(^15) [ 19 36 -1 939 ]
Summerhill School
Leiston, Suffolk
Dear Reich,
June 8, 1938
You are really a most difficult man to help. You seem to think
that we are all a lot of damn fools. You mention Stern and BUhler, but
so far as you are concerned, most people here are Sterns and BUhlers.
Until you do something to have your ideas translated into English you
are unknown here. It is useless to approach the Freudians in London.
The old-fashioned psychiatrists are worse. There only remains the
younger group of scientists of the Haldane-Bernal * class. They are all
modem in politics and more open-minded than the psycho-analysts here.
I grant that my ignorance of science is a handicap, but what I can't
grasp is this: if a scientist like Haldane cannot read and understand Die
Bione, who can? Where can one find a scientist who is a specialist in
biology and also in psychology? You seem to me to have a phobia that
you will always be misunderstood, but why then write books if everyone
is to misunderstand them? I feel that one of your main aims now should
be to have Die Bione and your Orgasmus Reflex translated into English.
But as I say, you are so indefinite and fearful of publicity that I don't
know how to help you. It may be that living among a crowd of little
Norwegian enemies you are out of touch with the English world. The
arrival of all the Viennese analysts in London will make psychology
very important, and now is the time for Reich to be known in England.
I hope to be in Oslo Anjang August [beginning of August].
- I •
Oslo, Norway
June 10, 193 8
Dear N eill!t
You are right, I am an incorrigible pessimist, since I do not
believe in the good will of academic authorities. Still, I do beg you not
to let that influence you, and if you can do something toward the
publication of The Bions or its distribution, I would be grateful to you.
* J. D. Bernal, British biologist and teacher, friend of Neill's.
t Translated from the original German.