Our Spines Turned to the Wall: The Strange & Wonderful World of Wilhelm Reich
A personal essay about how the famed scientist and colleague of Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich shaped much of my thinking as a reader and a literary agent in book publishing. Reich was credited as being one of the originators of the term "the sexual revolution," was a proponent of women in the workforce getting equal pay in the 1950s, was a huge force in modern psychology, and was huge influential to William S. Burroughs and Norman Mailer, among many others such as A.S. Neill. Some believe that if it wasn't for the likes of Reich, the 1960s might not have happened as we know it... As a young boy, his books sat of the bookshelves of my parents and I was embarrassed by book titles of his (The Sexual Revolution (FSG), The Murder of Christ (FSG), The Discovery of the Orgasm (FSG), Sex and Sexuality (FSG), The Mass Psychology of Fascism (FSG), etc.), and so I would often turn the spines of the his books around so my friends couldn't see the strange hippie books my parents kept around. I rediscovered Wilhelm Reich much later on, completely by accident while at a bar, drinking a beer by the name of Cloudbuster, which immediately reminded me of one of Reich's scientific inventions and the song "Cloudbusting" by Kate Bush about his life. Suddenly and serendipitously, I was sent on a tailspin back into the world of his books, much later in life, learning much about myself, where I came from and who I wanted to be in the process.
Wilhelm Reich was a major figure in the writings of psychology and naturalism. Some have gone as far as to say that, were it not for his teachings, the peace, free love and other movements of the 1960s and 1970s might never have happened, at least not as we know those movements today.
Then you might know Wilhelm Reich as the person credited for coining the phrase “the sexual revolution” and helping to usher in that movement; you might know him as a former student and assistant to Sigmund Freud, later contributing to the book The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936); maybe you knew Reich to be a colleague of Albert Einstein’s.
In Barbarella (1968) Jane Fonda plays the eponymous heroine, trapped in the so-called Excessive Machine.
Perhaps you know that students and practitioners of Wilhelm Reich’s psychology included authors such as J.D. Salinger, Allen Ginsberg and Saul Bellow; actors such as Sean Connery; educators and philosophers, such as A.S. Neill and Michel Foucault.
Maybe you’ve come across Wilhelm Reich in popular culture, with reference made to him in Jane Fonda’s Barbella (1968); Woody Allen’s film Sleeper (1973); Patti Smith’s song “Birdland” (1975); Bob Dylan’s song “Joey” (1975); or the Criterion film W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971).
“… ‘Who’s afraid of Wilhelm Reich?’…”
Clearly, Reich was hugely influential to great artists, writers, philosophers and thinkers—but some feel discomfort over the study or practice of Reichian psychology. Though asking the important question, ‘Who’s afraid of Wilhelm Reich?’ is not dissimilar from the Roman poet & satirist Juvenal asking, ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ (‘Who watches the watchmen?’)
Wilhelm Reich, doctor of medicine, psychoanalyst, radical naturalist and father of orgone therapy, at work in his lab in Rangeley, Maine.
Wilhelm Reich impacted me as a reader and as a literary agent at the Trident Media Group literary agency, here in major trade book publishing—but it wasn’t always that way and I would eventually have to overcome my self-imposed shame over the study of Reich… As a young boy, his books sat on the bookshelves of my grandfather, who had lived through the eras of the 1960s and 1970s that celebrated Reich. I was embarrassed by some of the controversial book titles of Reich’s, published by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux: The Sexual Revolution; The Murder of Christ; The Discovery of the Orgasm; Sex and Sexuality; The Mass Psychology of Fascism, et cetera. I would often turn the spines of his books around, so that my friends couldn't see the weird “hippie” books kept on my grandfather’s bookshelf.
It was for the irrational fear that my friends would think strangely or speak ill, even though our village of Scarsdale, New York was fairly liberal. Plus, most knew my grandfather had lived in Woodstock, New York, in a home he bought from Bob Dylan, and that my grandfather helped found The Woodstock Times. He sent his kids to the democratically-run alternative ‘free’ school run by A.S. Neill, known as Sumerhill. My grandfather was a beatnik and a poet; his wife was an actress from Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio and she was a practicing socialist. It was no secret he was a big lefty. I myself attended the democratically-run free school Scarsdale Alternative School (SAS) at Scarsdale High School (SHS), so why would this come as any sort of surprise to anyone, most of all to me?
A devotee of Reichian therapy, holding a Buddha sculpture, while meditating in an orgone accumulator.
My grandfather once asked why I left the spines of Wilhelm Reich’s books turned around on his bookshelf. I was told that we had nothing to be embarrassed of, in owning such books. My grandfather handed me a copy of one of Reich’s illustrated books entitled Listen, Little Man! (FSG) and inscribed the book with, “To my grandson, Mark Gottlieb, who will one day grow into a big man, maybe even a literary agent.” (There was always a prophecy hanging over my head when I was growing up). Listen, Little Man! was illustrated by Caldecott Medal-winner & two-time Newbury Honoree William Steig of Shrek! fame. The book was Reich’s way to speak to the everyday man or average human being, and to encourage that “little man” to get outside of his darker animalistic nature/avoid his smallness and pettiness—to be the best person possible, despite all of our shortcomings and struggles.
“…when one book on a shelf has a spine facing inward, it highlights something of a new spine with the bright white or lightly yellowed pages. The pages draw the eye in, begging the turned book to be given more attention than the other books on the shelf.”
A little while after digesting Listen, Little Man! (with the help of pictures, since I was still young), when my childhood friends would leave after a playdate, me or grandpa would turn the spines of Wilhelm Reich’s books back around to face outward. Eventually, we perpetually left Reich’s book spines facing outward. Oddly enough, when one book on a shelf has a spine facing inward, it highlights something of a new spine with the bright white or lightly yellowed pages. The pages draw the eye in, begging the turned book to be given more attention than the other books on the shelf.
Later in life, I headed off to Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. I went there to study in their Writing, Literature and Publishing program. It was my intent to one day join my dad, as father & son Mark Gottlieb, at the Trident Media Group literary agency—where he currently serves as Chairman, and I as literary agent. Around that same time, after my grandfather passed away, I was given many of his Wilhelm Reich books, which I brought along for my studies at college. Although it happened again—when friends would come to my apartment and see the strange books on the shelf, they had to ask… One person criticized Reich as a pseudoscientist and a “quack”—suddenly the book spines were turned around again.
Women at Adolf Koch’s socialist body culture school, which drew on Reich’s ideas.
The occurrence sent me down a dark rabbit hole to focus entirely on the criticisms of Wilhelm Reich, whose radical worldview and practices, had made him a highly controversial figure in the field of psychology. Reich wasn’t just preaching in conservative eras, such as the 1940s & 1950s, about things such as equal rights for women, sexual awakenings, the toppling of fascism and a need for Marxism in psychology—Reich was encouraging people to experience self-pleasure, long before Oprah Winfrey was encouraging her audience to do the same. Reich also believed the body was just as much a part of the process of psychotherapy as the mind. As a part of this practice of vegetotherapy, he encouraged people to physically manifest their feelings during psychotherapy. Alongside Reich’s radicalized psychology, he employed a type of massage therapy to dissolve what he believed was a patient’s “muscular armor.” He might have been practicing psychology more so as an art than a science, and he was heavily criticized for it. Bear in mind, most psychiatrists tend to shy away from even hugging their patients, let alone shaking their hands.
In the film On The Road (2012) William S. Burroughs (Vigo Mortensen) enters an orgone accumulator in front of Jack Kerouac (Sam Riley) and Neal Cassidy (Garrett Hedlund). Reich’s rather ecstatic form of metaphysical naturalism is an important part of the influence of 1960s and 1970s countercultural movements.
Among some of the more questionable things was Reich’s study of what he referred to as orgone energy, which was more of a spiritual concept in regard to a life force energy. (Perfect for the 1960s and 1970s, right?) An invention from Reich known as orgone accumulators existed. Subjects would sit inside of metal-lined wooden boxes with a chair, where the subject could harness this “healing” primordial cosmic energy, or chi. Some people even believed they cured cancer! Orgone accumulators were all over places like Woodstock, New York—you might even mistake one in a backyard for an outhouse. Norman Mailer actually owned a few orgone accumulators. It was believed William S. Burroughs owned one, too—in the 2012 film On the Road, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady visit William S. Burroughs (played by Viggo Mortensen) at his home and see him emerge from an orgone accumulator. I supposed it was not all that different from someone using a meditation app during their lunch hour, or medicating in a dark, quiet room. Though Reich started sounding like the L. Ron Hubbard of psychology to me. I chalked it up to supposing it was possible Reich got dosed early on by Timothy Leary, or something like that, and I completely wrote him off.
Reich and a couple of his devotees with a Cloudbuster machine.
A decade later, when I had begun working as a literary agent at Trident Media Group, I stumbled upon Wilhelm Reich again, completely by accident. While at a bar, I was drinking a craft beer from the Grimm company by the name of "Cloudbusting." Cue the theme music from Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. The name of the beer immediately reminded me of one of Reich's weird scientific inventions, the Cloudbuster, which was essentially a series of metal tubes and cords. Reich believed the “machine” could be aimed at a cloud to make it rain, especially over a dry area in need of rain. Some claimed that he had gone into the desert and made grass and flowers grow in the sands, whereas this invention was deeply concerning to others. Kate Bush’s music video for her song “Cloudbusting” (1985), starring Donald Sutherland, is about this invention and the relationship of Reich and his son, shortly before Reich’s arrest.
That’s right, an injunction via the Food and Drug Administration had led to the burning of Reich’s lab equipment and books—at the hands of a U.S. government of the 1950s. The injunction also prevented the shipment of some of his strange devices such as the orgone accumulators. The FDA had come to view Reich as a snake oil salesman, endangering the public. The injunction, as well as the attacks of gossip and defamation on his once remarkable career, led to the rapid deterioration of Reich’s mental health and he snapped. Reich was beginning to believe Earth was under attack from UFOs. He set out to chase these supposed UFOs. Reich was later held in contempt of court, arrested and imprisoned, after failing to defend himself in court (Reich refused the help of a lawyer). He died in prison from exposure, alone and misunderstood, by a conservative government that might have felt threatened by his ideas, which would ultimately help bring on the themes of the 1960s and 1970s, such as peace, free love and consciousness expansion. I then sought out the 2013 film The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich, a biopic about his contributions and why the government might’ve been out to get him for tarnishing their wholesome view of the 1950s, to see if there might exist a more sympathetic view.
“I realized that the gaps of books missing from a bookshelf sometimes show themselves like teeth missing from a smile. We can’t deny who we are or where we’ve come from, but rather try to reflect back on our past to see how it has shaped us, hopefully for the better.”
Orgone accumulator demonstration. Orgone is a universal life force proposed by the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957). He believed that deficits or blockages of orgone were the cause of many serious diseases. Orgone accumulators supposedly collected orgone from the environment and delivered it to a person to treat diseases or generally improve health. In 1954 the Food and Drug administration were granted an injunction, on the bases of false and misleading claims, that ordered the destruction of all accumulators and any literature mentioning them. Reich was later jailed for violating the injunction.
Suddenly I was sent on a further tailspin back into the world of Wilhelm Reich’s books, later in life, learning much about myself, where I came from and who I wanted to be in the process. I realized that the gaps of books missing from a bookshelf sometimes show themselves like teeth missing from a smile. We can’t deny who we are or where we’ve come from, but rather try to reflect back on our past to see how it has shaped us, hopefully for the better. Reich, despite all his “evil Dr. Durand Durand” vibes, had introduced me very early on to writers such as J.D. Salinger and The Beat Generation of writers who admired Reich’s work. He helped to foster a love of literature and the humanities in me. Dare I say that I am not sure I would have pursued an English degree, were it not for the more positive aspects from Reich’s legacy within the humanities.
Ask Nikolay Tesla or Elon Musk: there is a bit of the mad scientist in us all, which is one of the many things that have fascinated people when it comes to seeing that character archetype elsewhere. With anything in life, we have to portion out and place the good with the good, and the bad with the bad. With millennials playing with tarot cards and astrological readings all over again—since “woo-woo” seems to be back in vogue—I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Wilhelm Reich was rediscovered among today’s readers and in modern popular culture. Hopefully, he doesn’t simply get lumped in with the magic crystals and scented oils—Reich and his work has already been largely mischaracterized and misunderstood.
Wilhem Reich with students and lab assistants at his lab in Rangeley, Maine, which is now the Wilhelm Reich Museum.
Was Wilhelm Reich a madman or a genius? It is still very hard to say, though perhaps he was both of those things. One of the most controversial members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and Freud's intimate for many years, Reich is known not only for his seminal contributions to therapeutic and social psychoanalysis in his 1933 classic Character Analysis, but also for his notoriety as a discoverer of an energy he named orgone. He developed his own style of therapy which focused as much on somatic as on verbal analysis. Reich developed the concept of 'character armor,' habitual patterns of muscle tension and constricted breathing which kept strong feelings from conscious attention. These concepts still reverberate through the study of the mind in modern-day psychology. A peculiar legacy, indeed, but he certainly brought ideology to psychology and influenced many writers, such as Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer.
Mark Gottlieb is a prominent literary agent working at book publishing’s leading literary agency Trident Media Group in New York City. He has ranked highly among literary agents across the industry for overall number of deals and other individual categories. While at Trident Media Group, Mark Gottlieb has represented New York Times bestselling authors as well as major award-winning authors. He has optioned and sold numerous books to production companies and studios for film and TV adaptation. Mark Gottlieb greatly enjoys working with authors to help manage and grow their careers with the resources available at Trident Media Group. In addition to having worked at the company’s Foreign Rights Department, he also ran the company’s Audiobook Department. Utilizing his drive and intuition for discovering talented writers, he is currently expanding his client list of authors. As a literary agent he looks forward to bringing authors to the largest possible audience.