward to a new stage toward its completion? Who will be the alchemists, the Gnostics of the future?” We have to do our part to bear witness to the darkness of this sorry crust of earth, and to the few particles of light that draw us upward. I have of course read the Oranur Report in the Collected Writings. You hit the nail on the head about the Manichean nature of Reich’s work in his last years. It is there even in the final paper on the death instinct and DOR [deadly psychic energy – ed.], written by Reich in honor of Freud’s 100th birthday. I assume, living in Vermont as you do, that you have
visited the Reich Museum in Rangeley. Last time I visited it, I was struck by a painting that Reich did in the final years which is now displayed in the room leading to the rooftop level of the Observatory. It shows a vital, ruddy man in full health standing before a wolf that has blood dripping from its mouth. The wolf obviously embodied all Reich felt was destructive, including the FDA, prosecuting attorney Mills, totalitarian communism, and the dreaded DOR/Devil. Here too, I can sense the mystical body of Christ and the Cabala’s divine ADAM facing the eternal adversary, The DOR/death instinct in its naked reality unmasked behind the ideological justifications and false smiles of the killers. Reich was fully aware of all this once he digested the experience of the Oranur Experiment. I have a tape recording of Reich speaking about the Oranur Experiment just after a meeting of the Wilhelm Reich Foundation, near in time to the frightening result of that project. In it, Reich states with great conviction: that “….I am fully aware of the implications [of Oranur] for medicine, biology, natural science, and philosophy….I am fully aware of it, and in this awareness I AM COMPLETELY ALONE WITH NO SOUL FAR AND WIDE TO SHARE IT WITH.” In his voice I can feel frustration, anger, anxiety, and longing. The statement is even more surprising considering that when it was made, in April 1952, Reich had already a group of medical doctors and scientists around him that included Baker, Sobey, Raphael, Eva Reich, and others who were enthusiastic and committed to the work. Dr. Chavis said to me at one of the conferences: “He was 100 years ahead of his time.” Reich’s awareness included the fact that Oranur had unleashed demonic forces that would entrap him if they could, and kill him. They did working through the FDA, drug companies, the U.S. Justice Department, and the psychoanalytic establishment. It is well known that exorcists have lost there lives and sanity battling demonic possession. This should provide ample warning to us as we prepare to embark on Oranur II. By the way, thanks for the words of encouragement at the close of your last letter. I sometimes feel like WR must have on the day he made his tape on Oranur. ALONE. My father, an unlettered Jewish mystic in his own way, used to say that the spiritual energy bodies of the departed stay in touch with the earth plane to help the living. My response was always the same: “We sure need them.” I will write again soon with more manuscript observations. As my mentor Leo Rattner used to say: “We will not only survive, we will prevail!!” Best, Steve
28 January 1997 Dear Steve: To my utter dismay, I have been rooting around in my ton-and-a half Reich notes. IT’S ALL THERE. The problem will be extracting the U-235 from this metric slag heap. But I begin to feel the old attraction, the ancient and long thought dead commitment to doing the Oranur Experiment and producing my final statement on the orgonomic interpretation of human II, experience. This represents my (hopefully) rational efforts to separate the idolatrous accretions of “The Reichians” from the shimmering corpus of WR’s work, and my no means incidental dedication to grabbing WR by the shoulders and giving him a good shake when he needs it. As I remarked in my previous letter, the business of intellectual re-tooling and emotional psyching-up is no simple matter for me at this juncture in my journey, but I don’t think any other point of my time-line was nearly so propitious for me to get to it, let it all hang out, make my statement, and let the devil take the hindmost. Ego be damned (which sounds pretty egotistical). I will forward the last chapters of my Twayne Publications essays, “The EP in Literature,” and the “Bioenergetic Sketches of Health In Literature.” I am also sending “Capitalism as Work Democracy,” a thesis I can no longer wholeheartedly endorse. I retain in my possession a great pile of WR/MYSTICISM stuff, to which I will have to devote the whole of my remaining bioenergetic intellectualism. In short, it requires much work. But to repeat, IT IS ALL THERE. I find Professor Jonas’ book one of the most metaphysically frightening I have ever read. How about the Gnostic notion of – literally – an armored cosmos. Projection? I don’t think so. You know, Reich never quite got it right in ETHER regarding the objective functional reality of DOR as the ADVERSARY of OR/GOD, and humanity’s Core. He so feared being charged with metaphysics, yet all his mighty later post-Oranur rightings (wow, how about that for pure Freudiana!).…I meant to say “writings,” his post-Oranur writings constitute a truly Manichean cosmology. I’m tingling a bit and my typing is beginning to suffer. God, this is big stuff he was on to. Today’s religions as I read them seem wholly focused on the phenomenon of “being palsey with God,” as one of C.S. Lewis’s correspondents identified the almost vulgar familiarity exhibited, especially among the Christian evangelicals (and they do cure) with Christ – Christ the owner of your local corner delicatessen. I try contacting the Father as ABBA – but he is too damned BIG. It is precisely that dimension of bigness, joined gently to the lovely humanity of Jesus in Reich’s Murder of Christ, that so fascinates me. I have never had any problem with the genitality of Jesus, or the Y’sod of the Father. One might say that this is the genital foundation of the worlds. The Cabala knew, and I would not be surprised that WR was a student of Cabala,
although biographically there is no evidence of this (yet to come to light – perhaps the opening of the Reich Archives in 2007 will change this). I will continue to hammer away at The Theology of the 12 Steps for 12 Step Diseases, still some months from completion. Bill Wilson was a bona fide mystic, as bona fide as Wilhelm Reich. “The work will go on.” Victor
February 10, 1997 Steve: Good job. I find the editing sound and the additions helpful. You tightened things up, and I have proceeded to tighten-up your tightening up. I have become almost fanatical about the least wasted particle, after decades of expansive (sloppy) self-indulgence in my writing. Bravo to your creative efforts. To paraphrase John Bell, “the work IS going on!” I once again sense the importance of the work, and my small contribution to it, with your invaluable assistance. With the resurgence in my writing has come a totally unforeseen resurgence in my sexual interest; although much damage remains below the water line, I am no longer sinking! The Jewish mystics (including W.R., of course) are just a delight to read. Imagine, God as the creator, sustainer, and true Father of cosmic and organismic genital union. Who’da thunk it? Blessings to you and yours. Do you have any children, Steve?
As ever, Victor
February 20, 1997 Victor: Yes, I have a son, Ian. He and my wife Roz are the lights of my life. I am happy you felt that my editing efforts were of help. Please find a local physicist with the nuclear clearances to help you set up Oranur II. I know there are many colleges in
New England, and although it will be hard to explain the experiment to a classically trained scientist, there may be one that you can convince. I cannot help you with that. Quantum physicists are now trying to build a device that will use high speed protons to collide and produce Bisons (“the God particle.”) This is supposed to free the fundamental particles that are behind the creation of the Universe. Dr. Reich discovered this in mass free cosmic orgone energy more than 50 years ago. “He was a hundred years ahead of his time!” With Oranur II, I think you will be able to penetrate this dimension, and travel into the metaphysical domain. UFO’s have used metaphysical vehicles to penetrate our physical dimension, as discovered by Reich and described in Contact With Space, as well as many other UFO studies. I have verified this myself through the use of spiritual hypnotherapy. Those in the “afterdeath” dimension, as well as other dimensions, use these saucer shaped energy envelopes, consisting of subatomic particles, to explore the universe as well as manifest in our material dimension. Only those with the most mass free spiritual energy bodies can use these vehicles. This is philosophically consistent with the teachings of the great Cabbalists. The journey of the human monad is a struggle back to the source of life and light. The Bible describes several such spiritual travelers. This is set out in the Old Testament in Ezekiel’s description of the luminous wheel with its alien intelligences, and in the Cloud/Pillars of Fire that guided Moses (our first liberation theologian) and his tribe to Mount Sinai and gave him the 10 Commandments by extraterrestrial communication. The New Testament reveals that Jesus encountered a UFO with Ezekiel and Moses on a mountain in a metaphysical carrier (cloud). Interestingly, Reich, the day before he died, told fellow inmate Harvey Matusow in the prison yard that UFOs were coming to get him. As Matusow stated: “He meant this in a liberation sense. The idea that he could leave his body was well accepted by him.” In Biblical times they would have called him a prophet. I am waiting with great fear and expectation at what Oranur II will bring. Bless you, Steve
March 1, 1997 Dear Steve: I have laid aside my almost completed second volume on alcoholism and begun laboring (lovingly) at the mysticism section of our book. It feels so very good and right to be
immersed in the truths of the cosmic orgone energy ocean again. It simply makes sense of everything to me, especially when and as I begin to see more distinctly the sharp metaphysical connections between Oranur and Mysticism. All will begin and end with the Oranur connections to Gnosticism, married somehow to the joyous gospel of hope that never seemed to abandon Reich – despite of great and dark trepidations toward the end, expressed most poignantly to A.S. Neil. Neil was the only one it seemed Reich felt (incorrectly) could follow where he led. How alone he was. How alone we are, except for God and those who remain open to the truly frightening “gnosis” revealed in orgonomy’s cosmic dimensions.
[Editor: The letters (as fictionalized and revised by the author of this book) that follow describe the efforts of Dr. Victor Silver to replicate the Oranur inter-dimensional thought experiment and to develop an adequate comprehension of it. In the process, great progress was made in the further delineation of the liberation theology made possible by Wilhelm Reich’s discovery of the Orgone.] Victor
March 10, 1997
Dear Victor: I was greatly moved by your last letter. Alfred Adler once said: “I see no reason to be afraid of metaphysics.” Don’t pay any attention to the “true believers” of the old Journal of Orgonomy days who sought to make a dogma of W.R.’ work – remember he himself stated “I am not a Reichian.” He always urged his students to go their own way and do their own work. I look forward to reading your chapter on Oranur and Gnosticism. I am now working on therapy and criteria for health. As I get into our project, I am getting more and more excited about expressing myself on the deepest issues, the ones all of us seem to want to run away from. I have had some psychic experiences over the years including precognition, astral travel, and ESP. I hope we can discuss these things when we get together. Regards, Steve
March 17, 1997 Dear Steve: I have laid aside my almost completed second volume on alcoholism and started laboring (lovingly) at the mysticism section of our book. It feels so very good and right to be immersed in the truths of the cosmic orgone energy ocean again. It simply makes sense of everything to connections me, especially and as married I begin to see moretodistinctly thegospel sharp of hope metaphysical to when Gnosticism, somehow the joyous that never seemed to abandon Reich – despite his great and dark trepidations toward the end, expressed most poignantly to A.S. Neil, the only one it seemed Reich felt (incorrectly) could follow where he explored. How alone he was!! How alone we are, except for God and those who remain open to the truly frightening “gnosis” revealed in orgonomy’s cosmic dimensions. In re-reading some of the Journal of Orgonomy articles regarding mysticism, I am once again struck by the elitist snootiness of the critics who guard the sanctuary and check our weekend passes. God it must be frightening to be so sure of what one knows. Alas, I was that way for the greater part of my life – pure defense. My last fondest dream will be to return to orgone therapy something like full-time with someone like Baker, to help clean up whatever of the characterological mess I can given the late hour and the bioenergetic wreckage of the last decades. Meanwhile, writing and thinking functionally, and communicating with you, are substantial gifts. I know of none in my life, including a deeply functionally spiritual wife and some good AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] friends with whom I can talk this talk. Plus all those dead folk your father spoke of. I do converse with EFB [Elsworth Baker], Paul Matthews, and sometimes WR [Wilhelm Reich]. I try to visualize them [Editor's note: actual contact via astral travel can be made with spiritual hypnosis], one of my weakest mental powers, and they are all wearing monkish robes and even carrying candles. They constitute the front row of a choir of those I have loved who have passed on, including relatives, friends, and spiritual kin like Bill Wilson. They seemed to be carrying some message for me, but I can’t yet get it clear. I have had pneumonia most of this winter. I hate sickness and physical incapacity. Aging isn’t half bad were it not for the long overdue health bills I charged up for so long to alcoholism and its glorious lifestyle. Lord, just give me the time. Steve, I hear your own loneliness and sadness. I always recall what WR said to Mickey Sharaf: “Your sadness is the best thing in you.” I think it has proven thus for me and I don’t ever expect to be without it. It keeps all things in their proper perspective. The painting I remember most vividly from the Wilhelm Reich Museum at Orgonon is that of a witch-like woman (strongly resembling Ilsa Ollendorf!) seated in a chair with THE HEAD OF A MAN IN HER LAP, a head which mightily resembles Reich’s selfportrait. The title: 20th Century. I recall my visits there 25 years ago with my second wife, a dark psychic type, who got sick from standing in front of the pioneer Cloud Buster on the front lawn, apparently still operational at the time. I also recall waking that
night on Rangeley Lake bathed in an August full moon with the powerful sense of a presence in the room, not at all frightening. My fourth wife and I were married in Rangeley in 1975. My current wife is number 5 and a real Godsend at this hour of my life. She is very spiritually aware, very female, and oblivious in many ways to the darker forces. That is the way it should be (no bravado intended, just a little knowledge). You are right. It is a time of utter and increasing confusion. Thank God we have a lifeline to cling to. I would not have exited this vale of tears very gracefully had I not been taught what I know and have tried so hard to forget for 30 years. Shalom. Victor
March 24, 1997 Dear Victor: Our teacher Dr. Reich once said that being alone is not the worst fate. Far worse is being with deadening people to avoid being alone. The chattering of such gatherings is a futile effort to drown out the fundamental tragedy of human existence. I am sending you a copy of an article by Edward Hoffman, “The Kabbalah and the Afterlife.” You may remember that Dr. Hoffman wrote an excellent book on Reich, “The Man Who Dreamed of Tomorrow.” The ancient Cabbalists, as a result of what we today would call astral travel, and what they cognized as chariot riding in the spiritual body to the throne kingdoms, were able to penetrate to deeper dimensions of the cosmic orgone energy ocean. They reported back that indeed the quantum subatomic spiritual body continues to evolve, including the necessity to reincarnate back into the organic fetus for a new life. The process of spiritual growth is infinite and at some point the spiritual monad does not return put ascends higher to the source of Godhead energy based upon the shedding of character armor while embodied on the earth plane. Celestial academies are available to assist in this process (of course our cognitive depiction of this process is limited by the structure of our consciousness, leaving the “thing in itself” to exist as it will – Kant had it right about this). Let me know your reflections on this. Best, Steve
April 3, 1997
Dear Steve: Thanks for the article. My own subtle love/hate relationship with Judaism moves in what ought to have been a self-evident direction to me, given my affinity for and fascination withlovers. Freud, And Reich, Spinoza, al, as well a lifelong attraction to many Jewsmore as friends and Jesus was soet.Jewish! I feelasthe attraction of Jewish mysticism strongly than ever. I had no idea of the importance of reincarnation in Kabbalah, and have always viewed it as some foreign incursion from eastern religions into the west. It is anathema to classic Christianity as you know, but it makes sense of so much that remains otherwise unintelligible in even my renegade brand of Christianity (with a small c, not “churchianity” as one AA friend observed about the fellowship). Christ’s genitality, and now Abba’s as well, has never really troubled me much more than the fact that my mother and father had genitals – which was (is?) troubling enough as it is. Jewish mysticism may end of supplying the missing parts to my spiritual life. I think that I shun is the discipline required as well as trust myself as a worthy vessel of power (I’m not one). But there is a mysterious and yet patently obvious strength in “The Tradition” lacking in all other mystical ways. I appreciate your sharing your own mystical experiences with me. I’ve narrowly “averted” dangerously close auto accidents when the driver of a car in which I occupied the passenger seat lost control of the vehicle and I remained absolutely calm, placing my hand on thier arms and repeating something like “easy does it” as we spun out of control. What the real significance of these events may have been I’m not yet prepared to bet the farm on. I also drove my car through the rain on my wedding evening with the radial of the tire exposed but never found out til the next morning. I’ve three times asked God – out of the blue – to bring about the appearance of a most unlikely person in a most unlikely place and time, and it happened. More than coincidence, I know, but what’s the point I wonder. Thank you for your geniune concern with my health. You are probably right about the whole thing, and I’m leaving it alone until and unless I get a sign of some sort. My health has been my greatest concern for several years now – I “got away” with a lot during my active days and the bill is finally coming due. I HATE SICKNESS IN ALL ITS FORMS, ALAS, ESPECIALLY MY OWN. I am utterly incapable of functioning at my best and fulfilling the commissions I have clearly been given by God (especially lending indispensable backup support to my wife for the next five years as she returns to divinity school at Harvard to become a minister; she is gifted spiritually), perhaps my writing and something else – the big something else – that will define the whole bloomin’ bloody mess of my life. I am about half finished with a rough draft of my Reich and mysticism chapter. Regarding our meeting in the summer, July would be best.
Keep the faith. We are on the right path. Blessings on you and yours. Victor
April 10, 1997 Dear Victor: I look forward with great anticipation to reading your draft on the spiritual dimension of Oranur and Reich’s final acceptance of “harbors for life” in this dark world. It was reported by Ilse Ollendorff Reich that in prison Reich wrote that he had attended some Protestant church services and: “I was deeply moved; I felt a new, universal faith in Life and Love, comprising all monotheistic beliefs, races, etc., is becoming a dire necessity to counter-weight and -act the ‘Enemy of Man’.” She also reported that he had spoken about the need for “Harbors for Life.” “Churches for Life,” and “Sanctuaries for Life.” In light of this final development, I agree that W.R. knew at the end that he had stumbled on a great and terrifying truth about man’s predicament on earth. His great optimism remained to the end with his profession of faith in Life and Love in the face of the DOR ravages within man and in the environment. In this regard, his final battles with CORE men from UFOs during the Arizona expedition can be seen as his attempt to battle the “Archons” who spread DOR from the cosmos onto the earth – rendering the emotional desert within and the geologic desert without. I have a videotape of Eva Reich speaking about this expedition which I will bring with me when we meet. I am teaching a seminar on “Contemporary Issues in Psychotherapy” at the Alfred Adler Institute. Last week I talked about the criteria for emotional health, and the necessity for psychotherapists to have a definite criteria and a real sense of what health is. I presented some material on the orgonomic concept from Dr. Raknes book, but I did not preach the superiority of the orgonomic approach. I did argue that universal criteria need someday to be accepted throughout the world if therapy is ever to be treated as a science. This week I hope to talk about the implications for society and politics. The students tell me that my classes are some of the most interesting they have had during their training, mainly, I suppose, because I speak about the tabooed subjects of the socio-political implications of good psychotherapy and real health. “Don’t touch it!” is still a living admonition in the school and work place. By the way, Orgone Therapy has given me a sense of vitality and feeling that I have never before experienced. I am discovering, however, like many who have had this experience before me, this does not make life easier. On the contrary, the half-measures, compromises and superficial adjustments to our sick society and its institutions become harder to maintain. I can see the sickness in society, but have no way of reaching it or changing it. I must still earn my daily bread in distorted organizations and with some very
sick people. I am more determined than ever to become independent of these forces as possible. Those who have deeply felt spiritual beliefs have something invaluable. The sense of connection to other humans and to God brings inner peace and consolation despite the bittersweet pain. I walk the streets of Manhattan and see lonely people with their hands out, perhaps cut off assistance by the new welfare laws, and the hard and cruel indifference of the rushing crowds and teeming traffic. The honest and deserving poor are truly forgotten if the churches do not see their need. The hardened men and commercial armor of society will never provide the answer. The state is dying – fine, this is all to the good – but where is God? The answer is “in us.” Can we let it stream out? For once in my life I feel the courage to step into the unknown….Reich was indeed on target: we need a universal faith in life and love. But where are the harbors to protect this? I have discussed the idea of a trip to see you and your wife with Roz, and she may be able to make the trip with me sometime during the summer (July-August). I greatly appreciate the offer of housing, but if we come together I think that we would like to put up in a local Inn both to save the stress on you and to make the trip a little vacation for us. There would still be plenty of time with Roz showing her some of the local shops, etc. There is still plenty of time to make arrangements. I was happy to hear of your renewed health….the forces of regeneration should never be underestimated…in the face of all ravages… Keep working against the Dark, nothing is ever lost in the struggle. Steve
May 1, 1997 Dear Steve: Good to hear from you after the hiatus. Interesting observation regarding the Archons spreading DOR. I was astonished to read the Cabbalists of the Zohar viewed evil as cosmic physical waste, the byproduct of God’s organic nature. DOR has never been more vividly portrayed. The literalness – absolutely not metaphoric – of their representing of God’s genitalia (not quite referred to as such) in the Y’sod, His ongoing genital union with the Shekinah which seems to maintain the universe, the “sustaining cause” of Catholic Medieval theology, and their ultimate optimism regarding things metaphysical, have revealed strong links with WR’s post-oranur metaphysics, as well as his astounding affirmation of affirmation of “The unity of Life and God and sweetness in the genital embrace. “WOW!” I’m typing my final draft of the Oranur Paradigm. Your editing of my
material doesn’t trouble me (unseen at least!), but I would like the srcinal material back when you come up. I have a favor if you are able. I have misplaced (ye gods, what a slip!) Reich’s essay on Freud’s Death Instinct and DOR. It’s here somewhere as I write, but I have searched high and low, without success. If possible, could you Xerox a copy for me? If not I can do without. The Wilson house (Bill Wilson, founder of AA) has written to ask me to restock my book on alcoholism for them. There are apparently numerous inquiries regarding Vol. II, which I propose to polish up and complete over the summer and after our current collaboration is completed. My magnum opus on the mysticism of late orgonomy – much assisted by the chapter I have just completed – can stand some more time fermenting in the vats. I had never heard of Reich’s church attendance and obvious spiritual commitment toward the end. I await the mutual viewing of Eva Reich’s tape. Susan looks forward to showing Roz around town. Late July and anytime in August (Except August 4-5-6; we are off to Rangeley then). Reading of Reich’s Harbors, Churches and Sanctuaries for Life, I wondered how he would have judged the 12-step philosophy. When you speak of walking Manhattan’s streets, I think of Wm. Blake’s lines on walking through London: “I mark in every face I meet, marks of weakness, and marks of woe.” They are everywhere. I am happy to hear of your success with the Adler seminar. I don’t know if I’ve informed you that I am teaching part-time at Johnson State College. It’s been ten years, and I am surprised at my enthusiasm and feeling of positive worth regarding the project. I’m teaching Freud in Ethics, and I absolutely refuse to leave these scared little kids with that dark philosophy as the last word. I intend to spend time on Reich’s development of Freud’s gloomy intuitions, and finish with Wm. James “Varieties of Religious Experience.” This is the key book in Bill Wilson’s reflections on alcoholism and its remission. I intend to Xerox the 12 steps and lecture on them, as well as having two fine AA types to talk to the class. I will also hand out, gratis naturally, copies of my book. Maybe some small seeds will be planted. Alcohol, drugs et al, are dreadful problems one way or the other for that age group. I am trying these days to “light candles” rather than merely “cursing the dark.” Warmest regards to you and Roz, Victor
May 10, 1997
Dear Steve:
I hope your trip to Florida was all you anticipated. I’ve completed a rough draft of the final section of our book. And it sings – at least to me. The radical change in Reich’s thinking after Oranur proof reads out, his not even reluctant acceptance of much cosmic information and implication that he had formerly dismissed in that peremptory manner that is so typically Reichian. It is refreshing to lay out and examine. Gnosticism, certainly the dark numinous side of the OR/DOR dialectic, and Kabbalah as the joyous genital anticipation of Orgonomy, fit beautifully together with WR’s post-oranur metaphysics. DOR is real, Satan is real, the genitality of God and the cosmos is real, the “identity of love and life and sweetness in the genital embrace” is real. It’s all real, let the Reichian Gnostics say what they will. Lois Wyvell’s article was new to me and refreshingly free of all the keeper-of-flame smugness that still contaminates the writings of the epigones. But she doesn’t mention Oranur, DOR, and didn’t seem eager to press Reich on the implications of some of his observations. Or Baker on the comment, “We are all Christians.” I hope to be able to send you the completed article (35-40 pgs.) in early June at the latest. I am teaching college again and it absorbs (happily) much time and effort. My health seems to have taken a dramatic turn for the better. I look forward to our meeting in the summer when we can replicate the Oranur Experiment. The work IS going on. Victor
May 20, 1997
Dear Victor: Your energy and enthusiasm for the work shines through in your last letter. I think our book will be the first genuine orgonommic philosophy that has been written since Reich finished “Ether, God, and the Devil,” “Cosmic Superimposition” and “The Murder of Christ.” Besides editing your contributions, I intend to creatively expand each chapter of the book with insights from early “new dawn” philosophers, as Nietzsche would have called them, who were intuitively on the same track as Reich. Although much clinical material has been written since Reich’s death by worthy orgonomists, the spiritual and
philosophic depths which his work revealed have lain unplowed. I hope we can make a start to the development of an Orgonomic Philosophy. I am happy to learn that you are teaching again. You have a great privilege to be teaching young people. They tend to be more open and reachable than the graduate students that I teach at the Institute. With you, your students have someone with something truly unique to teach which I doubt that they will hear from any of their other Professors. You have a great opportunity to introduce them to the authentic Reich, Freud, Lawrence, and others. I hope you keep teaching for as long as you are able, even into your 90′s. By the way, I think you misunderstood the kind of tape that I intend to bring with me this summer for our meeting. It is a tape of Eva Reich discussing the Arizona expedition (Not Else Ollendorff). As per your request, I am sending with this letter the paper by Reich on Freud’s Death Instinct and DOR, and I am also sending an additional paper on religion written by Dr. Ola Raknes. I was at the American College of Orgonomy this past weekend for a seminar on orgonomic sociology lead by Dr. Robert Harman. He did a wonderful commentary on the movie “High Noon” with Gary Cooper that demonstrated the functioning of healthy life in the face of the plague and the cowardly, evasive and capitalist functioning of the community in the face of the deadly plague infested killers of life. If you have not seen this film in some it repays viewing from an orgonomic perspective. I look forward to your replication of the Oranur Experiment this summer. Steve
June 1, 1997
Dear Steven: My residual 12-step, orgonomic Christianity resurfaces at this time of year. The whole death/resurrection dialectic moves me more profoundly each Spring – whatever its ultimate “meaning” turns out to be. I find myself unable to watch TV re-enactments of the Passion for too long; it simply stirs too much too deep. I am so pleased with the material you continue to share with me, and I continually wonder at Orgonomy’s inability to take that final leap of faith into…what? I was delighted at St. John of the Cross’ ejaculation and St. Theresa’s uterine fluttering, and despite of all I know, I ask – and hopefully will never cease asking – why can’t good Christian mysticism (right out of the Zohar) and Orgonomy fit the via media that is
crying out to be heard between unarmored genital mysticism and that protectionist elitist “ghostlike” mind-set which seems yet to haunt the halls of our divine science? I am more convinced than ever that Reich was indeed drawn irresistibly in that direction toward the end. Doesn’t anyone take seriously his post-oranur speculations? We have so much to face down together. I taught a quick overview of Reich in my Ethics course. I simply cannot leave the final word to Freud and psychoanalysis, although orgonomy is unthinkable without the Rabbi. Kids are still so sweet and scared/scarred and open – so utterly confused but hopeful. I shared your letter with Susan and she went right out and rented High Noon, which we viewed as a family with my 13 year old stepson Blake. It moved us all, although Blake had some difficulty grasping my advertisement of the film as being all about friendship. After viewing, throughout which he continually remarked, “some friendship.” I convinced him that that was precisely the point, “some friends” when the going gets tough. Thanks for the reminder. It is also a spectacular film, so stark and unrelenting. My chapter on functional mysticism has developed even more positively than I hoped. There is no incompatibility in my mind between projects, our Orgonomimc Philosophy book and Volume 2 of my alcoholism trilogy. The summer draws nigh. Warmest regards, Victor
June 14, 1997
Dear Victor:
I was very happy to read in your last communication that the residual 12-Step theological creative energies are flowing freely. There are times we feel dry, as if the cosmic spiritual energy has deserted us, or the weight of the world has us crushed. The eternal springs of orgone energy, prana, libido, or call it what you will, have a fortunate habit of coming back if we “let be” for some time and wait. At times, an external infusion of energy, a new lover or friend, can also supply the spark that gets things moving again. Indeed, I myself have often felt a kind of world-weariness that almost seems like a depression. At the age of almost 50, I too have seen more of this world and its problems, existentially and as an observer, than I sometimes care to contemplate. But then I realize that truly so little time remains to do what I can to repair the world within (which spontaneously also tends to heal the world outside). The Cabala and other occult teachings have always stressed “as above – so below.” [See the functional identity between the cosmic superimposition creating galaxies and human sexual superimposition - Ed.]
News from the front: I have purchased Erickson’s study of Luther which I hope to soon start to read. Also, the next chapter of our book that I want to tackle is the one on orgonomy and politics. As to Dr. Silvert, Martin Bell, a former Orgone Institute Press worker in the 1950′s, told me that he does not hold Silvert responsible for Reich’s death. He knew Silvert personally and did not find him a particularly warm character. However, Marty told me categorically that Reich handled the trial as he wanted to, and Reich could not have been swayed by Silvert or anyone else on fundamental matters. Everyone who knew Reich at almost any period in his life has always remarked on his ability to “go his own way” no matter what the potential consequences. This is why he “nailed his proclamation to the wall” as did Luther. In Reich’s case his “proclamation” appeared in the court documents he submitted to the federal courts. It is to this quality in Reich that we owe the discovery of orgone energy [which had been explained away by almost all scientists he showed his discovery to - Ed]. A discovery that has meant so much so many of us over the years. Reich bears the sole responsibility for the outcome for the outcome of the court case. He would have it no other way. Until I talked to Marty, and read his play ” Blood of the Prophets,” I never could understand why Reich did what he did in the final period. I now understand. Dr. Baker must have been very frustrated over this turn of events, since his common sense nature would have fought the case with legal weapons from the first. But Reich would have none of it. He wanted to create an historical record for the future by keeping the fundamental issues of scientific freedom and human decency with fair play in the open and dramatized. He appears now to me very much like Socrates appeared in his handling of the subversion case against him in the Athenian courts. Socrates could have fled into exile and saved himself. Instead, he taught his accusers and history a profound philosophical lesson. Like Socrates, it was never in Reich’s nature to “run” from the fundamental issues by compromising them or playing the “game.” Change of plans: It now appears that Roz will not be able to make the trip with me to see you after all. Unfortunately, our son, Ian, is now at a very in-between age. He is 15, which is too old to want to go with us, and too young to leave without supervision. He now has a summer job which means that he will need Roz around to structure things. Right now, the best time for me would be one of the open weekends in July. I would come up mid-day on the Friday before the weekend by airplane. If the offer to stay with you and Susan still holds good, I would take you up on that since I now will be coming alone for the weekend. I could also stay at a local Inn in the nearest town if it would make things easier for you both. Either way, the weekend would be very enjoyable. I could also come in August for a weekend when you get back from Rangeley. Let me know your thoughts on the situation. Don’t be too hard on the classical orgonomists now associated with the College of Orgonomy. Reich left an enormous legacy, and with Dr. Baker dead, they have their hands full with therapy and the natural science. Dr. Konia is now the real leader at the College and he concentrates on the natural science. Even Dr. Christ admitted at the last annual meeting that it took him many years just to learn how to do the therapy. The loss of Dr. Blasband [who left to pursue his own investigations in spiritual healing with Nicholai Levashov - Ed] and others has taken its toll. All the more reason why
“outsiders” such as ourselves need to work on the spiritual field. Reich was 500 years ahead of his time. The best we can do is to carry on, “each in his or her own way.” I applied some of what I learned in Orgonomy to the raising of my son, particularly in his motor and emotional development. I believe it was beneficial to him. So far, by the grace of the spiritual energy, he is also weathering adolescence. Reconnecting with you also provided the gift of an opportunity to contribute something to the philosophical work. As far as the work-a-day world goes, it is a real struggle to maintain any real degree of health and rationality when everything around you is causing you to contract down and when you must tolerate neurotic behavior in others for the necessity of economic survival. Sometimes rational armor against the conditions is the only answer, as long as you can let go of it when you are no longer in the situation. Sometimes, conflict is inevitable when core health is at stake – then you must be prepared to travel the hard road “alone.” Reich had the courage to do it. I pray each day for some of the same courage. Brother, you really said it: “we are powerless against sin!!” Only by the Grace of the Spiritual Energy. Best, Steve
June 24, 1997 Dear Steve: I write you with a renewed sense of wonder and joy at what we are about, a renewed thankfulness to the authors of the Zohar and our beloved Reich, as crusty and wrongheaded as he could get he never lost the child’s sense of wonder at what his intuitions and perceptions were telling him about just how big his discoveries were, how open, how limitlessly fertile. (My last run-on sentence, I promise for now.). After a terrible dry spell in which I was convinced I could never write another word about anything – the old poor me, who’s gonna read it anyway, if I hadn’t spent all that time on bar stools, whine, whine, it’s all come back with a rush of tears of gratitude to God, the Cosmic Orgone Energy Ocean, Adonai, et al. I’m misting up a little just writing this. I feel we are engaged in an authentic and valuable process of both extending and connecting-up Reich’s last great speculations, which the Keepers of the Holy Writ in Orgonomy don’t seem to give a fig for (I hope I’m not being either hyper or arrogant, but so many seem to want to keep his spirit embalmed and for us Reich lives!!). Silvert remains a very problematic character. I know Baker never wanted to talk to me about him, indeed, the only time he ever got really angry – with a powerful undertone of despair – is when I prodded him about Silvert, who you know committed suicide (Judas?) in Van Cortland Park shortly after his release from prison. Marty’s description makes Silvert sound to me as if he thought he knew Reich’s “will” (what was really good for Orgonomy) and that he killed Reich for his own good – or is that going too far afield?
Reich’s identification with Luther fascinates. Luther is one of two Christian reformers (Augustine is the other) who have more to say to me than any others. He was a scholar, but rough and ready and loaded with the courage of the working man with which WR identified. He also knew about sin, our powerlessness over it, and the absolute human need for grace not works, for faith and not the law. Much to be pondered here. Your warm and informative letters continue to open doors for me. God bless you and yours and your very important work. Victor
July 4, 1997 Dear Steve: Thanks for the prompt response. August 8, 9, 10 are set for our trip. If you fly, I’ll pick you up at Burlington Airport. If you drive, I’ll send directions as the time approaches. Now to business. I recall Reich somewhere saying that he didn’t write for people, he wrote the truth. This is my feeling regarding the audience we are targeting. I think we can expect little sympathy, and the same old tired cries of outrage regarding our EP attack on Reich’s work, our own mysticism taking precedence over orgonomic truth, ad nauseum. I am familiar and comfortable with the term “functional mysticism,” but it is not set in stone. Your term “Orgonomic Spirituality” has a nice ring about it and might be used synonymously with “functional mysticism.” I think this latter term bears directly on Reich’s legitimate attack on the silly straw men of armored theopathic mysticism – still widespread, I realize – but never really the best that mysticism has to offer. Also, he himself uses the term “mysticism” several times in his last reflections, and I still feel that he has muddled up animism and mysticism of the rational kind, which I find both Gnosticism in its DOR-mode, and Kabbalah, in its ebullient affirmation of the primacy of God’s genitalia, if I may put it thus, to be among the strongest historical and spiritual confirmations of the post-oranur discoveries. Certainly, any doctrinaire stance – in or out of orgonomy – is precisely what we are seeking to break through (not in any juvenile, inyour-face stance, as you well appreciate). Our August weekend should help us to firm-up whatever differences we have on this and other matters. Blessings on you and yours, Victor PS/ Have you read that the universe has an “up and down?” Seems terribly significant, but I can’t for the life of me say why. Maybe it’s time to modify Einstein’s final model of reality.
July 12, 1997 Dear Victor: Thanks for reminding me that we are seeking truth, and let the chips fall where they may! My old mentor, Leo Ratner, used to say: “Go your way and let people talk!” Nietzsche never worried about alienating anybody, nor did Reich. My fear was also we would be misunderstood by the Orgonomic Community by using a term as loaded with “theopathic” associations as “functional mysticism.” When I was last at the College of Orgonomy, I mentioned to Dr. Harman during a discussion of “High Noon” that Will Kane, the lead character, needed great “faith” to face the killers alone after he had been abandoned by the Town. Harman became defensive and added “faith in life,” as if he wanted to make it clear that no religious or spiritual dimension was to be implied. But is not “faith in life” on the deepest level faith in the Creator of all life, whether we call that force “Ocean of Life Energy” as did Reich, or the transcendent “Godhead” of the Gnostics, or “Father” as did Jesus and the Cabbalists? In order to fight the emotional plague, one needs ultimate faith that however many generations it may take, truth and decency will prevail. Also, it impossible to survive an encounter with real Evil, as I did when my brother was killed, without drawing from the spiritual well for strength and courage. O.K. Let’s face it head on. “Functional Mysticism” it will be and we will try to draw distinctions as clearly as we can. Any one who is offended by this term need not read any further. Those who have the fortitude can join us on the lonely mountain trail. I have read your paper on Oranur for a second time, and, during a Passover respite, I started to take notes on my contribution to it. I intend to expand and rewrite it, and I will send it to you so that you might review it prior to our summer meeting. I think Reich’s experiment XX, where he found the creation of primitive living forms out of mass-free orgone energy (distilled from earth water as “bion water”), is a very important counterpoint to the Oranur Experiment. Where Oranur uncovered the God Reality which is the religion of living energy as you have termed it, Experiment XX uncovered the God Reality which is the religion of living energy as you have termed it (soil from the Garden of Eden?). I also intend to cover Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of complexification of matter giving rise to consciousness – this is the same phenomenon that Reich pointed out when he stated that the highest concentration of orgone energy in the human form at the head end gave rise to the brain and primary sensors (Dr. Alexander Lowen, the most creative of all of Reich’s students, pointed out that this concentration of head energy needed to be grounded in the legs and feet rooted in earth soil). Another line of investigation has to do with the Hindu idea that the cosmic energy is playing with the Universe for the sake of pleasurable play, which brings to mind one of Reich’s favorite ideas: those who can pleasurably submerge in life need no theory to account for its purpose. Reincarnation researcher Dr. Ian Stevenson, Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia, thinks that the existence of reincarnation is part of the process by which the
cosmic energy comes to realize itself. This is congruent with Reich’s idea of the orgone energy coming to know itself in the deepest reaches of concentrated emotion and thought. I am still working out the rest of this, but I feel great excitement at going on now to tackle the most fundamental philosophical question of them all: creation and the reality of Evil. By the way, I have found a very useful work entitled “Understanding Mysticism” edited by Richard Woods perspectives. – it is a fine collection of papers on the subject from both theological and psychological Best, Steve
July 20, 1997 Dear Steve: Apologies for delaying an answer to your last communication, but I have been quite busy proof-reading and editing my manuscript of my second volume on alcoholism as the metaphor for all spiritual (functional) disease, as well as finishing my stint at Johnson college (this is the final week). Do you have a copy of Baker’s “Man in The Trap?” If not, I’d like to send you one. It played an indispensable role in my spirit-vision quest, as did its author [Elsworth Baker]. I must confess, I have reservations about Experiment XX, what actually happened as well as Reich’s (mis?)-interpretation of the phenomenon. I do not believe for a moment that life srcinates from non-life; the universe is as alive as its God, and I think Reich was drastically wrong in positing the CFP [common functioning principle] as something shared between organic and inorganic matter; there is no inorganic matter. Consciousness is inconceivable without life, and it becomes increasingly clear to me that the cosmos and microcosmos share all the properties of life. Even DOR [deadly orgone energy] is “alive” in some paradoxical way, deadly but not truly dead. However, the inclusion of your exposition of Experiment XX is certainly called for. Doesn’t all mysticism posit a living universe? I always thought so. I must say that I don’t find very much “playful” about the behavior of the universe, from savagely cruel savannahs of Africa to Cancer wards to North Dakota. I find part of my pleasurable immersion in life REQUIRES a theory. Right thinking and clean expression of ideas are great pleasures. And PURPOSE IS EVERYWHERE. My difficulty is in accounting for WHO the pleasure-giver is. You are certainly right about Evil in Creation being the most fundamental question of them all, and only the mystics (functional mysticism) can really address an answer satisfactorily. The theory of EP [emotional plague] is marvelous, as is the cancer theory and DOR. I love thinking, finding-out, speculating, revising my ideas and giving form to them, and finding the treasures of mind I failed to uncover in earlier encounters with the great minds of the past. Teaching has given me that opportunity.
I look forward to our meeting. Fondest regards to you and yours, Victor
July 27, 1997 Dear Victor: I appreciate your offer of a copy of Dr. Baker’s book “Man In the Trap.” I do already have an old hard-bound edition from the old Adelphi days. I have read it many times and find much sound common sense and good guidance in it. In addition, I have a taped interview with Baker that was made in 1982, and is put out by the ACO [American College of Orgonomy]. I have listened to this interview about 50 times (no exaggeration). In them Baker talks in a relaxed way about the whole corpus of Orgonomy and his relationship to Reich. Almost every time I listen to it I am rewarded with another insight. I will bring it with me for our August meeting if you have not had a chance to hear it. I would appreciate it if you could send me copies of any articles that Dr. Koopman wrote on parapsychology, mysticism and spiritual matters. This will aid me in my work on the chapter. I want you to see the direction that my thinking is taking and how I am working with your insights. The chapter should be in preliminary form for our get-together. Please let me know if you have further reflections to add. I think my interpretation of Experiment XX differs from yours (at least on the surface). I do not think the experiment demonstrates that life comes from nonlife. On the contrary, I think that the experiment demonstrates that life and nonlife are created by a living spiritual energy that is functionally identical to God. The orgone energy that is distilled in the earth bion water created primitive plasmatic substance. It is also responsible for the creation of atoms and elements that make up nonliving substance. I agree with Dr. Raknes speculation that the living energy first created living matter and then as it contracted down also created nonliving matter. It is for this reason that life exists on the surface of the planet which is the boundary between the living spiritual energy of the heavens and the dead matter in the interior of the earth. In other words, we are the transition between the God Energy of the cosmos and the contracted dead [DOR] energy of the earth. It is for this reason that the Bible describes the Devil as being hurled from the heavens into the earth, and into exile from the Godhead. This is also the reason that cancer produces amoebic cells that represent a disorganization of the life energy form a higher state of motility and life into the death process. In other words it represents the final grasp of DOR energy on the organism. THE ANSWER TO THE ORIGIN AND REASON FOR EVIL IS IN THIS PROCESS!!! I hope everything continues to go well for you. I have noticed a new sense of energy and health in your communications. I am also feeling more and more vitality as the
cumulative effects of the medical orgone therapy take hold. How to increase and maintain health in a very sick culture remains a constant struggle. As always, my best to you and Susan. Steve
August 20, 1997 Dear Steve: I am sending the Koopman material under separate cover. I have grown to respect her views more and more over the years, although I disliked her intensely in my earlier encounters with her. She was the first Medical Orgonomist to speak to my Reich classes at Adelphi. In those days, you were either orgonomically pure and without blemish (I failed to consult my own bathroom mirror in this matter), or consigned to outer darkness with the rest of flawed humanity. “Babs” always seemed excessively pedantic and knowit-all. I am now sorry I didn’t get to know her a little better functionally. I like very much what you have done in the Introduction to Chapter V on Orgonomic Religion. My own spiritual consciousness (Orgonotic First Sense?) tells me that mysticism remains the supreme noetic channel to the knowledge (of God) for which we hunger. As long as the attitude of smugness and ipse dixit remains at the heart of orgonomy, nothing more will be done except to repeat Reich’s observations ad nauseum; that is one reason why I find the vignettes you judiciously feed me so refreshing. They don’t fit the mold. I’ve always felt this about orgonomy – with rare exceptions like Baker and John Bell, Blasband, and now, Koopman – that worshipful attitude which has blocked all further progress. AND REICH KNEW IT! How about that Oranur quote from Reich: “…and in this awareness I am completely alone.” Not any more, Rabbi. Your paragraph on Experiment XX requires some deep conversation. I have gone back to re-read “Studies in Hysteria.” So much of Reich’s clinical theory on armor and energy is clearly anticipated there. Like Kabbalah, Freud should only be studied by older men (haha). Did I ever tell you that “Totem and Taboo” and also “Beyond the Pleasure Principle damn near killed me at 30, no exaggeration? It was just before my near-fatal meeting with a light pole on the Belt Parkway at 6AM of a drunken morning in 1965. Please keep the vignettes and snippets coming. I eagerly look forward to viewing the Eva Reich tape. She remains something of an enigma to me. Blessings from the Most High on you and ours. (Not me!) Victor
September 1, 1997 Dear Steve: In looking over some of the literature, I re-discovered Silvert’s picture in the Sharaf biography. MY GOD! He’s Reich’s Doppelganger! I grow more and more grateful for Reich, Baker and orgonomy in my life. I still would try a medical orgonomist if there were one in the neighborhood. Blessings on our collaboration. Victor
September 20, 1997 Dear Steve: Rummaging about my cluttered ms. boxes, I found your letter of December 14, 1996 to me. I WAS STUNNED at your praise of my Reich work, as well as your offer to be my literary attorney in the future. I don’t recall my initial response, but be sure that I am pleased and honored at your offer to read and edit Vol. 2. I am doing something I have never done with it before, (actually re-typing with re-writing and editing at the same time) for the fourth time. It’s no big whoop – except for me who always wanted it said when it was said and done when it was done. It bespeaks a greater seriousness about my work. The ms. should be in your hands before the end of 97. I remain deeply and quietly (for me) excited about our W.R. project. Skimmed my underlining in Sharaf and A.S. Neil correspondence. It stirred so much in me. I could cry for the “all too human” Reich (Nietzsche’s words, of course), and at the same time, revel in our glorious alzumenschlich kinship. Re-reading your autobiographical accounts also moved me so deeply. You have all the credentials (“That sadness is the best thing in you,” Reich to Sharaf). It’s a miracle you have not gone under, or worse, gone bad. Much love to you and yours, Victor your letters are a joy.
September 27, 1997 Dear Victor: Thanks for your very kind letter of September 20. I attribute my emotional/spiritual survival to having, by the grace of God, excellent mentor/therapists, and to the fact that somehow my Core remained clean and untouched despite the emotional plague holocausts that I had for raging mefunctioning in childhood andbe adolescence. I always maintained a feeling whataround healthy could and I have Somehow always worked tirelessly toward that end. Working on the chapter on Orgonomic Religion provides new impetus for reviewing my own spiritual beliefs, even beyond that provided by the daily struggle to remain decent in this dark world. I have worked out, over the years, my own existential spiritual beliefs, totally outside of organized religion. I start from the felt belief that the gateway to the Godhead is internal and unique to each human being. Simply put, we are orgone energy become conscious of itself, the world, and the shared mortality and suffering of all human beings. Since the ocean of living energy is vast and eternal, we need spiritual mediators to help us stand within it, tolerate it, and open ourselves up to it. I prefer to anthropomorphize an individual “higher spiritual guide” that resides in the Core of our being and that by, in Emerson’s words, “lowly listening,” prayer and mediation, we can receive guidance in our daily life and protection from destructive temptation. We are like children in the desert, struggling toward a distant light on the horizon that promises water and rest. This guide can, if we are lucky, keep us from wandering off into the abyss of eternal light. Sometimes, when the pain becomes great, we can do no more than live one day or one moment at a time, knowing that if we can only keep loving and striving we can be saved no matter what circumstances may develop. Incidentally, I have found that some of these beliefs and feelings seem to agree with a spiritual philosophy developed by Dr. John Perrikos and his wife and presented in a series of books (I will send one of the publications to you with my next letter). Dr. Perrikos was once a student of Reich’s but has moved way outside the orgonomic mainstream, developing his own brand of therapy which he calls Core Energetics. His wife developed the spiritual side of this work with a series of lectures which she “channeled” from higher powers which she calls the “Pathwork.” I think their work fits what you have described as “functional mysticism.” Using the criteria that both Jung and James developed, I feel that their work as a real beneficial emotional/religious effect and thus ontological validity in a spiritual sense. I would be delighted to edit and read your Volume 2 of the work on alcoholism and religion. My love and respect to you and your family, Steve
October 10, 1997 Dear Steve: Much of what Mrs. Perrikos has to say is quite accurate and lovely. One caveat, however. I am extremely suspicious of the whole phenomenon of the New Age channeling such as that done by Shirley McLain. It is extremely dangerous stuff carried on by usually decent peopleand whocan literally do not know what are getting into. Thereminds Devil isusanthat Angel ofwhen Light cite scripture for his ownthey purposes. St. Thomas even Satan is telling the truth he is lying! It is better to walk cautiously in that metaphysical minefield. I have no problem with “anthropomorphsing” a higher spiritual guide. Mine is a very tall muscular Indian with Dr. Baker’s features and he is colored blue, ergo his name, Blue Water (Baker was one-eighth Mohawk). I sense your longing for relief from suffering and loneliness, which I often share. But I am lately learning something of the ancient art of detachment, even (or especially) with my loved ones. I find that it makes me both loving and more effective in my relations with them. Our spiritual guides, after all, are really sophisticated versions of the Catholic angels – why not? I sense strongly the overtones of Emmett Fox, Ralph Waldo Trine, and what William James calls the Mind Cure Movement in Mrs. Perrikos writing. But I must keep myself sharply on the alert regarding some features of this powerful and persuasive philosophy. First, we do not order the universe around no matter how enlightened we may become; we may become “like” the gods, but we never become God! The distinction sometimes becomes blurred in enthusiasm for the relief promised and often accorded by this philosophy. Secondly, DOR!!!!! For the nonce, the DOR-removal project – I speak metaphorically rather than literally – is of large concern. I see our book as a step in that direction. The key is not to fight it directly, or try to outmaneuver it or out-talk it. WR ought to have remembered his own words about fighting the plague, mano-a-mano. We can never win. All we can do is to state the truth as clearly, sharply, and keenly as we know how, and maybe plant some seeds along the way. Enough of Foxy-Grandpa advice! “All manner of thing will be well.” Juliana of Norwich Victor
October 5, 1997 Dear Steve: Your recent letter interested me more than many – although I find them all something of a “lifeline” to functional mysticism and healing. There is really no one left for me to talk to on these deepest subjects. I would like very much to read Perrikos’ book, “Core Energetics.” Perhaps you could lend me a copy?
Regarding Drs. Blasband and Rosen. Dale was a student of mine at N.Y.U. in the two year B.A. program for late bloomers and he was encouraged by John Bell to pursue a career in orgonomy. I think I’ve indicated that Blasband was my favorite orgonomist after Dr. Baker. He was very REAL! I would be certainly interested in the work he is doing now. Your decision to pursue a healing vocation absolutely delights me. I know how very real spiritual healing is. My wife is gifted with hands that radiate life energy, although she doesn’t quite know it yet. I am a klutz in that area, intellectually understanding it but functionally useless I fear. The Soviets were really on to something with their PSI research. Ostrander’s book persuaded me back then, and it still does. I tried Homeopathy for two years and had some success, but it failed me – or I failed it – toward the end. I believe I tried too hard, and perhaps intimidated my physician. Notwithstanding this, in re-reading “Psyche and Substance” by Dr. John Witmont, as Jungian as its orientation seems, it is pure bioenergetic philosophy. But it’s so hard to make the right connection, so much confusion, so much yet unknown, so much fear. Several years ago (89 or 90), I contacted an Argentinean orgonomist in the Boston-NYC area (John Bell and his wife see him periodically), but his name completely escapes me. I simply was unable to afford therapy at the time – and then the BIG BANG in the chest. Also, chiropractors helped me over some rough spots, but it was classical medicine that saved my life. I have a good cardiologist, but I have had to take some chances regarding degrees and kinds of medication. Also, a terrific urologist scraped my prostate area, but he too wants me to pursue more of the path than I am willing to, and I take deep breaths as I write this – at this moment. I don’t think it’s a case of “doing it my way” so much as listening to my bioenergetic structure. Right now I feel stronger than I have in years. I exercise fairly vigorously and have returned to Karate (judiciously) which I took for 15 months, pushing myself beyond endurance. My sexual life is fairly broken after the decade of abuse with alcohol and unhealthy relationships and attitudes – only orgonomy kept me from going over the line into freefor-all fucking and gave me some moments of orgastic potency – at least the closest I have ever come to it. It’s real – as you know. My wife and I have a mutually gratifying love relationship, and I am “coming along” so to speak (minus 67 calendar years, 2 heart attacks, and 35 years of alcoholic drinking – which helped handle a big portion of my anxiety), and do not expect miracles – except sometimes. Again, a splendid letter from you arriving synchronously for me at the tail end of a mild but deep EP [emotional plague] episode. BUT I KEPT MY MOUTH SHUT! Warmest regards to Roz, your son and yourself. Victor
October 10, 1997 Dear Victor: It was good to talk to you directly on the phone yesterday. My discussion with you on some of my experiences in law practice got me thinking again of one of my deepest long unrealized hopes: to find an area of law practice where I could be a Functional Attorney. A kind ofinpractice where I couldphilosophy, use the laworgonomy, to help repair lives and combineI my training law, psychotherapy, andbroken the spiritual disciplines. continue to look for this from time to time, but at the age of 50, the task is not easy. My best chance would be in providing legal representation and spiritual counsel to adolescents or elderly people. My mainstay for the past decade has been my legal editing work, and although there is satisfaction to be found in this, and in some part-time teaching, the editing function as a full time vocation in a small family run corporation has not allowed enough scope for the full discharge of my work energies. It is good to hear that you are still engaging in vigorous physical exercise. This is probably the most important thing you could do to enhance your health. As Dr. Baker said: “There are no healthy people.” Like you, my life and search for knowledge has left me feeling that there is so much we still don’t know. It also produces a feeling of awe in the face of the overwhelming forces bearing down on our lives from every quarter, and the vast eternal cosmos where we spend a brief moment of embodied consciousness. One thing I do know: Jesus, Reich, Adler, Freud, and the other pioneering philosophers, spiritual teachers and scientists have touched on great truths that can help guide us in the wilderness. The more deeply we can feel, the closer we can get to God, because we are feeling Him in us as spiritual energy. There is no intellectual answer to life’s problems, only feeling, thinking, living and moving. When asked what church he belonged to, Dr. Baker replied: “God’s church – I follow the teachings of Jesus to the best of my ability.” What more can any of us do? Best, Steve
October 20, 1997 Dear Steve: Many thanks for the good letter, the Pierrakos material, and our good conversation. I begin to feel more and more in focus on the Reich work. My second volume about alcoholism goes on apace, as I type the final version, come what may. It’s good, better than the first, for what that might be worth. After that, although I have two smaller works in mind, I plan to plunge into W.R. the mystic, the sound of it excites me, and many lovely synchronicities and bittersweet nostalgic memories are bathing me as I open to the light of our God sent Grace, Orgonomy, and the people in it who have made such a
difference in my life and yours. I can’t wait until you get a response from Blasband; I am intensely interested in what he is doing. I should also like to write Dr. Barbara Koopman, but I have no idea where she is (John Bell, perhaps?). Also, I am making a ton of typing errors in this letter – more than customary – telling me of my own excitement, first, and second, that something would I rather not write it. Thanks for your encouragement regarding my long-delayed (not yet fatal) return to medical orgone therapy. As I see it now, money will be the major obstacle now and in the future. But events have had a way of arranging themselves to my benefit over the last decade when I let them alone. Your quoting EFB for me, one I had never heard – ” I follow the teachings of Jesus to the best of my ability -” brought shivers and regrets. “When comes such another?” I read the Pierrakos material at one, split setting. He has done some important experimental work confirming Reich, Kilner, Barbara K., and the Russians, as well as a whole host of others discussed in Mann’s book of some years back, REICH, ORGONE AND EROS. Thus far, as I perceive it, his own therapeutic philosophy is a reformulation of orgonomy in other terms, and I will wait upon the sequel. Regarding prayer and solitude, I am off tomorrow to a local Benedictine Abbey for a brief retreat, and frankly it scares me – in a good way. I am just beginning to feel HOW BIG GOD IS! I went last year a few weeks after surgery and spent two dreadful sleepless nights. But there is a mighty Presence there, and I am going to lay a few sins and character dysfunctions on the Presence. I love the solitude – I love my own company – alas, at least for brief quantum spurts. The DOR envelope without continues to constrict like a python, making it difficult to expand and stay expanded. Both the natural environment and the strangulating EP [emotional plague] are making steady progress. I always chuckle when I see the liberals in a quandary, asking, “How did all this happen?” You bastards, you got just what you asked for, and now you wonder why – and worst – you won’t change in time. Nice people are more dangerous than the Hitlers, Stalins, and Maos, there’s nothing to grab hold of. AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED, except perhaps more basically decent folks are trying to live life decently against increasingly negative odds. This is NOT pessimism. With Mendelsohn’s Scottish Symphony in the background and having just heard the final movement of Mozart’s “Jupiter,” how can anyone not believe in the reality of living loving Bioenergy – God. I saw a TV interview with Suzanne Farrell, NYC Ballerina and thrall to G. Balanchine until she broke away. His plague reaction almost destroyed her and her husband BUT, Balanchine changed in his 80′s and made something of an amends to them both. As Paul says, “The mystery is Great,” especially, the mysterium iniquitatus of the Catholic Church. A NEW SCIENCE OF LIFE by Rupert Sheldrake is a magnificent addition to our mystical community. Looking forward eagerly to our ongoing and deepening “contact.” Victor
November 10, 1997 Dear Victor: I am intrigued by your retreats to a Benedictine Abbey. Maybe in a future communication or discussion you can tell me about it and how one can go on such a retreat? Is it open to a spiritual free-lancer such as myself? I am glad you enjoyed Dr. Pierrakos’ material, and I will send you another installment in the near future. In the meantime, I have sent you some material from his wife, Eva, which you should have received by the time you read this. In one of your recent letters you discussed the experience of orgastic potency and that it is real. By the grace of God, and Orgonomy, I have been able to experience it more and more and I can say that it is the key to real spirituality as you have indicated the Kabbalah and the primitive Christians must have experienced it. In its after-glow, you can feel God in yourself and recognize Him in others. Cruelty and any type of secondary expression become impossible. The thought of exploiting another human being for economic gain becomes repugnant. Indiscriminate free-for-all fucking becomes unthinkable. With it, you can understand and feel the joyful and also sad expressions of animals, babies, and even weather (yes – the atmosphere can feel, and howl with pain). Expression becomes simple, to the point, and sometimes even profound. Without this capacity, and we all are without this capacity at times, you truly feel a desert inside. The problem, however, is that it sometimes seems as if everything in our environment conspires to destroy this capacity in us. Were the great mystics able to maintain this feeling on a continuous basis? I hear the despair in your last letter. Yes…it sometimes seems as if nothing has changed or worse. Here I would like to cite the words of a man who in his last years became a profound mystic philosopher: Henry Miller (His work has as little to do with pornography as WR’s did). In an interview in 1969, when he was near 80, he stated: “The world never changes…it is like Spengler said…the only difference in lives is the difference in viewpoint..whether you see the world down here [motioning to the floor with his hands], up here like the Eagle, or still higher like the Gods…otherwise there is no difference because the world never changes…You fight the powers that be by making changes in yourself…in your own character…if you try to fight them on their terms you are putting yourself on their level.” For Miller, real change is always spiritual change. As he put it: “You must rearrange the molecules.” In this same interview he stated: “Don’t you know? You can never get to IT. You can go back as far as you want…forward as far as you want…but you never get to IT. It is impenetrable…and it was meant to be that way…you can analyze all you want…Life is a Great Mystery.” Best, Steve
November 20, 1997 Dear Steve: I am enjoying the Pierrakos material considerably. It’s refreshing to hear someone with real credentials speak so matter-of-factly about the aura, the visible energy fields, et al. I do see auras from time to time, but never when I’m looking for them. Also, some of my healing prayers have been most effective; the Higher Power only asks surrender and trust. Henry Miller was an innocent, satyr, and serious -which is about the greatest praise I am capable of giving these days (Gene Sheperd used to say, “We are not going out with a bang or a whimper, but with a giggle.”). But who reads him, or D.H. Lawrence or Nietzsche or, for that matter, Freud or Reich? I was intrigued to note that Flanders Dunbar had formulated a characterology regarding Coronary, Ulcer and Arthritic personalities. But can you ever imagine them coming to grips with Reich’s “The Cancer Biopathy”? It’s like it never existed – an un-book, to steal from George Orwell. Please to continue the information feeding. It’s vital nutrition to me and I literally have no other sources except my old books and writings. I feel God is granting me health and time to finish my endgame plan – “For I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.” Let me know as soon as you hear from Blasband, please. And I pray you keep doing what you’re doing. Despite my fustian, it makes a real difference. My love and prayers to you and yours, Victor We will talk about the Religious Retreat shortly. It would be a splendid adventure for your spirit.
December 5, 1997 Dear Steve: I am quite excited about your communication of Dr. Blasband’s work. And to see both Dr. Koopman and John Bell on the list, adds a tremendous credibility in my mind to the enterprise. After EFB [Elsworth F. Baker], those three were the most impressive and credentialed – in a functional sense – people in the science of Medical Orgonomy. I plan to write all three. I am utterly convinced – despite my unfortunate encounter with homeopathy – that spiritual medicine holds the key – to everything. Bill Wilson was one of the first in this century to recognize alcoholism as a spiritual disease primarily, with physical, emotional and mental symptoms (which, of course, can kill). In the “Big Book” Bill wrote a
monumental sentence which none in 12-step programs (more than 300 of them now) seems to take seriously. “First we clear up spiritually, then we get better mentally and physically.” This is how I and millions before have found it to be. If the spiritual dimension is neglected, recovery is tentative at best. Bill characterized his own dramatic encounter with God on his alcoholic death-bed, “a mystical awakening.” This is the fundamental point I try to make in Volume II of my trilogy; the 12-steps are the contemporary manifestation of the Perennial Philosophy of Mysticism, not a self-help group of nice people trying to help other nice people. It is so damned big that few see it – like Orgonomy. I am prepping myself mentally and spiritually for the big plunge into “Wilhelm Reich, Orgonomy and Mysticism,” or some such title. I plan to begin officially at the end of this year or the top of 98. The Gnostic, Kabbalah, OR-DOR connection is the fundamental metaphysical link, with valuable assists from the alternate therapy whose promise we share. I am off to write Blasband, Bell, and Koopman. Enjoy your precious father-son connection. It is in many ways as spiritual as the mother-son relationship. Victor
December 20, 1997 Dear Steve: Just a line to let you know how very much I enjoyed your visit, our exchange of ideas, and the outlines of a promising future of collaborating together. I was thoroughly overcharged by the events of the whole week, beginning in Rangeley, but I’m finally coming down to doing some integrating and absorbing. As you predicted, the day following your departure I received a warm and encouraging letter from John Bell, a paragraph of which I include just to give you a fix on the college from a solid old-timer’s perspective [the paragraph read: "Yes, I'm on Dick Blasband's board along with Barbara Koopman. They are both interested in Nicolai Levashov's work on psychic healing, and now Dick does it with some measure of success, he tells me. The College is not at all interested, sad to say. They're stuck in things of more than 20 years ago, and are not even interested in the European orgonomic scene. As a matter of fact, if an experienced, capable orgonomist shows up to make meaningful contact, the attitude is 'You're not an orgonomist unless you go through the whole course of training with us. Then we'll possibly speak with you.' It's all incredibly sad, and after they drummed Dick and Barbara out, I knew I had no recourse but to resign, which I did with the profoundest sorrow. Only one of them called me to discuss it and try to persuade me to change my mind."]
The LeSahn book [Lawrence LeSahn, The Medium, The Mystic, and The Physicist] you so graciously gifted me with is terrific, a real, I can’t-put-it-downer. Frankly, nothing of the written content was exactly new to me, but something about the presentation and the formulation has given me a fresh perspective as well as a fresh impetus to our work on Reich and mysticism. (John informed me that W.R. took a passionate interest in dowsing late in life). I hope that Blasband and Koopman feel it appropriate to respond. If not – into the breach. But it is people like Bell, Blasband, and Koopman who help to keep God from dropping the sky on us. About the book: are you planning to keep my final chapter on Functional Mysticism, Gnosticism and Zohar? Also, in the socio-political section, I think it essential to keep the chapter on HISTORY’S INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MEN. It’s just never been done before, and is of much greater significance than anything I had to say about Mao. Shalom Victor
January 1, 1998 Dear Steve: Another New Year is upon us. Thanks for the newsy update on the College’s [American College of Orgonomy] doings. I myself have been restudying my old J.O.’s [Journal of Orgonomy], a bit of a trip down memory lane, some very very fine material therein. I am also continually immersing myself in Reich’s work and Jewish mysticism and Gnosticism. Everything deepens and moves me profoundly, and when I read Reich, I hear his high-pitched and vulnerable voice from the tape you played ["Alone" - this can be obtained from the Wilhelm Reich Museum in Rangeley, Maine.]. The LeShan book you gave me is superb; I have read it twice since August. Pierrakos has some fine things, but I find him all too starry-eyed and, indeed, gooey. His avoidance of the topic of Genitality is awesome. He also takes much of W.R.’s work and re-baptizes it as if it were his own, a not uncommon practice. But, all in all, his discussion of the energy fields is enlightening. As you predicted, Dr. Barbara Koopman telephoned me last week and we spoke for half an hour, the longest conversation we have ever had. She is deeply immersed in Levashov’s work and in close collaboration with Blasband who I have not heard from. Some of the things she reports are astounding, and I fully credit her reports. I hope somehow to get involved with them, but I don’t have the faintest idea how. I am going to re-write my paper on ORGONOMY AND MYSTICISM, and send her, Blasband and John Bell copies. Levashov has a book which she and Blasband put into more readable form. It was quite wonderful hearing from her. She is doing therapy in N.Y.C.
I think I must be perfectly frank with you. I simply cannot find the time, energy, or, indeed, interest to learn the computer in order to complete my ms. in acceptable form. Susan is much too busy with her own school work, and I have taken a small vow NEVER to learn the computer. I suppose that this attitude spells finis to our project. Someday I will gather all my chapters and get then in shape for publication. Volume II of “The Alcoholics Search for God” goes well, but slowly the impulse is infusing me to lay it aside for awhile and begin “Orgonomy and Mysticism.” Time will tell. We have both been blessed with the gifts of Orgonomy and we must both use them in our own individual ways. Love to your family. I reviewed your gift of the Kabbalah film. Quite wonderful. It all fits somehow, somewhere, and I feel honored and humbled and grateful for the opportunities afforded me by orgonomic experience, and friendships. Victor
January 10, 1998 Dear Victor: It was good to hear from you. I was happy to hear that Dr. Koopman responded to your letter, and I would be interested in the details of what she told you regarding the work of Nicolai Levashov. In my view, Dr. Blasband’s work with Levashov’s healing method represents an exciting development of natural scientific research into the borderlands of paranormal psychology. I wait the day that the work of Blasband, Koopman, and Levashov is published with the clear evidence of what their form of psychic healing can do. If you intend to rewrite your treatment of Orgonomy and Religion, I would suggest that you reread Reich’s critique of mysticism in the “Mass Psychology of Fascism.” It would greatly help the clarity of your essay if you spelled out exactly how healthy religious expression differs from what described there. Also, in what way did Oranur change Reich’s views on religion (or did they change?). I think you can use “The Murder of Christ” extensively to show how Jesus manifested healthy spiritual expression and how other spiritual teachers also did this. I completely agree with the observation in your last letter that we both need to use our Orgonomic Knowledge in ways that fit our individual forms of search. Personally, I believe in the complete freedom of philosophic and scientific search. Any form of orthodoxy kills truth. Truth is fluid, and we must follow it where it goes. Orthodoxy sets boundaries, and closes the mind to anything that has not been approved by “authorities,” be it Freud, Reich or whomever. For example, good psychotropic and psychedelic drugs help dissolve spiritual armor, and when combined bioenergetics, can bring out vibrant health. It certainly produces states of functional mysticism. Yet, the current crop of orgonomists reject this [Here I must
exclude Dr. Israel Regardie. However, Regardie was a chiropractor who learned orgonomy from a student of Reich's in the 1940s (most probably Dr. Theodore Wolf). See: Israel Regardie, "Roll Away the Stone" (North Hollywood, California, Newcastle Publishing, 1994); William Braden, "The Private Sea, LSD & The Search for God" (N.Y., Bantam Books, 1968); Aldous Huxley, "The Doors of Perception; Heaven and Hell" (N.Y., Harper, 1990); and Alan Watts, "The Joyous Cosmology" (N.Y., Vintage Books, 1970) ]. My commitment is to Knowledge and Truth – useable and verifiable for the healing, preservation and enhancement of life. In my own search, I value sharp, clear perception and empirical evidence. I have had good legal training, and such training is very close to the type of rigorous scientific training that Reich had. Such training values rigorous logic, sharp thinking, solid evidence, and close observation. I know that solid philosophic training such as you have had also values the same. I would encourage you to finish your series of essays on Agronomy. There is real gold therein. Also, Volume II of your “Alcoholism and God” work is very important to people in the program. (And the rest of us…nobody is completely free of spiritual bypath). Best, Steve
February 2, 1998 Dear Victor: With the New Year upon us, I thought it would be a good time to touch base with you. I hope you have survived the New England ice storm in good form and that the work on your books goes well. My year started eventfully with several days in the cardiac care unit of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. Fortunately, tests show that I did not have a heart attack, but instead what the cardiac people are calling “a cardiac incident.” Anyway, I am now on a diet and blood pressure medication. I put the whole thing down to too much stress at work and home combined with a fat rich diet. Now more than ever, a more spiritual way of living daily life becomes for me a matter of survival. In this connection, I await the second volume of your study on alcoholism and mysticism. If you can recommend any other literature on living “one day at a time,” let me know. Steve
February 5, 1998 Dear Steve: While I was naturally quite pleased to hear from you, the report of your cardiac condition was distressing. However, viewed positively (which I imagine, is difficult for you at the moment), it’s a warning, one which you have the time and the insight to heed. STRESS IS THE KILLER, the mother armor and theIfather of that biopathies. you can do to diminish its effects will of prove valuable. suspect therapy ANYTHING with your orgonomist enabled you to avoid the real big bang in the thoracic segment. I believe Dr. Baker allowed me to postpone my two attacks through therapy. I also believe I would not have suffered them had I remained with him. In fact, my whole life would have been changed immeasurably. I am of course profoundly grateful to have one more chance, and I am paying closer attention to my health than ever before. I have about 75 pages to re-type (I re-write as I go; this is the fourth version, which for me is a lot, in Volume Two on Alcoholism. I must then add some material and find a reliable typist to transcribe it. Then…we shall see. I have become woo-nigh obsessed with the phenomenon of what Reich called the Big Lie. O.J., Clinton, the Ramseys, Sadam Hussein (or as the local school kids call him, Sodomy Hussein), TV, advertising, and the unbelievable insouciance of the American people about what is going on around us. Scott Peck is right. The lie is the single most destructive force in human spiritual life. I still lie, but I am almost always aware (and uncomfortable) when doing so. And Jesus, of course, characterized Satan as “The Master of Lies.” All sin and sickness stem from it. It was never better described than in Orwell’s “1984.” [Dr. Katz: how even more true this is in 2010 America]. I have two volumes you might find valuable: Minirth and Meier, “The Path to Serenity,” as well as their book, “We Are Driven.” (Nelson Pubs.). If you are interested, I have some very good small volumes of daily readings I would be happy to let you have. If you are interested in pursuing the medico-scientific, extra-orgonomic (that combination sounds like the way I write!) perspective on stress, get Han’s Seyle’s “The Stress of Life.” Much functional wisdom and insight. Love and prayers to you and yours, Victor
February 12, 1998 Dear Victor: Thanks for your concern and suggestions on how to deal with stress. I have lost 10 pounds since my stay in the hospital, and I am now in much better shape than before my “cardiac incident.” My orgonomist feels that the event may have been triggered initially
by too vigorous gagging in the morning, and he has been helping me by directly working on my tightly contracted chest muscles. Before the incident I had been in a very highly charged state and I was on my way to a job interview when the pain struck. I have now returned to a period of inner calm, and once again I am concentrating on my writing and teaching projects. Basically, I am an academic, not a litigator or businessman. Despite the fact that I have over many years developed skills and capacities beyond teaching, editing, and writing, fundamental character structure, as you know, does not change. I seem to get into trouble whenever I try to push into more stressful active realms where I have no business. Reflection, not active combat, is my fundamental “way-ofbeing” in the world (if I might use a phrase from Heidegger). It all boils down to a lack of self-acceptance and humility. Both of these qualities, as you point out in your Volume I of “Alcoholism and God,” are necessary for spiritual health. This is easier said then done when we must exist in a very sick culture, and mostly very sick organizations that constantly draw out the most negative in us. Still, we are responsible for our own attitudes. In this connection, I have returned to my own spiritual literature, including Zen. I find a very close affinity between Orgone Therapy and Zen training. Both are uncompromising in trying to get the individual into fundamental contact with himself and the world and both are unremitting foes of psychologizing and intellectualizing. Zen teachers have their students engaged in physical work and physical exercise for much of the day. Dr. Baker used to advise his intellectual patients to engage in some form of work with the hands. A Zen student once asked his teacher to make “a statement surpassing the Buddha.” The teacher held up his walking stick and replied: “I call this a staff. What do you call it?” Thus, the teacher redirected his student away form the abstract and back into direct truthful contact with reality. The whole exercise of Zen koans is directed to intellectual conundrums that cannot be solved using the mind, thus causing the intellect to dismantle itself. This allows feeling and insight to flow. I recall in a JO [Journal of Orgonomy] that a patient once tried to engage Reich in a discussion of Edmund Husserl’s work, which as you know involves the most abstract analysis of experience. Reich picked up a matchbook that happened to be lying on a table in the treatment room, and said: “This is a matchbook. I can see it and feel it. That’s all I need to know.” Thanks for your cautionary tale of your work with Dr. Baker, and how much you feel it would have been beneficial if you had been able to continue with him. Sometimes, given the expense of Medical Orgone therapy, and the pain, which as you know can sometimes be intense and almost unbearable, I have been tempted to stop and rest content with the gains already made. Besides an increase in vitality and feeling, I am convinced that the therapy saved my marriage. However, if I stop now, I know that I probably will not return, and at age 50 there is still more I can gain from the work. So, I soldier on, at least for the present. The orgonomist feels that there is still much that can be done, and it is probably better to ride the momentum that has been built up than to attempt to restart at a later time.
The New School course on the “Life Energy and the Struggle for the New Humanity” is still on hold. This is the vehicle in which I intend to discuss psychic healing, Gnosticism, Kabbalah, and the unification of science and religion. I have not heard from the school on this, and I will call them soon if I don’t have a decision on it. This month I am back at the Adler Institute. My topic for the seminar this year is Psychological Health and its SocioPolitical Implications. Of course, I will discuss Orgonomy and the history of psychotherapy as it bears on the idea of social reconstruction so that health (spiritually and bio-psychologically) can exist and thrive. Both Adler and Reich were especially interested in this, as opposed to Freud and Jung, who both felt it was better left alone. Also, for many years I have been working on an idea for a psychic self-help group, and I am still looking for a forum, such as local Adult Education, in which to give it. I have two basic books that I am working on. One deals with the unification of religion and science (including the socio-political), and the other is a science fiction novel. Time to work on these projects is at a premium, but I continue to plug on. I also some day want to attempt to write a short work on psychological self-help, boiling down the essential teachings that I have culled from close to 100 works. By the way, did you ever hear from our old friend Dr. Blasband? I wrote to him in response to a fund-raising letter, offering to make a contribution in exchange for tapes of his last conference, but I still have not heard from him on that. The one communication I did receive from him said that he was very busy, and I assume he does not have the staff that the American College of Orgonomy has to deal with routine correspondence. Incidentally, I recently met Peter Robbins, an old patient of Dr. Baker, and a pioneer in UFO research, at a Reich course in Manhattan (formerly a patient of Dr. Raphael). He is in contact with Blasband and he gives credit to the new form of energy healing that both Blasband and Koopman are developing. I appreciated your comments in your last letter about the “Big Lie.” We are both very much on the same wavelength on that. Just several weeks ago I described the annual State of the Union event in Washington as the “celebration of the Big Lie.” Still, for my own survival, I am trying to live one day at a time with a spiritual approach. The political approach is coronary land for me. Steve
February 18, 1998 Dear Steve: Thank you for your fine and timely letter. It is so easy to get sucked into Clinton / Lewinski land, Iraq, the ever-present O.J. syndrome, and a terrific sense of the downright futility of it all. Within 100 pages of the goal line, my second volume on alcoholism has come to a grinding halt, overheated, and under fueled, a temporary victim of “so-
whatism.” As much as I love doing it, mostly struggling to express the truth and do it convincingly, I have no hope, realistically, of ever publishing, and after all is said and done that is why we write. This is cold-steel realism, not pukish self-pity. In a sense, it liberates. There is no urgency for the world to read my deathless prose. I sent copies of the long last chapter on Reich and Mysticism to Koopman and Bell…the rest is silence. Which too is o.k. [The author such silence has also greeted "Wilhelm Reich - Liberation Theologian of Cosmic Energy" from the general orgonomic community. All works that touch on the great questions of life, death and eternity, have received this initial reception, including that of Wilhelm Reich. The mystical writings of the great Cabbalists were, for this reason, generally meant for a small group of students and readers who could appreciate them.]. I can realistically say to myself, “Who the hell cares whether or not Reich discovered the scientific cosmological underpinnings of Gnosticism?” Hey – the stock market is going through the roof. I feel like Reich’s Silent Observers, except he is the one who always winds up on the cross – silently observing those who kill life. My wife and I have been captivated by a series of Old Testament epic movies: Abraham with Richard Harris, Moses, and Joseph. I am not a particularly image oriented guy, but something comes through that the mere words don’t convey to me – Mr. words-words, as Byron said of Wordsworth. Those Old Testament folks knew something Big that denizens of the New Millennium don’t want to hear about. Religion is NOT social work. Jesus is not like your local delicatessen owner. GOD IS BIG AND SMALL. And it’s all pretty overwhelming. It’s good to hear you “come-clean” about being a philosopher; a lonely business, but I still believe, after almost 50 years at this rubrix cube (Zen notwithstanding), it is the most important thing I can do – think and communicate. Funny, as the information revolution extends its tentacles, nobody seems to be asking: “How do we judge this information inundation….How do we discover the criteria to distinguish truth from falsity….how do we distinguish Big Brother from Groucho Marx?” THAT’S PHILOSOPHY! I can identify with the last brontosaurus who looked up one day from his spinach patch and queried: “Where the hell has everybody gone?” Love and prayers. Mit Glick. Victor
February 24, 1998 Dear Victor: I can hear the underlying despair in your last letter, and that is something I can fully identify with. It does sometimes seem that below the surface St. Vitus dance of madness nothing in the world has changes or is capable of being changed. The stock market aside,
there is more evil in the world than ever, with the Devil reigning as never before under the guise of technological rationality. The Old Testament prophets knew that God’s laws could not be violated forever with impunity, and their dire predictions were proven out over history. Still, the existential spiritual value of our writing and teaching remains valid even if the entire earth were to self-destruct tomorrow. I would urge you to keep writing and finish the book on alcoholism, and start the one on Reich and Mysticism. Don’t worry about the issue of publishing. It has become more and more possible to self-publish, particularly with the software and computers of today, and, as a last resort, one could always put out bound Xerox copies for interested people. Reich published his own work, so did the late Reichian UFologist Jerome Eden. There is a great hunger for books on spiritual topics now, and anything combining Reich and Mysticism is bound to get a respectful hearing [This has not so far proven out.]. I have been reading Ms. Underhill’s book on Mysticism, and I can see much more clearly the connection between what the great healthy mystics have been teaching throughout history, and Reich’s insights, perceptions and expression, particularly in his book “The Murder of Christ,” which fits right in with the great mystical works. It would prove of great value to students of Orgonomy and religion to have this connection fully explored by someone such as yourself who has traveled in both domains. [Editor: This task has now fallen to me.] I would be happy to read anything you have in manuscript for feedback and suggestions if you fell it would be helpful, on either the Reich book or Volume II of the alcoholism study. I also find it hard to sustain my creative writing, and I seem always to run out of gas after promising starts. I sometimes attribute it to the fact that my thoughts have not fully matured yet. The 9 to 5 office existence, family responsibilities, along with the one and a half hour commute to Manhattan, takes a toll on energy and will. Yet, discipline I am sure is the medicine for the problem. Incidentally, the New York Times, in their business section, recently published an article on people who studied philosophy in college, and the effects of that on their subsequent lives. The conclusion was very favorable, particularly in a publication so career and money oriented as the Times Business Section. Most have found that philosophy proves to be more than just an intellectual training. It also provides a life-long set of tools for the exploration of reality, and an attitude of critical independence. I know it has proven to be so for me. A co-worker of mine, who was discussing the need for traditional organized religion to provide answers to the great riddles of life to people, and a feeling of security, once said to me: “You don’t need that, you have philosophy!” Boethius said this a long time ago in his “Consolation of Philosophy.” I have never regretted my study of this discipline, even if it never translated into any kind of economic advantage as does an education in business. Philosophy has never abandoned me, particularly in my toughest days.
So, a handful of us still toil on in our own ways, and I think this has always been true. As Henry Miller, one of the great unacknowledged nonacademic philosophers, once said “….the world never changes….only you change….how do you change?….by your different attitude….the only difference in lives is a difference in point of view…whether you see life like the worm, or higher like the eagle….or still higher like the Gods….otherwise everything is the same.” Love to you and the family, Steve
February 27, 1998 Dear Steve: Thanks so much for your letter of reminder and encouragement. Your friendship is much valued. You are one of the very few “survivors” with whom I can communicate on the deep things. A lovely 12-step functional miracle has just taken place for my wife and me. Our marriage had reached a point of terrible crisis. Thank God all is now well and we both are newly re-covenanted. As you seem well to know, marriage is no game for amateurs, and it’s not about happiness, although that can be a lovely byproduct. It’s not even about two distinct entities – the marriage itself, I mean – but about a truly cosmic commitment to spiritual laws we barely comprehend. The answer is only to be found, I believe, in “Cease striving and know that I am God.” Those Old Testament fellows were deeply in touch with something (Someone) we scarcely know about today. That forms part of my enormous respect for Judaism and mysticism – tough and in-touch. I had never quite viewed “The Murder of Christ" as a mystical book. In fact it is, part of that grand final trilogy with Oranur. WR was battling – not space men, but the archons of Gnosticism. They got him, as they get everyone if we go it alone. But the words from your Reich tape strike sharply ["Alone," a tape produced by the Wilhelm Reich Museum from Reich's recordings.]. None of his followers did, in fact, understand where he was and whence he was going. It was too, too big. Evelyn Underhill is about my favorite author on mysticism, along with Thomas Merton, who occasionally gets too doctrinal for me. Your burden, my friend, is too heavy and I don’t believe more discipline is the answer. That means more stress, and I don’t think you need that. TIME for yourself and TRUST in Elohim. What kept me going through this Valley of the Shadow was the rockbottom conviction I share with Wm. James; “We and God have business together.” Your health, on all fronts, must remain your number one priority, or everything else will come crashing down on you. For me, philosophy and theology have always merged. The way
of philosophy leads to the same “first things,” as Aristotle characterized the science of metaphysics, The First Philosophy. Stay Well. Prayers and blessing on you and yours. “Credo ut intelligam,” I believe in order to know. Victor
March 7, 1998 Dear Victor: It is always a good day when I receive a letter from you. I share the feeling with you that there are few if any people still on earth that I can communicate with on the deep fundamental questions of existence [This is even more true today in 2010]. Recently, my oldest friend, Jack Persoff, passed away from a heart attack at age 83. Leo Rattner, my old Adlerian mentor, went from cancer at age 70. And so it goes [Dr. Katz: Victor Silver passed away in December 1999 of metastatic brain cancer]. Our friendship has become one of the Lights that keep me going in this Dark Night of the Soul that humans call life on earth. I am seized now more than ever with the truly terrifying insight that humanity is held in the grip of some radically evil force calls it Deadly Orgone Energy, the Devil, or “the enemy of humanity.” When I look deep within my own heart, and at all the human functioning I have encountered over the last 50 years, I can only pray for the healing grace of Cosmic Spiritual Orgone Energy to keep me functioning with a spark of love, decency, and “above it all” perspective. Humanism, and the ego-ridden scientific / enlightenment / corporate capitalist philosophy that now dominates society has utterly failed the deepest human needs. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, that now uncompromising foe of totalitarian communism, calls the business culture that prevails in newly capitalist Russia “liquid manure.” It is a spiritual wasteland that is spreading all over the Globe. Erich Fromm called it the religion of “cybernetic capitalism.” The object of devotion is money, greed, and corporate power. The idols are computers. The Priests are technocrats and business administrators. Behind this mask of a smiling Wall Street, the Devil reigns unchecked. Humans have value only as efficient producers and consumers of products. Phony Corporate Liberalism pursues its guilt and profit-ridden agenda by downsizings, reverse discrimination, abortion, and unfeeling promiscuous sexuality. Our precious freedoms are bartered away by multinational corporations so that a stable environment may exist for international investment. You are absolutely right about the dangers of trying to go it alone spiritually. Yet, I have not been able to find the shelter of a religious or spiritual group that I could respect. I tried organized synagogue Judaism, and it proved to be dominated by the mentality of the “little man.” The “feel good” prosperity positive thinking churches seem too superficial
for me. I do feel close to some of the Catholic theologians and mystics. They understand the radically fallen nature of humanity, and the reality of the existence of the Devil [DOR] and Evil. So did the old Gnostics and the Desert Prophets of Judaism. Yet, the gigantic organized power apparatus of the Catholic Church, with its anti-sexual philosophy, is something I don’t think I could accept. It is in stark contrast to the very simple and profound healing ministry of Jesus. So, for the time being, I continue on my lonely spiritual path. I feel like a solitary Gnostic monk, walking on an overgrown forgotten mountain trial, stopping off the path here and there to examine wild flowers or artifacts left by forgotten spiritual teachers and lost heretics (including the little understood or used tools left to us by Reich). Sometimes I find a hidden grotto or alcove to pray in. Up ahead, veiled by mist glistening in the noonday sun, is a deep blue/gray range of mountains. In those mountains is the promise of salvation and water for the soul. In those mountains all of the suffering souls and innocent victims of the emotional plague know the cool healing embrace and ultimate peace and fulfillment of the Orgone Energy. In those mountains is God. My prayers are with you, Steve
March 12, 1998 Dear Steve: I was much moved by your letter, I sense the anguish and world-weariness. I find it wise to share these feelings with one who understands, and I thank you for your trust in me. The madness is up to our bloomin’ knickers. The Clinton thing is pathetic and sardonically humorous. But, My God, the lies! I gave my stepson 1984 to read, and he took to it. How is your son doing? I chuckle, though it may be graveside humor, when hackers get into the defense department files or put down a whole a whole university’s network. I really fear those electronic buggers, rather, the species that hath made and useth them to what end? The 21st-century should tell. It has been a time of terrible crisis for my wife and myself. We are Gnostic enough in our orientation to accept the real possibility that powers and principalities are working hard to deflect us from our path. My health has come to a grinding halt, as it usually does this time of year (a savage March in Vermont). I’ve got 40 pages to go to finish the bulk of Volume II of the book on Alcoholism and the Search for God, but must go back and add some inserts here and there, a task I do not look forward to. I’m going to do the Reich – if I live – for no reasons except that I’m obliged to. [Unfortunately, Dr. Silver did not live to do the book. "Wilhelm Reich - Liberation Theologian of Cosmic Energy" represents my carrying out of the unfinished task]. God is my publisher. That part is up to him. I feel strangely withdrawn from the whole process. But I just want to put it all together and see “if it flies,” as they say in the ad game.
My wife is studying for her M.Div. to become a United Church of Christ” minister. It’s an o.k. little denomination, very extraverted in orientation, but with some serious doctrinal commitments. The Evangelicals are insane, mentally and spiritually insane, with some rare exceptions. Catholicism has always appealed to me, but, and I know of no other way of putting it, their philosophy is so dammed smug. Also, I cannot abide the Mariolatry that sometimes pushes Adonia completely aside. There is simply no scriptural justification for the cult of “Our Lady.” We’re watching Moses (Ben Kingsley), and Abraham (Richard Harris, absolutely the best thing he ever did), and those Old Testament types continue to fill me with wonder. WHAT FAITH! I am certain that God’s name IS I AM WHO I AM! And keep following your path. I think there’s a bridge to the hazy-blue mountain range just up ahead. We should love to see you and Roz on your Rangeley excursion. You are in my prayers, Victor
March 17, 1998 Dear Victor: Thanks for your kind words of spiritual counsel and advice. As an older brother who has walked down the same path before me, I consider you my “spiritual sponsor” to use the AA concept. This role requires no undue burdens, just full, free, and honest discussion. You have already given that to me many times. Please don’t be concerned about my visit last August. I greatly enjoyed it. I did sense that their were problems in your relationship with your wife, she seemed a fine, serious woman and I hope our next meeting will find things more serene. You are way ahead of things if you realize that marriage is primarily a spiritual relationship. Too many relationships fail because each partner is thinking primarily of their own short-term needs, and not what the other person may be feeling. Our culture, which is very spoiled and narcissistic, seems to encourage this. I have had my own problems in this area. I have done better in my relationship with Roz since I have looked at her feelings and sufferings over the years, and try to take that into account. It is a very old concept that suffering produces spiritual purification in the individual and in relationships. Also, a major advance took place when I learned to see my own unrealistic expectations, and the fact that I tend to sometimes see things from a very ego-centered point of view (my “little man”). One major decision that did come from our August meeting is that we not attempt to redo the Oranur Experiment. Reich has recorded in splendid detail the events and reactions
that took place at the time of the experiment. We only need do a “thought experiment” to dig out the spiritual implications. The weather up there must be very hard on your health, which is why many older people seek warmer climes. You should seek immediate medical attention for any colds of flu problems. These are potentially dangerous in people over 60. Otherwise, I am sure you have the experience to safeguard your health. Each of us knows our own constitutions, and what must be done to keep going. I was happy to hear you have made progress on Volume Two of the study on Alcoholism and God. I have read Volume One several times, and I look forward to reading the next one. As to the Reich book, having read Underhill’s classic on mysticism, I am more convinced than ever before of the rightness of the view of Reich as a healthy mystic. I discussed the concept in my seminar this year, and the students responded very positively to it. I would be willing to work on the Reich book with you, but use of the word processor on the computer is essential to any joint work. The word processor works exactly like the typewriter, except you can move words around on the page and delete words at will. The computer will also copy documents to a “floppy disk” for you and these can be sent through the mail and loaded to the recipient’s computer for further work. I am sure your wife could teach you the few simple operations involved. Of course, you have every right to prefer the old way of working, and I can understand that. The plans for the trip to Rangeley are still very tentative. It would be the week of July 13. If all of our schedules can be made to coincide, we would enjoy dropping by for a visit either on the way up or back. If the schedules don’t work out, don’t worry about it. The U.S. mail is still a reliable way of communicating. My work with the orgonomist continues apace, but I don’t know how much longer I will be able to afford it at the present frequency. (Ian is due to enter college in two years, and that can, as you well know, can be expensive. He has grown into a very thoughtful and serious adolescent, and I have tried to provide some gentle guidance with the typical problems of his age. We have a very good and close relationship. I may have to reduce it to one session a month later this year, particularly if I change jobs. If I can find any way to continue at the present pace, I will. It has been very beneficial, even soul saving. The ACO is now producing a video documentary on Reich. They have enlisted the services of a good film maker, and I hope to see them finish it by the end of the year. Life is a precious gift, and worth the struggle…. My prayers to you and the family. Steve
Sunday, March 22, 1998 Dear Steve: Not much movement in my life, sad to relate. My health has taken a slow turn for the worse and for me, everything unravels when energy and strength depart. It’s been a time of progressive relinquishment – I think it’s called aging, and, internally at least, “I am not going into theIdarkness.” I don’t mean to sound (for me,me that is), butquietly this is down the first time have ever arrived at a point wheremelodramatic the vectors drawing “there” and those binding me “here” are nearly equally in balance. If I were depart this vale of tears I would like you to have all my Reich materials, but you must promise to do with them as you see fit, not out of any sense of obligation to me, but simply because you may find something of value therein. It’s peculiar how the sweetness of all life touches me these days. I’ve lived cheek-by-jowl with the ugliness (Conrad has his character Kurtz cry out at the end of “Heart of Darkness,” “The Horror. The Horror!!”), and that is surely not the last word. The sexual revolution has so grossly misfired, the liberals have finally got the world they wanted – a brave new world they scarcely recognize – brain tumors and killer depressions stalk the land, but thanks to God, the DOW went over 8900 yesterday. I don’t feel superior to those who have or who are making it big in this brave new world. I just don’t belong, and I guess never have. I know you will be doing much good in your teaching. And you have a privileged relationship with Ian. Guard it well. It is such a fragile bond these days when women rule. The man-woman thing is all wrong now. I’m no sexist patriarch, but it is all wrong. The Big-Brain Hysteric exerts a disproportionate influence in our lives. Can you imagine lecturing on that topic to a college audience today? I can’t. And yet the femine mystery, the feminine sweetness remains in spite of themselves, the power, the real power. Bye the bye, I am astounded as I follow all the cable talk shows on l’affaire Clinton, at the sheer quantity of breathtakingly beautiful, terrifying articulate female attorneys. They are absolutely intimidating, Marsha Clark, Ann Coulter, and all the sisterhood. The light side of it all has a twofold aspect. First, when they all talk at once, and secondly, when the coup de grace is delivered by a magnificent sweep of a golden torrent of lush blonde hair in the general direction of one’s opponent. It is enough to make a broken-down, busted up old male to submit to worshipping Diana of the Ephesians. IN SPITE OF THEMSELVES, they are adorable. And talk about the mouth as a weapon. Orality, thy name is woman! And remember the old rabbinic saying, “God is not nice. He’s not an uncle. He is an earthquake.” Blessings on you and yours, Victor
March 25, 1998 Dear Victor: I was sorry to hear about your continuing health problem, but with all the aid that classical medicine can give to keep life going, it may finally come down to a matter of the “will to live.” I don’t know anything about the specifics of your problem, but at your couldby still lookoffer forward at least anotherbut decade of you functional life (maybe Iage amyou honored your of thetoReich material, I hope are premature by attwo). least 20 years. Besides, there are only a few “Orgonomic Philosophers” left and we can’t afford to have such a small and endangered group depleted any further. What does your wife have to say about your despair? Your letter arrived, via some current of synchronicity, as I was working on the outline and research for a new book on Reich’s final years that may prove more controversial than anything yet written by a serious writer with a solid background in orgonomic experience. [Editor: This research was the start of what became "Wilhelm Reich Liberation Theologian of Cosmic Energy."]. I intend to show a connection between Reich’s UFO research and his spiritual conversion in prison, with the line of research leading to extraterrestrial theology as transmitted by alien contact. With the certainty of the existence of alien intelligent life comes the reality of religions as conceptualized and lived on other planets and in other galaxies. I admit this is speculation, but I am reexamining the evidence from Reich’s last years, including accounts by those who communicated with him in prison, and I am convinced that there are still undiscovered links with a final creative summation that connects up with “Oranur,” “MOC” [The Murder of Christ], “Ether, God and Devil,” and the UFO expedition ["Contact With Space"], ending with the possibility that Reich experienced some form of alien contact. [Editor: We now know from his prison mate Harvey Matusow that Reich indeed made contact with alien UFOs while in prison several days before he "died" and was taken off the earth by them, leaving his body behind]. I intend to bring in the research of John Mack, the Harvard psychiatrist, and other serious UFO / Alien contact researchers. The Gnostics and the healthy mystics also will work into this as the spiritual antecedents of the religious dimension of this. A new book on alien theology is to be published by the State University of Albany Press, and I hope to obtain a copy. I already have a book that describes the healing effects that some alien UFOs apparently have transmitted through the orgone energy that powers their crafts. [Dennett, Preston, "UFO Healings - True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials" (Mill Spring, N.C., Wild Flower Press, 1996).]. What effect this will ultimately have on earth religions is unknown. My basic premise for this work is to take with absolute seriousness Reich’s last expressions and research, instead of treating them with “Little Man” skepticism as does Myron Sharaf, or a helpless “don’t know” of some otherwise sound orgonomists. [Elsworth Baker was an exception to this in that he realized that Reich's UFO connection represented his "religion."]. Reich had the courage to speculate freely, and I intend to do the same.
You are absolutely right about the state of male/female relations in our society. The liberals and their emasculating supporters have no feeling for natural social functioning. The real aim behind the “humanitarian” ideology and practice of gender equality is to smash healthy genital functioning in both sexes. Healthy sexual functioning requires a most definite and pronounced polarity between the genders. This is exactly what the liberals want to neutralize and destroy. Male and female are both equal before the law, and valuable human beings, but intense healthy virile masculinity and the sweet enfolding woman are polar energetic functions. Nothing paralyzes a man’s sexual and work function faster than a hostile, power-driven dominating woman. As you indicate, where in this country can such truths be spoken? I learned a long time ago, when my brother died, the truth that God is a terrific force and not to be secularized, minimized or reduced to a harmless human dimension. I always liked the saying: “Your arms are too short to box with God!” Our minds and souls are also “too short” to play games with a force that could end all life on earth suddenly and in a matter of minutes. The Old Testament prophets and preachers knew this. We have forgotten it. Incidentally, if you want to be reminded what our task is, reread Nietzsche’s “Schopenhauer as Educator.” “Wherever there have been powerful societies, governments, religions, public opinions, in short, wherever there has been tyranny, the solitary philosopher has been hated. For philosophy opens up to a man a refuge from all tyranny, an inner sanctuary – the labyrinth of the breast and that annoys tyrants….” Nietzsche in “Schopenhauer as Educator” Best, Steve
March 28, 1998 Dear Steve: A very “tonic-y” letter for which I thank you. I detect a new sense of freedom and rational certainty in your project, which I heartily applaud. Real spiritual growth. Sorry about your Rangeley cancellation, but I think it well-advised. We shall see how the pieces fall respecting out possible meeting sometime this summer. Susan will be doing a hospital internship as part of her M.Div. in Burlington, very busy, and it looks like Blake is off to a private school in the fall. I keep my “despair” away from Susan as much as possible. She is just too sensitive to carry that burden along with her already heavy load. What I need is a good dose of springtime, and it seems to be coming. I am so hungry for answers and information. I’m one of those like Dostoyevsky’s Mitya Karamazov who justs wants answers to his
questions. I know for certain when I read about or listen to TV programs regarding black holes, there are enormous cosmic, spiritual, and metaphysical issues upon which the late Reich and post-oranur speculations can shed terrific light. Gnosticism is really a quite terrifying philosophy. When I complete typing Vol. II of the alcoholism book, I must return to WR and the big stuff, not that 12-step spiritual philosophy is small or inconsequential. I’m just a little dry there. I am helping Susan with her theology studies and finding myself enjoying it immensely. Those old 2nd and 3rd century Christians talked funny, but they were talking ABOUT SOMETHING. Have you ever viewed Martin Scorcese’s film (after the Nikos Kazanzakis novel) “The Last Temptation of Christ?” It has moved and disturbed me so much that I have watched it twice in the past six months and have proposed to Susan that we use it as the subject of our collaboration together. It is a foundation-shaker and very close to the “Murder of Christ” in seminal ways. You know of course that Reich seriously posed the question whether he was a “space man,” not as nutty as it might sound on the face of it. I think from the Eva tape you showed me, she would have little difficulty handling your speculations, and every time I hear of “Contact With Space,” I am reminded of the Genesis account of the Sons of God “going into” the daughters of men and reproducing a race of Giants. The notion of a hidden bloodline in human evolution – after one can free oneself from the hideous distortions of the Nazis – is seriously entertained by authentic occultists. Yes, Reich and The Rabbi are the alpha and omega of my journey. I think I will hang around to see how it all turns out. I long for more information on psychotronic healing, but I think B. Koopman might have been turned off by the 50 page abstract on WR and Gnosticism that I sent her. Its o.k., but what a goldmine of information would be opened up by getting to know that woman – or Blasband of course. “Schopenhauer as Educator” is a book I have begun a half-dozen times, but never finished. Perhaps now is the time. Victor
April 5, 1998 Dear Victor: As I have said before, it is always a good day for me when I get a letter from you. I have no other close friend besides you who understands my research and thinking at this point in time, and who I can talk with in-depth on spirituality, orgonomy, and politics, etc. I was very happy to hear that you are helping Susan and working with her. She needs as much love and support from you as you can generate.
After receiving your last letter, I viewed the Scorcese film “The Last Temptation of Christ.” I was very deeply moved to the core of my being. It was all there: the doubt, the trouble, the “little man” followers and the final agony and temptation to follow the way of the world rather than God. The ending of the film was a riddle to say the least. Was the guardian angel an expression of the Devil trying to lure Jesus back into the narrow confines of traditional life? Or was it instead an expression of healthy life against the need to give the sick masses a “savior” to follow and place in an inaccessible heaven where he can’t trouble the usual ways of the world? Perhaps you and Susan can cast light on this enigma. I have some exciting news from Dr. Blasband in the form of a taped presentation he made at his last annual conference for his “Center for Functional Research.” With the work of Russian biophysicist Nicolai Levashov, the psychic healer, Blasband feels he is taking Orgonomy to a new stage of development beyond anything since Reich’s death. Levashov has discovered seven states of subtle energy that inform and structure our organism. Healing is made possible by the use of the mind to precisely intervene in these states of subtle energy and to restructure them to health. The biopsychological state is a direct reflection of the health of these under girding energy bodies. Using this method it is possible to do distance healing. This means that you can receive healing from Blasband at your home in Vermont while he works from his office in California (or so I understand it). He works from a photograph and telephone contact. He can be reached at 415-4352812. I have no idea what the fee for this healing would be, but if he follows Reich in charging low fees for experimental knowledge, as opposed to expensive fees for established knowledge, it might not be too high. Even more exciting from a spiritual perspective, Blasband, building on the work of Harold Saxon Burr and Levashov, thinks that there are energy souls that inform the fetus at birth and when we die this soul rejoins a different spiritual dimension within the earth’s planetary sphere. This is based on natural scientific work: the energy body of the fetus is present right after conception, when there is just one cell of the new organism, and it guides the development of all cells and organs of the body to maturity. As Eva Reich has pointed out, there is a primary pulsation present in the fetus even before the formation of the heart. Of course, the jump from this idea of pre-existing and postexisting souls is far beyond anything that any of the Orgonomists from the ACO would be willing to accept – which is why Blasband is no longer associated with the college. Incidentally, your old friend John Bell was at this conference and he made a presentation on social orgonomy. He has great respect for Blasband and apparently can accept his latest natural scientific explorations into the field of what was formerly considered the “occult.” I was happy to hear Bell mention that he is still friends with Howard Chavis, and that they still maintain contact despite the fact that Bell is no longer associated with the ACO. As I mentioned before, Dr. Chavis is very independent in his approach and compares very favorably wit the old orgonomists such as Dr. Baker. I will bring the tapes of these talks to our next meeting together, whenever we might be able to arrange that. A Trip to Vermont for me does not seem to be in the cards given the
time available and other vacation plans with Roz. It might be possible to arrange something for a weekend in the fall. Another possibility would be for you to come to New York. Unfortunately, with our small garden apartment, I would not be able to put you up, but I remember that you said you have a sister on Long Island. Given the totality of the circumstances, we may have to content ourselves with continued mail communication. I continue on with my book project which has now organized itself around the idea: “The Last Days of Wilhelm Reich and the Spiritual Destiny of Humanity.” I intend to produce a truly srcinal work of experimental philosophy along the lines of “Schopenhauer As Educator.” Next week I will take a long overdue vacation week with Roz in Maryland and Delaware which will be combined with college hunting for Ian (who will be in Italy on a school trip). My work in publishing goes on in an increasingly difficult corporate environment. The company I work for was recently sold and is undergoing reorganization. On top of that, my work group is in the process of changing the publishing method to desktop automation and this is placing increasing pressure on us. The corporate world is not one that I would recommend today to anyone, and the social pathology and greed behind the seemingly objective talk of profits, expansion, and worship of technology is just as pernicious in its own way as is modern liberalism in the political world. In fact, it may be its counterpart in the business world and is a far cry from the small independent businessman or craftsman admired by Baker and Reich. A good study of the corporate character type with the use of character analysis and orgonomy is long overdue. The kind of natural spiritual conservative described as the healthiest character type remains true, but must be sharply distinguished from the contemporary Wall Street / Corporate Conservative that in some form (domestic or foreign) now controls both political parties. This will be a subject for some future communication. My love and prayers to you and the family, Steve
April 12, 1998 Dear Steve: Your letter set in motion an interesting chain of events. I called Blasband immediately, and left a message. He responded the next day, and we had a good talk. I have sent him a photo and brief medical history and – finances permitting – we may begin the long range Levashov therapy. The distance and the seeming eccentricity of the therapy cause me no difficulty whatsoever. I trust the judgment of Blasband, Koopman, John Bell, and yourself, and the central notion of Psychotronic Healing has never been far from me. I am simply not getting better with standard drug therapy. It only holds the line for a time and then the slippage continues. I have too much yet to accomplish to become an invalid. The
synchronicity of this whole business strikes me as one of the many significant ones in my 12-Step spiritual life, and I believe that this process may be the “balm in Gilead” for which I have been searching. I am also arranging for a group prayer session and meanwhile, taking my medicine. I am really backed into a corner with my resources exhausted, but I believe God will show His way for me. Susan and I viewed LAST TEMPTATION which she is using as a theme topic for one of her M.Div. courses. We are pretty well in agreement that there are no armored mystical tricks in the conclusion. In fact, the logic of the predicament and choices of Jesus grows clearer with each viewing and thinking on the film. It is the most powerful rendition of the Jesus tale that I have ever experienced. My enthusiasm for the Reich project is returning. But first I must grind my way to the end of Vol. II on alcoholism. Re-reading MOC [The Murder of Christ], WR comes so close to saying THE final word on the Christology. Thank heavens that the final word never gets said by anyone. Your information respecting functional energy philosophy is certainly exciting. I hope I don’t sound blasé when I observe that everything in bioenergetics theory has been somewhere anticipated by the Big Guys in the history of philosophy, especially the cosmological and metaphysical speculations. I still find reading (especially Paul Davies) theoretical physics a terrific fit. It all confirms what mystics and functionalists have known forever. It all goes back to God, the God whose name is I AM. You’ve convinced me to re-read SCHOPENHAUER AS EDUCATOR. Nietzsche knew so much, even that early in his career. I like the projected title of your book [Dr. Katz: This book became "Wilhelm Reich - Liberation Theologian of Cosmic Energy."]. We are talking apocalypse here. Be wary of your world’s “man traps” as Melville describes them. I have recently found just how quietly, insidiously, the favorite Adversary “Stress” can build up and then grab us. Stress and THE BIG LIE…God it is appalling how much lying goes on and has gone on. No wonder humanity can’t confront the MOC. I feel our getting together this summer will eventuate. Not sure yet of the details, but it is a high priority for me. Much love, prayers, and wishes for your well-being. Victor
April 18, 1998 Dear Victor: I was happy to hear that you are thinking of working with Dr. Blasband using the Levashov psychic distance healing. The basic method is not new and goes back to the early part of this century. As a complement to your other therapies, it can do no harm and might dolast good. Dr. Thelma Moss, mentioned by work Eva Reich in the tape we watched together summer, cites such methods in her “The Probability of the Impossible.” I have just returned from a long needed one week vacation. As I face the return to my normal routine, I am more convinced then ever before that a continuous use of conscious will and intention is necessary to maintain any real semblance of emotional and spiritual health. As Dr. Baker stated in an interview made in 1982, “it is a constant effort to stay as near to health as possible.” It helps to have a creative outlet and I find writing to be such a channel. If it can be arranged, a meeting this summer would be great [Dr. Katz: This meeting was not to take place.] Your prayer group sounds like a good idea and I would definitely join if I lived nearby. I have myself been thinking of starting a lay spiritual group to be called “Harbors for Life” based on the concept developed by Reich during his final days. Perhaps such a group, which would discuss spiritual, orgonomic, psychic and 12-Step philosophies, could be run by correspondence with a once a year weekend meeting among participants. I would envision a monthly question, such as “Spiritual Methods For Dealing With Daily Stress,” and a round robin exchange of letters between members. Other possible topics: Reincarnation, Prayer, Sexuality, etc. My love and prayers are with you and your family. Steve
April 23, 1998 Dear Steve: Please don’t misread my views on conscious use of the will and intention on the path we mutually pursue. It takes all one has – and then some. But in our overheated civilization, we can so easily deteriorate into “driveness.” I am astounded at how long it has taken me – at my very best – to detect the subtle maneuvers of my stress bug, how frequently when things were humming that it was disguising itself in trying to realize its only purpose – to kill me. The pathological death-wish is so damned real. We need a whole re-thinking of spirituality, medicine, life, healing, it’s staggering. Did I read that TWO MILLION women a year die of breast cancer? I went back and rechecked the Linda McCartney (lifetime vegetarian and non-smoker) article…TWO FUCKING MILLION A
YEAR…BREAST CANCER. I understand from some of my female confidantes that there is also a subtle trade-off process, you takes your choice and makes your move. My God. When will they realize that the thinking gets further and further and further away from truth? These are not bad men. Doctors and pharmacists and researchers are for the most part NOT bad men, but here I sit locked into a crippled bioenergy system to tell the world that they got it all wrong. (I feel considerably better as you might detect from the loud bull-alligator bellows I am emitting). I have not re-heard from Blasband and I am trying to put a bright and confident face on the matter; he’s very busy, I need to be scheduled, he is studying my photo and minimedical history – or I’m hopeless. I feel so very strongly about Psychotronics – discussed first in my experience in the 1970 book “PSYCHIC DISCOVERIES BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN.” I feel real hope in that direction. I am sick of being sick! I am teaching a course in Christian Ethics in the Vermont Academy for Spritual Training and it continues to astonish me just how frightened adults are at the prospect of discussing stuff that matters. I don’t push their structures, but it still saddens. I like the idea of “Harbors For Life.” Emphatically that was Reich’s direction at the end. How I love the man’s courage to grow and outgrow. I am reading Martin Luther as a help to Susan in her seminary work. The man astounds me and I feel a growing kinship. He had the balls to stand up and say “God is not a nice guy, a big daddy who gives you everything you want when you want it.” A mighty Fortress is an incredible musical statement of what God truly is. I have put aside the concluding 30 pages of my alcoholism book. For now, I have completely lost contact with the material. I am chafing to begin the WR/Mysticism book, “fear and trembling,” as ever when I approach the Master. I believe my spiritual life has been altered forever by the Scorcese film, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. I can hear Jesus’ voice from the film. It’s eerie. Too much ferment at my age, but God, it is exciting in the healthiest way. See you this summer. Love to Roz and your son. EASY DOES IT. Elohim/Adonai/Sanctus Spiritus Love/Work and Knowledge Victor
May 3, 1998 Dear Victor: I have just finished viewing the video of the Spencer Tracy film “Inherit the Wind” about the old “monkey trial” of the science teacher Scopes and the teaching of evolution. Never have the issues of armored religion and natural science been so starkly presented. Some day the case Reich of the found U.S.A.the v. suppressed Reich will be considered the same light of historical importance. answer in the in orgasm function: real spirituality is grounded in natural law as expressed in genital functioning. There is no opposition, just unity in the energy metabolism of the Universe. Unity in the functioning principle of life. Darrow’s final statement to the cerebral head armored journalist is crucial to an understanding of this unity. Next time you are at the video store you might consider renting it. I hope you have been able to start your therapy with Blasband. Yes, you are absolutely right about the killing potential of stress. It is the silent killer of life. Yet, what can we do about it? I am in a stressful work situation now, yet I can’t afford to walk away from my job despite the fact that it puts me at risk medically. I have tried to find other alternatives, and I have an interview this month with an organization for a job representing children and adolescents in trouble. That will also have stress. There are no easy answers and living with physical and mental pain is, as I get older, a daily reality. Recently, on a rainy Sunday, I read two old papers of W.R.: “Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis,” and “What Is Class Consciousness?” Even at that early stage he was brilliant at pointing out healthy social functioning as against the armored ideal of the well-adjusted worker. If you bracket off his immature ideological statements, the functional observations are still relevant. Have you been able to start your Reich book? My love to you and the family, Steve
May 6, 1998 Dear Steve: “In 1950, Dr. Wilhelm Reich conducted an experiment with Atomic energy, which confirmed the objected existence of Good and Evil, God and the Devil, and their organic identification with all human health and sickness.” That’s the first sentence of the projected book [Dr. Katz: Dr. Silver did not live to carry out this project. "Wilhelm Reich - Liberation Theologian of Cosmic Energy" is my
attempt to fulfill this mission.]. It contains the whole book. My trepidation at undertaking this enormous and important (to me, at least) project is not to be believed. Five years I will give to it, and I fully intend to finish it [Dr. Silver died in December 1999]. Nothing from Blasband, which alarms and discomforts me. I am placing most of my remaining hope and courage in psychotronic medicine; is that the balm in Gilead? I’m trying to be realistic about my condition, but that does not mean submitting to every medical recommendation or mandate my caring physician gives me. I know the drug thing does not cure or reverse the kind of damage I have. I also know that, even in this DOR-ridden physical and spiritual atmosphere there exists a way to recovery. Speaking of which, in thumbing through my old Journal of Orgonomy copies, I became absorbed in Bob Dew’s analysis of the biopathies. Terrific stuff, but he does not seem to offer much orgonomic medicine for the severer ones. INHERIT THE WIND is great, but alas, today it seems to be evolution and the evolutionists who have assumed the mantle of dogmatic orthodoxy, with less proof than the bible-thumpers, as obnoxious as they can get in their smugness, treating Jesus like he owned the Jewish Deli on the corner. Darwin’s general theory is as not provable as is Einstein’s general theory. I am hoping to pursue a study of the Holy Grail phenomenon. There is a legend among the heterodox that the Grail was not a physical object, but represented the bloodline descendents of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Any of the literature you may know of? Yes, stress is unavoidable. I am sure your Orgonomist will be keeping close check on your thoracic cavity. Baker prevented two heart attacks for me in my 40′s as Reich had done for him. Sociopolitical behavior will never change until human character structure changes. Isn’t the Clinton fiasco a dreadful indictment of all Liberal America has wrought? Love and Prayers, Victor
May 10, 1998 Dear Victor: Try to be patient with Blasband. I am sure the delay in hearing from him was more a factor of his heavy work load and research schedule. You might get a faster response, however, if you following up by calling him and telling him that you are anxious to get started. It is also good to remember that psychotronic healing, as a form of natural medicine, probably requires a sustained period of work to show results.
My work life in the publishing corporation, of late, has become very stressful. The company was recently acquired by another legal publisher and they want rapid expansion from an old business administrative staff that is unable to do it in the Fortune 500 way. Anyway, as a long-time member of the editing staff, and someone who has been in the industry since 1977, I have long believed that legal editors would benefit from strong union representation. It would provide a check on corporate abuse. Also, if I had such representation, I would someday be in a position to retire. Instead, I must work on for 20 more years because I have no pension benefits. I say this not from a position of political liberalism or ideology, but because Corporate Capitalism is a sick destructive socioeconomic system based on the drives of the secondary layer for the greedy acquisition of profit and the ruthless exploitation of working people. Both Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot have said as much. In this regard, it is good to observe that the 19th century natural conservatives opposed granting corporations limited liability and independent legal status because they felt it would result in the accumulation of insulated economic power, and the evasion of individual contact and responsibility. This is precisely what has happened. My views, I might add, are not mainstream Orgonomic Social Science as expressed by the present-day ACO [American College of Orgonomy]. I feel that the struggle against Stalinism and totalitarian communism, as written of by Reich and Baker, has dominated ACO thinking for many years. This has resulted in a blind spot to the destructiveness of so-called corporate business “conservatism.” It may be true that cancer is a much more deadly form of disease than most forms of heart disease. But does that mean we should laud heart disease as a positive good? This is precisely the relationship between Stalinist Communism and Capitalism. Reich himself never liked Capitalism and said so up to the time of his death [Dr. Katz: Reich told a close associate, Dr. Victor Sobey, a few weeks before entering prison in 1957, that he remained a Marxist!! Reich's Marxism had much in common with that of the libertarian Marxist Raya Dunayevskaya - see her "Philosophy and Revolution," and "Marxism and Freedom."]. He never wanted to get involved in the commercial world, and in the 1940′s edition of “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” said that he came from such circles and was glad to have freed himself from their influence. My old friend Jack Persoff, who knew Reich in the 1950′s, stated that Reich had turned down business propositions on this basis. The natural work function at the basis of all value creation in every form of society, if freed, would result in a very different, and in some ways more dynamic form of existence. It would certainly result in a more humane type of socio-economic structure without building intrusive authoritarian state structures, but as a result of the naturally decent give-and-take of work-energetic functioning [i.e., the Paris Commune]. I will also say that my background, coming from the poor Jewish working class in Brooklyn, is probably quite different from the upper-middle class backgrounds of many now associated with the ACO. They are very decent people, but I don’t get the sense that many had to grow up like I did facing eviction notices, a broken home, alcoholism in the home, and a father who was incapable of protecting our economic and psychological well-being. In fact, the only reason I was able to afford to attend Adelphi University back in the 1960s was because of a Federal educational financial aid program started by
Lyndon Johnson. I probably never would have learned about Orgonomy if I had attended any other College during that period of time. This background is probably why my whole appraoch to Reich is more similar to the older generation now in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. My existential functional philosophy is a creative synthesis of what I have been able to internalize from Adlerian therapy, Orgonomy, life experience, and every discipline (including genuine Marxism) that I have studied. This makes me as unorthodox in my way as you are in yours (e.g. healthy mysticism). The pleasure I get from really being myself is much greater than that obtainable as a member of a smug in-group. At the last ACO annual meeting, Dr. Harman, whose presentations on film I have enjoyed, put down the old college students who were interested in Orgonomy during the 1960s because they described themselves as being “in” Orgonomy instead of recognizing Orgonomy as an independent science apart from their “mystical” involvement and expectations. Yet, we were the ones who kept interest in Orgonomy alive and provided the Orgonomists at that time with their supply of patients and supporters. It is easy to forget that Orgonomy at that time consisted of Dr. Baker and a handful of other Orgonomists and teachers (such as yourself and John Bell). Most people were too afraid to get involved with anything having to do with Dr. Reich, who was discredited in the public mind by the FDA fiasco [Reich had been held in contempt of court for shipping orgone accumulators across state lines in violation of an injunction based on the Food and Drug laws that considered the devices to be "misbranded."]. It was my generation, and a few others such as yourself, who at the time had the guts to seek the “discredited” when we sensed that there was real truth and value there. The work with my orgonomist continues and remains very valuable. His work on my chest armoring has been the toughest and most painful that I have so far experienced in the therapy. He also made me aware of my main character defense in a new way, a way I can actually see and feel. It is both very exciting and very frightening to really feel and express core feelings. I feel that I have been let loose in a turbulent ocean, with only my inner compass as a guide. It is very hard and very lonely. It is for this reason that I must be careful with my drinking, which I sometimes feel could get out of hand. The line between a glass of wine for mild relaxation at meal time to a glass of scotch at lunch, at night, etc., is not very great. According to the “Big Book,” I do not fit the definition of someone with a drinking problem at this point. But with my background, it is a danger. My Orgonomist once said that it is not the quantity that one consumes that constitutes the problem, but instead the reason for drinking. My reasons are sometimes escape from pain and anxiety. At any rate, I don’t think that I will be able to continue with the treatment at the present frequency do due to the expense involved and most likely will have to cut back to once a month at some point. Even if I stopped now, I will have derived considerable benefit, although if possible I would certainly like to complete the entire therapy.
I like the start of your new book, and I await the rest of what I am sure will be an srcinal contribution. I would appreciate being able to read your ms. on the Alcoholic Character Type, but please do not send me the srcinal. Always send a copy. I hope Susan [Victor's wife] is doing well with her studies. She is entering work that is vital. My love and prayers to your family, Steve
May 13, 1998 Dear Steve: You called it right again. Blasband phoned yesterday from New Jersey and I am booked to call him tomorrow in California. I have much faith in the whole psychotronic philosophy; it seems a next logical step from orgonomy. He scanned my photo and was of the opinion that my immune system had been severely compromised by toxins. He seemed interested that Baker had declared that orgonomy twice prevented heart attacks for me. He had me repeat the statement. I trust him as a first-order orgonomist, functionalist, and spiritual physician and we shall see where my path leads. I know that too much remains for me to accomplish to submit to the dark powers of sickness and despair. Yes, it can get awfully lonely out here under the arctic moon, but the cry of fellow wolves on the other side of the ice pack let me know I am not completely alone. Communication with my species and new information are essential to my well-being. I just purchased Paul Davies two latest books on physics, and although I can only garner a little of the technical material, I think my lucky stars that I studied philosophy years ago. Every issue finally resolves itself into an issue of philosophy. It is astonishing how well the “old boys” stand up: Plato, Spinoza, Kant, et al. Working with Dr. Wilbur at Adelphi helped give me a solid foundation. How I miss him as a communicant – double meaning I suppose. Your remarks on the current College’s attitude toward the old-timers are saddening, and I cannot but think that they must think Blasband crazy in his current aberration from the “party line.” Your analysis of corporate capitalism was astute. Bye the bye, I voted for Perrot the first time around and Buchanan rings hard and true. Good Lord, watch the stress as much as possible! I am tentatively entitling my book “THE ORANUR PARADIGM” which is what postoranur theorizing should turn in to, if it follows its Aristotelian Final Cause. Subtitled: “A Speculative Study in the Cosmic Mysticism of Wilhelm Reich in Relation to Kabbalah and Gnosticism” [Dr. Katz: I have carried out this mission in the present work: "Wilhelm Reich - Liberation Theologian of Cosmic Energy.]. It is a daunting and a frightening labor. I actually feel it is beyond my powers, therefore, I will follow where a power greater than myself may lead me.
It sounds as though you have certainly not yet crossed the invisible point of no return in your drinking. But with your genetic package, and what Levashovian “toxins” you may have received in your intrauterine life, it behooves you to attend carefully any major changes in your drinking patterns. You are still young and basically sound, but descent into biopathy can come on quickly. I hope you can stay with your Orgonomist if only on a reduced schedule. When finances become available for me to have my second alcoholism ms. typed professionally and Xeroxed, you shall receive one of the first copies. It’s good, I think, but with publishers seemingly limited interest in serious manuscripts, and with the forthcoming bevy of Clintonesque excreta, it mat take some time for me to find a willing publisher. I am sure of one thing, young friend. The struggle is worth the palm. There is nothing worth giving one’s all for like God, family, friends, and truth. You are in my thoughts and prayers. Victor
May 17, 1998 Dear Victor: I like the title of your projected work: “The Oranur Paradigm.” Your job now is just to let yourself go and get into the work without any worry of ultimately publishing it. You can always self-publish a limited edition for fellow philosophers and recoup the cost of copy production and typing by charging a modest cover price. It is important to communicate the ideas above all else. These seeds can germinate long after we have left this mortal coil. In his lifetime, Nietzsche privately printed many of his works. At the time, there were probably no more than a dozen other people who understood what he was doing. Today, that figure is a little higher. The contact with Blasband already seems to have lifted your spiritual state, even before any formal treatment has started. This is a very good sign. I hope you will keep me posted on your progress. Maybe some day Blasband can come to the Northeast for a seminar or lecture presentation on his recent research. Your support of my evaluation of contemporary corporate capitalism is heart warming to me (spiritually and orgonotically). Very few people understand that this criticism can come from a position of anti-politics or anarchism. It took me several years to convince one of my law book authors, a corporate functionary from way back, of the seriousness of my view and the fact that it did not come from “infantile leftism” as Lenin would put it. He is starting to see it, but his eye block and secondary feelings of power gamesmanship and economic self-interest still prevent full in-depth agreement.
I have come to the realization that if one relentlessly strives for self-development, and for the experience of being authentic and true to the core of unique life within, there comes a time when the path becomes utterly lonely. There comes a time when a person has to do what his heart and mind prompts, no matter how hard, and without the expectation of support from a single living soul, politically or personally. As Martin Luther once said: “Here I stand, I can do no other…” Nietzsche knew this, particularly at the end. All the more reason to appreciate the few other souls who can at least signal from the other side of the Arctic, as you put it in your last letter. As you so aptly put it, the struggle is worth the pain. Truth and love are the only things worth fighting for. May the spiritual higher power that protects and guides us be with you each 24 hours……
May 20, 1998 Dear Steve: Clearly the book of miracles for my life is re-opening. I’ve had three sessions with Dr. Blasband, and I detect a slow shifting of the spiritual tectonic plates, very slow, very genuine. I’m in this all the way. “Coincidentally,” an old AA friend and former sponsor telephoned me after many months. He is a hunter, outdoorsman, psychic and healer who has no trouble whatever identifying what I’ve told him of psychotronics. He knows the topography well. Incidentally, Blake, who never remembers to take names of those who called, remembered Jim’s. Funny, eh? All systems are go once more for the Big End Game Plan of my life. I have the spiritual contacts I need to keep me from going bonkers. Jim, Blasband, Koopman (who I phoned), John Bell, yourself, and my Godsend of a wife. As John Bell observed after Baker’s death, “The work will go on,” and I add “I now believe I can add my small share.” God, purposelessness, meaningless, is slow death. I am mentally sketching the outlines of my first chapter: a discussion (Kuhn’s mostly) of the nature of scientific paradigms, Reich’s earlier ones, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, and pre-oranur orgonomy, the nascent burgeoning of the new post-oranur paradigm which unites the mysticism of quantum science with the mysticism of Kabbalah and Gnosticism, and a critique of one of the silliest JO articles I’ve ever encountered, “REICH, PARADIGM MAKER OR PARADIGM BREAKER,” by another pair of those functional juveniles (I was one of their number for a very long time) who believe Reich knew “everything.” The more one realizes just how much WR DIDN’T know, the more awesome grows the respect for what he did, and above all, that post-oranur shaking of the foundations that set the conditions for the Oranur Paradigm that he never lived to finish. Dammit, Steve, it’s all so damned exciting, irrespective of whom and how many read it, like it, or agree with it. The cosmos is so much bigger than Intel, Bill Gates, scuzzball Clinton, Indian Nukes (wonder what Gandhi and the Bodhisattva would say), it is more
than enough to sustain a man and his work. I know the details are very important. But I thank my Higher Power that I only need enter that arena periodically instead of living there. Be true to yourself, stay sane, and hold to what you know despite the chorus of blatherskites. Blessings and more blessings Victor
May 27, 1998 Dear Victor: I was happy to hear that things are working out with Dr. Blasband. From listening to the taped presentation of the lecture he gave last November in California, he seems to have independently evolved to your position of “healthy mysticism.” He states there that insofar as Reich wrote off all mysticism as pathological he may have “thrown the baby out with the bath water.” The outline of the first chapter of your book looks good. I am sending you an essay that appeared this week in the Science Section of the Times on Cosmology. I think you will find it “mind blowing.” It is about Einstein’s cosmological constant and a new “funny” energy that seems to be causing the universe to expand at a far greater rate than can be accounted for by the current theories of matter and energy. Reich always predicted that, sooner or later, they would discover Orgone energy. It looks like it might be sooner. We will see. There is still a long way to go to overcome the physical scientists’ terror of cosmic contact (I could say “contact with God” and be more accurate.). Moses came down from that mountain with a withered and shocked visage to go along with those spiritual laws. The mob dancing around the golden calf had little time to ponder what such an experience might mean to them or history. Some things never change, do they? Incidentally, while at the Maryland shore with Roz this past April, we stayed in a hotel room a few yards from the ocean. One night there was a spectacular full moon in an absolutely clear atmosphere. I took a pair of binoculars that I travel with and for about an hour I examined the moon closely and the light it shed on the ocean waves. The sense of overpowering awe and mystery provided an experience of a transcendent spiritual power that was undeniable. I could actually see the craters and mountain ranges on the moon and what’s more I felt them and felt the power behind them and in them. Since this was off-season, the area was quiet and thus no noise interrupted the scene. My therapy with the Orgonomist is going well and I feel a new biopsychological freedom. All of the work of the past four years is finally starting to have its cumulative effect. I will phase down starting next year to one treatment a month. I finally know what old WR was talking about, and it is miles away from any intellectual understanding I thought I had in the past. It is too simple, pure and decent to be comprehended by intellectuals without many years of work. Even then it is an up-hill struggle. Jesus never
had it more right than when he said you must be like a child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In my mind, it is only by the grace of God that I ever reached this point considering the environment that I grew up in. My Reich book is clarifying itself as I do the writing and research. I have decided to limit myself to the socio-political domain since this is where my education, background and interest are most strong. The work is organizing itself around the title “Escape from the Trap: An Answer to the Plea of ‘Listen Little Man.’” More in a future communication. My spiritual best to you, Susan and Blake.
June 2, 1998 Dear Steve Always good to receive a communication from you. I am sensing a new contact burgeoning with Blasband, although sitting silently on the other end of a long-distance phone line I still find a bit….exotic (?) But I begin to begin to feel things moving. Psychotronic medicine is probably my last shot at any quality degree of health, and I propose to stay the course. My life is now where my mouth has been for so long, and I like it that way. Another session tomorrow at noon. I had a similar “moonlight” experience to yours during my first visit to Rangeley. It was a spectacularly quiet, full-moon night on the lake. The light was everywhere. Our cabin was perhaps twenty feet from the lake and I either awoke or had no yet gone to sleep when I experienced the strongest sense of a “presence” in the cabin that I have ever known. Naturally, my first impression was that it was Reich, a thought I shared with Dr. Baker, and at least he never slapped me down about it. During the same stay, my thenwife, a darkly mystical and sensitive girl made the mistake of standing in front of the mounted Cloud-Buster [a device for creating rain] – she was innocent of orgonomic knowledge at the time. Five minutes later she underwent a terrific oranur attack, anxiety, nausea, and the general willies. Thanks for the article. The cosmologists are beginning to do a vital bit of exploring. It is not widely bruited about that much of Einstein’s theory is beginning to show its age. The all-encompassing, unchanging speed-of-light is really an essential postulate. It has never been proven and is of course negated in orgonomic cosmology. But – as far as I can tell – Reich’s grasp of relativity and quantum mechanics was sketchy, and his mathematics has certainly not reached the higher echelons of theoretical physics. Of course, his cancer theory has made no acknowledged impact on oncology either. The powerful attraction of the Oranur Paradigm lies for me in its unification of physical and spiritual reality; it is grand metaphysics in the tradition of Spinoza (why not – another Jewish mystic?).
It is encouraging to hear of your deepening functional comprehension of orgone therapy. Is psychotronic medicine really the next step, as Barbara Koopman believes? I am famished for more information and knowledge on the subject, but I guess it just isn’t available to the public. You are well equipped to do up-to-date functional socio-politics. Have you begun to sense an enormous covert EP [Emotional Plague] spite emanating from Clinton’s coven? He is well on the way to wrecking the American presidency – that will be his “legacy.” One way or the other, no president can ever be trusted again. And what a fearsome sight to see this badly damaged little phallic confront the increasingly cosmic dimensions of foreign policy. What a treat when Iran, Iraq, and Lower Slobovia have the bomb. Is this the man for the job? But as Jean Shepard was wont to observe, “America will not disappear with a bang – or a whimper – but with a giggle.” What a silly, infantile, narcissistic little ego verse we have constructed. Sodom and Gomorrah were Disneyland rehearsals. We deserve all the “funny energy” that may be heaped upon us. And yet – with Julian of Norwich, “All is well, all manner of thing will be well.” Victor
June 7, 1998 Dear Victor: I continue to make progress in the research and writing of my book. It is the culmination of a life-long interest in Orgonomy, politics, philosophy, and psychotherapy. Several years were required before I could crystallize out the core energy. At its present stage, the book is organized around the idea: “Escape From The Trap: Orgonomy and Politics.” I am fairly certain at this point that the working title is an accurate description of the work that will eventually result. The outline: I. Introduction and Philosophical Background; II. The Healthy Socio-Political Character Type; III. Work Democracy; and IV. The New Humanity. My essential thesis is to capture WR’s views from two sources: his writings on the issue and the way he functioned in his own life in this domain. The implications of the latter approach have, to my mind, never been examined. Using his own life as a philosophical window on the true depths of Orgonomy’s political discoveries reveals a reality at odds with the received interpretation of Baker, Matthews, and Goldberg on the one hand, and the new leftist distortions of WR’s Marxist period on the other hand. What I have discovered is going to prove very controversial to the Orgonomic community at large with the exception of philosophers such as yourself and publisher Jim Martin in California. I have discovered that Reich functioned in his own life in reference to law, government, society and politics almost precisely as that described as the most healthy way by the old
libertarian anarchists such as Kropotkin and the Jewish anarchist Emma Goldman. The work democratic organization is most close to Kropotkin’s old small and decentralized rural collective form. Furthermore, his approach to politics was anti-bourgeois political and instead Marxist scientific in the spirit of Marx and Engels. WR’s own instinctive dislike of any form of “politics” and his absolute resistance to the permanent institutionalization of his work point to a very mobile and fluid approach to society. The old radicals absolutely opposed any form of state oppression from no matter what quarter and fought state oppression tooth and nail. It is well also to remember that Marx and Engels demonstrated that the state arose with class oppression and did not exist before it. Reich himself recognized State Socialism, as constituted in his lifetime, as most adverse to the self-activity of the working people. This is because a new caste of communist functionaries became the new rulers and exploiters. Kropotkin was a natural scientist and wrote a book on natural ethics that is the most complete statement of the life-affirmative basis for cooperative functioning (work democratic) that has ever been written (from his personal observation of animals and insects in the wilds of Russia). I could go on, but much still has to be elaborated. I am aware that WR once told Paul Goodman not to connect anarchism to the science of Orgonomy, but he did this to avoid further interference with his work because of the distortion of anarchism by the emotional plague that made the general public afraid of it. He already had the terror of the populace against him based on orgasm research. Also, he was unaware of the healthy connections between his work and anarchism, having admitted never studying the anarchists as he did the communists. Reich, in a letter to A.S. Neil on June 24, 1944, stated:”…The only hope I see is a sudden, rational upheaval of the greater part of the people who carry the burden of work and social interrelations upon their shoulders. It is interesting to note that it is just the socialist leader [in America today you could substitute "Democratic" or "Republican" for socialist] who is most averse to such a turn of events. ["Record of A Friendship," pg. 117 (N.Y., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981). My work life in the corporate world continues to get more and more difficult and stressful. Getting out at my age is a very hard proposition. By the way, with the benefits that orgonomic treatment has brought me there have also been some problems. Orgonomy does not make ones life happier and easier as those states of being are understood by armored humanity. On the contrary, along with an increased capacity for satisfaction goes an increasing intolerance of armored people and the organizations that they create with all the subterfuge and dishonest manipulation. There is also greater awareness of the sadistic and murderous functioning behind the masks that most people wear. Life in the trap these people have constructed can kill you by heart attack, alcoholism, cancer, or just general resignation and disintegration. Nobody is safe from this, and the illusions that used to make this reality more bearable are shattered along with the armor. Nobody, to my mind, has ever completely escaped, including WR. An increased capacity for pain and awareness is also a result of Orgonomy. As WR once said to Micky Sharaf: "We don't hand out happiness here."
Stick to the psychotronic treatments. I am sure they will prove beneficial to you. I agree with Koopman that his new form of energy medicine is a logical development of Orgonomy, but care must be taken to remain clear about its true benefits and current limitations. Blasband knows all about this, I am sure. May the higher spiritual power that IS protect us both....... Steve
June 10, 1998
Dear Steve: I have sensed, for some time, your growing disillusionment with the world of law, business, finance, and capitalism. My own financial security hangs precariously on a $ 780 Social Security check, plus what occasional shekels I may gather in from Adjunct Faculty work. I have absolutely no illusions respecting my future publication opportunities or possibilities, although for a long while I held to the hope that somehow, someday, my books on alcoholism and Reich would be "discovered." This will not happen, but I am compelled to share the enormous knowledge and experience I have gained. I hope that doesn't sound like another attack of Hubris. In addition, I am forced to spend my days in almost endless social chatter about matters that don't matter, mouthing platitudes and nodding yes to inanities. I am really stranded up this backwater and the tide is out for good for my endangered species. Thank God for Susan and Blake, to whom I can give much support and encouragement and deny access to my lonely ice-cave of a spiritual world. I have spent five moments of intense listening to the Clinton version of Camelot, and it begins to stinketh worse than the srcinal. That man is going from a nasty little man in denial to a full blown plague character, who cares only for his own political survival. But it is the army of fig-sucking defenders that revolts me to the core. I think it wise to remember what Reich warned; never, never, try to do it politically. Politics is the antimatter version of every decent social impulse we have. I fear that before any return is possible to Prince Kropotkin's vision (murdered by the Nechaevs and the Nihilists), we will be compelled to go through a literal Armageddon. The roots of this social cancer are too deeply entwined about the living organs of the body politic to be reversed by functional knowledge. Blasband is working on detoxification of my body at the moment. The psychotronic theory makes so much sense and brings together so much I have learned in recent decades. I knew intuitively that my immune system had run out of gas in recent years, but I had no knowledge whatsoever regarding how to jump-start it back into action. My organism would not have been able to tolerate straight orgone therapy, I believe. And the pages of the calendar continue to flip.
The emphasis you are going to place on Reich's own personal sociopolitical behavior (did I read you aright?) will prove extremely refreshing, and valuable. I have always found his legal and juridical approaches magnificently pathetic-courageous and in search of THE cause worth suffering the inevitable martyrdom for. The rotten mysticism of most politics has been so forcibly documented in LeBon's work, Freud on Group Psychology, Milgram at Yale, and of course, WR's "Mass Psychology of Fascism" plus its independent but essential scholia, the second part of "The Murder of Christ." Reich's views of politicians like FDR, Eisenhower, McCarthy et al, do not promote great faith in his characterological gifts. Plus, as you know, he trusted most of the wrong people especially towards the end. Baker told me he never could zero-in on a real EP character. Hitler and Stalin, after all, were obvious marks, and many conservatives had the book on Stalin - and the Maoists at least as thoroughly as Reich. We are blessed to have the last true perennial philosophers in our midst, the College, the likes of Blasband, Chavis, Koopman, Bell, and the disorganized decent folk like Charlton Heston, who won't trust Clinton with their 21-year old daughters. The work is very, very much worth doing, that and protecting as best we can, those we love. Breathe deep and don't ever forget - not that your likely to, that Love, Work, and Knowledge are the wellsprings (a good Old Testament term) of our life. They should also GOVERN it. Victor
June 14, 1998 Dear Victor: Although I seem to be going through a period of disillusionment, your last letter reveals that you certainly no longer harbor many illusions in your existence. All the better for both of us - our greatest tool is the clear apprehension of reality. I pay very little attention to the various scandals that are put before the public by the media and politicians. I feel that they are an enormous evasion of the essential and a great waste of our money and the time of people who should be working to help solve social problems, but instead are playing political games and chasing campaign dollars day and night. That the people at-large can be so easily diverted by this circus is a very sad commentary on the mass psychology of our society. I pay much more attention to concrete factual news on what is happening in the social and economic domains, and the details of the effects that people are experiencing in their own lives. In this connection, the complete control of both political parties by powerful corporate and financial interests, and the state of the international economic domain, particularly in Asia and Russia, are much more important than whether Clinton had an affair with an intern
(however reprehensible and sick such an action was). No doubt Clinton has helped bring our political leadership into further disrepute. But there is a good side to that. Maybe more people will start looking to themselves for answers to their problems instead of politicians and political ideologies that put the blame everywhere but where it belongs, with us. There is a story that a divinity student became very disillusioned with bible study and one night stood up and cursed at God for doing nothing about the many problems that continue to plague humanity in every generation of life. He shouted: "Why don't you do something?" Suddenly an answer came back from God: "I have done something...I sent you!" Rest assured I am aware of W.R.'s warning on "doing it the political way." But I also remember that he was until the end very much in favor of direct action restructuring of social functioning by a form of social character analysis that he called "social psychiatry." This works by telling truth to power pathology and by trying to increase the honest flow of energy between people cooperating to solve social problems. What he was against, as were the individual anarchists, was the use of political parties and ideologies to mask the power pathology of dominant groups and individuals who profit at the expense of the people who by their work energy keep society functioning. For an example of W.R. in this field take another look at how he handled the U.S. government (take a look at the cross-examination in the transcript to his trial). Also, remember that he never wanted Orgonomy to become institutionalized and fought against any permanent organizations that he knew would trap him and kill truthful functioning by replacing it with organizational politics and jockeying for position (Is this not what happened to some extent after the death of Dr. Baker in the ACO?). Organizations were to be temporary and were to be dissolved once their function ended. Again, Reich in this respect exactly tracked the position of the individual anarchists, who also favored direct action instead of politics in dealing with social problems; and here I mean not violence, the emotional plague distortion of the true anarchist philosophy, but instead education and character restructuring. As Emma Goldman once said: “I don't want a revolution where you can't dance!" My book continues to catch fire and I am very excited by it. The last section, entitled "The New Humanity," will contain my speculations on unarmored spirituality. I will also have something to say about the use of social character analysis in our present political situation. A glimpse into my workshop: the rigid class stratification of society is the CFP of the bands of armor that run cross-wise on the human body. A fully free work function in society would result in the evolutionary/revolutionary development of small decentralized cells of work energy in a cooperative environment. Some who have a stronger or more needed work function would assume temporary leadership and gain more work product in reward, but there would not be the tremendous gaps in income and the indecent waste of wealth that we see today, with the cruelty and indifference that Jesus fought in his life. I may experiment with social character analysis and organizational restructuring in my work organization in an attempt to bring in the Newspaper Guild. The results would be in the book. No doubt some in the ergonomic community will want to excommunicate me after this book is published, but I am firmly convinced that my use of Reich's discoveries in the social-political domain are closer to
the core truth of what he was all about than either Baker, Matthews, or the present day ergonomic social scientist, Martin Goldberg. I may not be a paragon of health in the full sense, but I remember something that Baker (in his taped interview with Jennifer Fox) said in talking about D.H. Lawrence: "you don't have to be completely healthy yourself to have a good sense of what it is, and to be able to use it." You are very perceptive in your analysis of psychotronic healing and straight orgone therapy. Orgone therapy is very tough and dangerous. I myself have a hard time tolerating it and I am many years younger than you. I have my session tomorrow and I can already feel the orgonomist's fingers digging into my chest. It is a good thing that his treatment room is sound-proofed, or I am sure the people in the waiting room would conclude he is practicing a form of medieval torture on some poor victim inside. I hope Blasband is training some students in the Levashov therapy, if only for the selfish reason that I may have to resort to it in my later years. My work remains difficult, as does my personal life, particularly the personal since Roz must go in for a cancer check-up. She remains free of the sickness for now, but for how long. She is complaining of some unexplained pain and is scared out of her mind. "One day at a time." Do not worry about the ultimate publication and reception of your work. The books on alcoholism are very valuable, and I am certain your work on Reich will also prove of great value. I have been considering the revival of Oranur-Seminars Press for the publication of my work, and your work would also be a candidate for publication through this vehicle. There is now a scanning device which would make it possible to scan your ms. into computer files without your having to be involved in learning to use the computer. It will take a clean type-written copy and in effect reproduce it by taking a picture of it and putting it into the computer. The big drawback is that this way of selfpublishing will not permit wide dissemination and cannot generate any real income (I would be lucky to make back production costs). We would both be better off with commercial publishers. At any rate, we are only responsible for planting seeds. It is up to the great spiritual energy behind the Universe to see that the seeds take root and germinate. Incidentally, a great example of natural spirituality (as opposed to organized religious belief and dogma) is demonstrated by Emma Goldman in her autobiography "Living My Life," published in two volumes by Dover Press. Her descriptions of nature and people radiate with spiritual contact. Thanks for teaching me to remain true to myself.... As the old anarchists use to say: CHEERS!!! Steve
June 18, 1998 Dear Steve: I am finding it a little difficult to get a handle on just where you would go with your novel sociopolitical interpretation. My own view is that there is such a tremendous job of "unbuilding" the juggernaut of materialist-mechanistic social order, that I am unable to seeadvanced much beyond that task. [Dr. Katz: ThisI problem hasand beenmore solved with the[Elsworth discovery of extraterrestrial civilizations.] agree more with EFB Baker] that we don’t know what a truly healthy child would be like. How then might we rightly conceive a healthy society? I sense one large peril in your approach. Will it be rationally possible to ever return to something like the natural social order envisioned by Reich – which is all cluttered up with the Marxist garbage and utopian fantasizing – or DeMeo’s primitive matriarchy (which I don’t believe ever existed evolutionarily – it failed the test if it ever did)? I am so deeply skeptical regarding the deeps of human nature en masse. The restructuring of the brain and the energy system which got us “here” as well as the armor-laden historical experience that weighs us all down, seems to me to preclude a truly rational resolution. Of course, I have arrived at that point in my own time-line where the future is a very short concept. I know that influences – in a very selfish way – all my judgments respecting the building of a better social order. Put succinctly, I want health enough and time enough to get my very specific work done, and then to get the hell out of this space-time plane as fast as my little wings will carry me. I just now got off the phone with Blasband. Things are moving but it will be a long day’s journey into night for me to regain some degree of health. I feel we have developed a tremendously positive rapport. Dr. Koopman has begun training with Levashov. Regarding my second volume on alcoholism, in AA I have made contact with a fine young man who has volunteered to computer type the first part of the ms. gratis. He liked the first volume and likes me. It has revivified my interest in that project as I remain poised on the threshold of THE ORANUR PARADIGM. My desire to write is flowing back as I detoxify. It’s hectic around here. Blake is going to Australia for three weeks, courtesy of a well-to-do granddad; Susan is doing her intern chaplainship at FletcherAllen Hospital in Burlington, and I am re-immersing myself in the dark wonders of theoretical physics. How difficult it is for the best of them to “let-go” and call God, God. I am grieved for you and Roz and pray nightly. You indicated that she had little interest in Orgonomy and that’s unfortunate, although traditional therapies can do good things. I hate that disease with a passion, for all it symbolizes and for all the dirty DOR (deadly orgone energy) work it does to us. I seldom discuss Reich’s work with Susan, although she is all encouraging anent my project. At the deepest of levels she senses its truths, but she is clearly disturbed by the spiritual and behavioral implications. She is so gifted spiritually that I see little loss to her vocation if she does not quite formulate all she knows and is in the ergonomic lexicon.
The God of Orgone sometimes seems so far off. But He’s always in charge. Victor
June 23, 1998 Dear Victor: My book “Escape From the Trap” is growing into a general work of philosophy. It will ultimately be very much like what Colin Wilson did in his “Outsider” book in terms of general approach, except, of course, that it will deal with Orgonomy and related subjects. I will cover literature, politics, society and spirituality. I am very excited to finally find my “writing voice.” I agree with you that the human animal has so degenerated that it seems there is no mass social answer to his misery. My intention, however, is not to provide a general answer or new political way based on Orgonomy. Any attempt to make the natural science of Orgonomy into a political ideology would kill it for all time. I do, however, want to take a fresh look at socio-politics with my “Orgonoscope.” I have never been satisfied with the treatment of Baker or Mathews on this topic. Baker’s view was heavily influenced by the cold war and the atrocities of Stalin, as well as the prosecution of Reich. Paul Mathews spent his entire life in academia, and had to contend with the gutlessness of that environment. My experience has been quite different, having spent my entire working life in the “conservative” world of business and law, during a time when the primary concern has been lack of jobs, and wars of imperialism. It remains true that the natural conservative (small businessman, farmer, family doctor, etc.), as opposed to the corporate conservative, is closer to health in his values and functioning than the “walkie-talkie” brain machines of academia. I intend to seek the roots of WR’s social science in the great libertarian political philosophers: Kropotkin, Goldman, Karl Hess, Ayn Rand, Barry Goldwater, Brunham, etc., among many others. This is to get a clearer picture of the core of what society requires if we are ever to have conditions that allow life to function freely, and at the same time to be preotected. I also intend to take a close look at Baker’s chapter 13 in “Man In The Trap,” in light of where we are today. Orgonomy has given us the tools to see what healthy functioning is, and the conditions that enhance it. It is well to remember that WR at the end found the answer in raising healthier children and in cleaning up the environment. In politics, he concentrated on fighting the emotional plague, on the theory that if you kill the weeds, the flowers will grow by themselves. I was happy to hear that you have someone to keyboard your Alcoholism Vol. II book. Please send me a copy of the book on computer disk when it is prepared. I would be
happy to add my editorial skills to the effort. When all is said and done, it looks like Oranur Seminars-Press may become a reality for us both. My new work plan has evolved to my own “endgame” goal of spending the last years of my life teaching young people. I also intend to continue on with my own writing, which is proving a real salvation and refuge to me. Best, Steve
June 25, 1998 Dear Steve: Blasband and I are moving along, but this is a long complicated process. After detoxification, the immune system needs re-building. What’s the hurry, I ask myself? It is becoming apparent that all my health difficulties over the last decade can be traced directly to a sub-clinical infection and the ensuing Chronic Fatigue Disorder. Levisohn and Blabbed are on to something quite profound here. The whole theoretical presentation of CFD – whose existence, naturally is currently denied by the AMA, fits my behavioral patterns like a glove. I am certain that my second attack in 1996 was brought on by my efforts to “overcome” exhaustion by driving myself to further exhaustion. In a stroke of pure serendipity, I found an article dealing with a young biochemist who made some startling discoveries with CFS, who is currently dying of the infectious agents she had unknowingly been in contact with for years. AMA wrote off all support for her work, financial and professional. Have I seen this picture before, seems familiar? I am sick-unto-death (damn nearly) of the medical mind’s massive inertia and its dimwitted fascination with big new therapeutic toys, and cures on mice that may prove promising after more research. Always more research, more drugs, the philosophy of chronic invalidism as the acceptable one for later life. I’ve come across a line of mattresses and pillows filled with magnets – shades of Franz Anton Messer. Blabbed has several patients who use them, but is not himself yet convinced. All I know is one night with them, and I had the sleep experience of my life, as complete and refreshing as I could ever imagine. Insomnia, if protracted, is potentially lethal for me; sleep is not negotiable. I am delighted that you feel to have moved on to a new plane with your Orgonomist. I am sure he is a mine of information. How pathetically ironic that the work democracy first organized by Reich with the first generation of doctors turned out, for the most part, so tragically. Nowhere are the perils of leadership more incisively expressed than in the MOC (“Murder of Christ”) section, THE NEW LEADER.
As friend, colleague and sympathetic critic of your work let me confess that I find Ayn Rand and Wilhelm Reich strange bedfellows for Wilhelm Reich, especially Rand. The major difficulty in seeking a new beginning, I think, is that the robber-baron technocrats of our day – and Goldwater, alas, is talking 1890 in Gila Gulch and Rand – I sometimes wonder what she was talking about – have made it just about impossible to pull a single thread of their tightly knit international conspiracy without the world economy collapsing around our ears – not theirs, but ours. I’ve followed the machinations of these one-worlders for 40 years now, and they are stronger and more in control than ever before. A radical, catastrophic 180-degree turnabout in social, economic, political and personal things is the ONLY way a real window of opportunity can be allowed, and the price is devastating high. They won’t go easy. Reich and Baker guessed 3-5 thousand years for any effective reversal of the armoring process to occur. Still, that’s no reason for not giving it the very best we have to give. Victor
July 5, 1998 Dear Victor: I hear your sense of rage and helplessness at the inevitable medical problems that beset us as we grow older. As with many things, there are no easy, fast, or even half-way possible answers. One thing I do know, the key is in patient persistence, serenity, and letting go. Nothing is to be gained by pushing and driving except more tension, more frustration, and ultimately, hopelessness. Just continue on with psychic healing, prayer, the 12 step theology, and your creative work. There is more healing for you, in my humble opinion, in a satisfying evening with your wife than in almost anything else. I often remind myself of the old adage “one day at a time.” Truly, today is all that we have, despite the fact that our consumer culture keeps telling us to run the endless mill to a tomorrow that never comes (it is never designed to). How else to keep the mindless industrial machine going? How else to fuel the golden calf of Wall Street? Why is it that most people can never see that all the events we are warned about in the Bible and by the prophets are happening Now under a new mask and not just historical or theological oddities? At the age of 50, as a result of crisis and also a gradual educational conversion, I am firmly convinced of one thing: there is a straight clean higher and deeper spiritual or psychic energy that is God and does exist for eternity and without limit. It is available to us at all times and in all places. We must choose to be open to it and to let it fill us and guide our functioning. We are free to accept it or reject it. Wherever and whenever a single solitary person feels this sweet transforming energy, God is present and a church of one has been created. I am writing this during the July 4th break. A celebration of the courage of a handful of farmers, militiamen, merchants, laborers, philosophers and lawyers in the face of the overwhelming power of bloody British Imperialism; based only on natural law and God.
Where is such courage now? Who will stand against corporate fascism? What is left of pioneering social efforts? For the past few nights I have been watching a presentation on Prophecy produced by the Learning Channel. It provided much food for thought and meditation. The great American psychic Edgar Cayce predicted the start of WW III for 1999!! His predictions have proven over 90% accurate. He also predicted many earth changes, including fires, floods, and earthquakes that we have experienced over the past few years. As I am sure you know, Mr. Cayce was also a much renowned psychic healer who practiced distance healing. Many of the prophets have also been naturally gifted healers including Nostradamus. Nostradamus was persecuted by his fellow medical practitioners and hounded by the Inquisition. He predicted the coming of three Antichrists. He also predicted a nuclear war for 1999. It is supposed to start with the destruction of New York City as a result of the efforts of the last Antichrist who will come from the Middle East with the help of Russia. Why the presence of healing abilities and the gift of prophecy? Both are based on Orgone Energy Functions. This is an intelligent energy, mass-free, that is responsible for all that is, and it is the same substance known as psychic or spiritual energy. It is the scientific validation of Spinoza’s primary substance this is God. It produces the DNA in our cells that are the blueprint for the development of life. Anyone who is open to it can use it to heal and can, by sensing the coming transformations contained within it, predict the development of the future. An illustration: Dr. Baker mentioned that Reich seemed to know what he was thinking. Others who were in contact with him have mentioned the same telepathic ability. This is the product of being relatively unarmored and able to be in a high degree of contact with others. It is a natural ability. The web of life is dynamic and connected. It can be sensed. It does seem that we are in End Time as we approach the year 2000. Our own personal problems pale in the face of the prospect of the end of life on earth. I can feel this based on my own psychic abilities. So did David Koreas before he was destroyed by the American Fascist State. I can see it!! There are no easy answers. Life has always been most difficult, and it always will be, for most of us, most of the time. There is no salvation on earth. The search for salvation on earth leaves us open to the lower powers who seek to pull us down. It is well to observe that with the orgasm reflex the head falls back, as it does when we contemplate the stars. Creation and cosmic contact go together. The stars are in us and above us…someday we will return to them. Kant once said that two things filled him with awe: the stars above and the moral law within. We now know that this spiritual law is part of the protoplasm, placed there by our creator. As W.R. said in “Listen Little Man,” we have it in us, if we only reach deeply enough inside. Steve
July 9, 1998 Dear Steve: Your letter (as per usual) gave me a boost. My brother alcoholic editor has looked at a substantial portion of my second volume on alcoholism, “The Three Pillars,” honoring Bill Wilson’s statement that the roof of the temple of Alcoholics Anonymous is held aloft by three pillars: psychology, experience. My friend Dave C. man wrote me: “Thismedicine, is a monumental workand andpersonal I am excitedly impressed. He is a young with a depth of spirituality that defines his sobriety and he4 has offered to proof read and computer type a substantial chunk of the initial overview I present, gratis. I, of course, informed him that should the work ever take-off, he would be duly recompensed, but it seems of no importance to him. My cardiologist jolted me with a big-time diuretic and for the first time in months I am unbloating. What a difference! I just finished a good session with Blasband. It’s entirely premature to expect any noticeable results; after all, I have been busy as a termite undermining my health, physical, mental and spiritual for about forty years, with brief intervals of recovery with Dr. Baker and AA. It seems that all the dramatic synchronicities that fill cosmic space are not enough to remind me of what can and may be; tight-jawed resignation and total amnesia blot out the miracles that have defined my life in sobriety. A kind and perceptive observation regarding the “health-values” of a quite night with my wife, the problem being that when they fade or get smashed in the mouth by what Susan calls “her issue,” I automatically revert to my Wolf Larsen mode – AND IT NO LONGER WORKS! I saw the same Edward Cayce TV show. I KNOW all those things are real, realer than this shadow land we now inhabit. Reading the new physics is absolutely balm to my spirit. The mind is so alive and engaged with those guys. I don’t regret my lack of their mathematical language. I get their ideas, mostly and most of those are found in either Kant or Spinoza (who didn’t cheat by “renormalizing” infinities) or – mirabilis dictum – Bishop Berkeley! Those big minds, beginning, always beginning with Plato, have never been surpassed. How long can the corporate illusionists continue to scam us? For as long as we choose to be scammed???? My prayers are with you and yours. You have important work to do. A recent synchronicity that pulled me up from the mire from Isaiah: “I have plans for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you.” Amen elohim Victor
July 18, 1998 Dear Victor: It is good to remind ourselves of the great dilemma that life in armored society constantly presents us with: how do we attain and maintain any real degree of spiritual health and rationality when almost everyone we encounter in our work lives and personal existence is functioning sick andindistorted in one form another. persontoitthe is a constant greedin fora money, another,manner preoccupation with or one person In orone situation exclusion of all else. To compound the problem, we do not have the option of simply walking away from many people and situations when they concern work or personal family. We simply have to put up with the bullshit. There seems no “harbor for life” (to use WR’s late formulation) to provide a sanctuary for this. Almost everyone has their own neurotic issues or agenda. On top of this, the media, be it television, newspapers, radio ads, etc. continually reinforces the wrong life-negative values: money, power, prestige, pornographic sexuality, violence, and “getting over on the other guy” by making the best “deal” (in other words, exploitation). Dr. Baker was well aware of this problem, and addressed it in a taped interview in the early 1980s. When asked about health, he responded: “There are no healthy people….you can’t be healthy in this environment….with what you have to put up with…everything around you makes you want to contract down…..It is a constant struggle to remain as near healthy as you can….That is why people have to come back after therapy is over for more treatment to loosen up again.” When asked if the orgonomists were healthy, he responded [paraphrase]: “All of them? No. They don’t have to be absolutely healthy to be good orgonomists. Of course, we hope that they will get closer to real health as they go along.” The final Luciferic twist on the problem is that we all have our own neurotic tendencies to contend with, and the neurosis in others will tend to bring our own to the surface. My old Adlerian mentor, Leo Rattner, used to say that you have to become your own therapist. Here are my suggestions on the matter. The crucial thing is to be guided by our own feelings about people and situations regardless of what the conventional or “nice” way of dealing with them may be. I try to avoid or limit contact with people and situations that make me feel bad, devitalized, and diminished in some way. We feel what we feel regardless of what we are “supposed” to feel. Self-character analysis, or in 12Step terms taking our own moral inventory, is of vital importance. Is what we feel rational and clean or is it the product of old armor or neurosis? If it is clean, then rational self-protection is the order of the day. If it is not, then we must sequester the feeling and let it subside until we can get a clear view. Having a satisfying love relationship is most important in maintaining a rational life. It is also the most difficult part of the equation to maintain. Many people can, at least in the early days of a relationship, feel some satisfaction. But, inevitably, as the wheels of life and circumstance begin to turn, friction develops and passivity sets in. Most of us have a tendency, out of a desire not to “rock the boat,” to go along with outmoded social forms
in the family and at work in order to “get along” and out of fear of conflict. Sometimes a need for the security of old attitudes sets in even if we know better. All of this is based, I am sure, on an intolerance of independent thinking and feeling because our biopsychology cannot take the jolts and upsets of a full life, and the emotional costs of going our own way regardless of what others think. No “authority” can tell us how to live our lives. This includes orgonomists, spiritual teachers, friends, religions or even our favorite old uncle. We must find our own way. There are, if we are fortunate (as you and I have been), guides who can point out some of the rocks in the roads or the fact that our approach is twisted in some way. But that is all they can do. We must live our own lives. As Leo Rattner used to say: “Go your own way and let people talk.” I have just finished rereading the Appendix to “The Murder of Christ” entitled “The Weapon of Truth.” There is much good guidance in that, particularly in finding and living your own truth. It is well to remember that healthy life regulates itself. There are no outside “authorities.” Whenever I have sought this kind of guidance from my Orgonomist, he has rejected assuming that kind of role, knowing that armored man wants nothing as much as to be told “what to do” about everything (the politicians have built entire careers on this need of armored man which is the result of the repression of spontaneous movement in infancy and childhood). He is quick to point out when my suggested solution is not clean, open and healthy, but he renders no specific advice. As always, my best to you and the family Steve
July 23, 1998 Dear Steve: It is sometimes difficult for me to keep solidly planted in the forefront of my consciousness, just how badly damaged the general human protoplasm is, how it is crazily poisoned by the bombardment of the cumulative effects of all the cosmic and planetary DOR forces, yet how it continues to blindly struggle for the something better, something more, that none of us has forgotten is really there, somewhere, somehow. My wonderment, gratitude, and rationally grounded hopes and expectations continue. Out of nowhere this afternoon I picked up “Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain,” to peruse: it was as if I were reading it for the first time. It continued that marvelous sense of the rightness of what we are about, the worth of love, work, and knowledge, the mysterium tremendum et fascinans of which Joseph Campbell frequently speaks. Strong and real things are happening with my health. I cannot thank you enough for the “accidental” opening of the long-bolted door to the psychotronic realm. You have been the agent of some remarkable happenings in my life, and I thank you heartily and humbly
for the important contributions you have made to refreshing me when I had hit the wall; I am ready to continue the marathon. Yes, the Weapon of Truth is one of the handful of absolutely persuasive statements respecting the nature of truth, its beauty, and the dangers inherent in its usage. WR was never more functionally brilliant. I think your Orgonomist’s approach is a genuine reflection of rational orgonomic functionalism as it acts as a spiritual guide. His approach sounds much like Baker’s, when I would find myself in a similar situation. I will try to get hold of Fromm’s book, and give you what feedback I can. Keeping faith with Life is not always easy. I have found, however, it will always work for our good in the long run. God is Life and Love. Who else is there to trust? Blasband indicated that he may be interested in coming to Vermont in November to conduct a seminar on Psychotronic healing. We have some contacts, but the snag is his (necessary and valid) $200 fee per person with 10 or 12 participants. We shall see how it unfolds down the road a bit. The earth is burning up and blowing, washing away. The health of our whole society is breaking down. On the profoundest level of life these things must run their course. But health and sanity and spiritual cleanliness remain for those of us willing (and able) to make the sacrifices. And there are a lot of decent struggling people out there. We are not alone. Victor
August 5, 1998 Dear Victor: With all the signs of an End time upon us, i.e. drought, floods, fires, tidal waves, etc., I thought you would be interested in seeing a picture (enclosed herein) of a galaxy discovered by one of the new very high powered telescopes. As you can see, it is shaped like a cross. Is this the final sign that we are heading for a cosmic catastrophe? Where are the theologian-cosmologists to answer that one for us! Presently, I am re-reading the Oranur experiment in preparation to writing the spiritual part of my Reich book. A recent movie on television dealing with the “haunting” of a family who had taken up residence in a very old house built over an abandoned coal mine in Pennsylvania was very suggestive of Oranur effects. Also interesting was the fact that a colonial era site was discovered in the mine exhibiting artifacts of Devil worship. Can this DOR energy actually take possession of people? The movie, based on an actually documented case of the mid-1980s, indicates this is what can happen to emotionally vulnerable people. Reich’s experiment also demonstrates as much.
My therapy with the Orgonomist is going very well now. The effects of the treatments have taken hold and I feel better than I ever have in my life. I know that to maintain and increase the duration of these feelings I will have to be active, alert, and self-protective. I am enjoying them while they last. Incidentally, this Orgonomist is one of the few people that I have ever met who seems to function from the depths most of the time, particularly in therapy. He is present in the way a mountain lake or eagle is – “all there.” Any attempt at pretense or cover-up is unthinkable in his presence. He is highly sensitive and looks into the deeps of human emotion with calm strength. When I walk into the treatment room, I immediately drop all conscious defenses and open up as much as possible. He communicates with a few well placed words that always seem to hit the mark. I have discovered that even in the areas where I have strong initial disagreement with something he has said, later on, upon quiet reflection, I find that once again he has nailed it on the head. He is working with me very vigorously now, and I hope we can see an end to the therapy in the year 2000 (an appropriate year!!). I hope you are finding time to rest during this hot season. I fell with all my heart that the best is yet to come for both of us. Steve
August 10, 1998 Dear Steve: Nice to regain “contact” with you again. Thanks for the “signs and wonders.” My AA buddy-woodsman, hunter, guide, alcoholic in recovery, and mystic extraordinaire, has begun to trust me with more of his experiences, and it does not look good overall. Some will survive, but the tribulations will be terrible. I trust this guy as I trust Blasband and yourself with this heady information. I too am beginning to feel positive effects from the telephone therapy. My heart is growing stronger, and my attitude, in spite of what we know, has never been more positive. I just received a pamphlet from CFR, and Blasband is a busy man. John Bell is in Europe for a year and out of touch for the moment. I’ll probably call Dr. Koopman sometime soon. Your description of yourself and your Orgonomist delights my heart. Any chance of you and Roz, and Ian (if he is so-minded) to make it up for a few days? I’m regularly taking pao d’arco tea extract. It’s a Brazilian tree with remarkable, and reliable, I believe, anecdotal stories told of its long-term healing powers, and I can happily and hopefully say, I’m in it for the long-term. Getting healthy and spreading health (a clumsy way of putting it) seems to be in my charts. My sense of the rightness of our path grows firmer. I patiently await further developments. In about a week, I should have a computer disc of about 100 pages on Volume II, “The Three Pillars,” and I’ll send it along for your commentary. About 300 plus pages of manuscript remain, and I will lie back and see if my friend David maintains his ardor for
the project. The “Oranur Paradigm” has been put aside for the nonce, but not put away. Everything lies ready at hand. I contemplate sending Blasband my long article-chapter on WR and Jewish Mysticism/Gnosticism. I’m on to something; although I’m not always sure just what it is I’m on to. I simply cannot stop reading physics. For the first time, however, I’ve run across a renowned mathematical and physical theorist who gets my goat. Heinz Pagels, a sworn to the death Einsteinium. I feel comfortable in rejecting his criticisms of non-local causation, and I can’t grasp how he argues that the micro world of quantum reality does not operate according to the same laws as the macro world of relativity and Newton. And Einstein seems more and more limited in scope and just plain obstinately wrong regarding quantum physics. No wonder he dismissed the accumulator; he really did not need any fellow-traveler lab assistant to coax him. Blasband told me that no one in Orgonomy had the math to do WR’s biophysics correctly. God, it’s so good to know that the work goes on, and not just round and round. Reading some of the old journals and the ipse dixit defenses of Reich’s work still troubles me. And how about the end of the American presidency as we know it, along with American government and American character! It’s just adding to the stew. I too feel that you and I were never readier to shoulder our tasks. Stay well. Blessings on your house Barach bereshit elohim Victor PS: Blasband has begun de-toxing my central nervous system and I feel quite lively – frisky almost. PS: I believe that DOR DOES POSSESS PEOPLE!
August 22, 1998 Dear Victor: It looks like the events of the past week have validated our mutual perceptions of an imminent catastrophe developing around the year 2000. Many major psychics such as Edgar Cayce have predicted it, and events are bearing them out. Out dysfunctional President is self-destructing with passive oral sex in the Oval Office with a young intern and then, in a compensatory mechanism of macho dominant phallic self-assertion, sending the missiles flying in a sudden ejaculation like Dr. Strangelove in the Middle East (staining the land with carnage). Certainly we must fight terrorism, but the timing of this has to raise questions coming during the Monica quagmire. Capitalism is undergoing a world-wide contraction that can no longer be concealed or manipulated away from impacting us here in the United States. On top of all this, Russia is undergoing a complete social and economic collapse that makes the return of the Communists there almost a certainty. To complete the picture, Oranur weather continues to devastate with violent patterns and drought.
I think we will probably see WWIII by the year 2000 (significant events seem to cluster in threes by some unknown form of orgonomic function). Russia has more nuclear weapons than any other country except America. I hope and pray that I am wrong. If I have any confirming premonitory dreams, I will let you know. On the personal front, my work with my Orgonomist continues to be eye-opening and defense shattering. There are times my sessions with him resemble nothing so much as a form of combat as he declared war on every form of block that inhibits my full functioning. The end result, which seems like a true rebirth, keeps my resolve to continue with the work in some ongoing form, even if I must reduce the sessions next year. As my father used to say in Yiddish: “Man plans and God laughs.” I have been reading Larry Dorsey’s book on “Healing Words,” and I would recommend it, if you have not read it. He describes psychic healing as the next advance in energy medicine, and it sounds like what Blasband is doing. He talks about distance healing and prayer. More and more I am convinced that this depends on as yet unknown functions of orgone energy, particularly since distance healing and prayer penetrates all forms of protection against other forms of energy such as lead, etc. in ways that resemble what Reich discovered during Oranur. I would venture to say on this basis that bad weather would interfere with the effectiveness of this type of healing. My prayers are with you and the family… Steve
August 26, 1998 Dear Steve: It’s good to hear of you and your Agronomist, mano-a-mano. As you are well aware, the “confrontation” will pay enormous dividends in years and decades to come. Good job! The lengthening shadows over western civilization (and the world) spell the final whimpering triumph ofand Modern their f…ing death-wish to win, barring the unforeseen alwaysLiberalism; possible miracles. The White Houseisisgoing a cesspool of lies; that joker has suborned to perjury more people than Monica. I want to avoid becoming vindictive, but the sonoabitch wants to pull us all down with him. I know psychotronic medicine works and is anchored in the same deep cosmic foundation as Orgonomy. I must try to remain patient as the results unfold. Already, I’ve experienced heartening (no pun) results and my whole spiritual outlook is deepening and widening. I skimmed “Healing Words” in my local bookstore and hope to pick up a copy next week. The more I read in quantum physics the more functionally mystical it becomes. I don’t know just how close a legitimate fit it will make with the Oranur Paradigm, but I propose to find out over the next decade. It’s remarkable to me just how stimulating and enlightening (and exciting) doing physics (sans the math) is to me. It all just seems to make sense. I believe Einstein’s armor was showing through when he came up with the notion of gravity as geometry and the adamant refusal to consider non-local causation as operative in his tight little universe. I remarked to Blasband that when I visualize Dr. Baker, I see him wearing a monk’s hood and he found that quite an agreeable idea. Koopman is training with Levashov, and the CFR is seeking a commercial publisher for Levashov’s book…I can’t wait. Psychotronic spiritual philosophy has brought everything together for me in a grand synthesis unlike many in my life before. I am enclosing the first disc of my nearly completed book on alcoholism. My computer friend insists that he wants to do the whole thing….gratis. It’s over 400 pages and brings in much of Reich’s thought on functional bioenergetic disease, which is what alcoholism is. Love and prayers to you and yours Victor
August 30, 1998 Dear Victor: Your computer disk with Vol. II of the alcoholism book arrived yesterday, on Saturday. This was fortunate in that it gave me an opportunity to read and think about it. You certainly hit the nail on the head: the spiritual disease is the Self in all its narcissistic,
selfish, self-centered, and loveless manifestation and incarnations. The cure is the Godconsciousness and oneness with spiritual energy. Sin is separation from this energy by the process of bioemotional armoring that breaks up the unity of the organism and produces a sense of alienation and lack of contact. The theology of the twelve-steps is truly applicable to the universal human condition of spiritual pathology that exists in all of us, to a greater or lesser extent. It is just more dysfunctionally on display in the life of the active alcoholic. The alcoholic wants to feel this oneness, and alcohol, as a vaso-dilator, temporarily softens the armor and allows the spiritual energy to be felt, but when it wears off, the armor hardens all the more and the body is inhibited from producing the biochemicals that produce pleasure in the body. This is why William James knew that the alcoholic wants contact with God and just uses the bottle as a way of doing it by producing an oral orgasm. Alcohol also ultimately, when used to excess, increases dehydration and the DOR build-up in the body. Healthy mysticism, medical orgone therapy, 12-Steps, Spiritual Prayer, all of this helps increase contact with God and break down the walls between the suffering human souls and the ultimate reality. I know of a case in my own life that I have observed that bears out your thesis of the 12Steps as a Universal Theology. My mother, as you know, was in AA for 30 years. During those years she had a long-term relationship with a man named Lou. Lou was not an alcoholic, but had many deep-seated emotional problems. He was a working class guy who had been employed as a barber and shoe salesman. He was not the type to seek out psychotherapy. He was moody, unstable, and subject to rages. As my mother’s companion, he started to accompany her to AA meetings. In the beginning, he just went to keep her company. Then a very strange thing started to happen: he started to listen to the proceedings and he started to discuss them with my mother. Over the years a noticeable change came over Lou until, in the last years that I knew him before my mother died, he functioned with a degree of spiritual serenity that was truly remarkable. When I asked him about this he replied: “your mother taught me and the program taught me.” He was a simple man who, before his retirement, finally found work that he liked. He worked as a messenger for a graphics firm in Manhattan. Incidentally, he once applied for disability to the Social Security Administration on emotional grounds, having been wounded in the same incident that took my brother’s life. Fortunately for him, they turned him down, which forced him to look for work. Work and the Program ultimately restored him to functioning. Stories like these help restore some measure of faith to us, but it would be a grave mistake to underestimate the terribly difficult task we are faced with in our own lives and in the lives of our loved ones. Every value of our commercial, business and social lives is now governed by the spiritual pathology of the SELF, ME AND MINE, no matter what the cost. Money is the true God of this society, and no other value matters to it. It is glorified in the media, in business, on Wall Street, in politics, and permeates every aspect of our lives into our most intimate family relationships. For this worship of the Golden Calf, God will eventually destroy the American (read here “Babylonian”) Empire as foretold by the Prophets of the Bible.
Few have the courage to challenge this Lucifer Force (Deadly psychic energy or DOR). Instead, As Dr. Reich once said of the function of the orgasm, it is drowned in a deep silence of shared pathology and fear. Deep within us, there is a heard instinct, probably placed there in the evolutionary biological development, since we need the group to help us survive against a frequently hostile nature. So, spiritual pathology can go unchallenged if it is held by the social majority and not felt as ego-alien. Where is the place of our established religions in all this? Under the excuse of “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” our religions are nowhere to be seen or felt in the larger society. Also, the great doctrine of separation of church and state has been used as an excuse to secularize our social lives and destroy any possibility of spiritual values, contrary to the srcinal intent of our founding fathers. On top of this, or perhaps as the deeper cause of it, the primal life-giving spiritual teachings of our great Masters of Life, as Erich From referred to them, has been watered down and distorted by ossified religious institutions. The “Little Man” mentality has reduced the profound feeling nature of these teachings of Moses, Jesus, etc., and made them into another form of business and politics with all the power machinations that those domains entail. I recall my own experience with standard synagogue Judaism. The same mentality that I encountered in local politics and business was also evident here. The Rabbi, who was a woman with great spiritual potential, left the congregation because she felt that by turning down her request for more money, the group “did not value her enough.” Need I find more examples? I am sure that you could supply many of your own. I feel that a spiritual or counter-culture sanctuary would be a great help in resisting the destructive values of society at large. But where is it to be found when the sick little man dominates everything? Where is our “Harbor for Life” as WR put it? When I called the Christian Science Information line, I received a recording of a neurotic voice touting the virtues of resisting medical care because it interfered with “right thinking that disease did not exist.” Maybe our old friends the ancient Gnostic teachers were right about the irremediable alienation of humanity on earth. I hope and pray that they were wrong, but I fear that they were right. Well, back to our work. I await the balance of your great manuscript. The only comment I have now is that I feel you have been too cautious in your description of Reich’s feelings about the spiritual domain. I am convinced, based upon Reich’s writings in prison, and also those who talked with him and knew him in prison, that he had a genuine spiritual conversion experience during the last year of his life. W.R. wrote in a letter to his son about his experience in attending a Protestant church service in the prison: “I was deeply moved; I felt a new, universal faith in Life and Love, comprising all monotheistic beliefs, races, etc. is becoming a dire necessity to counter-weight and -act the “Enemy of Man” [See Ilse's biography pgs. 155-156]. She says that his letters showed a “kind of religious fervor” that she found hard to understand, and that Myron Sharaf downplayed in his biography of Reich. Reich spoke in prison letters of writing prayers, and of the necessity for “Sanctuaries for Life.” This is an exact example of the conversion type
experience that William James describes in his great work “The Varieties of Religious Experience. My prayers are with you and your loved ones. Each morning on my way to work, I recite the Lord’s Prayer to myself. It is a great centering and meditative experience that clams me for the stresses of the day. I have read Emmet Fox's " Sermon on the Mount" and I find much spiritual truth there. Best, Steve
September 2, 1998 Dear Steve: Thanks for your kind observations about my ms. as well as the informative bulk of your recent letter. My mind is in delicious ferment; I can understand how sparkling burgundy feels when fermenting, while I mustn’t taste it. The basic causes are two: my ongoing telephone therapy with Blasband (I still can't believe it is working, but it is), and a weekend at Rangeley. The Presence of the place - not just Orgonon - was overwhelming in a richly fulfilling way. The lake was alive, as were the woods around Reich's tomb. I visited it alone (Susan was not well), but I didn't go into the observatory. After 48 hours there, not all of them joyous, my wellsprings were so recharged and refreshed that, when I got home, I began assembling my immense pile of notes for the upcoming fall and winter beginning of THE project of my life - "The Oranur Paradigm." I have never loved a physical place as much as I do Rangeley (and this was the first time in six visits that I can say that), and I have never been as spiritually and intellectually excited by Orgonomy and the possibility that I may be able to add something important, and as yet undone, to that glorious enterprise. I re-read Pierrakos, and while I still reject his "Hooray for the universe" conclusions (a Wm. James phrase), I found the observations on energy and energy functioning quite exceptional, plugging right into the psychotronic medicine socket. IT'S ALL TRUE, my friend. The theoretical backdrop for the Religion of Orgonomy is there. What is required, I believe, is a grand cosmological synthesis, and I shall make a beginning, God willing. Steve, if you ever manage to bring your retirement plans to fruition, Rangeley will prove out to be a Godsend to you and Roz. I feel that it is almost the only place on earth, excepting my home here, where I feel "right." Blessings and keep the faith. Victor
September 5, 1998 Dear Victor: I am very happy that you are benefiting from the work with Blasband. As I have said before, I believe our reconnecting after so many years has something providential about it, and the mutual expansion bears this out. My book on Orgonomy continues to develop and spirituality. has settled into an spiritual, exploration twohas crucial and very controversial domains: and In the myofview come closely in line with the trail youpolitics are following, and perhaps we can both in our own lives and work make a start to explore the dimension that WR had just entered during his final years, and especially in prison. Unfortunately, death cut short his final spiritual development which, judging from all other phases of his life and work, would have resulted in some major and probably unforeseen breakthrough. Dr. Blasband is now a pioneer in this field, and we can expect some real stimulation from his new research in psychotronic medicine and spiritual philosophy. In the political, I know of none outside publisher Jim Martin in California who are following the same line as I am. I still think that classical Orgonomy (as distinguished from Reich himself) is too accepting of the values of the business and commercial world. The dominance of this value system (me, mine, and my agenda, regardless of decency and a feeling for life) is the major spiritual pathology of our time (now spreading throughout the world). I disagree with John Bell's position that Reich's earlier political phase in Europe was strictly a matter of medical desire to help. Surely, that motivation obtained, but a clear examination of his writings indicated that he was a very committed fighter for a new form of culture and life that far transcended the narrow confines of medicine. He continued with this view until the end of his life in his concepts of social psychiatry, in his battle with the FDA and HIGS (Hoodlums in Government), and in his functioning (What better example of hoodlums in government than the attack on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. The same anti-life forces were behind the FDA attack on Reich). I would include his final spiritual phase, and his work with newborns, as a further development of his quest for the "new humanity." My prayers are with you and Susan... Steve
September 10, 1998 Dear Steve: It's comforting to know that someone else in this wide, DOR-devoured universe is thinking and working along parallel lines. As you know, John Bell's "defense" of Reich's early political involvements was the party-line in Orgonomy for a long, long time. But in fact, he was a communist, belonging to the same cell in Vienna as another neglected scientific and philosophic genius, Arthur Koestler. The functional dialectic of identity-indifference grow directly out of the Hegelian-Marxist dialectic. Bye-the-bye, Dr. Baker
agreed with me that "Invasion of Compulsory Sexual Morality" was the worst book WR ever wrote. A major point of denial in Reich's socio-political theory - Freud's Primal Horde - which brooks so large in any absrcinal speculations anent the primitive matriarchy. And it's the primal horde's morphic resonance that humanity picked up on and has carried to such an abysmal chapter. I have been unable to locate Gershom's book suggested by you, but I found a new clean copy of "Psychic Discoveries Behind The Iron Curtain," which I am once again immersed in. The stuff reported (from 1970!) is breathtaking - what the hell happened to the sequel in scientific studies? I've also just completed Paul Davies' "About Time." What an eye opener on the real doings in theoretical physics (it's all in Spinoza and Kant!!!), some of it laughable, some of it infantile, some of it terrifying; the physicists just can't seem to get away from God, as hard as they try. And none seems to know whether what they are doing on their formula-laden blackboards bears any resemblance to what's going on "out there." For me, physics plays but one part, a large one to be sure, in the constitution of the "Oranur Paradigm." I am not at all certain that Reich dealt with TIME, NONLOCAL CAUSALITY, etc., but he certainly was one of the first since the preSocratics to emphasize that the universe pulsates - perhaps WR committed a tactical error in naming this universal function "the orgasm function," but then again, WR was no tactician. Your letters are always a tonic. May the providential mind that brought us together develop for us future opportunities for mutual growth. Love to you Roz and Ian Victor
September 13, 1998 Dear Victor: I have been reading another book by Larry Dossey, this one entitled "Recovering the Soul." It presents the scientific and philosophical basis of psychic healing, including the work of the quantum physicists, and the biological idea of morphic resonance. He goes into great detail on the concept of distance healing and nonlocality. I highly recommend it as another step to the real unification of science and spirituality. I have a little known bit of orgonomic history to tell you that I think you will find interesting. You may remember, from the literature, the name Robert McCullough. He was Reich's research biologist and chemist during the post-Oranur days, and accompanied Reich to Arizona on the famous UFO expedition. McCullough passed away at the age of 74 in 1995. I found a memorial article about him in "Flatlands Magazine," a periodical that covers many off-beat and unsanctioned free-lancers in Orgonomy. It turns out that after Reich, McCullough went on to become involved in the work of Rudolf
Steiner. Steiner (as I am sure you know) was a spiritual scientist who claimed to have finally overcome the Kantian limitations of mind to breakthrough into direct contact with the higher dimensions. McCullough found this approach entirely compatible with his prior training in Orgonomy, and, in fact, became friends with Trevor James Constable, a weather investigator and UFO researcher who operated cloud busters for years in California. Constable also found Steiner's work to be well-fitted with Orgonomy. I myself find the passing moments of spiritual perception, in direct contact with love, work, and knowledge, fleeting as they may be, show that even in our spiritually devastated and hellish society salvation may still be possible. Recently, I picked up a book of prayers from around the world and from all faiths, including those of the East and Africa. I would like to close by quoting one: "Father, O mighty force, that force which is in everything, Come down between us, fill us, until we be like thee, until we be like thee." [A prayer said during a boy's initiation in Guinea] My love and prayers to you, Susan, and Blake Steve
September 17, 1998 Dear Steve: I am coming from a powerful session with Blasband. he is searching out the causes of my heart condition. We agree that my emotional makeup plays a major role in my condition: heavy chest armor, broken heart, etc. He told me that things will start “coming up,” and I welcome it, although I may be talking out of the other side of my mouth when it happens. I know that my bioenergetic sensitivity and awareness have increased markedly since beginning therapy. Theoretically, EVERYTHING makes greater sense to me and will continue, I believe, to do so. Thanks again for the synchronous message you bore me about psychotronic medicine. I’ve known about Rudolph Steiner since my daughter attended the Waldorf School at Adelphi. I thought him a great whack. Now I know better. Have I mentioned Trevor Ravenscroft’s book, “Spear of Destiny?” It catalogs Hitler’s occult powers. Steiner was high-up on Der Fuhrer’s hit list; he had guessed correctly the nature of the Fuhrer’s power and appeal, diabolic possession. Trevor Constable was savaged by Jerome Greenfield in the JO, but so much of his stuff appears in a new light after Oranur. I will seek out Dossey’s book. It sounds right up my alley. Sheldrake’s book on morphic
resonance and the nature of biological causation is astounding – pure Aristotelianism with Platonic background brought to the fore. It helps knock Darwinianism into the cocked hat where it belongs. I am beginning to be effected deeply by Clinton’s plague. I had, perhaps, better lay off my intense “Clinton Watch.” The more he hides the despicable (and sick) he becomes. Hillary, the Dragon Lady, knows what she’s in, but poor Chelsea, what a legacy he has willed her. The prayer says it all. I find myself more and more fascinated by Abraham and Moses. Whence comes such monumental faith? I expect if God spoke to me I might have more faith too. “All manner of thing will be well.” Juliana of Norwich and Victor of Barre
September 19, 1998 Dear Victor: The good news is that I am now expanding my teaching at the Adler Institute for the following two semesters. In addition to my yearly seminar on current issues in psychotherapy, I will for the first time be teaching a course entitled “The Philosophy of Psychology and Psychotherapy.” In this course I will trace Adler’s philosophical roots in the work of Nietzsche, Marx, and Hans Vaihinger, among others. The great philosophers were of course our first spiritual psychotherapists, and I look forward to being able to discuss a good selection starting with the Greeks. I hope to be able to further expand my teaching activities in the coming years to the Adult Ed. context, where I can reach a broader audience. I continue my own study of the great mystics. It is a richly rewarding pursuit, and I thank you for pointing the way. I have some disturbing news to report. My new primary care physician decided that a swollen lymph gland in my neck needs closer scrutiny, and he referred me to a surgeon. The surgeon is of the opinion that it is not normal, and so on September 28, I will be going to the hospital for surgery to have it removed and sent for biopsy. I think that it is a collection of basically harmless cells discarded during the course of orgone therapy. However, there is the possibility that it is evidence of a serious cancer process in my body. It worries me that for the past year, I have been deeply tired in a way that never seems to go away, despite vacations and holidays. I have for the past year been subject to unremitting stress on my job, and stress has been known to trigger problems. Whatever
comes, I am putting myself in the hands of the Great Physician and his helpers on earth, including my medical orgonomist. I am not afraid of death. Death is not the end of life. It is the start of a great transformation of spiritual energy in the quantum dimension and a great adventure in the cosmic energy ocean. I still feel that my mission here is not complete. But that is ultimately not for me to decide. Please keep me in your prayers on September 28. My love and prayers to you and your family Steve
September 23, 1998 Dear Steve: Naturally, I was troubled about your communication, but I think your strong spirituality and fighting spirit will carry you through whatever may eventuate. You are certainly right; your work is not nearly complete yet. Your teaching plans get my mouth to watering. Nietzsche is assuredly the source of all that is best in modern psychotherapy. Freud, Reich, Adler, Jung, et al. How sad that he should knowingly immerse himself in all that “will your own values” krap. There is no doubt that there was a little bit of the Nazi in him – isn’t there in all of us – but his genius allowed him to transcend even that Little Mannishness in his complex and brilliant character. He said so much that is true. The Clinton thing has really gotten to me. He is a spoiled, whiney, little brat and doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything but himself. Slick Willy, get the hell out! I join you in celebrating the great mystics. I think that science – and that includes orgonomy – has gone just about as far as is permitted without a consummatory mystical marriage. But do we have the time? I think that all we can realistically do is sit in our cells and copy the old and wise manuscripts for posterity, and keep a weather eye out for the barbarians. This world has so thoroughly passed me by that I wonder that God has preserved me…to what end, I still am not sure. But things keep happening, synchronicities and intuitions. In some ways, I love my “splendid isolation,” as Freud characterized his early career before becoming a celebrity. As Plato said, and our archetypal grandfather Reich knew so intimately, it is a lonely business being the bringer of new ideas. How scared and stupid Little Man is. I know. He lives in my neighborhood, just below my thoracic cavity.
Therapy with Blasband is coming along. He has warned me that old issues would begin surfacing – and they have – and they are not “nice.” I really want nothing more than all the health I can get. Nietzsche was right about that – sick as he was personally. Steve, I certainly don’t mean to remotely interfere in your health matters. Your Orgonomist is certainly a strong arm for you. But perhaps psychotronic medicine might be worth considering. I can attest that my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has absolutely disappeared – and it was terrible, as I gather you know. I have also taken to herbal tea, Pau d’Arco, as well as a tincture distilled from the bark of a Brazilian tree. I really feel it is helping. It mainly effects the immune system, but remarkable (if anecdotal) cures have been widely reported for everything from shingles to cancer, among native peoples. The answer is out there. We just have to fight through the smoke blown by the god dam drug companies and the absolutely immoral, 30-second TV blips that nightly report a breakthrough in treating…whatever. You must follow your conscience in these matters, of course. I have faith that you will make the right decisions whatever the diagnosis. 28 September will be a special prayer date. God Bless you. Victor
September 26, 1998 Dear Victor: Your letter, as always, had a lifting and revitalizing effect on me. The life of a real philosopher (and not one of the academic “walkie-talkies) is, as you rightly point out, a lonely one, particularly in our society and time. My legal education notwithstanding (which I obtained to help buy groceries and pay the rent), I was born with a philosophic temperament, and it has been both my curse and blessing to follow this path as a vocation in the spiritual sense. It is a great consolation to have you as a fellow mystic traveler on the path through this wilderness. I have been considering psychotronic medicine and alternative treatments for some time. After September 28, I will have a more complete picture of my internal medical condition, which all other tests show is good (the trouble is that my subjective sense much of the time now registers fatigue). My Orgonomist has suggested the Reich blood test, but I must wait to see what the biopsy will show before deciding what change, if any, is needed in my medical care. I would appreciate the names of the natural substances that you take to help you, including the South American tree bark that you mentioned and where I can obtain them. I might want to work with Blasband or Koopman on the Levashov healing, as you have, but not before I complete or terminate treatments with my Orgonomist.
Please do not get yourself so upset with the Clinton mess. The political domain is the most superficial and the most resistant to any real change no matter what the temporary ideological current or fad is. It is like watching the shadows on the wall of Plato’s allegory of the caves. I have learned to detach myself from this, and I am starting to see it all under the aspect of eternity as Spinoza put it. Remember, Clinton would not be in the White House if a majority of our fellow citizens did not share his pathology to a great extent. As the Russian philosopher Ospensky once said, the mass can never get free, there are too many spiritual laws against it. Only the solitary individual, if courageous and able to endure suffering, can, with a few of his fellows, hope to penetrate to the ultimate answers, and these can only be worked out as an individual truth. I have finally come to the position that you have been describing throughout our friendship and correspondence. Philosophy, psychology, and natural science cannot supply the ultimate answers, if only because they try to get there with the intellect alone, and the cosmic/spiritual realm is much deeper. It can only be reached by profound feeling and spiritual perception. This is where the healthy mystics can help to point the way, but the path of the mystic journey must of necessity be a lonely one. The experience can be ordered by the intellect and described, but it must be had only by the individual. It is not at all as thought of by the average person. It is not a dreamy, other-worldly escape from mundane reality. On the contrary, it is frequently hard, lonely, and the ultimate benefit must be paid for in pain and suffering. The struggle between the light and the dark, good and evil, is eternal and continues in the human heart until final release by death into the cosmic ocean. The Godhead, as the Cabbalistic philosophers tell us, is unknowable and unreachable. They called it the En-Sof. It is in everything that is and all time and space without end. It is a force for tremendous good and life furtherance, but also, under the right conditions, it can turn very destructive (As W.R. found out during Oranur). The EnSof is not concerned with the individual welfare or fate of any particular soul or being. For that, each person must turn to the creator God, who is rooted in, and an expression of, the En-Sof. The Sefiroth is the creator God, whose rivers of light and orgone energy contract into human life and exist at the same time in the spiritual domain of the planets. This spiritual energy exists in the different segments of our biophysical organism, and is clearly shown by the ancient pictures of Adam Kadmon in the old Kabbalah texts. They contain noetic feelings as emotion and perception. The work of orgone therapy, many spiritual disciplines and good therapies, and the old Kabbalistic methods, is to restore unity between the segments or, in spiritual language, turn the profane human into his divine srcinal form as it existed at birth, untouched by armored man, and fresh from the ocean of living energy (the Sefiroth). By work and meditation, the Creator God can be brought into contact as our individual existential higher power or teacher. He/she (there is no specific gender in this domain) is not omnipotent, but can provide help and direction as a guide. There are many spiritual laws that are probably unknown even to our higher powers. Jung describes contact with his spiritual teacher in his autobiography, and called him Philemon. By the fact of our feeling this, the ontological reality is proved. There is much more to be learned and found, but this is how I see it now. I would highly recommend a book on Kabbalah that I find better than Scholem’s work for our purposes. It was written by free-lance philosopher Charles Ponce, and is
published by QUEST BOOKS, 306 West Geneva Road, Wheaton, Illinois 60187. It is profusely illustrated by reproductions of old drawings from the ancient texts, and is very reasonably priced. Thanks for your prayers… God grant us the courage to continue, and the serenity to enjoy and share what we ultimately find….. Steve September 28, 1998 Dear Steve: Your letter was suffused with a serene energy. The view “sub specie eternitatus” is, according to Spinoza, “as difficult as it is rare.” He is a giant (and, mirabilis dictum, a Jewish mystic!). Ingested with Kant and Plato, ALL of the answers are given us, in so far as we are going to know them intellectually. Bye-the bye, I have come to the belated conclusion that Reich’s “The Murder of Christ” is a supreme mystical treatise. Reich’s handling of the problem of truth is masterful. In spite of himself, he brings to completion(?) the Jewish, ergo, human mystical tradition. And what statement in science, religion or philosophy could be more mystical, and profoundly moving as: “The identity of Life and God and sweetness in the genital embrace.” Psychotronic healing has restored pelvic and genital feelings for me, the energy movement I had abandoned all hope of ever experiencing again for over a year. Still there is much secondary layer fantasy mixed in, but at least I recognize and humble myself before the real power of “yester hare.” Cancer is on a rampage. I hear about it almost daily from friends and AA associates. Another drug for breast cancer! When will they realize that more of the same is not the answer, only a profound revolution in medical thinking (good to see a news report that two-thirds of the nation’s medical schools are offering courses and including material on alternative therapies)? Consultation with your Orgonomist should, of course, accompany any therapeutic additions you might be considering. From what you’ve told me of him, and your good therapeutic relationship, I don’t see any difficulties in widening the scope of your pursuit of health. Of course, Dr. Blasband’s move out of the college (he tells me, quite without resentment, that he was “thrown out,”) may offer an obstacle. But I find it not accidental that the day of atonement coincides with your biopsy for me. Judaism is so tough, and unrelenting in a functionally sound way. I am currently reading Calvin along with Susan – wow! I just wonder how many contemporary Christian sects, which take their theology from him and Luther, can really stomach the rock-bottom DOR (deadly orgone energy), emotional plague stuff that both of them nailed? There is so much “happy horseshit” in Evangelical Christianity as well. I josh with Susan about the ultimate solution in all Protestant denominations I am familiar with: “Appoint
an ad hoc committee.” I imagine the ultra-liberal Jewish sect falls under the same condemnation. We had guests to dinner the other night, and the talk got round to: “What would you have studied and what would you have become if you had it to do again.” How good it felt to be able to respond: “Philosophy and Philosopher.” Alas, the logical positivists and contemporary Marxists, et al, have come perilously close to ruining the whole enterprise, these and the “involutes” who talk to themselves when they should be talking to students. Next to revelation and mystical experience, philosophy is the most powerful tool the Almighty has graced us with to help find our way back to him. A small book on Pau D’arco will be arriving shortly. It will answer all of your questions. That and Blasband’s brief article on psychotronic medicine, which you so kindly sent me, have given me a practical functional re-orientation in my thinking about health and medicine. Everything seems to be snapping into focus as I continue with Blasband. I was close to tears on the phone last week (but how is this possible????), and felt waves of real energy moving up and down my body. I wish I could spend more time with him, and I pray Levashov’s book finds a publisher soon. He must have been influenced, if even only indirectly, by the activities reported by “Psychic Discoveries Behind The Iron Curtain,” etc. I shall contact QUEST BOOKS, although it will be difficult to find a better and more apposite work of Jewish Mysticism (for me) than Gershom Schlom. I have also found much valuable material in Adophe Frank’s book, especially regarding the Sefiroth. Ye immortal gods, God with a pelvis!!!! Believe me. You are at the center of my thoughts and prayers today. Victor October 10, 1998 Dear Victor: This past week, since I returned from my surgery, I have been very busy at work trying to finish the yearly publication schedule on time. I am writing this on Saturday of the Columbus Holiday three-day weekend, and so have time for some peaceful reflection on recent events and your last letter. The fact that you are responding well to Blasband’s treatment does not surprise me. The surfacing of secondary layer feelings is a regular event in all forms of spiritual/energy healing and can be worked through. I find that one very effective way of dealing with these feelings when they arise in the pelvic area is to bring down the softer feelings from the heart into the sexuality segment. This can be done by feeling empathy and love for the partner in nonsexual domains of functioning, and then transferring those feelings over to the sexual. This considerably softens and dissolves those driving banging impulses and accompanying fantasies that our macho culture seems to condition men into feeling about
woman, and allows the soft mutual melting to emerge without concern about “performance” which is just another expression of sickness. My therapy with Dr. Levine has reached a new point. In our last session this past Thursday, and for the first time in four years of painful work, he communicated with me on a level of equality as a colleague about events surrounding the ACO. Such respect was very hard earned over the past years, as Dr. Levine is a very tough cookie when it comes to accepting the interest of people who are not experienced medical orgonomists in the general field of Orgonomy. Part of this stems from my courageous commitment to therapy despite facing possible heart attacks and malignancies. Also part of the equation has to do with my age as an “old timer” in Orgonomy and the fact that I first became interested a very long time ago at Adelphi and during my therapy with Dr. Blasband. Another good development is that my new medical insurance company is picking up a higher percentage of the therapy, and I can go for weekly sessions until the end of the year. I am hopeful that this will expedite the conclusion of the regular therapy and get me to the point when I can come back several times a year for the maintenance treatments. I am getting very excited about my Reich book as I continue with the research and writing process. It is finally starting to take shape. The real excitement is that the book is developing as I myself develop and have new spiritual experiences with greater understanding for spiritual philosophy and Orgonomy in general. [Editorial note: this work has now become "Wilhelm Reich - Liberation Theologian of Cosmic Energy."]. My recent bout with the possible cancer, which by the grace of God I was spared from, helped trigger a conversion experience more real than anything that I have ever felt before. For the first time I was able to surrender to the spiritual energy of God without fear of the outcome. I placed myself entirely in his/her hands. I wanted to live, but felt with great certainty that death is not the end of life, and, if I died, that the spiritual energy within me would continue in a new form in the orgone energy ocean. As Jesus said in the movie “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “death is not a door that closes; it is a door that opens.” I was also greatly helped in all this by an insight that came to me as a result of studying Kabbalistic literature, and because of a numinous dream that I had in the period before my surgery. The insight suddenly came that the Kabbalistic significance that is found in numbers and letters was an early brilliant intuitive understanding that God’s law is within the human protoplasm in the form of cellular DNA and the self-regulation of the human organism. When the radio astronomers sent a message to the stars they encoded the information in a sequence of numbers that included the numeric code for human DNA. Orgone energy is the ultimate mass-free spiritual energy that gives rise to this code of numbers in the human organism, and thus this is tangible proof of the existence of a higher intelligence by the evidence of its creations in a highly specific way. Within us is the energy that also produced the “Big Bang” and the entire Universe, including all space, time and eternity. What healthy mysticism allows us to do is to get in touch with this primordial energy and thus receive noetic understanding of God beyond anything that the limited human intellect can produce. I received some of this spiritual understanding in a
numinous dream. In this dream, I feel God communicated directly with me. In the dream, I was working with one of my authors who is an expert in economics. I was trying to work with him on an outside legal project, and he seemed distracted. Suddenly, I became aware that a legal file having to do with antitrust law that I had, that had been in a disordered state, was now in a perfectly ordered condition, with all of the relevant information in the proper place. A higher power called to me which I answered by saying “ABBA.” I was told telepathically that I was not to concern myself with trying to work with people any longer in this domain, and that I had to get from myself, and ultimately from God, what I had been trying to “get” from other humans. Then I became aware that in this “file” (which I interpret as my soul which is now in a well-ordered economic state of spiritual energy) were placed by God little scrolls with my name inscribed in each one that contained important information of that would now be revealed to me. This was the information of the Godhead, inscribed in my protoplasm, in DNA, and in the functional logic of Orgone energy. I emerged from this dream with the absolute conviction that God exists, and that there is spiritual life after death. I was able to face my surgery, and possible mortality, without any real anxiety and with a feeling of inner peace and fearlessness that I never knew was possible. Let me hasten to add that I do not feel that this dream qualifies me as a new Messiah. As Reich said in “Listen Little Man,” this experience is available to any person who is willing to reach down deeply enough into his own soul where the immanent God meets the transcendent God in functional identity. The entire ministry of Jesus Christ was devoted to teaching people that they can do this. The Gnostics and Cabbalists knew this, which is the reason that the politicians in the established religions and political States persecuted them. This is the ultimate reason that Reich was persecuted and Jesus crucified. This is the reason that the Cathars were wiped out by the Church, and the reason why the Church outlawed the idea of the preexistence and reincarnation of the soul at the Council of Constantinople in 553 A.D. Reich said in prison: “I am being persecuted for one reason, I found God in a way that is useable and knowable by the individual human.” [I am paraphrasing a prison legal writing]. It is easy to see why all the vested interests in the established religious institutions and political parties and States would be threatened by this. If the individual can know this within himself (herself) and by himself, regulate and govern his own life in God and truth, feel it in the loving genital embrace, in children, in knowledge, in meaningful life sustaining work, and in the stars, what need is there for a class stratified hierarchy of full-time priests and religious specialists or for the control of a political or economic elite over the destinies of the human race???? I am sending you under cover of this letter a copy of an article that I obtained from the new ACO website. It was written by Richard Schwartzman, and is entitled “Orgonomy and Mysticism.” It was written not too long ago, and represents the current ACO thinking on the topic. When you read it, you will understand why the ACO was unable to follow Dr. Blasband into his new domain of research. While leaving open the possibility of healthy mysticism as we understand it, Dr. Schwartzman adopts a very conservative and cautious attitude to the new domain of paranormal healing and spiritual science. He says that “It would be arrogant to write off every unexplainable experience or event as the
product of an individual’s disordered structure. These experiences, for now, must remain without scientific understanding.” Dr. Schwartzman also states: “Anyone interested in the study of orgonomy is at risk of mystifying lawful orgone energy functions, and Reich cautioned against those who would modify his discoveries for their own ends, because of their character armor. The basic principles of orgonomy continue to hold true and the American College of Orgonomy is not ready, yet, to advance and develop orgonomic science along unproven paths. We are not prepared to replace orgonomy by another ‘functional’ science’ especially one rooted in mysticism.” I do not entirely agree with Dr. Schwartzman’s viewpoint, but I understand why he has it. The medical orgonomists carry the very heavy responsibility of treating patients, and trying to preserve Reich’s discoveries in a world still very hostile to orgonomy, despite superficial acceptance of the “mind/body connection,” and the “New Age.” They must be careful or Reich’s work will be taken over by armored society and absorbed, neutralized, and made useless. The future of humanity depends on this “New Knowledge,” and there are still only a handful of physicians, research scientists, and philosophers (I like to put us in that category) who understand to any real degree. Having said this, I think Dr. Schwartzman’s error is in thinking that scientific knowledge and method are the sole way to perception of orgone energy functions, and that most other forms of perception and expression of orgone energy are distorted. But knowledge is not only available by scientific method, and it can be obtained by deep contact with the cosmos within, and in noetic perception in Art, Spiritual Teaching, Literature and Philosophy. The great mystics have told us much that is true about the reality of the cosmic spiritual energy behind the Universe. This contact was possible because in some great profound way, if only for a brief period of time, they were able to gain access to this knowledge within themselves, and perceive it outside themselves, in a way not immediately useable by science, but in a way that may change life and the world forever for the better as it spontaneously radiates out into society. The great task of science in the 21st century will be to fuse this noetic knowledge with the scientific method for the practical useable benefit of humanity. Orgonomy was the first natural science to start to do this, and it remains one of the best ways, but not the only one. Now I think that Dr. Blasband has also made a real start in his investigations and work. I also think it fitting that he does it in his own way separate from the ACO. As you know, I feel that orgonomy and energy healing are best advanced by small independent groups following their own research and sharing results in journals and meetings. Personal feelings and disputes should be put aside in the interests of progress, and for the benefit of patients and humanity in general. I also think that if Dr. Baker had lived another 10 years, into his nineties, he would have been very accepting and encouraging of Dr. Blasband’s new direction. I base this on his writings and on a taped interview I have of him that was made in the early 1980s shortly before he died. He was ready to move into uncharted areas, and felt that there was a spiritual reality as found in psychic healing and paranormal phenomena. When he felt skeptical about the spiritual, it was not because it did not exist or represented a distortion,
but because as he openly stated it did not fit into his belief system of medical materialism. But he was open to it. I might add that Dr. Levine was very positive about my recent spiritual dream, and felt that it represented an expression of lawful inner order and self-contact. When I said that I felt it was rooted in God, he seemed very accepting of my interpretation and the entire experience. As always, my best to you, Susan and Blake, may God guide and sustain you…. Steve October 18, 1998 Dear Victor: This is just a brief note as an addendum to my last letter. I would like to express my appreciation for the book on Pau d’Arco that just arrived in the mail. I plan to seek out some of the tea in New York as soon as my schedule permits. Is there any contraindication to taking this tea for people with high blood pressure? I think it might be good for Roz since her immune system has been compromised since her surgery and bout with chemotherapy. However, she is taking medication for high blood pressure. For myself, I think that CFS is an ever-present danger, and I hope the tea can counteract this tendency. By the way, does Blasband plan on coming to New York to lecture or give any seminars? You mentioned a while back that he might be coming to Vermont. Has that materialized? The new edition of the JO arrived synchronously with your book. In it, Dr. Konia’s editorial deals with the danger of Reich’s work being made into a new mystical religion. It seems that the medical orgonomists now feel that mysticism is the major danger to W.R.’s legacy, as they once did with leftist politics in the 1960s. I feel that they have a fundamental misunderstanding of mysticism in that, as you first pointed out to me, there is such a thing as healthy mysticism, and a sound healthy person can seek spiritual consolation and wisdom in mass-free orgone energy without distorting it into an irrational swamp of “spaced out” otherworldly fantasies. The great mystics of all times and religions were able to submerge themselves in this spiritual energy, and obtain direct noetic experience of the Godhead in this way. I myself have had such experiences which seem to increase since reconnecting with you and going into the subject more deeply and consistently. What would you think of co-authoring a short article with me for the JO explaining healthy mysticism as an expression of the genital character structure? It is all there in Reich’s work, especially the MOC. W.R.’s prison experience lends even more credence to this. “Ether, God, Devil and Cosmic Superimposition” also supports this thesis. Remember Reich’s comment therein about the silent meditating monk before the eternal cosmos? Dr. Levine is now the Assistant Editor for the JO, and I could submit it to him
for preliminary review. The worst that can happen is that they will decide not to publish it. No matter what the article’s fate, we will have clarified our own thinking and research. This would have value for our work in the books on the topic. We might help the orgonomists rethink their position on the issue, and make a contribution at the same time. Anyway…this is just a suggestion for you to think about. I hope we can get together in the near future for another personal meeting. Your friendship remains a refreshing oasis in the human desert that I must endure. May the eternal ocean of living energy sustain you and your loved ones. Steve October 21, 1998 Dear Steve: I am at the moment sipping my large cup of pau d'arco tea. There is also a tincture of the bark which I take twice daily. I know of no conditions for which there is a contraindication, quite the contrary, as youwill see in your reading. It is a significant element in my current spiritual healing. I will see Blasband again tomorrow, and then there will be a two-week hiatus, he's off somewhere. He has not spoken to meof plans to come East, and if he does, I shall certainly let you know.
Regarding your suggestion for an article, I have been slogging through literally thousands of pages of notes, paragraphs, sections, and lengthy discussions and analyses I have produced over the past 15 years, searching for material relevant to "The Oranur Paradigm." There is sufficient material for several books which Ishall not live to write, and that's o.k. I fully intend to finish myAA writing and the Oranur book, which Iintend for an advanced audience of thosewho understand Reich's work. I do not intend a lengthy exposition of orgonomy; much will betaken for granted. Your idea of us doing a paper for the J.O. [Journal of Orgonomy] raises some thorny issues. The prejudice is against us, clearly. I feel such a paper would be lumped together with Blasband's work, etc. as a product of two individuals incapable of tolerating functional living, who must needs mystify orgonomy, blah-blah. I have no need to enter into an atom-splitting debate with the pundits, like Clinton's legal shenanigans; God what linguistic homicide he and his ilk have committed onlanguage and meaning. On the other hand, an article on functional mysticism is sorelyneeded. Doesn't anyone in orgonomy talk about DORand Oranur anymore??? The thought of pre-submitting the work to your Orgonomist, Dr. Levine, appeals to me. I feel that a substantial portion of mycontribution has already been made in my article on WR and Kabbalah. Perhaps you might get a response from Levine on this? I would leave it to your discretion to decide how much of that material is pertinent to the project, as well as what you would like your contribution to be. Medical Orgone Therapy is clearly functional, rational, unarmored mysticism; clearly, so is the whole of modern physics. Equally clearly, Reich's"Oranur Report" (Selected Writings)
opens the windows on a wider vista than many members of the American College of Orgonomy are willing to consider. Do Reich's great intuitions respectingmysticism embarrass them? Would they rather it be swept under the rug of silence like Newton's astrological and theological thinking? My inchoate, and perhaps unsubstantiated feeling about Dr. Konia [Editor: then research director of the College], suggest to me that he has become number one dragon, replacing Mary Boyd, the protector of the gold of Thor. Generally speaking, the attitude itselfis a dangerous one. NONE can speak authoritatively for the treasure trove of functional truths, many of them still buried, to which Reich pointed the way,unconsciously following the map of the mystics. It cannot be sat upon forever by "well-meaning" disciples. Blasband, I feel, is one, certainly not the only one, to have moved on, building on the functional truths and his personal encounters with Deadly Orgone Energy (over the decades).But as we say in AA: "This is a program of principles, not personalities." Plato had the last word on this, as on so many other things, in the allegory of the cave, absolutely my favored one for describing what functional mysticism is allabout. You will remember that one prisoner isreleased from his chains, wanders into the upper world, and, for the first time, sees things as they really are. When he returns to thecave, he simply cannot describe tothe other prisoners, who know only shadows, what reality is reallylike. And in the incredible finale to that great work of wisdom, Plato states that the prisoners "will try to kill him."
Orgonomy holds no patent on functional truth; Reich and Baker both knew this, perhaps Baker more so. I don't really know the current status ofcollege membership and activities. I no longer get the J.O. But if you feel we have a chance to make a contribution and correct an egregious error respecting Reich and mysticism, let me know. I feel the deep import of what "survivors" like you and me can contribute. May God Bless You and Yours. Victor
October 24, 1998 Dear Victor: I have good and exciting news. My therapy with Dr. Levine has spontaneously and unexpectedly come to an end. This happened after a breakthrough session in which I realized that I have been waiting for him to give me “orgastic potency” despite the fact that by every indication my therapy with him has been successful, and I am ready to continue on by myself. Although I claim no superhuman degree of emotional health, I have considerably more satisfaction in love, work, and the pursuit of knowledge than I had when I started the treatment four years ago. After six years of medical orgone therapy with two highly trained orgonomists, a total of 125 sessions, and many years of
psychoanalytic therapy for over 500 sessions, I have reached the point where I can be my own therapist. The gas tank is full – no more can go in. The task ahead is to creatively fuse the two therapeutic experiences in my own functioning and philosophy of life, along with the deepening of my spiritual awareness, and the striving for ever greater contact with the living God. I spent my final session with Levine reviewing the course of my work with him, and exploring the general topic of health, and the maintenance of the gains I have made. He was very positive about the step, telling me that he recognized what I have done in my work with him, and telling me that I must do what I feel. It was his forceful and direct response to me in our breakthrough session that made me realize that I was finished. I can only liken the experience to that which happens to a Zen student when, after years of meeting with the Zen Master, he suddenly “wakes up” after the Master cuffs him on the head with a bamboo stick. I can always return for additional sessions if needed, but right now my focus is on living my own life and going my own way. Enough is enough! I want to quote for you a statement by Alexander Lowen about his feelings when he finally ended therapy: “I had ended my therapy with Pierrakos [this was a therapy Lowen had undertaken several years after he finished with Reich to work on some unresolved problems] several years earlier feeling very good about what had been accomplished. However, if someone had asked me, ‘Have you resolved all your problems, completed your growth, realized your full potential as a person or released all of your muscular tensions.’ My answer would still have been ‘No.’ There comes a point where one no longer feels it necessary or desirable to continue in therapy and so one quits. If the therapy has been successful, the person feels able to take upon himself the full responsibility for his well-being and continues growth.” [Lowen, Alexander, "Bioenergetics," Chapter 1, "From Reich to Bioenergetics," pg. 42 (N.Y., Arkana, 1994)]. Another comment that comes to mind at a time like this is one made by Dr. Baker in a taped interview made in the early 1980s. Discussing his own therapy with Reich and the attitude of some of the other orgonomists toward their own therapies, he said: “I didn’t go to Reich to get orgastic potency or anything else….I just wanted to get over my misery and I was not concerned as to how perfectly healthy I got. Many of the others wanted ‘orgastic potency.’” I might add that orgastic potency is not something one “gets,” but is the result of a spiritually surrendered way of life. It is a matter of grace and cannot be achieved by therapy or anything else, although therapy can perform the vital task of establishing the capacity for it. As Reich said, it is there some times with some partners, at other times absent. I might add as a postscript that I consider my friendship with you to be a very beneficial and lucky byproduct of my decision to return to medical orgone therapy, since I never would have looked you up if not for my revived interest in orgonomy.
Your last two letters, both of which arrived together, provide much food for thought. I am happy to hear that you are working steadily on the “Oranur Paradigm.” I always stand ready to review any manuscript that you care to share and provide feedback. I have rethought the ides of an article for the JO, and I now think it not a good idea. We would be better advised to get on with our own independent research and writing. I may write a letter to Dr. Schwartzman in response to his article pointing out the possibility of healthy spirituality as distinct form the distorted mysticism that he cites. You can if you want write it with me, and we can send it as a joint communication. Since we both have a long and serious interest in orgonomy, I think that the communication would get a serious hearing and would open up the ACO to our ideas without trying to get involved with publishing anything in their Journal, etc. You have done a very good job of reconstructing your life and recovering from the very serious biopathy of alcoholism. I know that you regret the decision to stop the therapy with Baker, but, as you know, everything happens for a reason (spiritually speaking). If you had not stopped with Baker, you might not have discovered AA, and your philosophy of functional mysticism would in all probability never have been made. Your linkage of Orgonomy with the Kabbalah and Gnosticism is a major achievement. I am discovering just how major a discovery this is, as I get deeper and deeper into the topic. I intend to discuss the issue in my course in December on the Philosophy of Psychotherapy and Psychology. You gave me the spark to follow a path that provides me with an existential spiritual philosophy, as well as a mode of research that will help bring the needed fusion of philosophy, spirituality and science to greater awareness. There is also the major benefit of providing a ground for the dialectical fusion of Adler and Reich (a topic that I hope to discuss in a future letter). Thanks for the advice on pau d’arco. I am sure that your health will continue to improve with the spiritual healing of Blasband, and the loving relationship that you have with Susan. I have no present recollection of Ron Greeley at Adelphi, but those days are shrouded in mist after so many years. If you provide some more details my memory might get a jump start. Was he a member of the informal orgonomy group? May the God of living energy watch over you and yours…. Steve
October 27, 1998 Dear Steve: What great good news! Salut! You have fought and earned a most difficult accolade awarded only to those who stick it out and complete (as complete as we know it to be, never finished, but complete). Your spiritual awakening, “Satori,” is complete, and now
for the newest of beginnings. Lowen’s quote was apposite, that final step in therapy and first step into life – so to speak – where one assumes full responsibility for love, work and knowledge to the best of one’s God-given ability, as well as to carry that message – as discreetly as we can -to the multitude of fellow sufferers, many of whom do not even know they are suffering until the tumor appears or the lights go out. God, it is lonely work in one sense. In another, I find it makes one able to empathize, especially with the young. They still maintain a sweetness that few will be permitted to keep clean and whole by this nutso world of the second millennium. WHAT A FUCKING CENTURY it has been!!! Blasband is away for two weeks (Ottsville, PA), and I miss the connection already. In perusing an old JO, I came across an announcement that Dr. Richard Blasband would be addressing Dr. Silver’s Reich class at Adelphi University; the date, May 1973, 25 big ones away! I had not seen or talked to him in that time, until my last gasp phone call six months ago. I can never thank you enough. Bye-the-bye how did you initially cross paths with him? And come to think of it, how did you find my address in Vermont? Quite serendipitous for me. My writing has temporarily come to a halt as I tend to my affairs in the “real world.” But I continue to read and ponder Reich’s entire corpus. My last session with Blasband was a chatty one. I asked about Konia, and he told me that Konia was brilliant, a topnotch therapist, and …easily frightened! Some of the old issues he warned about a month back are surfacing, and they’re not all negative, just difficult to integrate and accept. Pressing to the forefront has been my urge to find out who I am racially. I was adopted, you may know, and all I know is that my birth name was Charles Edward Bishop, and my mother’s name, Addie. The story goes my father was a British sea captain during the war. My adoptive father burned a batch of letters from my birth mother in 1942, and I did not even discover the fact of my adoption until I was 31 years old. I have a growing tremendous conviction that it is a vital part of spiritual recovery for me to recover my identity, but I don’t have a clue as to how to go about it. A friend checked at Somerset House in London, where the birth of every child born of English parents is allegedly recorded…but not me. Dr. Baker wrote a letter in 1970 to the bureaucrats…no dice. Goddam them! And there is simply none alive who knows the story. I have taken to closing out my days with darkness, religious music, holding my quartz chrystal, and repeating the name of God in as many forms as I know, beginning with EnSof and ending with the Souix Wakan-tanka. It fills me with peace. The depression season has closed down on us here in Vermont. But I do not expect to be undergoing the rigors of the past few winters – though my heart is still a badly damaged piece of machinery – due to Blasband, Pau D’arco, and St. John’s Worth, AA, friends such as yourself, and my beloved Susan. For what it may matter, I am extremely proud of your achievements and I look forward expectantly to the unfolding of a long and spiritually successful – whatever the economics turn out to be – career for you. Your friendship has been a real Grace to me. Victor
November 1, 1998 Dear Victor: Thanks for your very kindletter and the expression of validation that itcontained. Many who are were adopted yearn knowledge of knowledge their birth identity and there are now groups that trying to make thefor recovery of this more readily available. I am sure that some parents who adopt want to keep this knowledge from their adopted children in order to protect them from emotional insecurity and ambivalence. You might check with the Vermont Department of Social Services to see if they have any ideas for you (or similar agency, public or private). Failing all else, a good spirit medium maybe able to put you in touch with your biological parents via a trance session or some other modality, assuming that they both areno longer around. If they are around in very advanced age, the medium might be able to contact a source of information in the spiritual domain. This could help you finally make spiritual peace with thesituation. Your religious contacts in Vermont might know of an honest spiritual or paranormal counselor who could perform this service for you. Good luck whatever happens and remember that there are spiritual lawsin operation that are farbeyond our comprehension. There are reasons why we can't know everything or resolve everything within the course of our brief lifetimes. Ultimately, we who have some intuitive spiritual awareness are lonely wanderers in this vast desert prison that the Archons guard with all of their demonic powers and dispersal of DOR energies. All we can do is to try to remain clean inside and keep striving for contact withthe God of Living Light. The Devil within is always more powerful and insidious than the obvious destructiveforces without. Prayer, meditation and internal watchfulness are the beacons that can guide us home. We are among the lucky, since we have heard the call ofthe Distant Light. Hold on to the echo of that summons. Someday we will come home.
I am still in the aftermath of the termination of my therapy with the Orgonomist, and it will take another year or two to absorb what I experienced with him, and what I learned from him. My initial feeling is that both Reich and Adler,while touching on some important truths, did not have the full picture because they stopped on the threshold of the metaphysical. Only Jung, of all the pioneering psychoanalytic philosophers, tooka step into this ultimate reality. Reich experienced it inOranur, but his medical materialism caused him to draw back from it. In this regard, I highly recommend Stephan Hoeller's book "The Gnostic Jung."
Recently, I came upon startling confirmation of Blasband's new research with Levashov on spiritual energy and theearth domain. Each week I watch a cable program called "Sightings" on the Sci Fichannel. This program deals with theparanormal and the
spiritual. It has the best and most serious treatment of the spiritual inthat it always brings in serious researchers to confirm phenomena. On October 27th, the show covered a case where the inhabitants of a house in rural California were receiving spirit messages on Polaroid pictures that they had taken inone particular room of thehouse. This room was investigated by a highly sensitive psychic by the name of James (used by "Sightings" in many investigations) who confirmed that a powerful current of energy was pouring out of the earth and into the room causing vibrations within his ownbiophysical organism. It was thought that the messages coming from the spiritual dimension were encoded in this energy and represented authentic communications from an entity or entities that had lived in the house. One identified itself asthe "Guardian" of the place. Independent investigators checked the film to make sure that it came from sealed packages and that the camera was clean. This team of outside investigators waspresent as the pictures were taken and developed infront of their eyes. THIS IS REAL!!! As a scientific check, the Eastman Kodak Company was called in to attest to the pristine nature of the film and camera. One of the lab guys, who has been with Eastman for 25 years, testified that the phenomena was genuine although he had no scientific explanation for it (mechanistic science of course never will).
On your questions in the last letter: Dr. Baker gave meBlasband's name. As to how I looked you up, you were mentioned in the Preface to Jacob Meyerowitz's book "Before the Beginning of Time." I wrote to him and he gave me your Vermont address. By the way, your current address is not listed in the Adelphi University Alumni Directory, and if you want to be reachable by former students and co-workers you might want to call the University and give them a current address.
The year's publishing cycle at my job is finally over, and I am taking a rest for a few days. This past year at work was the hardest in the last 10 years. I am finishing the year in much better shape than when I started it. On that optimistic note, Iremain your fellow Gnostic Priest on the winding mountain path..... Steve
November 5, 1998 Dear Steve: Synchronicity Time: On the day your recommendation of “Sightings” arrived, my close friend and AA spiritual advisor here in Vermont, suggested that I view….”Sightings!” His own spiritual and psychic journey began with a viewing of the show just after I had
taken a 5th-step with him. You are right, spiritual laws are operating all the time with those with eyes to see. I have been re-studying all my journals. Some of the material seems almost quaint and all of it overblown, unless one was there at that time. There are, of course, many good things, but how irritating sounds the constant drumbeat, stick with what Reich says, don’t change orgonomy, you’re a plague character if you don’t buy the whole package, etc. Reich’s cosmology at its best, is a new restatement of what mysticism has known intuitively for millennia and the much maligned W. Edward Mann in his book, “Reich, Orgone and Eros,” demonstrated three decades ago. Any new insight that goes beyond the orgonomic paradigm, pre-Oranur, causes terrific anxiety in the dovecote. Reich’s biophysics and cosmology are really highly speculative works of the imagination, and he either didn’t know much or care much about contemporary developments in astrophysics and sub-particle physics (in all fairness, much of the most revolutionary stuff has come out during the interval following his death). He just doesn’t seem capable of accepting the fundamental physical, and mystical, principle that there exists an unseen and unseeable reality which undergirds observable phenomena. At least after Oranur, as wacky as some of his theories may or may not have been, the foundations were shaken and new portals on the unseen thrown open to the modern mind. I had an interesting and gratifying experience this past week; I took notes for a deaf student at Vermont College, and learned more about myself, the core me, I trust. The place is loaded with feminists, but not the castrating kind so much. On the large lawn before the main classroom building one finds two huge, stone-carved….Teddy-bears!!! This is a fit metaphor for the curriculum. The instructors, knowledgeable and articulate, all seem somehow crushed by the “real” world. Rampant, unfettered, subjective imagination stalks the halls; everybody is on a journey or in process of self-exploration, and everyone is a writer, poet or artist, the whole student body. Nobody claims to possess final knowledge of anything, and it’s all in the manner of a safe, non-confrontational, intra-uterine environment. I had first thought of applying for a job; I found out over time that I am ready to go back to full-time teaching. Although the opportunities for spreading my message are miniscule; only some backwater institution might accept my dinosaurology. BUT: and here’s the kicker: I found myself slowly drawn into the “process,” and enjoying it. I read many faces during my tenure there. There is such pain on so many faces, and such incomprehension of the emotional plagued real world, which has eaten, is eating, or will be eating them up. Much kindness though, and an odd kind of courage for the many middle-aged seekers thrashing about to find the way to the waterhole in this “journey” which will slake their thirst, the well-springs of true love, work, and knowledge. I feel a deep (and not at all elitist) compassion for the whole “process” (God, that incestuous lingo is repellant) and respect. I retain yet too much of the bull elephant at the waterhole mentality, and I still can’t find the desire to find myself accepted in the matriarchal herd. But I am softer, wiser perhaps, and a bit tired. No more battles for me and certainly no more crusades. But I deeply respect the pain and the courage I glimpsed
during my CIA mole like appearance among the gentle folk of effete feminism, and substitute contact modernity. May their safe haven nursery be blessed. I have always been a little suspicious of Jung, and his contemporary popularity makes me doubly so. There’s much there, but it is a dark way to follow and dangerous. Notwithstanding, his influence on my life through the agency of his influence on AA’s founder Bill Wilson, has been profound. I will use much of his stuff in “The Oranur Paradigm” as complementary to Reich’s work. I am well, better than I have been in decades, and constantly seeking out new sources of “The Balms of Gilead.” I hope we are able to keep in mind, as I wish the College might, Isaac Newton’s quote (I can’t find it just now) regarding his discoveries as mere pebbles on the shore while the whole sea of knowledge lay open undiscovered before him. Reich uses it somewhere in comparison to his own work. I believe we are beginning to wade, ankle deep, in that primordial ocean. P.S. Possible meeting? Deep Best Wishes. Victor
November 5, 1998; Second Letter of the Day Dear Steve: I just re-read the article in “Offshoots” by Lois Wyvell that you so graciously sent me – and it’s driving me nuts! Among a substantial pile of banalities, she says that God is and love is and cosmic energy is, and then seems to scurry about to UN-SAY everything she has just said. I am in a sweat, so I may not be too clear myself. It seems as if one mumbles the mandala word “Mysticism” from the orgonomic high-ground, it becomes no longer necessary to confront the glaring similarities revealed in the world’s great spiritual philosophers and mystics and orgone cosmology. The Ur-word mysticism resembles too closely for comfort the Nazi use of the word Jew – no more need be said, and the Einsteins and the Mendelsohns and the Spinozas and Toscaninis and the Freuds and the Reichs are summarily encapsulated in that word. I am, of course, not accusing Myvell of racism, that’s not the point of the analogy. I merely seek to make my point as vividly as possible respecting the orgonomic abuse of the word and concept, mysticism. I hope my discussion of functional mysticism will clear up the point. Hope away. It won’t! In the one lecture I gave at the NYU Reich class (alas, I was pretty drunk at the time), I remember a fairly attractive middle-aged woman who was visibly – but ala hysteric – troubled by my quoting Reich as saying that the overwhelming majority of woman were a great deal sicker than men, in more than one place. I also cited Reich’s remark regarding the defection from both psychoanalysis and orgonomy of promising male physicians: “It was always the women,” meaning of course the wives who drew them away. I am finally myself beginning to accept and acknowledge the tremendous power of women in my life. They always had it, they always will; but it has absolutely nothing to do with Feminism. I
have always loved Nietzsche’s quote: “The higher type women is always finer than the higher type man, although rarer.” Something like that. The nonplussed woman at the NYU lecture was, I later discovered…..Lois Wyvell, who, as we headed for the elevator, turned coquettishly to me and commented, smiling all the while, “Did Reich really say that? I’ll have to check that out.” Thanks for lending me your acute ear. Victor January 7, 1999 Dear Steve: Well, the work DOES go on! I just received a substantial packet from Jim DeMeo’s Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory. Some of the material is beyond my competence, some of it sounds like the same old cranky anti-health establishment stuff, some of it is very, very important. How wonderful that Reich’s work is being elaborated upon and developed. You know, in quiet moments I just cannot believe the magnitude of the Big Lie and its cover-up, the infinite Disinformation Ocean. Also, I get scared about my own health (which is splendid, at the moment, all things considered, always, all things considered), and dependence on the Medical Establishment. The Blasband experiment continues on most successfully. I spent two hours chapping and shoveling ice off my roof yesterday, slowly, deliberately, and popping some nitro pills. But, it came off exceedingly well. I felt a kind of tired that I can only describe as “working-man” tired. I KNOW directly that my heart and immune system are much stronger than they have been in a decade; my brother Pau D’arco and his little brother Kombucha – the teas that allegedly kept a Japanese army alive in Manchuria during the last winter of the war- are working. Also prayer, mediation, thinking, gratitude, AA, Susan, my almost incredible volte face in general attitude, exercise, and to some extent, diet, all are essential. Those and friends with ears to hear. 99 looks like an exciting year for me. Bye-the-bye, I believe that I will either die in 2001 or 2011. Rainbows are all over my life, and dreams continue their strange organic development, with Levashov’s dark animal spirits appearing over and over again – fearful but never angst-laden enough to waken me, and growing rather more manageable, form alligators and anacondas, to ostriches and last night….TURTLE! (My adopted Native American clan is the Turtle). Your characterization of Evil was splendid, but not the topic for a best-seller in America today, I imagine. Now to the main purpose of this particular screed. The Levanda book is a hoax, a dreadful, endlessly repetitious, purposeless and seemingly conclusionless piece by a wanna-be Walter Winchell. The prose goes from juvenile to imbecilic, the total lack of seriousness, the outright snootiness of the author, the mindless piling up of arid biographical data respecting nameless non-entities in the German occult movement, it is the work of a third rate poseur. As you see, I am not liking it much. What caught my
attention initially was the fact that Levenda is the ONLY independent confirmation I have ever read of the existence of the SS-Ahnenerbe, Himmler’s occult bureau, and I have read about a dozen accredited Hitler biographies. Only in Ravenscroft have I heard the name before. But Levanda does not seem to go anywhere with it, at least half-way through. I feel I’ve been taken. It’s annoying to have to read on, but something may show up worthwhile. His superficiality and triviality makes the text sound like a try-out essay for the college newspaper. Alas, more “…” than in any Reichian work! I am also reading Heschel’s “The Prophets.” Ye gods; they were talking about 20th century America. The joy of the prophetic message is of course that after proclaiming doom, they offer hope, an attitude I am perhaps beginning to be able to assimilate. There is something very big and very bad bound to happen in century 21. About the aftermath, I can form no opinion. He makes observations about the prophets that can absolutely be applied to W.R. in the book’s first chapter. “How can one smile and smile and yet be a villain?” May the Baal Shem Tov continue to protect us all. Victor
January 10, 1999 Dear Victor: Your statement that something very big and very bad in century 21 rings true [Ed: This was pre-9/11!!]. I myself predict a world-wide Oranur plague induced by pollution and biological warfare. How very much I hope we are both wrong! I have not gotten too far into the Lavenda book, but so far I don’t have either a very negative or positive reaction to it. Frankly, I have come to the conclusion that the phenomena of Hitler and Nazism is not explained by any occult ideas that may have been dreamed up to account for them. The answer, to my mind, is to be found in an observation made about Hitler by William Shirer in his “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.” In the 24 hours before the invasion of Poland, Hitler suffered from almost intolerable biophysical tension that left him sleepless. The accompanying ideation concerned the subjugation of Germans living in Poland by the “inferior” Poles. It was only when the destructive impulses, implanted in his biophysical organism by a cruel father, were discharged in the aggression that Hitler relaxed. This is an exact clinical description of orgastic impotence and it’s consequences. If you multiply this by the millions in Germany who shared this impotence, you can understand that Hitler gave the masses a rationalized way of discharging their intolerable tensions in destructive attacks upon parts of their domestic population such as Jews and communists, also with increasing international aggression. The sick mystical justifications represent the
cognitive expression of an attempt to mask the DOR energy in evasive quasireligious/political justifications, or as W.R. put it, in unhealthy mysticism. It is for this reason that I now prefer to describe healthy religious practice as naturalized spirituality rather than any form of mysticism. I agree, however, that some mystics in history could be described as healthy to the extent that they gained clear noetic experience of the mass-free psychic energy that created the Big Bang and the Universe. Whitehead once said that religion is what is left over as consolation and explanation when all other human explanation has been exhausted. Natural spiritual feeling and perception is the culminating fruit of clear and satisfying functioning as an intimation of the “meta” – physical. It is what is left over after the reach of our knowledge and feeling approaches its limit, yet we still feel that throbbing pure energy and intelligence that is so much deeper than we can comprehend. Here we must turn to the poets, philosophers, and great spiritual teachers. This is what Reich meant when he said that deep down the little man has within him the poet and philosopher. It is what I now call the “First Spiritual Sense.” Psychic healing is a trained and focused product of this sense and is a natural science bordering on the deepest domain of creation, i.e. metascience or frontier science. As you know, it is extremely difficult to find friends who can discuss these deeper issues of life. Many people are absorbed in striving for money, power, and status at work, with family activities and problems the only other concern. Real philosophical knowledge is not a primary value, even among many so-called “professional” philosophers in the academy who have become specialized research workers in linguistic analysis or mere historians teaching a version of “Western Philosophy” to undergraduates. For myself, I am almost constantly pondering philosophical problems in life and work. It is for me as natural and necessary as breathing. It is a quality that has saved my life. My understanding is changing so quickly that what I thought yesterday sometimes no longer corresponds to what it think and feel today. This is functional thinking. Best, Steve
May 19, 1999 Dear Steve: Friday marks my 11th year in sobriety. May 21st also marks the beginning of the most terrible period in my life. It was awful. I had nothing but AA, and that proved out to be enough. The blessings that continue to pour into my life are amazing, much more subtle, but still amazing. Blessed be His Holy Name. It simply cannot be done without God=Cosmic Energy. Nothing really can. His unsearchable ways continue to tantalize me, the philosopher who must know all things, locked in the embrace of the little Ego that wants to know as much as the Cosmic Energy that is coming to know itself through
us in a multidimensional dance of Shiva. “Ye shall become as Gods.” Where did I first hear that that exquisite promise? Jesus continues to baffle me, especially the resurrection, which, after all, is what IT is all about. I simply cannot accept the crude Christian message that He “died for my sins.” It is too stupid, too cruel. And yet without Him, the wellsprings of love, work, and knowledge are undiscoverable. “The Murder of Christ” is just too big for our human consciousness. The more I find out how wrong Reich could be, how linked to all the great mystical truths, the profounder becomes my awe at the magnitude of what he did know and tell us. I am slowly seeing my Blasband relationship in a clearer light. Psychotronic medicine is working in my life, but synergistically, with the 12-steps, the Alexander Technique, nutrition, love, mysticism, the old standbys in philosophy and medicine, the New Physics, even some of the less wonky New Age stuff. And more is to be revealed. If the old carcass holds together for another decade, as right now it seems it might, who can tell what splendid revelations may appear. The journey not the goal (there is no “goal”), the process, not the completion. I am surer of this now than I have ever been before. But I still like to go for the home run, the knockout punch, the big discovery. I think you might find Scotus Erigena exciting. He first translated Pseudo-Dionysius into Latin. His scope and breadth are breathtaking, especially from the perspective of Latin Christendom. You are among the blessed few in whom orgonomic functionalism has taken on a reality which transcends the “good little patient, good little Reichian” syndrome. I am one characterized by Dr. Baker as “those who know what health may be.” Incredible fleeing moments of complete “surrender” as I now look back on them. While the biophysical apparatus no longer can be said to function optimally, there are plenty of valid compensations, and excruciating moments of ecstasy, compassion, tenderness, and gratitude. I believe the life of the spirit considered biophysically is the next rung on the ladder of functional development (Editor: Cf: Teilhard de Chardin, and the Karl Marx of the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts”). It makes all the tawdry fake substitutes our culture hawks as happiness, disgustingly objectionable. And they still can’t figure out what “causes” breast cancer! Functional clairvoyant contact is wonderful, but dangerous unless we continue to be vigilant about our own organism, and the inundation to which it is daily subject, of DOR, filth, sickness, lies, perversions, and death. The awareness can be excruciating. Life as it comes from the infinite ocean of cosmic energy remains so precious. I know you know that. Richest blessings on you and yours. Victor
June 9, 1999 Dear Steve: It’s always darkest before the dawn. After a terrible period of confusion, loss of trust, and continuing long, Oh Lord?,” another quantum leap occurred onwonderment; all fronts, the“How kind of “falling into place” thatmarvelous I so desperately need if Ihas am to continue on this exotic, eccentric (in the planetary sense) and sometimes grotesquely alien search for the Balm of Gilead. ONLY when I know that a discernible difference is taking place in my overall functioning can I ACCEPT anything, a hard-nosed pragmatist open to the wilder dimensions of possibility. I am finally feeling results from psychotronic medicine that are not merely episodic (apparently), but that herald the dawning of a new sense of health and truth. It’s working. Your remark regarding Reich’s view that if orgone energy possesses awareness then the final proof of God is presented us. But that is what his final great work effort was all about; it is what classical Idealism is all about, and what the New Physix is realizing as truth in its speculations and advances. GOD IS SELF-CONSCIOUS awareness, Ergo Qui Sum, Ayn-Sof, Actus Purus. I tend, more and more to believe that the most gigantic impossibilities are possible, if we had enough faith, which I don’t. It’s sustaining the vision through the daily trench-warfare which is so very hard, as you well know. Sometimes I actually arrive at the take-off point, ready to really let go of everything and fly blind by His directions; I think that may be in the cards for me one day. Susan and I have reached a new plane in our Covenant, alas, colder, harder, truer, realer, still loving and committed, but more space between us. Something has been lost, but something will have been gained. At any rate, it was inevitable if stagnation and cutseypieism of the worst kind were not to infect our marriage. “This mystery is great,” in fact, mystery has become the leitmotif of my search. And it becomes more comfortable. We do not know what a day may bring forth. I am about to plunge back into the dark waters of the Oranur Paradigm. It’s really all I have to say that’s of any worth to Orgonomy and Functional Mysticism. “Trust God’s timing.” Victor July 24, 1999 Dear Steve: Today is the first day of my 70th year, and it really has become a Day 1 of my EGP (End Game Plan). It has been a week of spiritual inundations and maybe the clearest calling to my vocation ever. In some ways, I regret my deeply engrained cynicism, and penchant for seeking “alternative explanations” to the deep mysteries. But, in another, it is my only guarantor of sanity. My new project undertaken with my AA spiritual advisor, Jim Paige,
has been clearly and emphatically outlined for me; to write up Jim’s psychic contacts and unite them in a form of spiritual statement I refer to as Millennium Theology. Jim claims to have been in contact with a spiritual being he calls “The Angel” for some ten years now, who has periodically sent him visions, messages, etc. I am open to taking this as a working hypothesis. I am clearly to be Jim’s amanuensis. And “The Angel” has made it clear that my part of the operation is to be carried out under pretty strict guidelines. The message itself is NOT all that new; very Old Testament prophetic, much indebted to Revelation, and a very bitter brewed tea indeed. This Angel has teeth and hair, no fuzzy warm krap, and his reports are douches of ice water on a January Vermont AM. I will get to comment on them and disagree if I see fit. For now, I can truly say that this Theology appeals to much of the Gnostic and functional mystic in me, but it has some scary implications. If I start, which I shall do after this letter, it’s all the way, or severe consequences may be expected. Suffice it to say, the contents of Millennium Theology are as close to Old Testament Christianity as I have ever come, and Jesus is the swordbearer not the gentle lamb. Apparently, God is getting fed up with his beloved children. The message resembles in tone, spirit and content much of the tougher material in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Jesus of the Book of Revelation. And it’s no fool-around time, no backto-the-drawing-board stuff, just, “Here IS all you are going to get from Me for now. Just do it.” You know how intent I have been on lifting the shrouds over my genealogy and during the last session with Jim, Angel spoke to him and….it rang true! My Scottish former life had to do with the repellant political machinations that surrounded Mary Queen of Scots. I, apparently, was one of the plotters and schemers and liars who brought Mary to the axe. I am to seek her painting (only two extant), and ask her pardon, or I don’t get it! What happened when Jim saw this was not the typical rush of energy over my body, but, as best I can describe, a sweeping wave of CLARITY and AFFIRMNATION, a modest: “Yes, that’s it.” I apparently was also responsible for Susan’s death at the same time, not by my hand, but caught in bed with her by hired assassins (we married or adulterous lovers???? more than likely, the latter). It astounds me that I am speaking of this material as if it were indeed subject matter for serious consideration, but so I am. I have remarked, after our Alexander sessions, that Susan appears inches taller with an authentic regal caste about her head and shoulders. She was born imperious and it is probably something she has to work out this time around – with me, Heathcliffe the stable boy! Another side benefit of my project with Jim: it appears that I am guaranteed time and health to complete it and I am extrapolating to the Oranur Paradigm. I now see that what matters is getting it written – not published necessarily, and those who are meant to read it will do so. Otherwise, I may have to come back to finish it and there are fairer universes out there to explore. WHERE THE HELL IS LEVASHOV’S BOOK!!! His new one will be out in the fall. Keep your eyes peeled.
Keep your deflector shields in good operating order. We are all going to need them, Deepest blessing. Victor September 2, 1999 Dear Steve: On a day as spectacularly beautiful as this one, it is almost impossible to maintain intellectual contact with the dark realities we know to be stirring just beneath and beyond. My work with my spiritual advisor is depressing me for a number of reasons; the large grain of salt I must swallow prophylactically before writing, but at the same time straining to believe the dark scenario my friend Jim paints. I know it’s everywhere, and I know as the weather closes in, its outlines will loom up again in the mists, but just for now it’s wonderful to feel the noble primitive for a nanosecond. I have a real conflict in reconciling what I know people to be – theoretically – and what I encounter them to be existentially; people are simply a lot nicer than our theories should allow. Or am I just taking a salutary sabbatical from all I deeply know and truly believe? I applaud your ongoing efforts to bring some reason and decency to the market place. But the roller coaster has run out of loopdiloops shortly, doesn’t it? In some ways I have been blessed by being rendered non compis mentis in this socioeconomic, socio-spiritual environment. On the other, I am haunted by the growing feeling – and it’s real – of being what I describe myself to Susan as, “The Pointless Man.” All this is prelude and preparation, but it makes it difficult for me to generate much enthusiasm for all the projects and prospects for the 21st century; is it going to be, as Yogi Berra observed, deja vu all over again? I swear I’ll vote for Warren Beatty. My health is generally o.k. but almost 70 years of wear and tear takes its toll. I do anticipate greater gains with Blasband, but there’s no going back again. Funny, I don’t really want to. I might well have been a great criminal or at least an authentic Underground Man. I’ve always had a strong streak of the counter-culture in my veins, you know, Alan Ginsburg and his “Fuck you, America, with your atom bomb.” I sense the genuine possibility that a modified 1984 is insinuating itself into our lives, lacking only the bog catastrophe to make it turn really nasty. But it does seem kind of “pointless” to have reached my age and condition and not have any conceivable answers that can make better things happen. I sometimes think I’d like to be rich, but immediately recognize that I would almost instantaneously go degenerate. Weird feeling. I look around my bookshelves at dozens and dozens of gems of human wisdom, only to realize that nobody reads these books anymore, and I’m not just talking orgonomy. Speaking of “pointless,” this letter seems to fit the bill. I certainly hope that a personal encounter will be tailored to our different schedules and life-rhythms. When you’re ready, let me know the time parameters and I can check out local dwelling places.
As I re-read the last paragraph of your letter, I cannot believe that I endorsed the “all manner of thing will be well” sentiment. As Clinton might observe, it all depends on what you mean by “well.” Closing with a panoramic sweep of my green and sunlit backyard. Not even sad. Just there. Stay the course. It’s the only one we have. Victor Can you get me the address of Anthroposophist Pubs? It might be time for Rudolf Steiner. Also, what about the serious Grail literature. There seems to exist one grail tradition which views the Grail Society as all those blood-descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. October 5, 1999 Dear Steve: The long delay was occasioned by some nasty little bion that whacked me 10 days ago – flu?? One day fever and a week of wobbliness, but these passed slowly. The most frightening symptom was thorough, total mental disorientation, a distortion in my space/time system like I’ve never known. It still haunts the fringes of consciousness, nothing frightening in and of itself, just the whole process. Coming back has been an event. All sorts of paranoid suspicions and fears and a terrible sense of aloneness. I’m almost the whole way back, and I hope this is a one time thing. I was really crazy. I have never been enamored of Konia, although respecting his powerful mind. All biopathies seem to lead back to the great energy pool, and much seems a krapshoot. I’m not bragging here, the next time it may be Prince Biopathy’s turn at the gaming table. Susan kept insisting that I see my doctor; it seemed almost as if she got angry when I improved on-my-own, and that’s how it happened. Next time, maybe I will take the antibiotics. It certainly undermines one’s confidence further in the medical lottery. To understand sickness appears to me to take first priority, although medical magick will probably continue to dominate the millennium’s medical school curricula. There is stuff going on that interpenetrates the ORANUR events which have dominated the last half of the 20th century. These “new” strains of bacteria are pure DOR-bugs. We can only hope that the College and the CFR are on their trail. A planet whose health has been broken with a century of bombardment from DOR and six billion carriers of a mutating species are not a promising spectacle for the future of humanity. More later. I’m still easily fatigued. Blessings Victor
November 12, 1999 Dear Victor: With this letter it is almost exactly three years since we have been corresponding. My first letter to you was written on November 13, 1996. With this communication, we have exchanged 187 letters. I have the complete correspondence on file and believe, properly edited, it would be of some interest to those, likehave us, interested in spirituality, mysticism, orgonomy, and philosophy. It would to be privately publishedpolitics, and made available via mail order by some outfit like Flatland Books that specializes in the esoteric, orgonomy, etc. Of course, some personal material would have to be deleted. I like to know how you feel about the prospect and if you agree with it. It would still be for some future time. I don’t believe it would generate any real income, but it might be a small contribution on some very large questions. I have not heard from you in some time, and if I don’t receive a communication by this weekend, I intend to call. I hope the lapse in communication is a product of your writing endeavors and does not indicate some serious problem. My life seems to swing from the socio-political to the spiritual. The spiritual still remains vital to any real emotional balance. I intend to soon start seminars at the Kabbalah Center in New York. There is one later this month on the Kabbalah and the new physics; I will pass on any interesting material that I learn. I am now reading a book by Dion Fortune entitled “The Mystical Qabalah.” I think that it represents what you have called “functional mysticism.” Unlike Scholem, who is very intellectual and philosophical in his treatment of Jewish Gnosticism, Fortune is very practical and pragmatic in a way that makes the insights of the Cabbala available to Western intellectuals like us. It is published by Samuel Weiser, Box 612, York Beach, Maine 03910, and I am sure it can be ordered by phone. My experience in labor organizing has been a learning one in every sense of the word. The labor union functionaries, with their lassitude, rigidity, and lack of work vitality are an interesting offset to the hyperactive corporate capitalists who madly pursue profit, largely fueled by secondary layer energy. They are like two drunks dancing to the tune of “pop goes the weasel.” In light of this reality, the wisdom of libertarian anarchism continues to shine like a bright beacon in the dark desert of my discontent. In my office at work, I have a quote from a work on libertarian movements: “The actions of one free and courageous individual are worth more than a multitude of silent slaves.” The local organizer said to me in response to my energetic approach: “One person can’t run an organizing effort. But this is precisely the point. They have no faith in the energy and courage of the individual and the possibility of an individual sparking a movement that can be transforming. They have only a belief in numbers, the average, and an “easy” contract with guaranteed benefits and as little conflict and tension as possible. My response to her comment was: “Nothing ever has or ever will be accomplished without risk-taking and conflict. As Churchill said, “blood, sweat, and tears” will be constant companions if we intend to make a difference on earth.”
I now have a course proposal with the Brecht Forum for a course on Reich. I expect a positive response, since I have been taking courses there myself on the work of Marx, and the people there know me, and have heard me present material before. The Alfred Adler Institute in New York is dying, and I expect that they will have to close their doors. There are no new students, and many courses are being canceled for lack of enrollment, including the one I was slated to teach in December. The Algerians there remind me of the situation with the Trotskyites in the 1960s many years after Trotsky’s death. They have failed to evolve with the truth of the times and are busy replaying the old tapes from 50 years ago. The work of Alfred Adler, as valuable as it may still be, is hardly revolutionary or interesting to contemporary humanity, and it has been largely absorbed into the culture. All the professional graduate schools of psychology and social work teach it along with the other forms of ego therapy. There is no longer a need for a special school as there was in the 1950s. In addition, they are stuck in a terribly deadly morass of professionalism and “credentialism.” In other words, the economic struggle for money and status is motivating them, in contrast to Adler, who believed in adult education and a wide diffusion of his teachings into the ordinary working people of society. They also use the psychiatric nosology as a form of moral labeling for people that, for one reason or another, displease them. That is a sure sign that they have lost touch with the vital truths at the core of Adler’s teachings. I feel fortunate to have had my Adlerian therapy with an old Adlerian from Europe, Leo Rattner, who really knew what it was all about and who not only “talked the talk,” but also “walked the walk.” I miss him dearly. If there is a form of consciousness after death for us, and he is aware of my functioning now, I feel confident that he is smiling. How is the “Oranur Paradigm” going? As important as Millennial Theology may be to you, don’t lose sight of Oranur. My best as always, Steve November 16, 1999 Dear Steve: I have signed myself in for much needed R and R. That attack of the flu or whatever a few weeks back, really hit me hard, and in a unique way. Bless my dear helpmeet, she alarms easily – her fawn nature – and when she does I am quite overwhelmed, whatever the genuine status of my own culpability. I am both flattered and “recalled” by your inspiring bugle sounding. I must really attend more closely to the demands of my bioenergy system. Your injunction “Don’t lose sight of Oranur” swept over me like the twilight air after a long day of battle, then comes the thought of how sweet it would be to lie down on the turf beside Molly. You mention Dion Fortune, a name I have heard only once before in connection with Alistair Crowley, the darkest side of me I ever want protruding from beneath the bedclothes (Bram Stoker’s
Victorian mentor). My, we do keep queer company you and me. All in the name of growth. I periodically review my blessings from the hands of Orgonomy, your friendship, and knowledge of some obscure 19th-centruy characters like Dion Fortune are not the least of them. I haveto fallen back into the clutches of some obscure Victorian haveThe at least much say about the human condition as does the NY Times folks Book who Review. timeas may be ripening for an effort at culling and pruning our joint efforts of the past three years – has it been that long, really? It might prove a valuable legacy to some struggling Cabbalist somewhere; if not, he could refurbish our antiquarian contributions. [Dr. Katz: This has now been accomplished in “Wilhelm Reich – Liberation Theologian of Cosmic Energy.”] Still a noble possibility; important too, I believe. There hopefully will be more of substantial interest in my next missive. May the All-healing Orgone Energy Ocean enfold us. Victor November 23, 1999 Dear Victor: I was relieved to get your letter after the lapse of so many months, but I am still somewhat uneasy at the cryptic nature of it. It reminds me of the letters that Nietzsche sent Peter Gast late in life, filled with awful insight and the desire to soar, never to return. I hope in your next letter you will tell me more of what has happened. I have myself been through some very tough times in my life, including major emotional blows. Philosophers, real philosophers and not the variety that the academy seems to be turning out, are sometimes fragile in unexpected ways. Sometimes companionship can be found on those wild slopes that claim those who cannot easily live in the sad lowlands of imprisoned spiritual energy. My functioning continues to improve, thanks to vigorous self-help via physical exercise, cognitive restructuring, bioenergetic exercise, dream analysis, and “social therapy” (getting out and taking courses and speaking to more people, in other words, being more active in all social spheres). As valuable as Orgonomy has been to me, I can no longer accept “orgastic potency” as the sine qua non of psychological health. It is important, and while sharing deep feelings of love by sexually satisfying expression definitely enhance the quality of life and physical health, it is too uncertain and transient to base life on. My definition now is that psychological and spiritual health and maturity depend upon thinking in a philosophical and scientific way about reality, combined with an active and
courageous approach to existential problems. Sexual potency can enhance the striving for meaning and pleasure in life, but even without a high degree of such potency it is still possible to lead a sane and healthy life. In fact, too much emphasis on orgiastic satisfaction is bound to lead to self-downing, narcissism, and unhappiness. Well, enough of this line of thought for now. I hope to hear from you soon. Give my hello to Susan. Perhaps a meeting is in the cards for us in the year 2000. Steve [Note: Dr. Victor Silver passed into the eternal ocean of cosmic energy on December 4, 1999, at 9:07 P.M. Soon after his last letter to me, it was discovered that he had several malignant brain tumors. I had a last conversation with him by telephone on December 1, 1999.] Postscript The historical, scientific and religious evidence clearly supports the finding that humanity as a whole probably cannot attain collective liberation without extraterrestrial spiritual intervention by an advanced scientific civilization from our galaxy and dimension, or one from the higher dimensions that has attained Christogenesis. Whatever limited chance there might be that the human race unaided could attain collective liberation would probably require 5000 years, and humanity may destroy itself long before then. Every attempt of humanity to liberate itself, on its own, has caused deeper entrapment in the armored dense material domain, and more repression under the mask of new rationalizing ideologies. It has also caused the deaths of countless liberators. The Russian mystic P.D. Ouspensky may have been right, there are too many spiritual laws against it, including confinement of spiritual energy in the prison of biological matter, heard instinct, the drive for survival, human weakness, and last, but certainly not least, the internalization of 5000 years of class repression. However, individuals can existentially attain liberation from incarnation in matter, and ascend to higher spiritual dimensions, eventually merging into the Godhead of Life and Love. This does not relieve us of the obligation to fiercely fight the anti-spiritual, anti-life forces killing our planet and its inhabitants. If you clear away the weeds, healthy plants will grow on their own. They do not have to be forced by political leaders. It is well to remember that this needs to be done on both an existential and collective basis. However, we must try to remember that history overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that the institutions that grow up around political, social, religious, and scientific truths, end up killing the truth that they seek to preserve and perpetuate. In fact, almost inevitably, such institutions turn the discoveries and truths of the founders into the opposite of what they mean.
It is for this reason, like other pioneers, Dr. Reich warned against institutionalizing Orgonomy. Most of the great spiritual, scientific, and philosophic leaders had small informal groups of students. It was succeeding generations that ossified the truths with institutional social armor. No illusions, but no resignation either. We require pessimism of the intellect, but optimism of the will. The great theologian Ernst Bloch dedicated his life’s work to the principle of hope. With the experimentally verified spiritual energy functions, and higher dimensional realities, that hope is now grounded in natural science, philosophy, and parapsychology. There is also certainly hope in the research done on UFO contact and psychic phenomena by Soviet scientists before the predatory Capitalist states defeated the Soviet Union. In addition, the work of Juan Posadas, leader in Trotsky’s Fourth International, holds out the paradigm of contact with advanced extraterrestrial races for the purpose of advancing permanent spiritual revolution on earth. [See: Posadas, Juan, “ ‘Flying Saucers’, The Process of Matter and Energy, Science, the Class and Revolutionary Struggle and the Socialist Future of Humanity,” Red Flag Newspaper (June 25, 1969); See also: Hobana, Ion, "UFO's From Behind The Iron Curtain" (N.Y., Bantam Books, 1975); Ostrander, Sheila, and Schroeder, Lynn, "Psychic Discoveries Behind The Iron Curtain" (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice Hall, 1970); Vallee, Jacques, "UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union - A Cosmic Samizdat" (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1992). See the work of Nicolai Levashov on the various forms of spiritual energy-matter.]. Teilhard de Chardin, the philosopher-paleontologist, postulated a civilization beyond genuine scientific communism he thought could evolve by a process of Christogenesis. This planetary society would have a collective web of spiritual and psychic energy. It is interdimensional in nature, and probably exists on the higher planes. Such a civilization would be very careful about contact with a species as barbaric as the human. Remember, the last time contact was attempted by such a civilization, through it’s representative Jesus Christ, he was crucified. If they send another, he will be accompanied by enough psychotronic weapons to immobilize the killers of life. [See: De Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, "The Heart of the Matter," pgs. 80-102 (N.Y., Harcourt Brace, 1976); "Day The Earth Stood Still," Motion Picture with Michael Rennie (Twentieth Century Fox, 1951, available on Fox Video); Reich, Wilhelm, "Contact With Space" (N.Y., Core Pilot Press, 1957); Reich, Wilhelm, "The Murder Of Christ" (N.Y., Noonday Press, 1980); The New Testament, “Revelation.”].
APPENDIX A Trotsky Contra DeMeo
With all due respect, since you are a serious scientist, why would you cite a 4th rate hack political journalist to support the allegation that Trotsky was a “mass murderer?” All objective and well documented historical and biographical sources prove otherwise. Some documented facts: Trotsky opposed Stalin’s brutalrepression of the peasants during collectivization. He favored lowering the prices of manufactured goods so that farm workers could buy more. Trotsky was keenly aware of the mass character armor and the cultural backwardness of the peasants, and favored a moregradual policy of winning themover. This was the policy that Lenin (called by Reich the greatest mass psychologist in history) followed for the entire society in the NEP era. Trotsky grew up on a farm, and usedto bitterly oppose his father’s mistreatment of peasants (one of the circumstances that lead him to Marxism in the first place). The sailors at Kronstadt werenot “massacred” at Trotsky’s order. The battle at Kronsadt was a military engagement between the Red Guards andthe armed sailors. There were casualties on both sides, and the sailors were given a chance to come back to the revolution and rejoin the Red Army. If Lincoln had been faced with an armed rebellion of Union troops just after the civil war, he would have taken exactly the same steps as Trotsky did under the circumstances. Trotsky and the Red Armyhad just beat back the armed invasion of many capitalist powers. The danger of new invasions and the fomenting of internal counter-revolution was a very real. Reich and Trotsky met inNorway when both were exiled there in the 1930′s. Upon arriving in Norway, Dr. Reichimmediately joined the local Communist Party. He and Trotsky both agreed on goals, but Reich did not think that a new party should be formed. He instead favored self-activity on the part of workers (a forerunner of work democracy). Reich at the time knew about Kronstadt, and alsowas well aware of the rise of Red Fascism under Stalin. He had been in the Soviet Unionin the 1920′s, and was expelled from the German Communist Party for his work with sex-pol. Trotsky, prior to WWI, lived in Vienna and was a close friend of Dr. Alfred Adler and his family. In fact, the two families used to socialize frequently. Adler’s wife and son (Dr. Kurt Adler, an old friend and teacher of mine), were socialists and supporters of Trotsky for their entire lives. Dr. Kurt Adler lived in the same building with Reich, and used to go skiing with him. They were both very much on the same wave length politically. Trotsky repaid this support. He was very much in favor of psychoanalysis (which at the time had helped his assistant recover from clinical depression), and later wrote an article that foreshadowed the creation of Orgonomy by talking about the material basis of the treatment.
Alfred Adler was also a Marxist, and presented apaper to Freud’s Society onMarx. He felt that Marxism released the energy of the oppressed in the “service of higher civilization.” This paper was recorded in the notes of Otto Rank at the time. Dr. Adler’s concept of social feeling gave emotional depth to worker solidarity. Adler’s students, including Manes Sperber and the husband and wife team of Otto/Alice Ruehle, supported Trotsky. Alice later wrote a book combining individual psychologyand Marxism entitled “The Path to We.” Otto was later a member of the Dewey Commission that investigated Stalin’s accusations against Trotsky and found them baseless. Orgonomy itself was the child of Marxism and Psychoanalysis. Orgonomic Functionalism is already present in Engel’s “The Dialectics of Nature.” Reich told Dr. Victor Sobey, himself a former member of the Communist Party of the USA, that he remained a Marxist. This is documented byDr. Sobey on a DVD obtainable from the “Institute for the Study of the Work of Wilhelm Reich” in New York. Reich told one of his students, Dr. Morton Herskowitz, that “Trotsky wasan honest man, but had no tools to defeat Stalin.” Capitalism, as reported bythe daily newspapers, isan inherently criminal system. Dr. Reich knew this and fought it throughout his career. Reich described the Soviet Union under Stalin as a form of “State Capitalism” (see the last revised edition of “The Mass Psychology of Fascism”). Dr. Reich was put into prison primarily as a result of the actions of the American pharmaceutical industry, AMA, APA, and the FBI (arms of American State Capitalism). Brady, a 4th rate hack political journalist like the one you cited to me, was a Stalinist. Both American and Russian State Capitalism killed Reich andTrotsky. Trotsky, with his policy of international revolution, was a great threat to American capitalism during the depression, and Reich was a threat to the repressive sexual morality of the day that produced submissive citizens ready for exploitation on the battle fields and in the offices/ factories, as well as a direct threat to the American medical industry with his drugless treatments. Trotsky was killed bya Russian-American double agent sentinto Mexico on a joint KGB-American intelligence mission to prevent unrest that could interfere with the coming alliance of thetwo states. Reich was hounded to deathby judicial murder at the behest of the American State Capitalists. When Harry Truman dropped atomic bombs on Japan, Dr. Reich called it mass murder of innocent children and adults by Truman and“his class” (direct quote). At the end of his life, Reich was in contact with UFOs and expected their help in cleansing the earth of all evil, violence and oppression. Some leaders of the Fourth International (Trotsky’s organization) were also working along these lines. Reich at the end of his life became a theologian of cosmic energy. He found new optimism while in prison in the Universal Cosmic Force expressed in distorted form in the great religions. This was a materialist outlook grounded in thescience and philosophy of measurable cosmic energy.
I could continue, but the rest will be found in my book: “Wilhelm Reich – Theologian of Cosmic Energy.” This “Reply” is dedicated to thememory of Dr. Leo Rattner. “The struggle continues!!” The true history of psychotherapy has been kept secret and suppressed. This is part of the real history that the epigones of both Adler andReich have wanted to bury. They turned a great radical science into abourgeois money making machine. Reich predicted this in “Listen Little Man.”
APPENDIX B
The Dialectic Unchained: the Secret and Suppressed History of Radical Psychoanalysis
With the Capitalist Totalitarian Death-States murdering with impunity all over the planet, destroying our environment and our very biological existence, can we who are carrying on the rich legacy of Marxism find away forward? This is the fundamental question no matter what political current you are working with. The class struggle is not only material, it is spiritual-psychological. The Capitalists are using the same kind of psychological warfare domestically that they use against foreign populations to demoralize them and prevent the masses from knowing the truth. Advanced Capitalist States have refined this mass mind-control and rely on it to produce the passivity and acquiescence in the population necessary to continue its crimes and exploitation, both domestically and in foreign wars. Marxists have1 historically been mistrustful of contemporary psychoanalysts and psychiatrists. This is because of the adjustment therapy prevalent since World War II that rationalizes the Capitalist exploitation and tries to make people compliantly find their place in the madness. 2 This has not always been the case. Radical psychoanalysts once existed who helped people overcome their personal problems to see truth and become revolutionaries. The attainment of healthwas signified by the release of revolutionary energies, and self-direction. We need their knowledge today morethan ever before. Raya Dunayevskaya zeroed in on the main problem facing revolutionaries: the cancer of 3 counterrevolution within the revolution. This is the failure of the dialectic to throwoff all repression and exploitation, continuing in an unbroken chain to freedom. What has prevented the dialectic from negating the negation and becoming unchained? Raya had a fruitful dialogue with psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, but our work will also be aided by the work that Marxist psychiatrists and sociologists Alfred Alder and Wilhelm Reich provided to unchain the struggle for freedom from the internalized repression that 4000 years of class-exploitative civilization left inhumanity. As Herbert Marcuse put it, we have always suffered from the “return of the repressed,” in the historic form of Stalinism, and other State-Capitalist societies, as for example in the present-day Cuba, Russia, China, and Vietnam.
1
See Dunayevskaya, Raya, Women’s Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution, “On the Death of Erich Fromm,” pgs. 241-42. 2 See Laing, R.D., The Politics of Experience (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1968). This is a deep and brilliant poetic analysis of the pathology of the “normal” in State Capitalist societies. 3 See Dunayevskaya, Raya, Philosophy and Revolution (Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books, 2003).
What have Adler and Reich to contribute to the revolution in permanence? Alfred Adler (1870-1937) is best known for his concentration on the “inferiority complex” that produced neurotic symptomsin his patients. The neurosis, as he defined it, was a reduced ability to function in thefields of love, work and knowledge. It was anchored by the inhibited aggression produced by internalized class-based repression, and the separation of the worker from the means of production. Adler extensively studied Marx, and he had a close friendship with Leon Trotsky (when Trotsky was in exile in Vienna). Trotsky had taken over as editor of the exile newspaperPravda. He had on his staff a fellow exile journalist named Adolf Joffee (Joffee later became a key Bolshevik diplomat in the early Soviet revolutionary society). Joffee became addicted tomorphine, and, suffering from depression, sought treatment with Adler.Dr. Adler cured him, andhe thus spoke highly of this toTrotsky. In this way Trotsky and Adler met and enjoyed a close personal friendship (they played chess together in a Viennese coffee house). Adler had already read Marx n his student days.4 5
Adler gave a paper to Freud’s Group in Vienna on Marx . In it he pointed out that the healthy aggression was released in the working class by suitable political organization. This aggression was in the service of the higher civilization that Marx analyzed as gestating in the wombof Capitalism. I would further argue that this aggression wasthe unchained dialectic, realizing itself subjectively and objectively in the Notion of freedom. Later on his in his life, Adler described it as going from a negative through to a positive (by the negation of the negation) in an evolving spiral of compensation building higher civilization. Dr. Adler stated to the Psychoanalytic Society: “While in neurosis the aggression instinct is inhibited, class consciousness liberates it. Marx shows how [the aggression instinct] can begratified in keeping with the meaning of civilization: by grasping the true causes of oppression and exploitation, and by suitable [political] organization….Marx’s entire work culminates in the demand to make history consciously.”6
4
Hoffman, Edward, The Drive for Self – Alfred Adler and the Founding of Individual Psychology, Foreword by Kurt A. Adler, M.D., Ph.D., pgs. 63-65 (N.Y., Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994). See also, Rattner, Josef, Alfred Adler (N.Y., Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1983). Dr. Rattner’s work delineates the libertarian socialist philosophy behind Adler’s sociological and therapeutic work. His brother Leo Rattner practiced a form of libertarian socialist therapy in Forest Hills for 40 years. 5
6
Hoffman, pgs, 63-65. Adler, Alfred, “On the Psychology of Marxism,” Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (Marc h 1909).
Recorded in the minutes of the Society by Otto Rank.
Significantly, Adler’s first work was a book on the tailoring trade and the diseases that unhealthy work conditions brought tothe tailors. He srcinally set up medical practice in a poor working class district of Vienna. Much as Dr. Louis Gogol 7 in his old News and Letters column, Adler was concerned with the social causation of disease. Adler was also the pioneer in discovering abiological basis for socialism. He started by finding that inferior organs could be compensated by other organs in the body, such as one kidney taking on the function of two. Psychologically, a felt inferiority would be compensated by more intense bio-energetic movement; either in a constructive sense by removing the social cause of the inferiority, or in a destructive sense by turning the inferiority feelings against others to exploit or destroy (The fascists did this with the Jews, or the current right-wing extremists against Muslims.). Alder noticed that inferior feelings in workers, produced by class oppression and exploitation, could be compensated in an individual and group by social action in the class struggle. This strengthened bio-psychological health inboth the individual and the group. He developed the concept ofsocial feeling which was thehighest expression of solidarity between workers inthe dawning society. It represented empathy and mutual aid. He was a supporter of the post-war socialist government in Vienna. His wife remained a supported of Leon Trotsky until theend of her life. One of Adler’s daughters was an economist, and perished during the purges of Stalin in the Soviet Union. 8 Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) was a very gifted student of Sigmund Freud. He joined the German Communist party in the 1920’s. Reich broke with Freud over the biological srcin of neurotic symptoms, arguing that repressed sexual energy fueled psychological disease.9 Freud at that time was promoting the death instinct and ego psychology. Reich developed a therapy that freed the body/mind from repression and helped the biopsychological energy to flow freely in work and in sexual orgasm. The therapy involves direct work on hypertensive musculature combined with character analysis (the typical way individuals held themselves and projected or defended psychic energy).
This newly freed energy enabled aperson to unchain the dialectic of freedom. Where before they submitted passively to the exploitation of Capitalists, now they reacted immediately and fought back. Reich discovered an inherent work democraticstructure
7
Gogol, Eugene, Raya Dunayevskaya – Philosopher of Marxist-Humanism, pg. 93 (Eugene, Oregon, Resource Publications, 2004). 8
See: Sharaf, Myron, Fury On Earth – A Biography Of Wilhelm Reich (N.Y., St. Martin’s Press/Marak 1983). See also, Corrington, Robert S., Wilhelm Reich – Psychoanalyst and Radical Naturalist (N.Y., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003). 9
See: Reich, Wilhelm, The Function of the Orgasm (N.Y., Noonday Press, 1961).
developed between freely associated labor without the necessity for vanguard parties or labor bureaucracies. The parallel with the Soviets and the Paris Commune was strong. Reich stated: “Every social order produces character forms which it needs for its preservation.” He created a bio-therapy to release the masses from the crampedcontracted character structure needed by the class structure and division of labor, enabling people to function in a fully revolutionary way. 10
Reich worked with the Communist party and developed Sex-Pol, a movement devoted to the sexual counseling of the masses (including abortion and full rights for women in all spheres). The Stalinist functionaries dislike thisand expelled him. He argued that the party was not reaching the masses emotionally. Instead, it provided dry economic analysis. Hitler was to prove more successful with his masspsychology. (See Reich’s “Mass Psychology of Fascism.”11 He described the Soviet Union as a state capitalist society in this work.). Dr. Reich found himself on Hitler’s death list, and all of his books were burned in Germany in the 1930’s. He fled to Norway and joined the Norwegian Communist Party. Later, he had a meeting with Leon Trotsky, also in exile in Norway at the time, and they discussed possible ways of uniting their anti-Stalinist struggles. Ultimately, Reich felt that the creation of a new Marxist party or international (such as the still-born Fourth International), would not mobilize the masses and unchain the dialectic of freedom. He felt the movement to freedom must comefrom the masses of people in their own lives, both individually and collectively. Trotsky went to Mexico, andReich went to the United States. Reich moved to Maine and pursued natural scientific researchinto cancer and weather control. He remained a libertarian Marxist until the end of his life. In the 1950’s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an injunction against Dr. Reich for misbranding his cancer treatment devices (they were cosmic energy 10
Reich, Wilhelm, Sex-Pol – Essays 1929-1934, edited by Lee Baxandall (N.Y., Vintage Books, 1972). This book contains Reich’s sociological work from his most active Marxist period. Also of great interest in this collection: “What Is Class Consciousness?” pgs. 277-358. Reich deals with the passivity of workers in the face of the power of Capital, and the resulting propping up of Capitalism rule. He also has very interesting comments on the newly formed Fourth International of Trotsky. Reich, like Raya Dunayevskaya, did not believe in the dichotomous separation of masses, party and leadership. At all times he fought for self-activity on the part of people in the face of oppression. 11
See: Reich, Wilhelm, The Mass Psychology Of Fascism, pgs. 237-238 (N.Y., Orgone Institute Press, 1946). Reich stated: “No matter what terms were applied, it was clear that in the correct sociological terms of Marx state capitalism had taken the place of private capitalism [in the Soviet Union]. The concept of capitalism is not determined by the existence of individual capitalists but by the existence of market economy and wage labor.” This work was first published in 1933.
12
accumulators) as a cure for the disease. He did not answer the injunction and was held in contempt of court for violating the injunction .13 He died in Lewisburg prison in November 1957 (murdered by the American Capitalist State for his sexual and political radicalism). The importance of a Marxist psychology to free the creative energy of the masses, as Adler and Reich developed, is of the first importance in unleashing a movement from practice that will itself become a form of theory. Capitalism makes work energy, which is also a form of biological energy, into an inert commodity, and requires the freezing of movement and sexuality inorder to produce submissive people. How else could people be trapped in dull offices and factories? As the coal miners on strike stated: “what form of work is worthy of human beings?14 Herbert Marcuse, a philosopher of radical psychoanalysis and long-time correspondent of 15 Raya Dunayevskaya (he wrote an introduction to “Marxism and Freedom” ) theorized a biological need for freedom from the repression of the class-structure. He pointed the way to a new society of production as art, and a higher civilization based on ever greater 16 unities of life in Eros. As Marx indicated, the goal of socialist society is to allow the full development in freedom of the all-around capacities of humanbeings. These capacities already exist in the masses of people and need to be unleashed. Marxist psychotherapy and mass psychology will help the dialectic freely extend itself as Absolute Mind-Body by helping free the masses to strive for freedom in aself-directed movement. This does not in any way detract from self-determination, it only enhances it.17
12
See: Reich, Wilhelm, The Cancer Biopathy (N.Y., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973).
13
See: Greenfield, Jerome, Wilhelm Reich vs. The U.S.A. (N .Y., W.W. Norton and Co., 1974).
14
Phillips, Andy, & Dunyevskaya, Raya, A 1980’s View – The Coal Miners’ General Strike of 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S., pg. 33 (Chicago, Illinois, A News and Letters Publication, June 17, 1984). 15 Dunayevskaya, Raya, Marxism & Freedom, pgs. xx-xxv (Amherst NY, Hu manity Books, 2000). 16 Marcuse, Herbert, An Essay on Liberation (Boston, Beacon Press, 1969). 17 For (low cost) Adler’s therapy: NY: The Alfred Adler Institute of NY, 212-254-1048; Chicago: Dreikurs Psychological Services Center, 312-201-5900 x248. For Reich’s therapy: NY, Dr. Harry Lewis, 212-6756592; California, Dr. Daniel Schiff, 503-290-4655. For group bio-energetic therapy, call the Alexander Lowen Foundation, 203-966-3474. These sources should also have information for referral if you do not live in their areas.
Research Resources
Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, An Autobiography (N.Y., Maryknoll, Orbis Books, 1993) (Liberation Theology in action.). Avakian, Bob, Away With All Gods! (Chicago, Insight Press, 2008). Avakian, Bob, From Ike to Mao and Beyond – My Journey From Mainstream America To Revolutionary Communist (Chicago, Insight Press, 2005). Avakian, Bob, Preaching From a Pulpit of Bones (N.Y., Banner Press, 1999) (Avakian does a good job of holding up a mirror to pathogenic religion, but knows nothing of the revolutionary spiritual energy of the Orgone). Bad Day At Black Rock, motion picture starring Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan (MGM, 1954, available on Home Video) (This movie is a graphic illustration of the functioning of Deadly Orgone Energy [DOR] in human relationships). Bakan, David, Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition (Boston, Beacon Press, 1958) (“Wilhelm Reich – Liberation Theologian of Cosmic Energy” does for Reich and Marx what Bakan tried to do for Freud. It shows the functional identity of the work of these men with Jewish Mysticism.). Bakunin, Michael, Marxism, Freedom And The State (London, Freedom Press, 1998). Bendit, Lawrence J., and Phoebe B. Bendit, The Etheric Body of Man (Wheaton, Ill., Quest Book, 1977). Benjamin, Walter, Illuminations (N.Y., Schocken Books, 2007). Benjamin, Walter, Reflections (N.Y., Schocken Books, 1978). Berliner, Don, UFO Briefing Document (N.Y., Dell, 2000). Bertrand, Pierre, Ancient Gnostic Disciples of Jesus Reveal Reasons for Extraterrestrial Denial in Western Society, The Canadian National Newspaper (March 22, 2007). Bethge, Eberhard, Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Man of Vision – Man of Courage (N.Y., Harper and Row, 1970). (See particularly, “The New Theology,” pgs. 757-795) (Bonhoeffer’s theology and existential courage are particularly relevant in the age of global criminal capitalism. Also to be noted is his “New Theology” which he developed in the last days of his life as “religionless Christianity.”).
The Holy Bible, “Revelation,” (Carol Steam, Illinois, Tyndale House Publishers, 2004). Birnes, William J., and Harold Burt, Unsolved UFO Mysteries (N.Y., Warner Books, 2000). Blasband, Richard, Talk Given In Honor of Wilhelm Reich’s Birth At the Annual Conference of the Center For Functional Research (San Rafael, Ca, Dominican College, November 15, 1997)( CFR , 2175 Mar East, Tiburon CA 94920). Bloch, Ernst, Atheism In Christianty (N.Y., Herder and Herder, 1972). Bloch, Ernst, Man On His Own (N.Y., Herder and Herder, 1971). Bloch, Ernst, Natural Law and Human Dignity (Cambridge Massachsuetts, MIT Press, 1996). Bloch, Ernst, A Philosophy of the Future (N.Y., Herder and Herder, 1970). Bloch, Ernst, The Principle of Hope (Vols. One-Three) (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1996). Bloch, Ernest, Thomas Muntzer als Theologe der Revolution (1921). Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Letters and Papers from Prison, edited by Eberhard Bethge (N.Y., Macmillan, 1971). Braden, William, The Private Sea, LSD, and The Search For God (N.Y., Bantam Books, 1968). Brennan, Richard P., Heisenberg Probably Slept Here (N.Y., John Wiley and Sons, 1997) (See the chapters on Einstein, Planck, Bohr and Heisenberg). Brenner, Frank, To Know A Thing Is to Know Its End: On Why Utopia Is Crucial to a Revival of Socialist Consciousness (Permanent Revolution Web Site, May 2003) (This essay is a very important presentation of the necessity for scientifically grounded Utopian consciousness if we are to move forward to planetary transformation). Bruce, Lenny, The Essential Lenny Bruce (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1967) (“He was a sweet, peaceful, and beautiful man. We used to go sailing on the bay and Lenny would sit and write poetry about love and beauty – and about his own frustrations. I don’t think he was a comedian, really, I think he was a preacher.- Enrico Banducci, the hungry i, 1966). Bucke, Richard Maurice, Cosmic Consciouness (N.Y., E.P. Dutton, 1969). Burroughs, William, Cities of The Red Night (N.Y., Henry Holt, 1995).
Burroughs, William, The Letters of William S Burroughs, edited by Oliver Harris (London, Picador, 1994). Burroughs, William, Nova Express (N.Y., Grove Press, 1992). Burroughs, William, The Western Lands (N.Y., Penguin Books, 1988). Burroughs, William, Word Virus – the William Burroughs Reader (N.Y., Grove Press, 1998). Capra, Fritjof, The Tao of Physics (N.Y., Bantam Books, 1984). Chambers, Whittaker, Witness (N.Y., Random House, 1952) (This work presents the tragedy of attempted human transformation done with ignorance of the spiritual armor.). Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, Activation Of Energy (N.Y., Harvest/H&J, 1970). Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, The Future of Man (N.Y., Harper and Row, 1964). Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, The Heart of Matter (N.Y., Harper and Row, 1978). Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, Hymn Of The Universe (N.Y., Harper & Row, 1972). Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, The Phenomenon of Man (N.Y., Harper and Row, 1965) (Teilhard’s works were pure Cabala. They were banned by the Vatican.). Collins, Ronald K.L., and David M. Skover, The Trials of Lenny Bruce (Naperville, Illinois, Sourcebooks, 2002). Constantine, Alex, Psychic Dictatorship in the U.S.A. (Portland, OR., Feral House, 1995). Corrington, Robert S., Wilhelm Reich – Psychoanalyst and Radical Naturalist (N.Y., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003). (See specifically, Chapter 6, “Displacement, Orgone, Cosmic Religion, and Christ.”). Crowley, Aleister, The Book of Thoth (Egyptian Tarot) (York Beach, ME, Weiser, 2006). Crowley, Aleister, Magical Diaries ( Boston, Mass., Red Wheel/Weiser, 1996). Crowley, Aleister, Magick – Book Four – Liber ABA (Boston, Mass., Red Wheel/Weiser, 2006). Crowley, Aleister, Moonchild ( Boston, Mass., Red Wheel/Weiser, 2004).
Crowley, Aleister, 777 And Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley ( Boston, Mass., Red Wheel/Weiser, 2004). Daniken, Erich Von, Chariots of the Gods (N.Y., Berkley, 1980). Davidson, Alison, “Reich’s Contact With Space,” in Borderland Sciences (http://www.borderlands.com/archives/arch/contspace.html) (This is a good summary of Reich’s UFO work). Day The Earth Stood Still, Motion Picture with Michael Rennie (Twentieth Century Fox, 1951, available on Fox Video). Dennett, Preston, UFO Healings – True Accounts of People Healed by Extraterrestrials (Mill Spring, N.C., Wild Flower Press, 1996). Deutscher, Isaac, The Prophet Outcast, Trotsky: 1929-1940 (N.Y., Oxford University Press, 1963). Drake, W. Raymond, Gods And Spacemen In The Ancient East (N.Y., New American Library, 1973). Drake, W. Raymond, Gods And Spacemen In The Ancient West (N.Y., New American Library, 1974). Drake, W. Raymond, Gods And Spacemen In Greece And Rome (N.Y., New American Library, 1977). Dunayevskaya, Raya, Marxism and Freedom, From 1776 until Today (Amherst, New York, Humanity Books, 2000). Dunayevskaya, Raya, Philosophy and Revolution (Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books, 2003). Dunayevskaya, Raya, The Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism (Chicago, News and Letters, 1989). Dunayevskaya, Raya, The Power of Negativity – Selected Writings on the Dialectic in Hegel and Marx, edited by Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson (N.Y., Lexington Books, 2002). Dunayevskaya, Raya, The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a Capitalist Society (Chicago, News and Letters, 1992). Ebon, Martin, editor, The Signet Handbook Of Parapsychology (N.Y., New American Library, 1978).
Eden, Jerome, Planet in Trouble, The UFO Assault On Earth (Careywood, ID, Jerome Eden Co., 1973) (This work describes hostile forms of UFOs. These crafts are in alliance with the Capitalists to drive fear into the population and prevent people from contacting the communist extraterrestrial craft.) Einstein, Albert, Out of My Later Years, “Science and Religion,” pgs. 19-28 (N.Y., Wings Books, 1993). Engels, Frederich, The German Revolutions – The Peasant War in Germany and Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolution (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1967). Esoteric Revelations; Biblical Interpretations From Waco Texas (Waco, Texas, New Light Publications, 2007) (http://SevenSeals.com). Fanon, Frantz, Black Skin – White Masks (N.Y., Grove Press, 1967). Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched Of The Earth (N.Y., Grove Press, 2004) (The Capitalist dictatorship in the workplace, and the larger society, is held together by force, and the threat of force. This causes, via mediation from birth through the family, schools and religious institutions, the charater armor of the masses. This spiritual armor can only be dissolved by the expression of anger through counter-force, and, as Alfred Adler asserted, the use of aggression via political organization in the service of higher civilization. As Dr. Reich discovered, the open, soft, fluid, and unarmored newborn becomes the future rigid canon fodder for the criminal capitalists. Dr. Fanon recognized this in the colonial context, but as a result of the predatory globalization of capital, it now applies everywhere). Farmelo, Graham, The Strangest Man – The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom (N.Y., Basic Books, 2009). Fisher, Joe, The Case For Reincarnation (N.Y, Bantam Books, 1985). Forbidden Planet, MGM Motion Picture (Video 1991) (Professor Morbius takes a “mind boost” and learns future science while releasing Deadly Orgone from the secondary layer. The future technology gives a good example of the possiblities available to us from advanced extraterrestrial civilizations). Fortune, Dion, Psychic Self-Defense (York Beach, Maine, Samuel Weiser, Inc., (1999). Fox, Matthew, “Meister Eckhart and Karl Marx: The Mystic as Political Theologian,” in Understanding Mysticism, pgs. 541-563, edited by Richard Woods (N.Y., Garden City, Image Books, Doubleday, 1980). Fuckert, Dorothea, “Spirituality and Orgonomy,” Annals Of The Institute of Orgonomic Science, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Philadelphia, PA, The Institute for Orgonomic Science, 2005).
Fuller, John G., The Ghost of 29 Megacycles (N.Y., NAL, 1981) (This work provides conclusive proof of the metaphysical dimension via electronic devices. However, the antithetical properties of some of the electromagnetic energies and orgone energy makes the experiments hard to duplicate. Nevertheless, this is a leap beyond the EVP voice contact phenomena with spiritual bodies in the before life / after-death ocean of spiritual energy.). Gilchrist, Cherry, Theosophy – The Wisdom Of The Ages (N.Y., HarperCollins, 1996). Goldberg, Bruce, Past Lives – Future Lives (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1988). Goldberg, Bruce, Spirit Contact Through Hypnosis, with CD (Franklin Lakes, N.J., New Page Books, 2005). Goldman, Emma, Red Emma Speaks, edited and compiled by Alix Kates Shulman (N.Y., Schocken Books, 1982) (The affinity between orgone-spiritual energy and anarchism is clear. Orgone flows freely, respects no boundaries, and penetrates everything.). Gramsci, Antonio, Selections From The Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (N.Y., International Publishers, 1971). Greenfield, Jerome, Wilhelm Reich vs. The U.S.A. (N.Y., W.W. Norton and Co., 1974). Grof, Stanislav, Realms Of The Human Unconscious, Observations from LSD Research (N.Y., E.P. Dutton, 1976). Guevara, Ernesto Che, Che Guevara Reader – Writings on Politics and Revolution (N.Y., Ocean Press, 2003) (“We are realists… We dream the impossible.”). Guevara, Ernesto Che, Marx & Engels (N.Y., Ocean Press, 2008) (There are many functional identities between Dr. Alfred Adler, Dr. Wilhelm Reich, and Dr. Ernesto Che Guevara.). Haley, Alex, and Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1973) (The existential embodiment of Black Liberation Theology). Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Hegel’s Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, Translation and Running Commentary by Yirmiyahu Yovel (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 2005). Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich, The Positivity of the Christian Religion (Available on the Marxist Internet Archive).
Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich, On the Prospects for a Folk Religion (written in 1793, available on the Marxist Internet Archive) (Hegel presents his version of life-affirmative religion). Herkowitz, Morton, “Recollections of Reich,” Journal of Orgonomy, p.192 (Vol. 12, No. 2, November 1978). Heseman, Michael, Fatima edited and with an IntroductionUFOs by Whitley Strieber (N.Y., Dell,The 2000) (ThisSecret, study demonstrates interdimensional as living spiritual entities.). High Noon, Motion Picture with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly (Republic Pictures Home Video, 1992) (Dr. Reich loved this movie. It probably symbolized his increasingly lonely struggle against the Capitalist conspiracy that took his life.) Hobana, Ion, and Weverbergh, Julien, UFO’S From Behind The Iron Curtain (N.Y., Bantam Books, 1975). Hoeller, Stephan A., The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead (Wheaton, Ill., The Theosophical Publishing House, 1985). Hoffman, Edward, The Drive for Self – Alfred Adler and the Founding of Individual Psychology, Foreword by Kurt A. Adler, M.D., Ph.D. (N.Y., Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994). Hoffman, Edward, The Kabbalahh and The Afterlife, 60 Gnosis Magazine, pages 61-65 (Winter 1997). Hoffman, Edward, and W. Edward Mann, The Man Who Dreamed of Tomorrow – A Conceptual Biography of Wilhelm Reich (L.A., J.P. Tarcher, 1980). Hoffman, Edward, The Way of Splendor – Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology (Boston, Shambhala, 1981) (The fact that Hoffman wrote this book on Jewish mysticism, and also biographies of Adler and Reich, demonstrates the common spiritual functioning principle unifying “Wilhelm Reich – Liberation Theologian of Cosmic Energy.”). Holloway, John, Change The World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today (Sterling, VA, Pluto Press). Hopkins, Budd, Witnessed – The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions (N.Y., Pocket Books, 1997). Howe, Irving, Leon Trotsky (N.Y., Viking Press, 1978). Huneeus, Antonio, UFOs, Psychic, and Paranormal Phenomena in the U.S.S.R. (Abelard Productions, Inc., 1991).
Husserl, Edmund, The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness (Bloomington, Indiana, Indiana University Press, 1971). Huxley, Aldous, The Doors of Perception; Heaven and Hell (N.Y., Harper Colophon, 1970). Huxley, Aldous, The Perennial Philosophy (N.Y., Harper Colophon, 1970). Jacobson, Eric, Metaphysics of the Profane – The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem (N.Y., Columbia University Press, 2003). James, C.L.R., The Black Jacobins (N.Y., Vintage Books, 1989) (The work-democratic self-organization of a revolution that defeated well-trained imperialist armies.). James, C.L.R., Mariners, Renegades & Castaways - The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In (Hanover, New Hampshire, Dartmouth College Press, 2001) (James describes the pathogenic effects of the class structure on both Capitalists and workers in creating a dichotomy between the mental/manual, or scientific/philosophical knowledge and physical execution of the knowledge. Significantly, in Reichian therapy, intellectuals are typically told to find some work with their hands to do.). James, C.L.R., World Revolution 1917-1936 – The Rise and Fall of The Communist International (N.J., Humanities Press, 1994). James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience (N.Y., Collier Books, 1961) (This is a core foundational study of the srcins and development of natural spiritual consciousness). Jerome, Fred, The Einstein File (N.Y., St. Martin’s Press, 2002). Jonas, Hans, The Gnostic Religion (Boston, Beacon Press, 1963). Jung, C.G., Flying Saucers – A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies (N.J., Princeton University Press, 1991) (Jung psychologizes the phenomena, but also provides the first clear spiritual contact reality that opens the door to interdimensional contact.). Jung, C.G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections (N.Y., Vintage Books, 1963) (Jung’s descriptions of his near-death experiences validate the psychological reality of the metaphysical dimension). Kant, Immanuel, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (Available on the Marxist Internet Archive). Kaplan, Aryeh, Sefer Yetzirah – The Book of Creation In Theory and Practice (York Beach, Maine, Weiser Books, 1997).
Keel, John A., The Mothman Prophecies (N.Y., TOR, 2002). King, David, Trotsky – A Photographic Biography (N.Y., Basil Blackwell Inc., 1986). King, Stephen, The Dead Zone (N.Y., Signet, 1980) (King presents the use of psychic power in combating the emotional plague in politics). Koresh, David, Seven Seals Bible Tice, StudyMarch (The University
[email protected], Stephen 2, 1993). of Texas at Arlington, Kropotkin, Peter, Memoirs of a Revolutionist (N.Y, Dover Publications, 1971). Kropotkin, Peter, Kropotkin’s Revolutionary Pamphlets (N.Y., Dover Publications, 1970) (See particularly, “Law and Authority,” pgs. 196-218. This throws an illuminating light on Wilhelm Reich’s trial and imprisonment by pointing out the difference between genuine life-affirmative law and repressive law.). Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth, The Wheel of Life (N.Y., Simon & Schuster, 1997). Lacarriere, Jacques, The Gnostics (San Francisco, City Lights Books, 1977). Leary, Timothy; Metzner, Ralph; Alpert, Richard; The Psychedelic Experience (N.J., Carol Publishing Group, 1997). Lenin, V.I., Against Liquidationism (Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1973). Lenin, V.I., Collected Works, Vol. 38, Philosophical Notebooks (Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1976). Lenin, V.I., Imperialism, The Highest Stage Of Capitalism, Selected Works In Three Volumes, Vol. 1, page 673 (N.Y., International Publishers, 1967). Lenin, V.I., The State And Revolution, Selected Works of Lenin in Three Volumes, Vol. 2, page 263 (N.Y., International Publishers, 1967). LeShan, Lawrence, The Medium, The Mystic, and the Physicist – Toward a General Theory of the Paranormal (N.Y., Penguin Books, 1974). Lewin, Moshe, Lenin’s Last Struggle (N.Y., Pantheon Books, 1968). Lowy, Michael, Fire Alarm – Reading Walter Benjamin’s ‘On the Concept of History’ (N.Y., Verso, 2005). Lowy, Michael, The Marxism of Che Guevara – Philosophy, Economics, Revolutionary Warfare (N.Y., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007) (It is significant that this book reveals Che had a copy of Trotsky’s “History of the Russian Revolution” in his
belongings when they were discovered by the Bolivian army after he was assassinated by a CIA / Anti-Castro hit team in 1967. This same type of anti-Castro – CIA team was also responsible for the assassination of John Kennedy after he refused to back the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and later made a deal not to invade with the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.). Mack, John E., Abduction – Human Encounters With Aliens (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1994). Mann, W. Edward, Orgone, Reich and Eros (N.Y., Simon and Schuster, 1973). (See particularly, Chapter Six, “Indian Philosophies and The Orgone,” pgs. 133-142) [Dr. Katz: I have Dr. Silver's annotated copy of this work. In the chapter cited he pointed out the connection between the Indian religious belief in the functional unity of the macrocosmos and the microcosmos in the human body with the Zohar's view.] Mannion, Michael, Project Mindshift (N.Y., M. Evans and Company, 1998). Marrs, Jim, Alien Agenda, Investigating The Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us (N.Y., HarperCollins, 1998). Marrs, Jim, Crossfire – The Plot That Killed Kennedy (N.Y., Basic Books, 1989). Marx, Karl, Capital, Vols. 1-3 (N.Y., Penguin Books, 1990, 1992, 1991). Marx, Karl, The Civil War in the United States, Vols. 1-3 (N.Y., The Citadel Press, 1961). Marx, Karl, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (Amherst, N.Y., Prometheus Books 1988). Marx, Karl, Grundrisse (N.Y., Vintage Books, 1973). Marx, Karl, On Religion, edited by Saul K. Padover (N.Y., McGraw Hill, 1974). Matusow, Harvey, “The Death Of Wilhelm Reich,” Flatlands # 12 (P.O. Box 2420, Fort Bragg, Ca 95437, 1995). Matusow, Harvey, “Interview with Harvey Matusow,” Flatlands # 12 ((P.O. Box 2420, Fort Bragg, Ca 95437, 1995). Merton, Thomas, Disputed Question, “Christianity And Totalitarianism,” pgs. 127-148 (N.Y., Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1960). Morehouse, David, Psychic Warrior (N.Y., St. Martin’s Press, 1996). Negri, Antonio, Time for Revolution (NY, Continuum, 2003).
Newton, Huey P., Revolutionary Suicide (N.Y., Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc., 1995). Newton, Michael, Destiny of Souls – New Case Studies of Life Between Lives (Woodbury, MN, Llewellyn Publications, 2008) (Newton puts the orgone spiritual awareness through the filtering screen of his own armor, but still comes out with part of the truth. In addition, and most importantly, Newton does not recognize the reality of the demonic, and that his form of reincarnation rationalizes destructive social conditions on earth, as did the armored Eastern concept of reincarnation.). Newton, Michael, Journey of Souls – Case Studies of Life Between Lives (Woodbury, MN, Llewellyn Publications, 2007) (Newton has some brilliant insights, but does not seem to realize the categories of human understanding reduce, and distort [Kant], the metaphysical reality in-itself.). Nietzsche, Fredrich, Hammer of the Gods (Creation Books, 2007). Nietzsche, Friedrich, Schopenhauer As Educator (South Bend, Indiana, Gateway Editions, 1965) (A great study of how the true philosopher educates.). Osesterreich, Traugott, Possession And Exorcism (N.Y., Causeway Books, 1974). Ostrander, Sheila, and Lynn Schroeder, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, and The Iron Curtain Lifted (N.Y., Marlowe & Company, 1997). Otto, Rudolf, Mysticism East and West (N.Y., Meridan Books, 1959). Pasotti, Bob, and Drown, Larry, Alcoholism And The Mystery of the Alcoholics Search for God (Northfield, VT, Straight Talk Inc., 1994). Pasotti, Bob, The Oranur Paradigm (unpublished manuscript). Picknett, Lynn, The Mammoth Book of UFOs (N.Y., Carroll & Graf, 2001). Pineiro, Manuel, Che Guevara And The Latin American Revolution (N.Y., Ocean Press, 2008). Posadas, Juan, “ ‘Flying Saucers’, The Process of Matter and Energy, Science, the Class and Revolutionary Struggle and the Socialist Future of Humanity,” Red Flag Newspaper (June 25, 1969). Posadas, Juan, What Is A Soviet (London, Scientific, Cultural and Political Editions, 2008) (The soviets were spontaneous organizations of workers that emerged in the wake of the Russian revolution to give political and economic direction to the society. Such workers’ committees will again arise within all offices, factories, and state structures, in
the wake of the global spiritual revolution facilitated by the extraterrestrial vanguard from the stars.). Raknes, Ola, Wilhelm Reich and Orgonomy (Balt., Penguin Books, 1970). Randle, Kevin D., Invasion Washington, UFOs Over The Capital (N.Y., HarperTorch, 2001). Rattner, Josef, Alfred Adler (N.Y., Frederick Unger Publishing Co. 1983). Raudive, Konstantin, Breakthrough (N.Y., Taplinger Publishing Company, 1971) (See particularly the Appendix, pgs. 316-319. This statement by Pastor and physicist Rev. Voldemars A. Rolle provides a description of the “pure energy” beyond the inertial systems that capture energy/matter in our Universe. This pure energy is intelligent and exists beyond death. It is a metaphysical dimension for the spiritual energy bodies that reincarnate into the inertial light systems.). Ravenscroft, Trevor, The Spear Of Destiny (York Beach, Maine, Samuel Weiser, 1997). Reavis, Dick J., The Ashes of Waco (N.Y., Simon & Schuster, 1995). Regardie, Israel, The Golden Dawn (St. Paul, Minn., Llewellyn Publications, 1993). Regardie, Israel, Healing Energy Prayer & Relaxation (Las Vegas, Golden Dawn, 1989). Regardie, Israel, The Middle Pillar (St. Paul, Minn.,, Llewellyn Publications, 1991). Regardie, Israel, Roll Away the Stone (Van Nuys, Cal., Newcastle Publishing, 1994). Regardie, Israel, The Eye in the Triangle – An Interpretation of Aleister Crowley (Las Vegas, Nevada, Falcon Press, 1998). Regardie, Israel, The Tree of Life (York Beach, Maine, Samuel Weiser, 1998). Reich, Eva, Interviewed by Jim Martin, Topic: “Wilhelm Reich and The UFO Phenomena: Arizona Desert 1954-55,” (Fort Bragg, CA, Flatland Books, 1995). Reich, Ilse Ollendorff, Wilhelm Reich – A Personal Biography (N.Y., St. Martin’s Press, 1969). Reich, Peter, A Book of Dreams (N.Y., Harper and Row, 1973). Reich, Wilhelm, American Odyssey (N.Y., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999). Reich, Wilhelm, The Cancer Biopathy (N.Y., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973).
Reich, Wilhelm, Contact With Space (N.Y., Core Pilot Press, 1957). Reich, Wilhelm, The Einstein Affair (Rangeley, Maine, Orgone Institute Press, 1953). Reich, Wilhelm, Chapters I-IV translated by Myron R. Sharaf, Ether, God And Devil (N.Y., Orgone Institute Press, 1946) (This version is to be preferred to the Pol translation. It is out of print). Reich, Wilhelm, translated by Therese Pol, Ether, God And Devil; Cosmic Superimposition (N.Y., Noonday Press, 1973). Reich, Wilhelm, “Experimental Demonstration Of The Physical Orgone Energy [Experiment XX],” International Journal of Sex-Economy and Orgone-Research, p. 2 (Vol. 4, Nos. 1, 3, November 1945). Reich, Wilhelm, The Function of the Orgasm (N.Y., Noonday Press, 1961). Reich, Wilhelm, Listen, Little Man (N.Y., Noonday Press, 1976). Reich, Wilhelm, The Mass Psychology Of Fascism (N.Y., Orgone Institute Press, 1946). Reich, Wilhelm, The Murder Of Christ (N.Y., Noonday Press, 1980). Reich, Wilhelm, The Oranur Experiment (Rangely, Maine, the Wilhelm Reich Foundation, 1951). Reich, Wilhelm, People In Trouble (N.Y., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976). Reich, Wilhelm, and Neill, A.S., Record Of A Friendship (N.Y., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981). Reich, Wilhelm, “Re-emergence of Freud’s ‘Death Instinct’ as ‘DOR’ Energy,” Orgonomic Medicine, p. 2 (Vol II, No. 1, April 1956). Reich, Wilhelm, Selected Writings – An Introduction To Orgonomy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979). Reinisch, Leonhard, ed., Theologians of Our Time (Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 1964). Revolution and Counter-Revolution – The Revisionist Coup in China and the Struggle in the Revolutionary Communist Party USA (Chicago, RCP Publications, 1978). Russell, Bertrand, The History of Western Philosophy (N.Y, Simon & Schuster, 1972).
Salazar, Leandro A., Murder in Mexico – The Assassination of Leon Trotsky (London, Secker & Warburg, 1950). Salla, Michael, Exopolitics, Political Implications Of The Extraterrestrial (Tempe, Arizona, Dandelion Books, 2004). Salusbury, Matt, “Trots in Space,” ForteanTimes, page 40 (December 2003). Schmitt, Richard, “Edmund Husserl,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul Edwards, Vol. 4, pgs. 96-98 (N.Y., Macmillan Publishing, 1967). Scholem, Gershom, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (N.Y, Schocken Books, 1995). Scholem, Gershom, On The Mystical Shape Of The Godhead (N.Y, Schocken Books, 1991). Scholem, Gershom, Sabbatai Sevi – The Mystical Messiah (N.J., Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1989). Scholem, Gershom, Walter Benjamin, The Story of a Friendship (N.Y., New York Review Books, 2001) (Scholem desperately tried to help Benjamin recognize that he was a metaphysician, not a dialectical materialist. In fact, Benjamin was both, but could not integrate them dialectically. This was finally attained by Wilhelm Reich and Ernst Bloch.). Seymour-Smith, Gnosticism – The Path of Inner Knowledge (N.Y., HarperCollins, 1996). Shachtman, Max, “Is Russia a Workers’ State?” from New International, Vol. VI No. 10 (Whole No. 49) (December 1940), Transcribed and Marked up by Damon Maxwell for the Marxists’ Internet Archive. Sharaf, Myron, Fury On Earth – A Biography Of Wilhelm Reich (N.Y., St. Martin’s Press/Marak 1983). Sharaf, Myron, Interviewed by Jim Martin, Video (Fort Bragg, CA, Flatlands, 1995). Shimon-Halevi, Z’ev Ben, Kabbalahh – The Divine Plan (N.Y., HarperCollins, 1996). Smith, Houston, The Religions of Man (N.Y, Harper and Row, 1965). Spinoza, Benedict de, A Theologico-Political Treatise (N.Y., Dover Publications, 1951). Stalin, J.V., On the Opposition (Peking, Foreign Language Press, 1974).
Star Wars, Motion Picture, written and directed by George Lucas (DVD 20th, Century Fox, 2006) (This picture gives an excellent representation of functional mysticism in psychotronic combat). Steiger, Brad, Alien Meetings (N.Y., Ace Books, 1978). Steiner, Rudolf, An Outline of Occult Science (N.Y., Anthroposophic Press, 1974) (Bob McCullough, Reich’s chiefinscientific assistant during the Oranur days, had an intense interest in Steiner his later years. It became a big part of/ UFO his philosophy. See: Flatland – A Review of the Suppressed and Secret Evidence, # 13, “In Memoriam,” pg. 41 (P.O. Box 2420, Fort Bragg, Ca, February 1996). Stites, Richard, Revolutionary Dreams – Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (N.Y., Oxford University Press, 1989). Stonehill, Paul, and Phillip Mantle, “The KGB, Tibet, and UFOs,” Fate Magazine (September 2002) (Documents the visit of the GPU to Trotsky to discuss UFOs when he was in exile). Strieber, Whitley, Confirmation – The Hard Evidence of Aliens Among Us, Appendix: An interview with Monsignor Corrado Balducci of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and Propagation of the Faith, The Vatican – by Michael Hesemann, Translated by Matthias Schubnell, Ph.D., University of the Incarnate Word, pages 265-278 (N.Y., St. Martins Press, 1998). Suster, Gerald, Crowley’s Apprentice – The Life and Ideas of Israel Regardie (York Beach, Maine, Samuel Weiser, 1990). Terkel, Studs, Working – People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (N.Y., Avon, 1974). Trotsky, Leon, The Age of Permanent Revolution (N.Y., Dell Publishing, 1964). Trotsky Leon, The Case of Leon Trotsky – Report of the Dewey Commission (N.Y., Harper, 1937). Trotsky, Leon, In Defense of Marxism (N.Y., Pathfinder, 1990). Trotsky, Leon, The History of the Russian Revolution (N.Y., Monad Press, 1980). Trotsky, Leon, My Life (N.Y., Grosset & Dunlap, 1973). Trotsky, Leon, The Living Thoughts of Karl Marx (N.Y., Fawcett Publications, 1963). Trotsky, Leon, The Revolution Betrayed (N.Y., Pathfinder, 2000).
Trotsky, Leon, Stalin, An Appraisal Of The Man And His Influence (N.Y., Harper and Brothers, 1941). Trotsky, Leon, The Stalin School of Falsification (London, New Park Publications, 1974). Tzadok, Rabbi Ariel Bar, UFO’s and Aliens, The Secret Teachings of the Rabbis and Kabbalists, in Panu Derekh – Prepare The Way, No. 10 (Oct/Nov.-Dec. 95/Jan. 96). Underhill, Evelyn, Mysticism – The Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness (Oxford, England, Oneworld, 1994). Underhill, Evelyn, Practical Mysticism (N.Y., E.P. Dutton). Vallee, Jacques, Confrontations (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1990). Vallee, Jacques, Dimensions (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1989). Vallee, Jacques, The Invisible College (N.Y., E.P. Dutton, 1976). Vallee, Jacques, Passport To Magonia (Chicago, Contemporary Books, 1993). Vallee, Jacques, Revelations – Alien Contact And Human Deception (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1991). Vallee, Jacques, UFO Chronicles Of The Soviet Union – A Cosmic Samizdat (N.Y., Ballantine Books, 1992). Vankin, Jonathan, & Whalen, John, The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time, “The Cloud Buster,” p. 128-139 (N.Y., Barnes & Nobles Books, 1998). Volkogonov, Dmitri, Stalin – Triumph and Tragedy (N.Y., Grove Weidenfeld, 1991). Waite, A.E., The Holy Kabbalahh (Mineola, NY, Dover Publications, 2003). Walters, Edward, with Bruce Maccabee, UFOs Are Real: Here’s The Proof (N.Y., Avon Books, 1997). Warren, Larry and Robbins, Peter, Left At East Gate (N.Y., Marlowe and Company, 1997). Webre, Alfred Lambremont, Exopolitics – Politics, Government, and Law in the Universe (Vancouver, B.C., Universebooks, 2005). Weiner, Herbert, 9 1/2 – The Kabbalah Today (N.Y., Collier Books, 1969) (See Chapter 3, where Gershom Scholem explicitly grounds Jewish mysticism in cosmic energy).
Weiss, Brian L., Many Lives, Many Masters – The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Their Lives (N.Y., Fireside Book, 1988) (How a conventional hospital psychiatrist fell into the orgone ocean with a patient, transforming both.). White, John, and Krippner, Stanley, Future Science (Garden City, N.Y., Anchor Books, 1977). Wilson, Colin, Beyond The Occult (N.Y., Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1991). Wilson, Colin, The Occult (N.Y., Vintage Books, 1973). Wilson, Colin, The Quest For Wilhelm Reich (N.Y., Garden City, 1981). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Blue and Brown Books (N.Y., Harper, 1965). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Mineola, N.Y., Dover Publications, 1999) (Wittgenstein’s exploration of the limits of language and logic leave the door to myticism wide open). Yates, Frances, Giordano Bruno And The Hermetic Tradition (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1964) (This work shows that Dr. Victor Silver, philosopher and orgonomic theologian, was on the right trail in his exploration of Wilhelm Reich as a functional mystic. Reich considered Bruno to be one of his early precursors.). Yourgrau, Palle, A World Without Time – The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein, (N.Y., Basic Books, 2005). Zaehner, R.C., “Dialectical Materialism,” pp. 393-407, Encyclopedia Of the World’s Religions (N.Y., Barnes and Nobles Books, 1997). Zaehner, R.C., Mysticism – Sacred and Profane (N.Y., Oxford University Press, 1961). Zizek, Slavoj, In Defense of Lost Causes (N.Y., Verso, 2008). Zizek, Slavoj, Introduction to On Practice and Contradiction by Mao (N.Y., Verso, 2007). Zizek! – Zeitgesit Video (DVD, 2005). Zohar – The Book of Enlightenment (N.J., Paulist Press, 1983).
"I have read your book with high enthusiasm. It’s as if you and Reich entered into each other leaving you a sense of urgency about the orgonotic revolution. The principle of hope is a difficult one, and Bloch and Chardin come at it from different directions, although messianic Judaism is behind the curtain in both cases. Reich, however, had more courage than Chardin to face into the demons emergent from evolution and any Reichian eschatology has to be paid for by societywide dissolving of characteriological armoring. No guarantees allowed! The sexuality of the divine is endlessly fascinating and if Hinduism does it better than everybody else, it doesn’t follow that there is less armoring within a Hindu family. While their deities have divine intercourse, one senses a little embarrassment when they are reminded of letters this–I’ve to India three times now. The quoted arebeen moving and show a deeply searching mind. Together with your previous text they tell a compelling tale. Well done.” Robert S. Corrington Professor of Philosophical Theology - Graduate Division of Religion Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940
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