Wilhelm Reich

Copyright Michael D. Robbins 2005

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Wilhelm Reich—Psychologist, ‘Orgone’ Therapist

March 24, 1897, Drogobycz, Russia, 3:40 AM, LMT. (Source: Marc Penfield, noted as “personal”. Time and even exact place of birth are much disputed.)

Honest pioneer work in the field of science has always been, and will continue to be, life's pilot. On all sides, life is surrounded by hostility. This puts us under an obligation.

Love, work, and knowledge are the wellsprings of our lives, they should also govern it.
(Venus in Taurus opposition Chiron in Scorpio?)

Scientific theory is a contrived foothold in the chaos of living phenomena.

The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary.
The pleasure of living and the pleasure of the orgasm are identical. Extreme orgasm anxiety forms the basis of the general fear of life.

Liebe, Arbeit und Wissen sind die Quellen unseres Lebens. Sie sollen es auch regieren.
Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it.
His personal motto. 

Rooting in work is crucial to any accomplishment. Rooting in mere enthusiasm will in the long run force illusory measures to keep the fires of empty enthusiasm going. And this makes politics and politicians.
(Neptune conjunct Pluto in Gemini opposition Moon in Sagittarius.)

I am well aware of the fact that the human race has known about the existence of a universal energy related to life for many ages. However, the basic task of natural science consisted of making this energy usable. This is the sole difference between my work and all preceding knowledge.
Uranus & Saturn conjunct MC.)

It is sexual energy which governs the structure of human feeling and thinking.

The discovery of orgone energy was made through consistent, thorough study of energy functions, first in the realm of the psyche, and later in the realm of biological functioning.

Unless we proceed cautiously, there might well arise a few generations of mystics who conceive of the orgone metaphysically, divorced from non-living nature and who do not comprehend it from the standpoint of natural science. And it seems to me that we have more than enough mysticism as it is.
Neptune conjunct Pluto.)

Honest pioneer work in the field of science has always been, and will continue to be, life's pilot. On all sides, life is surrounded by hostility. This puts us under an obligation.
(Aries Sun.)

The cry for freedom is a sign of suppression. It will never cease as long as man feels himself to be trapped. No matter how different the cries for freedom may be, at bottom they always express one and the same thing: the intolerableness of the organism's rigidity and the mechanical institutions of life, which are sharply at variance with the natural sensations of life.
(Uranus conjunct Saturn.)

Not until man acknowledges that he is fundamentally an animal, will he be able to create a genuine culture.
(Mars in Cancer.)

You let men in power assume power 'for the Little Man'. But you yourself remain silent. You give men in power or impotent people with evil intentions the power to represent you. Only too late do you realize that again and again you are being defrauded.
(Pluto opposition Moon.)

See yourself as you really are. Listen to what none of your leaders and representatives dares tell you: You are a "little, common man." Understand the double meaning of these words: "little" and "common."
Don't run. Have the courage to look at yourself!

Your liberators tell you that that your suppressors are Wilhelm, Nikolaus, Pope Gregory the Twenty Eighth, Morgan, Krupp or Ford. And your 'liberators' are called Mussolini, Napolean, Hitler and Stalin.
I tell you: "Only you yourself can be your liberator!"
(Uranus in Scorpio trine Sun.)

This sentence makes me hesitate. I contend to be a fighter for pureness and truth. I hesitate, because I am afraid of you and your attitude towards truth. To say the truth about you is dangerous to life.

My intellect tells me: 'Tell the truth at any cost.' The Little Man in me says: 'It is stupid to expose oneself to the little man, to put oneself at his mercy. The Little Man does not want to hear the truth about himself. He does not want the great responsibility which is his. He wants to remain a Little Man. He wants to remain a Little Man, or wants to become a little great man. He wants to become rich, or a party leader, or commander of a legion, or secretary of the society for the abolition of vice. But he does not want to assume responsibility for his work...
(Capricorn Ascendant.)

You are afraid of life, Little Man, deadly afraid. You will murder it in the belief of doing it for the sake of "socialism," or "the state," or "national honor," or "the glory of God."

The kindly individual believes that all people are kindly and act accordingly. The plague individual believes that all people lie, swindle, steal and crave power. Clearly, then, the living is at a disadvantage and in danger.

You beg for happiness in life, but security is more important to you, even if it costs you your spine or your life. Your life will be good and secure when aliveness will mean more to you than security; love more than money; your freedom more than party line or public opinion; when your thinking will be in harmony with your feelings; when the teachers of your children will be better paid than the politicians; when you will have more respect for the love between man and woman than for a marriage license.

You will no longer believe that you "don't count." You will know and advocate your knowledge that you are the bearer of human society. Don't run away. Don't be afraid. It is not so terrible to be the responsible bearer of human society. Inflated leaders would have no soldiers and no arms if you clearly knew, and stood up for your knowledge, that a field has to yield wheat and a factory furniture or shoes, and not arms.

You are Great, Little Man, when you are not small and petty. You are great when you carry on your trade lovingly, when you enjoy carving and building and painting and decorating and sowing, when you enjoy the blue sky and the deer and the dew and music and dancing, your growing children and the beautiful body of your woman or your man, when you learn to understand and think about life.

Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts: to live one's life well and happily...
(Venus opposition Chiron.)

Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.
Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness.

The emotional plague is not an expression of conscious ill will or designed brutality. The structural character of the plague made its effects the more dangerous. Emotional plague is a character trait like cleanliness or deligence or truthfulness. It is biopathic behavior lived out on the social scene in interhuman relationships.

The energy source of the emotional plague reactions is basically sexual frustration combined with a keen aggressiveness.

The few bad poems which occasionally are created during abstinence are of no great interest.

Dr. Wilhelm Reich(March 24, 1897–November 3, 1957) was an Austrian-American medical doctor, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, scientist and author, who was trained in Vienna by Sigmund Freud.

In the 1930s, Reich claimed to have discovered a physical mass-free energy, which he called "orgone," and which he said was present in the atmosphere and in all living matter. He developed instruments — orgone accumulators — to detect and harness the energy, which he claimed could be used to treat illnesses like cancer. His views were not accepted by the mainstream scientific community.

His Mass Psychology of Fascism, published in 1933, was banned by the Nazis. Because of his committed anti-fascist struggle, Reich sought refuge in the United States in 1939, where he began his orgone energy research. In 1947, following a series of articles about orgone in the New Republic and Harpers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began an investigation into Reich's claims about orgone therapy, and won an injunction against its promotion as a medical treatment. Charged with contempt of court for violating the injunction, Reich conducted his own defense, which involved sending the judge all his books to read. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.

In August 1956, several tons of Reich's publications were burned by the FDA. Reich died of heart failure in jail just over a year later, one day before he was due to apply for parole, and under suspicious circumstances.

Early life and career
Reich was born in Dobrzanica (now Dobryanichi or Dobzhanitsa, 49ºN34' 24ºE31'), a village in the Przemislany (now Peremyshlyany) district, some 60 km SE of Lemberg (now Lviv), Galicia, presently part of Ukraine, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His parents, Leon Reich, a prosperous farmer, and Cecilia Roniger, were Jewish. Shortly afterwards the family moved south to a farm in Jujinetz, near Chernivtsi, Bukovina. He attributed his later interest in the study of sex and the biological basis of the emotions to his upbringing on his father's farm where, as he later put it, the "natural life functions" were never hidden from him. He was taught at home until he was 13 when his mother committed suicide.

Reich had to flee his home shortly after his father's death in 1914, when the Russian army invaded. In his Passion of Youth, he wrote: "I never saw either my homeland or my possessions again. Of a well-to-do past, nothing was left."

He joined the Austrian Army, serving from 1915-18, for the last two years as a lieutenant. In 1918, when the war ended, he entered the medical school at the University of Vienna. As an undergraduate, he was drawn to the work of Sigmund Freud, who became aware of Reich's work in 1919 when Reich organized a seminar on sexology. Reich was accepted for membership of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association in October 1920 at the age of 23. According to the Museum's biography, he was allowed to complete his six-year medical degree in four years because he was a war veteran, and received his M.D. in July 1922. [1] He worked in Internal Medicine at University Hospital, Vienna, and studied neuropsychiatry from 1922-24 at the Neurological and Psychiatric Clinic under Professor Wagner-Jauregg, who won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1927.

The early development of orgone therapy
In 1922, Reich set up private practice as a psychoanalyst, and became first clinical assistant, and later vice-director, at Freud's Polyanalytic Polyclinic. He joined the faculty of the Psychoanalytic Institute in Vienna in 1924, and conducted research into the social causes of neurosis. It was at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association that Reich met Annie Pink, a fellow analyst-in-training. They married, and had their first daughter, Eva, in 1924 and a second daughter in 1928, but Reich was unable to control his interest in other women. The marriage was not a happy one, and did not last.

Reich developed a theory that the ability to feel sexual love depended on a physical ability to make love with what he called "orgastic potency." He attempted to "measure" the male orgasm, noting that four distinct phases occurred physiologically: first, the psychosexual build-up or tension; second. the tumescence of the penis, with an accompanying "charge," which Reich measured electrically; third, an electrical discharge at the moment of orgasm, and fourth, the relaxation of the penis. He believed the force that he measured was a distinct type of energy present in all life forms. He called it "orgone." [2]

Reich was a prolific writer for psychoanalytic journals in Europe, and his book Character Analysis brought forth a small revolution in the practice of psychoanalysis itself, and is still used today as a textbook for analytically-oriented classes in medical schools. The book introduced Reich's theory of "body armoring." He argued that unreleased psychosexual energy could produce actual physical blocks within muscles and organs, and that these act as a "body armor," preventing the release of the energy. An orgasm was one way to break through the armor. These ideas developed into a general theory of the importance of a healthy sex life to overall well-being, a theory compatible with Freud's views.

Reich agreed with Freud that sexual development was the origin of mental disorder. They both believed that most psychological states were dictated by unconscious processes; that infant sexuality develops early but is repressed, and that this has important consequences for mental health. They were both atheists, believing that morality is a repression of the sexuality of individuals imposed on them as they move from childhood to maturity. At that time a Marxist, Reich argued that the source of sexual repression was bourgeois morality and the socio-economic structures that produced it. As sexual repression was the cause of the neuroses, the best cure would be to have an active, guilt-free sex life. He argued that such a liberation could come about only through a morality not imposed by a repressive economic structure. [3] In 1928, he joined the Austrian Communist Party and founded the Socialist Association for Sexual Counselling and Research, which organized counselling centers for workers — in contrast to Freud, who was perceived as treating only the bourgeoisie.

Reich employed an unusual therapeutic method. He used touch to accompany the talking cure, taking an active role in sessions, feeling his patients' chests to check their breathing, repositioning their bodies, and sometimes requiring them to remove their clothes, so that men were treated wearing shorts and women in bra and panties. These methods caused a split between Reich and the rest of the psychoanalytic community. [4]

In 1930, Reich moved his practice to Berlin and joined the Communist Party of Germany, becoming its spokesman. His best-known book, The Sexual Revolution, was published at this time in Vienna. Advocating free contraceptives and abortion on demand, he again set up clinics in working-class areas and taught sex education, but eventually became too outspoken even for the communists, and he was expelled from the party in 1933.

In the same year, The Mass Psychology of Fascism was published, in which Reich categorized fascism as a symptom of sexual repression. The book was banned by the Nazis when they came to power. Reich was expelled from the International Psychological Association in 1934 for political militancy. German newspapers started attacking him as a womanizer, a communist, and a Jew who advocated free love. He realized he was in danger and hurriedly left Germany disguised as a tourist on a ski trip to Austria. He spent some years in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, before leaving for the U.S. in 1939.

The bion experiments
From 1934-37, based for most of the period in Oslo, Reich conducted experiments seeking the origins of life. He examined protozoa, single-celled creatures with nuclei that, like animals, display mobility and heterotrophy, meaning they require organic matter to obtain carbon for growth. He grew cultured vesicles using grass, beach sand, iron, and animal tissue, boiling them, adding potassium and gelatin. Having heated the materials to incandescence with a heat-torch, he noted bright, glowing, blue vesicles, which, he claimed, could be cultured, and which gave off an observable radiant energy, which he called orgone. He named the vesicles "bions" and believed they were a rudimentary form of life, or halfway between life and non-life. When he poured the cooled mixture onto growth media, bacteria were born. Reich dismissed the idea that the bacteria were already present in the air, or in the sand and other materials he used. Reich's The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life was published in Oslo in 1938, leading to attacks in the press that he was a "Jew pornographer" who was daring to meddle with the origins of life. [5]

In 1936, in Beyond Psychology, Reich wrote that: since everything is antithetically arranged, there must be two different types of single-celled organisms: (a) life-destroying organisms or organisms that form through organic decay, (b) life-promoting organisms that form from inorganic material that comes to life.

This idea led Reich to believe he had found the cause of cancer. He called the life-destroying organisms "T-bacilli", with the T standing for Tod, German for death. He described in The Cancer Biopathy how he had found them in a culture of rotting cancerous tissue obtained from a local hospital. He wrote that T-bacilli were formed from the disintegration of protein. He claimed they were 0.2 to 0.5 micrometre in length, shaped like lancets, and when injected into mice, they caused inflammation and cancer. He concluded that when orgone energy diminishes in cells, through ageing or injury, the cells undergo "bionous degeneration" or death. At some point, the deadly T-bacilli start to form in the cells. Death from cancer, he believed, was caused by an overwhelming growth of the T-bacilli..

Orgone accumulators and cloudbusters
Reich with a "cloudbuster"In March 1938, Hitler annexed Austria. Reich's ex-wife and daughters had already left for the U.S., and in August 1939, Reich sailed out of Norway on the last boat to leave before the war began. He settled in Forest Hills, Long Island, and in 1946, married Ilse Ollendorf, with whom he had a son, Peter.

It was during this period, according to some researchers, that Reich appeared to suffer a breakdown. They say that he became paranoid and revised parts of his earlier works to remove references to Marxist theory. [6] Reich's defenders say that Reich's revisions were minor, confined only to the English-speaking American period of his work, and were primarily sexological, clinical, or scientific in nature. Reich was one of the first of the European socialists to break ranks completely with the Communist Party; for example, in his book Mass Psychology of Fascism, which he wrote after a trip to Russia, he identified communism as "Red Fascism". His defenders say that the charge of "paranoia" is intended to discredit Reich's critique of Marxism. American writer Jim Martin alleges that many of those who have attacked Reich's biophysical research — on the orgone accumulator, for example — are themselves leftist and Marxist (Martin, 2000).

In 1940, Reich built boxes — orgone accumulators — to concentrate orgone energy in the atmosphere, some for lab animals, and some large enough for a human being to sit inside. He now believed orgone was a type of primordial cosmic energy, blue in color, which he claimed was omnipresent and responsible for such things as weather, the color of the sky, gravity, the formation of galaxies, and the biological expressions of emotion and sexuality. Composed of alternating layers of ferrous metals and insulators with a high-dielectrical constant, his orgone accumulators had the appearance of a large hollow "capacitor". He believed that sitting inside the box might provide a treatment for cancer and other illnesses. It was the construction of these boxes that caught the attention of the press, and wild rumors spread that they were "sex boxes" which caused uncontrollable erections. [7]

Reich also designed a "cloudbuster" with which he said he could manipulate streams of orgone energy in the atmosphere to induce rain by forcing clouds to form and disperse. Based on experiments with the orgone accumulator, he argued that orgone energy was a negatively-entropic force in nature which was responsible for concentrating and organizing matter. During one drought-relief expedition to Arizona, he claimed to have observed UFOs, and speculated that orgone might be used for the propulsion of UFOs.

According to his theory, illness was primarily caused by depletion or blockages of the orgone energy within the body. He conducted clinical tests of the orgone accumulator on people suffering from a variety of illnesses. The patient would sit within the accumulator and absorb the "concentrated orgone energy". He built smaller, more portable accumulator-blankets of the same layered construction for application to parts of the body. The effects observed were claimed to boost the immune system, even to the point of destroying certain types of tumors, though Reich was hesitant to claim this constituted a "cure". The orgone accumulator was also tested on mice with cancer, and on plant-growth, the results convincing Reich that the benefits of orgone therapy could not be attributed to a placebo effect. He had, he believed, developed a grand unified theory of physical and mental health. [8]

Orgone experiments with Einstein
In 1940 wrote to Albert Einstein in Princeton suggesting that he had a scientific discovery to discuss. On January 13, 1941, Reich visited Einstein in Princeton. They talked for 5 hours, and Einstein agreed to test the apparatus that Reich would supply, an "orgone accumulator", a box made up of a Faraday cage (galvanized steel) insulated by wood and paper on the outside. Einstein performed the experiment which involved taking the temperatures atop and near the device. Einstein also stripped the device down to its Faraday cage. In both cases, Einstein observed a positive temperature difference for a week in his basement, and confirmed Reich's finding in a published letter. Einstein originally agreed with Reich that this discovery was a "a bomb in physics". Since there was no explanation for the finding, Reich concluded that the heat was the result of a novel form of energy (massfree orgone energy) that accumulated inside the Faraday cage. However, Einstein's assistant Infeld interpreted the phenomenon as the result of thermal convection, but he failed to provide an experimental demonstration of his contention. Einstein reversed himself and concurred that the experiment seemingly could be explained by convection.

Over the next three years of correspondence, Reich and Einstein disagreed on the interpretation of the experiment. The entire correspondence between Reich and Einstein was published in a book called The Einstein Affair. Official biographers of Einstein have seen fit to omit or insufficiently describe the only experiment that Einstein conducted with Reich, and properly described in the literature as "the Reich-Einstein experiment". In 2001, Paulo Correa and Alexandra Correa reproduced the experiment and introduced controls that rule out the possibility of convection as an explanation. A similar reproduction was independently carried out by Eugene Mallove.

Reich with his wife Ilse and their son Peter, who wrote A Book of Dreams about his close relationship with his father, how they would go cloudbusting together, and his bewilderment when Reich died in prison when Peter was 11 years old.In 1947, Reich was attacked in the New Republic and Harpers in a series of articles written by Mildred Brady, a freelance writer. Jim Martin writes that Michael Straight, a former member of the Cambridge Apostles and friend of some of those involved in the Soviet-Cambridge spy ring, was the publisher of the Brady articles, and that the attack on Reich may have been prompted by Reich's turning his back on Marxism (Martin, 2000). The articles triggered an investigation of Reich by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), who believed he was peddling a quack cancer cure. Reich had already been investigated by the FBI because he was an immigrant with a communist background. According to an FBI press release dated February 25, 2000:

This German [sic] immigrant described himself as the Associate Professor of Medical Psychology, Director of the Orgone Institute, President and research physician of the Foundation, and discoverer of biological or life energy. A 1940 security investigation was begun to determine the extent of Reich's communist commitments. In 1947, a security investigation concluded that neither the Orgone Project nor any of its staff were engaged in subversive activities or were in violation of any statute within the jurisdiction of the FBI. [9]

Though cleared of suspicion of subversive activities, the FDA investigation continued. On February 10, 1954, acting on allegations in the Brady articles, they filed a complaint seeking a permanent injunction under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to prevent interstate shipment of orgone-therapy equipment and literature. [10] Reich refused to appear in court, apparently believing that no court was in a position to evaluate his work. On February 25, he wrote to Judge Clifford:

My factual position in the case as well as in the world of science of today does not permit me to enter the case against the Food and Drug Administration, since such action would, in my mind, imply admission of the authority of this special branch of the government to pass judgment on primordial, pre-atomic cosmic orgone energy." [11]

Because of Reich's failure to appear, Judge Clifford granted the injunction on March 19, 1954. [12] The ruling stated that all written material, including books, papers and pamphlets that mentioned "orgone energy" had to be destroyed, and that further copies of Reich's books could not be published, including his revised classics like The Mass Psychology of Fascism, unless the words "orgone energy" were deleted.

Imprisonment and death
In May 1956, Reich was arrested for technical violation of the injunction when an associate moved some orgone-therapy equipment across a state line, and Reich was charged with contempt of court. Once again, he refused to arrange a legal defense. He was brought in chains to the courthouse in Portland, Maine. Representing himself, he admitted to having violated the injunction and arranged for the judge to be sent copies of his books. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.

Dr. Morton Herskowitz, a fellow psychiatrist and friend of Reich's wrote of the trial:

Because he viewed himself as a historical figure, he was making a historical point, and to make that point he had conducted the trial that way. If I had been in his shoes, I would have wanted to escape jail, I would have wanted to be free, etc. I would have conducted the trial on a strictly legal basis because the lawyers had said, "We can win this case for you. Their case is so weak, so when you let us do our thing we can get you off." But he wouldn't do it. [13]

On June 5, 1956, FDA officials traveled to Orgonon, Reich's 200-acre (80-hectare) estate near Rangeley, Maine, where they destroyed the accumulators, and on June 26, burned many of his books. On August 25, 1956 and again on March 17, 1960, [14] the remaining six tons of his books, journals and papers were burned in the 25th Street public incinerator in New York's lower east side. In March 1957, he was sent to Danbury Federal Prison, where a psychiatrist examined him, recording: "Paranoia manifested by delusions of grandiosity and persecution and ideas of reference." [15]

Reich died in his sleep of heart failure on November 3, 1957 in the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, one day before he was due to apply for parole. He was buried in Orgonon. At his own instruction, his granite headstone said simply:

Born March 24, 1897Died
Not one psychiatric or established scientific journal carried an obituary. Time Magazine noted:

Died. , 60, once-famed psychoanalyst, associate, and follower of Sigmund Freud, founder of the Foundation, lately better known for unorthodox sex and energy theories; of a heart attack in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, Pa; where he was serving a two-year term for distributing his invention, the "orgone energy accumulator" (in violation of the Food and Drug Act), a telephone-booth-size device which supposedly gathered energy from the atmosphere, and could cure, while the patient sat inside, common colds, cancer and impotence.

Status of Reich's work
William Steig, Norman Mailer, William S. Burroughs and Orson Bean have all undergone Reich's orgone therapy. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Reich's ideas on social and sexual freedom enjoyed a revival and most of his books were reprinted and widely read, including by the loosely defined "New Left" and students' movements in Europe and the U.S., though often with considerable distortion of his ideas. As of 2005, the mainstream scientific community pays little attention to Reich's work.

His influence, however, is strongly felt in psychotherapy. He was a forerunner of body-oriented, emotions-based psychotherapies, influencing Fritz Perls' Gestalt therapy and Arthur Janov's primal therapy. His pupil Alexander Lowen, the founder of bioenergetic analysis, Charles Kelley, the founder of Radix Therapy, and James DeMeo of the Orgone Biophysical Research Laboratory [17] ensure that his research receives widespread attention. Many practising psychoanalysts give credence to his theory of character, and his book Character Analysis is still used as a textbook. The American College of Orgonomy [18], originally led by Dr. Elsworth Baker, and the Institute for Orgonomic Science [19] led by Dr. Morton Herskowitz, still use Reich's original therapeutic methods.

Reich's life and work continue to influence popular culture, with references to orgone and cloudbusting found in songs by Hawkwind, Pop Will Eat Itself, and Patti Smith. Kate Bush's song, "Cloudbusting," [20] describes Reich's arrest and incarceration through the eyes of Reich's son, Peter, who wrote his father's story in A Book of Dreams, published in 1973. Frank Zappa was also influenced by Reich's work. A film about Reich's teachings called W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism was made in 1971 by Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev.

-- Time line by date --

Biography of and his Orgonomic Research -- Time line by date
Year/Month/Date Event-Person-Organization Description Extra

1897-03-24 birth; was born March 24, 1897 in Dobryzcynica, Austria. His father's name was Leon and his mother's name was Cecilie. He grew up on a farm. His mother language was German. cc
1898 . A sister is born but dies shortly after. .
1899 . . .
1900 . A brother, Robert is born. Cecilie is not well after birth and is away for medical attention for about 2 years. ..
1901 age 4 . Reich overhears and observes housemaid and coachman during their sexual act. Reich remembers that this causes erotic sensations of great intensity. Wilhelm spends nap time with house nurse and occassionally is allowed by her to explore her genital area but soon Wilhelm is not allowed to nap with the nurse. .
1902 . . .
1903 - age 6 . Wilhelm begins learning primary school subjects. Both parents participate but his father is impatient with Wilhelm's distractions and resorts to sending him to a corner to stand or hits him. His mother often stands between them to protect Wilhelm. Soon Wilhelm requests that his mother teaches him only and agrees to work without distracting. He excels in all subjects.
Wilhelm later refers to his father having a ferocious temper yet he was extremely kind, intelligent and knowledgable person. Wilhelm was his mother's favorite while Robert was his father's favorite son.
1907 *10 years old . . .
1910 . Cecilie, Wilhelm's mother, dies from second attempt at suicide. .
1914 WR's father dies 's father dies from pnuemonia. WR continues to run farm and his studies at school. .
1915 WR leaves home
WWI in Army Farm and property is destroyed as a result of WWI, Reich joins Austrian Army. .
1916 WWI in Army Reich becomes a lieutenant in Army. .
1917 *20 years old WWI in Army Reich a lieutenant in Army at Italian front. .
1918 WWI ends
WR at Medical school WR at end of war enters Universty of Vienna to study law but in short time shifts to the study of Medicine at the Medical School of Universty of Vienna. As a war veteran he is allowed to complete the 6 year course in 4 years. .
1920 WR at Medical school In October 1920 WR attains membership in Vienna Psychoanalytic Society under Professor Sigmund Freud.
1922 WR at Medical school WR graduates from Medical school in July 1922 with distinction of excellent in all the pre-medical subjects. He enters postgraduate work in Internal Medicine at University Clinics of Ortner and Chvostek at University Hospital in Vienna. He also begins postgraduate work in Neuro-Psychiatry at Neurological and Psychiatric University Clinic under Professor Wagner-Jauregg. WR begins his own private practice in psychoanalytic and psychiatric medicine. WR was the First Clinical ssistant to Frued's Psychoanalytic Polyclinic in Vienna from its beginning in 1922-1928 under the directorship of Dr. Edward Hitschmann. .

1923 WR post graduate work in Medical Work WR works with patients in the disturbed wards of Neurological and Psychiatric University Clinic under Paul Schilder. Wr's post-graduate studies included attendance at polyclinical work in hynosis and therapy at Neurological and Psychiatric University Clinic. .
1924 WR post graduate work
in Medical Work WR is Director of the Seminar for Psychoanalytic Therapy at Psychoanalytic Polyclinic in Vienna from 1924-1930. He is also a member of the faculty of Psychoanalytic Institute in Vienna from 1924-1930. .
1925 WR publishes Der Triobhafte Charakter 1925, 132 p .
1927 *30 years old WR publishes Die Funktion des Orgasmus. 1927, 206 pp .
1928 Medical work WR is Vice-Director of the Polyclinic in Vienna from 1828-1930 .
WR is force to leave Germany as Hitler takes complete control of Germany.
.
1934 WR publishes WR's divorce with Annie Reich is finalized with Annie retaining full custody of both daughter Eva & Lore. She fills childrens minds with negative thoughts of their father.
Publishes: Dialekticher Materialismus und Pychoanalyse. 1934, 60 pp

Research and lectures at Psychological Institute of the University of Oslo, Norway from 1934-1939.
.
1935 WR publishes Massenpsychologie des Faschismun. 1935, 288 pp
Der Einbruch Der Sexualmoral. (Second Ed.) 1935. 155 pp.
Psychischer Kontakt und Vegetative Stromung. 1935, 61 pp
Religionestreit in Deutschland. 1935, 112 pp
by "Karl ?Teschitz" a pseudonym for W.R.
WR does research into Orgone Biophysics and lectures at Psychological Institute of the University of Oslo, Norway
.
1936 WR publishes Die Sexualitaet im Kulturkampf. 1936. ; 250 pp.
(date?? Zeitschrift fur Politische Psychologie und Sexualokonomie; Heft l, Band 1, by
E Parell a pseudonymfor W.R. (?)
Zeitschrift fur Politische Psychologie und Sexualokonomie; Heft 2, Band 1, 167 pp ??date)

Research into Orgone Biophysics and lectures at Psychological Institute of the University of Oslo, Norway
.
1937 *40 years old WR publishes Experimentelle Ergebnisse Ueber Die Elektrische Funktion von Sexualitaet und Angst. 1937; 55 pp.
Orgasmusreflex, Musskelhaltung und Koerperausdruck, 1937; 30 pp.