Wilhelm Reich Kickstarter

DannyL

Wild Horses
Those of you who know me well will know I am a big fan of Wilhelm Reich. Reich was a student of Freud's who single-handedly bought the body into psychotherapy, was the first person to apply the insights of psychoanalysis to mass movements (in The Mass Psychology of Fascism), adventured into a new energy paradigm, and holds the unique distinction of having his books burnt by both the Nazis and the US government. He's a much maligned and misunderstood figure, and there's a Kickstarter project running which is seeking funds to make a documentary about him. It has 64 hours or so left to go and is over 90% of the way there. If this interests you, please throw in any amount no matter how small, and share the link below around. Thanks a lot.

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Those of you who know me well will know I am a big fan of Wilhelm Reich. Reich was a student of Freud's who single-handedly bought the body into psychotherapy, was the first person to apply the insights of psychoanalysis to mass movements (in The Mass Psychology of Fascism), adventured into a new energy paradigm, and holds the unique distinction of having his books burnt by both the Nazis and the US government. He's a much maligned and misunderstood figure, and there's a Kickstarter project running which is seeking funds to make a documentary about him. It has 64 hours or so left to go and is over 90% of the way there. If this interests you, please throw in any amount no matter how small, and share the link below around. Thanks a lot.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...y-film-project

He was mentioned on the Today programme earlier, though not in relation to this - Sarah Montague was at the Wellcome Sexology exhibition and they have one of his Orgone machines on display.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
He was mentioned on the Today programme earlier, though not in relation to this - Sarah Montague was at the Wellcome Sexology exhibition and they have one of his Orgone machines on display.

Yes, a friend told me about Today. The acculmulator was in The Guardian yesterday as well, on the back of the exhibition. The journalist chatted an absolute load of uninformed shit about Reich, his work and his intentions so I hope this film does get made - an alternative reading of his work would be very welcome.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
97%! Please chip in if you are on the fence and so moved! Not far to go. I'm thinking of it as almost a counter to The Wellcome Institute thing going on at the moment. I read some of their press and it is total bullshit so it's nice to have something positive inna the atmosphere as well!
 

griftert

Well-known member
Thanks Danny. Could you point me to a good source of info about Reich? Most I've ever heard is that he's a crank. Maybe I should check his books out. What's your thoughts about the Orgone machine?
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Well, the Kickstarter was a success firstly! So that's great news.

Have a look my friend Peter's site. His website is a bit chaotic but that's because he's done it all himself on free software but it's a great resource I particularly like his site, because you get a real sense of the range of Reich's work - the therapy is immensely valuable but his work ha implications for child-birth, education, and a world of other stuff besides. Peter was a midwife for a while, largely due to wanting to study the effect of Reich's ideas in the birth process.

As for the orgone stuff - well, I think attempting to convince someone of the virtues of an alternative physics paradigm via a message board is onto a losing streak. Hmmm.... If you are ever tempted to read Reich himself, you have to take orgone seriously - even if just as a thought experiment for ease of reading comprehension. His work doesn't make sense otherwise even though it'd be easy to falter at this point. He called it a "red thread" that ran through his work. He documents his discoveries throughout his work. They don't read like the works of a crank to me, they are pretty sober, thoughtful and subtle.

People get the wrong idea about the acculmulator - it's not a "sex box" (whatever that might be). I've sat in one and my temperature rose which is what Reich reports as happening. I experienced subjective sensations of energy around the box but so what? I don't expect that to convince anyone. I'd need to build one and use it for a longer period of time before I could talk about it with any confidence. There are positive write ups or replications of his experiments in the Reichian community, though I'm not waded deep enough into this to have a really good sense of what is out there. This is coming out next year which might tilt things towards a more favorable impression of his scientific work.

This is a talk I gave a few years back which is not a bad round up, though I'd write it very differently now.
 

luka

Well-known member
Say I wanted to write an easily containable 2000 word descriptive essay on an aspect of Reichian theory... What would I write about?
 
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