"You can't be happy unless you're having proper orgasms"

Wilhelm Reich began his career as an understudy to psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud. Although both agreed that the mind was made up of two sides, one consisting of primitive and sexual urges, Reich and Freud disagreed as to what the job of the other side of the human mind was. Freud suggested that if the id was not controlled it would lead to chaos, and through free association and talking about things, control of the sub conscious could be gained. Whereas Freud believed the super ego kept the id in check, Reich believed that people were decent people with good sub conscious urges. He suggested that it was society that made someone a bad person by suppressing their id. If you were not repressed you would flourish as a human being.

Reich's prominent idea revolved around the body, an area he believed was neglected by Freudian thought and that sexual pleasure was the ultimate measure of human happiness.He said that if you are repressed you cannot have proper orgasms, therefore being unable to release orgone energy. Orgone energy was something that was everywhere in the atmosphere, and according to Reich, released during orgasm. It was necessary for the body to release the build up of this energy to minimize the risk of mental illness, something he said would happen with too much orgone tension.

The development of his Orgone Accumulator was to pretty much signal Reichs downfall. His creation, he claimed, could draw out orgone energy and concentrate it. He believed that using this device he could help people with mental illnesses, by absorbing their orgone energy. However, in 1954, Reich was dealt an injunction by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) that would prohibit him exporting Orgone Accumulators from state to state. Unfortunately for Reich, in 1956 when he was away demonstrating a Cloud Buster, one of his other inventions relating to Orgone energy, one of his students moved some accumulators from Maine to New York. Both were arrested for contempt of court and Reich was found guilty and sentenced to two years imprisonment. During his time in prison, he suffered from heart failure and died in prison in Pennsylvania on 3rd of November 1957.

Reich's legacy saw a resurgence during the 1960s, with opponents of Freud using Reichian ideas to encourage people to express their feelings openly. Student protesters shouted "there's a policeman inside of our heads. He must be destroyed". Politicians have also spoken out using terms which can be related to Reich. Ronald Reagan once declared; "let the people rule", and in the UK former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher claimed "there's no such thing as society [only individuals]". Companies encourage people to express difference in a conformist world in order to sell products. Encounter groups meet up and release their feelings and emotions. All of these things suggest that Reichian ideas are more prominent in modern society that I for one did not realise.