He visited patients in their homes to see how they lived, and took to the streets in a mobile clinic, promoting adolescent sexuality
The practice of vegetotherapy involves the analyst enabling the patient to physically simulate the bodily effects of strong emotions. In this technique, the patient is asked to remove his or her outer clothing, lie down on a sheet-covered bed in the doctor's office, and breathe deeply and rhythmically.
In 1937 Reich began an affair with a female patient, an actress who had been married to a colleague of his.
Around the same time, Reich also had an affair with Gerd Bergersen, a 25-year-old
In 1940 he began to build insulated Faraday cages, "orgone accumulators", that he said would concentrate the orgone.
I'm not aware of any evidence of Reich being a pedophile, but he definitely pushed the envelope, let's say, in his relationships with some of his analysands. You're going to think I'm crazy when I say this, and you're completely right to think that way, but I have a couple of friends who are super into Reich. With my permission they placed an orgone accumulator (basically just a metal bowl) on my knee. Within about ten or fifteen minutes it felt like my knee was like scalding hot. I had to take the metal bowl off. I was impressed.
People consider Reich a crank and some of his followers definitely strike me that way. The weirdest thing about him is that he was persecuted for basically being a quack when he came to the USA, and he ultimately died of a heart attack in prison. I find that pretty strange since the USA has pretty much always been overrun by quacks, few of whom ever see time in a prison cell. He was probably attacked here for being a communist, but I don't think he was pushing his communism too hard when he was living in the USA.
He definitely had an interesting life, encounters with everyone from Einstein to the feds, and a communist at that.
How did your friends explain the metal bowl? Was any material added to it? Was it connected to anything? Charged in advance like a balloon rubbed against a carpet or something?
I believe the bowl was iron, but orgone accumulators are supposed to be a mix of several materials. I didn't examine it closely because we were actually very busy preparing for an election at the time, although I was sitting for the entire time I used it. As far as I could tell, it wasn't charged or connected to anything. If you're curious about it you could try building one of your own to see what happens, although I haven't gone this far. After I took it off my friend told me that I was using it incorrectly and that I needed to be more cautious. Who knows, the entire thing might have just been some kind of placebo effect, but if you do actually build one and find that it works, make sure to proceed with caution.
:cringe:
I'm not aware of any evidence of Reich being a pedophile, but he definitely pushed the envelope, let's say, in his relationships with some of his analysands. You're going to think I'm crazy when I say this, and you're completely right to think that way, but I have a couple of friends who are super into Reich. With my permission they placed an orgone accumulator (basically just a metal bowl) on my knee. Within about ten or fifteen minutes it felt like my knee was like scalding hot. I had to take the metal bowl off. I was impressed.
People consider Reich a crank and some of his followers definitely strike me that way. The weirdest thing about him is that he was persecuted for basically being a quack when he came to the USA, and he ultimately died of a heart attack in prison. I find that pretty strange since the USA has pretty much always been overrun by quacks, few of whom ever see time in a prison cell. He was probably attacked here for being a communist, but I don't think he was pushing his communism too hard when he was living in the USA.
He definitely had an interesting life, encounters with everyone from Einstein to the feds, and a communist at that.
How did your friends explain the metal bowl? Was any material added to it? Was it connected to anything? Charged in advance like a balloon rubbed against a carpet or something?
I believe the bowl was iron, but orgone accumulators are supposed to be a mix of several materials. I didn't examine it closely because we were actually very busy preparing for an election at the time, although I was sitting for the entire time I used it. As far as I could tell, it wasn't charged or connected to anything. If you're curious about it you could try building one of your own to see what happens, although I haven't gone this far. After I took it off my friend told me that I was using it incorrectly and that I needed to be more cautious. Who knows, the entire thing might have just been some kind of placebo effect, but if you do actually build one and find that it works, make sure to proceed with caution.