The Comics Journal

Reich argued that the orgasm was not simply a physical experience, but was the body’s method for regulating this orgone energy, which he believed existed within everyone.  He also believed that the failure to release this energy could lead to all kinds of physical and mental illness.  He argued that unreleased psychosexual energy could produce actual physical blocks within muscles and organs, and that these blocks act as a “body armor” preventing the release of emotional energy.  According to Reich, an orgasm was the best way to break through this armor, and the better the orgasm, the more energy was released, meaning that less was available to create neurotic states.  Reich called the ability to release sufficient energy during orgasm “orgiastic potency,” but argued that this ideal release was something that very few individuals could achieve.

Eventually, Reich became convinced that most of the neuroses and emotional blocks that he was noting in his psychotherapy patients were related to this sexual repression, which he blamed on social and moral regulations, including the values and laws imposed by governments, religions and society in general designed to govern sexual habits.  He concluded that the best way “cure” his patients was to encourage and aid them in living an “active, guilt-free sex life.”   Therefore, he became an outspoken advocate for all kinds of social reform, including adolescent sexuality, open relationships outside of marriage, the social acceptance of divorce, the availability of contraceptives and the legalization of abortion.

In Reich’s later years, he moved to the United States and set up a research lab in Maine, where he expanded his studies of orgone energy, claiming that he had discovered the existence of orgone not just within the human body, but everywhere, within all matter.  He began studying the effects of this orgone energy, which he now referred to as primordial “cosmic energy” and “life energy.”

Reich eventually became obsessed with trying to control the orgone energy in the atmosphere.  Like the human body, he believed that a negative form of energy, which he referred to as “DaR” caused blocks in the earth’s biological systems.  To address this problem, he created an elaborate machine known as a “cloudbuster,” which could allegedly be used to direct orgone energy toward the blocked areas in the atmosphere.  In one famous case, Reich was paid $10,000 by a group of blueberry farmers for using his cloudbusting machine to make it rain, allegedly saving the crop from a devastating drought.

In his final years, Reich grew increasingly paranoid.  He was under investigation by the Food and Drug Administration and was constantly being hounded by a vocal group of skeptics who felt his radical social theories threatened conservative values (a massive book-burning of his most controversial works was held in New York City in 1954).

Wilhelm Reich was eventually prosecuted for “contempt of court” related to an earlier trial regarding his use of the “cloudbusters.”  He died in prison in 1957, yet to this day, remains a controversial counterculture hero.  Several organizations and scientists are devoted to continuing and defending the validity of his theories, especially the existence and importance of orgone energy.  Reich is even the subject of an ongoing graphic novel biography by the cartoonist Elijah Brubaker (of which six issues are currently available from Sparkplug Comic Books).

To be continued.