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FREDERICK CREWS
chology as an all-sufficient ethical guide, the world can be made safe
for genitality only through cui tic delusion, and perhaps not even then.
Such examples ought to remind us that man truly " functions normal–
ly " when his attention is directed beyond his immediate well-being -
when he is involved with people and places, institutions and princi–
ples, that sustain him even as they shape and limit him. To those who
accept this point at all, it is a truism; but it is one that casts a devastat–
ing light on much romantic radicalism of the past quarter-century.
NOTE:
Program,
Symposium on Orgone Energy and Bio-energetics
(Berkeley:
KPFA, 1974), p . 2. Farrar, Straus and Giroux and its Noonday imprint have
now republished Reich's
The Cancer Biopathy, Character Analysis, Ether,
God and Devil and Cosmic Superimposition, The Function of the Orgasm,
The Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality, Listen, Little Man!, The Mass
Psychology of Fascism, The Murder of Christ, R eich Speaks of Freud, Selected
Writings,
and
The Sexual Revolution.
Writings from Reich 's period as an
active lefti st have been collected in
Sex-Pol: Essays, 1929-1934,
ed. Lee Bax–
andall(New York: Vintage, 1972). A leading disciple, Ola Raknes, has sur–
veyed Reich 's career in
Wilhelm R eich and Orgonomy
(1970; rpt. Baltimore:
Penguin, 1971 ). Reich is viewed skepticall y by Philip Rieff,
Th e Triumph oj
the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud
(1966; rpt. New York and Evanston :
Harper Torchbooks, 1968) and by Charles Rycroft,
Wilhelm Reich
(New York:
Viking, 1971 ); this is the book in the "Modern Masters" series. His importance
to
the cultural left has been explored by Paul A. Robinson ,
The Freudian Left:
Wilhelm Reich, Geza Roheim, Herbert Marcuse
(1969; rpl. New York: Harper
Colophon, n.d.) and by Richard King,
The Party of Eros: Radical Social
Thought and the Realm of Freedom
(Chapel Hill : North Carolina, 1972). In
Orgone, R eich and Eros: Wilhelm Reich's Theory of Life Energy
(New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1973) W. Edward Mann presents Reich as one of the
foremost modern geniuses, though an eccentric and intemperate one. Eustace
Chesser gives Reich high marks as a therapeutic innovator in
Salvation
Through Sex: The Life and Work of Wilhelm Reich
(New York: Morrow,
1973). Reich's practical political activism is emphasized by Michel Cattier,
The Life and Work of Wilhelm Reich,
tr. Ghislaine Boulanger (1971 ; rpt. New
York: Avon, 1973). Hi s world-view is enthusias tically defended by Elsworth
Baker,
Man in the Trap
(New York: Macmillan, 1967), Orson Bean,
Me and
the Orgone: The True Story of One Man's Sexual Awakening
(1971; rpt.
Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Crest, 1972), and J ames Wyckoff,
Wilhelm R eich:
Life Force Explorer
(Greenwich, Conn. : Fawcett, 1973). His reputation as a
martyr is enhanced by Jerome Greenfield,
Wilhelm R eich versus the USA
(New York: Norton, 1974). And the most comprehensive discussion of Reich 's
scientific claims is David Boadella,
Wilhelm R eich: The Evolution of his
Work
(Chicago: Regnery, 1973).
