our sensational press has not got hold of ordinary citizen witnesses and
made a stunt out of their reports. The press could not resist so won
derful a chance of a scoop. The editor of a paper like Sunday Pictorial
would publish a photo of potatoes growing on his mother's grave. You
can't tell me that if you made it rain in the Sahara the whole world press
(and people) would ignore it because of inner plague. It is a different
matter in the case of health. The inner plague would make a thousand
doctors reject an orgone cure for cancer; millions of parents reject self
regulation for the same reason. What I am trying to say is that if self
regulation paid in dividends and profits it would be advertised and ex
ploited. I'm not being cynical, only realistic in a material age. If you
can make Arizona sand into cultivated fields the Americans will by
pass their inner deserts... and of course say: It wasn't Reich really;
it was the H-bomb.
Incidentally, how you get the money to build rainmakers and pub
lish CORE I can't guess. This is pure envy; I can't get pupils, I
can't get staff and life is one long worry about the future. Added to
that I see fascism growing and freedom for children being hated.
Caning in our schools gets worse; lack of discipline is blamed by
judges for the cosh [blackjack] boys who rob with violence. Makes me
feel depressed, makes me feel that most of my work has been in vain.
They have debates in press and radio here about education. No one
ever asked me to take part. I haven't your pioneering patience, Reich.
You are content to see your work triumph in a hundred years (Or are
you?), while I want to see mine triumph in my lifetime. Only 40 pupils
now out of a few million British kids.
However, there are compensations. Zoe is a delight and I am not ill
in body.
Just heard from the N.Y. publishers who published my Problem
Family in '48. They had to sell out 3500 as "remainder" stock because
U.S.A. didn't buy the book. Odd though that the Japanese translation
sold so well that I have £800 in a Tokyo bank as royalties, frozen, no
chance of my ever touching it unless I go to Japan to spend it on wine,
women and song ... rather late at 71 for geisha girls I fear.
A depressing letter. Partly the awful weather. By the way I see no
sign of blackening of stones or queer cloud formations here, * but then
I wouldn't know one cloud from another. Piece in today's paper says the
* Manifestations of DOR (Deadly Orgone) in the atmosphere.