Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957)
Wilhelm Reich was born in 1897 in Dobrzcynica (Austria). In 1911 his mother committed suicide after he told his father that she was having an affair with her tutor. His father died 3 years later of tuberculosis, and Wilhelm found himself at the head of the wealthy family farm. In 1916 he arrived as an officer in the Austrian army and fought on the Italian front in the First World War. In 1918, unable to return home due to the new borders imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, he began studying university medicine at the Psychoanalytical Society of Vienna. From 1920 he practiced psychoanalysis despite his lack of academic training. Upon obtaining his diploma in 1922, Reich embarked on psychoanalysis and psychiatry in private practice, while continuing his studies in neuropsychiatry. For 12 years he lived in Vienna. Became very young one of the most eminent members of the Psychoanalytical Society of Vienna - directed at the time by its founder Sigmund Freud, he occupied from 1922 to 1930 the post of first assistant in the psychoanalytic polyclinic of Freud.
From the beginning, his work raised many controversies. It will be said of him that he was a paranoid egotist who understood nothing of the scientific method or even of the fields in which he claimed to have made revolutionary discoveries. This judgment, issued by Martin Gardner in his book titled The Third Reich and the Orgone Obsession, reflects the generally held view in scientific circles. Throughout his life - and even after his death - Reich will be the object of the most virulent criticism. They will have the effect of making people forget the great pioneer that he will have been in the field of research on the libido, in favor of a sulphurous image, due in large part to his mores. very free and to the fact that he cultivated indiscipline.
The Orgone
From the start of her career, her work focused on sexuality and orgasm in particular. His research led him to the following conclusion: at the moment of orgasm, a very particular type of energy is released, to which he gives the name "orgone". But for Reich, this energy, far from being confined to sexual pleasure alone, is essential to all aspects of a healthy life. It alone can deliver Man from anguish and lead him to happiness. However, for certain childhood reasons, the natural function of orgasm is suppressed in many subjects, causing both physiological and psychological pathological phenomena.
In 1927, Reich put forward audacious hypotheses in Genitality in the theory and therapy of neuroses. This work, as well as other writings, caused a break with the Freudian school.
From 1930, he lived in Berlin. He actively militates within the German Communist Party, in which he quickly becomes hardly in the odor of sanctity, nor within the International Psychoanalytical Association. In fact, he is excluded from these two organizations.
From 1933, his research on orgone took up all his time and forced him to put an end to his private practice of medicine. On the strength of his early work, Reich came to the idea that this energy, orgone, is not only released during orgasm but that it represents a vital force that underlies all of creation - a sort of cosmic force, invisible and omnipresent, constituting the very foundation of existence. His theory is that all human ills result from blockages in the flow of this force. Accordingly, he focuses his work on how to capture, use, develop and generally manipulate orgone.
But 1933 also marked the beginning of Reich's disputes with the authorities. Jew, communist and psychoanalyst: 3 good reasons forcing him to flee Berlin. The Nazis burn his books. Reich first took refuge in Denmark, but very quickly he was made to understand that there too he was considered undesirable. Same scenario in England, then in Sweden. If Norway is more lenient, which allows him to found in Oslo, in 1938, the Institute of biological research of sexual economy. But this only lasts for a while and he must quickly emigrate to the United States, in 1939.
UNITED STATES(1939)
Welcomed by Theodore P. Wolfe, specialist in psychosomatic medicine, he 
obtained a position at the New York School for Social Research, where he taught orgone biophysics.
In 1942, he bought a vast property of 80 hectares in Maine, which he baptized Orgonon. This is where the Wilhelm Reich Foundation was established, within which he diversified actively research.
Inventor, scientist, psychiatrist, philosopher, sociologist, Reich wanted to be all of these things at the same time. His main therapeutic tool, he makes it with his own hands: it is the orgone accumulator. It is a box the size of a telephone booth, whose walls consist of alternating layers of metal and organic materials. The user sits inside the box, so as to absorb the orgone which builds up like heat in a greenhouse. Concentrated orgone is presumed to cure diseases as different as cancer, impotence and all disorders related to sexual repression. There are also smaller models, such as the orgone blanket and the orgone funnel which is used to direct the precious energy to particular points of the human body.
But Reich quickly discovers that orgone also has a destructive side, which he calls Deadly Orgone Radiation(DOR). In order to dissipate the accumulated DOR in the atmosphere, Reich creates a device composed of long parallel hollow pipes. Planted in the ground, the pipes are irrigated by a source of running water. Like a lightning rod, the machine is supposed to attract the DOR present in the sky.
Collaboration (1947-1952)
In 1947, Wilhelm Reich signed a 5-year contract with the CIA. He provides him with his atmospheric weather control device, capable of "sucking up" the DOR, and thus reducing the violence of a storm. The government successfully tests the equipment on a storm, and launches a new phase of the Phoenix project, consisting of launching no less than 200 to 500 radiosondes per day. These small white boxes, designed at Brookhaven Laboratories based on Reich's work, are attached to a balloon, and officially launched to collect meteorological data. They emit a continuous oscillating signal over a 100 mile radius, aiming to convert electrical energy into etheric energy. They first use the frequency of 403 mHz (plus or minus 2 mHz), then that of 1680 MHz (plus or minus 6 mHz). Inside is a thermistor composed of gold, silver, platinum and irridium (Reich used gold and silver). The humidity element is a silver-rimmed plastic plate, with conductive lines running through it. A rather unusual combination of chemical elements is prevalent on this plate. Unlike most "humistors", the resistor activates when moistened. The "thermistor" rod (temperature sensitive) then acts as a phase-shifted DOR antenna. The "humidity sensor" acts as an antenna for the orgone. The pressure sensor is roughly what they call a cylinder needle, which is a needle that regularly traces pressure. The device was to annihilate DOR and produce orgone. The transmitter consists of 2 oscillators, one operating on the carrier frequency (403 or 1680 MHz) and the other at 7 MHz keyed to the gate of the carrier oscillator. The result is a 7 mHz oscillator pulsing on and off. The government cannot say that these are devices intended to control atmospheric weather. It is from the combination of this project (control of atmospheric weather using the radiosonde transmission method) and the Philadelphia Experiment (invisibility) that the Phoenix project was born, aimed at thought control, or mood alteration according to government terms.
In 1952, the contract with the CIA comes to an end.
To his great astonishment, Reich realizes that his machine is also capable of producing a phenomenon of condensation in the clouds and therefore of making it rain. He will therefore baptize it cloudbuster.
Reich gets concrete results. So he receives $1,000 from a farmer named Osmon Merrill and banker H. B. Phillips for saving a blueberry crop in 1953 (nowadays a man has taken over from Reich in the business of fight against clouds. James de Meo, one of America's leading rainmakers still roams the roads with his machine...claiming to obtain excellent results).
Confrontation (1954-1957)
Reich's work eventually caught the attention of the authorities. The same year, with the collaboration of the AMA and American psychiatric circles, the FDA orders an investigation against Reich and his foundation, convinced that the accumulators of orgones, the blankets and the funnels harm the health of credulous patients, while keeping them away from the traditional medical care they most need. This is how they forbid Reich to ship his inventions to the 4 corners of the United States. Reich refuses to appear in court, because according to him his work falls under a Fundamental Natural Research which is in itself its own justification, and therefore does not have to be defended before any court. He explains his position in a written response to the judges:
The United States government has no authority to deal with Basic Natural Law. Orgonomy is a branch of Fundamental Natural Science... Going to court to "defend" Fundamental Natural Research is in itself an absurd act. Indeed, any investigation in this area falls outside the legal competence of any social administration. The human right to knowledge must be protected, if the term Freedom is to mean more than an empty political slogan. I will not appear in court to "defend myself" against a plaintiff whose very nature of the complaint proves that he knew nothing of natural science...
On March 19, 1954, a court decision was taken against him by default. Reich claims to be the victim of a conspiracy orchestrated by red fascists within the FDA.
Subsequently, Wilhelm Reich was charged with contempt of court for refusing to comply with this injunction. Prosecuted by a court in 1956, he was severely punished. In a quite unusual judgment, the State of Maine orders the destruction by fire of his writings. Wilhelm Reich himself was sentenced to 2 years in prison and a fine of $10,000. He was incarcerated in Lewisburg Prison, where he died of a pulmonary embolism on November 3, 1957.
Later, Peter Reich, the son of Wilhelm, published a book entitled A Book of Dreams, where he describes the special relationship that bound him to his father. He describes their life in Organon (now the Wilhelm Reich Museum), and the pleasure they took together in making it rain thanks to the machine (the cloudbuster ) from his father.
Artist Kate Bush read Peter Reich's book, which inspired her to compose her song Cloudbusting.
Source www.rr0.org