331
Summerhill School
Leiston, SuffolkMy dear Reich,[ 1951 ]
October 2, 1951Yours today. I can't share your optimism about being at the
1952 conference, indeed I am reconciled to the sad fact that I won't be
there. Your suggestion that I ought to "speak up against the sneakers
and snipers" does not appeal to me. I don't think there are many of
them, and if there are I have no evidence that there are. And objectively
ALL nations use spies and snoopers against other nations. You say:
"We here at Orgonon feel that such diversion of attention only protects
the emotional plague." What you mean I simply don't know. I am not
fundamentally interested in either U.S.A. or Russia; I am only interested
in you and a few others in U.S.A. The visa situation separates me from
you and if you lived in Brazil and I couldn't get a visa to go there I'd
feel strongly against the Brazilian laws. I speak when it is necessary; in
every lecture in Scandinavia I attacked the anti-life policies of Com
munism, and never mentioned my U.S. visa refusal. By the way, the
tour was a great success; crowded halls everywhere, and much enthu
siasm and, I am afraid, hero worship. There I am a Big Man, but at
borne a very little guy.
I specially asked Philipson to meet me and had a long talk with him.
I asked him how he differed from you and he replied that he didn't
think your vegeto-therapy was necessary, that character analysis alone
loosens up the somatic rigidity. He spoke of you warmly and regretted
that you didn't open your publications to any criticism, meaning, I took
it, that he'd like to give his argument for character analysis in the
Bulletin. For myself I ask "Why not?" It would be one answer to the
people who say that you have become a Stalin, a central authority allow
ing no one to have any independent opinions of his own, demanding All
or Nothing from all workers. The latest news I have is that Oberleitner
has been chucked out of the movement. I don't know why, but such
a happening adds to the talk about dictatorship. This talk isn't in
Scandinavia, indeed I found that few knew anything about your more
recent work. But it worries me, Reich, especially when I can't talk it out
with you. I hate to hear the words Orgonon and Orthodoxy linked to
gether. Maybe it is that I don't fully understand your term emotional
plague. Is it plague when old Raknes lectures about the scientific part
that is not in his training line? What I fear is that some genuine students
and enquirers will be put off. Your remark about Philipson, that maybe