Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 04:29:36 -0500
To: orgonomy@jefferson.village.virginia.edu
From: Kenn Thomas <skthoma@umslvma.umsl.edu>
Subject: Re: Reich, paranoia & conspiracy
Sender: owner-orgonomy@jefferson.village.virginia.edu

> In fact, Moise had corrresponded with a Japanese art teacher before the 
formal conclusion of WWII. The document was dated a few days before Reich's 
appeal to the Supreme Court appeal was denied and when he was facing the 
reality of a two year stretch in jail.

But look at how far afield this is from what Reich was actually charged with 
and consider how remote the possibility that such a confession would have 
any bearing on the case. It's bad parapolitics, not paranoia. Reich wasn't 
afraid that Moise's
indiscreet connection to fascist Japan corrupted his contribution to 
orgonomy; he
was trying to convince the government that he was patriotic and went to 
extremes to conform to US law, naively thinking this would help his case.

>Moreover, Reich's last words to Eva Reich, his daughter, were: "You're a 
murderer."

Jailed, confused, possibly even drunk, these words can still be read less as 
an accusation than a description of a tragic situation, maybe even as 
Reich's attempt to give Eva a clearer view of a role he felt she may have 
played inadvertently. I still find it very hard to believe that Reich 
actually really felt that Eva and Moise had set him up for his final days 
way back before the end of World War II. That WOULD be paranoid.

>they turned him into what Reich hated most: the bully, the sneak, the agent.

The preponderance of the prison correspondence mostly shows Reich more or 
less verbally rattling the prison bars and crying out to be released so he 
can continue with "love, work, understanding."

>Straight being a self-confessed member of the Kim Philby-Antony Burgess 
Cambridge Stalinist spy cell),

...and thus connected the "get Reich" campaign  to Casolaro's Octopus, which 
apparently formed as backlash against Philby's role in Albania.

>Even if Reich was clinically paranoid a few days before he went to jail, or 
long
>before that, so what? Does that invalidate all of the breathing therapies, body
>work, cloudbusting, orgone accumulators, bions & autobiognesis, gentle 
treatment
>of children?

I follow up to a point: It's like the question of who blew up the Oklahoma 
City building. The only people who really care are the ones that want to 
exact punishment. The question for everyone else is "where do we go from 
here?" Still, most students of Reich's biography have to work backward from 
the perception that he died nuts in prison. Many of the body work don't know 
who Reich is and I bet some do but deny it.

>Nikola Tesla, who was weaned at two weeks and thereafter could not stand the
>sight of anything bright, soft and globular, who never had a sexual
>relationship, who channnelled many of his scientific inventions and who talked
>to aliens and dead spirits over the radio. Does that mean alternating 
current is
>a fantasy?

If Tesla got AC from the aliens, it certainly raises interesting questions.

>I try to think of mental illness in the same way as I understand physical
>illness. Psychosis is much like a broken leg. It's not always the sufferer's
>fault. Sometimes it is. Physical disability can be caused by reckless behavior.
But are we individually responsible for environmental toxins?

I'm trying to apply this to Reich. Are you saying he willed himself into
his final delusions as a reckless response to the situation he was in? Or 
that we would all go paranoid if put under similar circumstances?

kt

Kenn Thomas



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