Introduction: William Reich was an Austrian physician, psychoanalyst, political activist, and author who contributed many novel and controversial ideas to his field throughout his lifetime. Originator of the term “sexual revolution”, Reich may be best known for his work on human orgasm and his hypothesis of “orgone energy” – an omnipresent driving force found in living beings and inanimate matter. While Reich’s experiments on orgone have largely been debunked, we aim to examine how Reich’s views on sex influenced his scientific theories and had lasting societal consequences.
Methods: An initial Google search was performed to find relevant source material. Select writings of Reich, as well as biographies, articles, and online information from the William Reich Museum were subsequently examined.
Results: Born in 1897 to an affluent family, Reich experienced a childhood colored by spousal violence, infidelity, and the untimely deaths of his parents. In 1922, upon graduating from medical school in Vienna, Reich joined the psychiatric clinic of Sigmund Freud. Reich’s study under Freud heavily influenced his ideas of character analysis and his papers on “orgastic potency”, first published in 1924, were groundbreaking in linking mental health and love with the physiologic and emotional experience of sexual orgasms. Reich’s penchant for sexual health coupled with his political interest led him in 1927 to establish "Sex-Pol clinics," which provided sexual education, Marxist education, and contraceptives to the working class. Seeking asylum from the Nazi regime in 1939, Reich immigrated to the US, where he continued studies on biologico-cosmic energy, termed “orgone”, seen as an extension of the Freudian concept of libido. To harness orgone, Reich built human-sized Faraday cages lined with layers of plywood, rock wool, and sheet iron — these “orgone accumulators” were said to improve health, reduce neuroses, and halt cancer cell growth. Despite his theories gaining traction with lead artists and writers of the time, public criticisms levied at Reich ultimately brought him to the attention of the FBI. In 1956, Reich was arrested, his orgone accumulators destroyed, his books publicly burned, and he died in prison just a few months later in 1957.
Conclusions: While Reich was largely panned later in his life and his theory of orgone is now widely considered pseudoscientific, he was among the first to advocate for a deeper understanding and appreciation of the physical, emotional, and psychological consequences of sexual health and sexual freedom – ideas which have impacted society today.
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