lects things which are in keeping with the rest of his collection.”^7
Finally, Reich’s reactions to crises are significant here. The period around 1934 pro-
duced more numerous, if not more dangerous, ones than any other comparable span of his
life. There were hurts and scars from these experiences, not to mention the energy lost in all
the physical upheavals. But there were liberations, too—from an unhappy marriage to a far
more gratifying love relationship; from controversies and endless explanations with the pow-
ers-that-were in the organizations to which he belonged; and, most significantly, from sub-
ordinating his own thinking to the basic guidelines of others, in particular, Freud and Marx.
It would not be accurate to say that Reich deliberately chose opposition, enmity, and
crises. But it is true that his views were clearly sharpened by controversy, that he enjoyed
defining himself against opposition, and, indeed, that, like Freud, he could find in enmity an
index of the subversive, revolutionary thrust of his work. Above all, the repeated crises of
his life—and especially those around 1934—helped him to find the strength to stand alone.
After many years in various “second homes,” he was learning to follow Schiller’s dictum:
“The strong man is at his most powerful alone” (Der Starke ist am machtigsten allein). He was
learning, in Ms own words, “never to yield to the pressure of wrong public opinion.”^8
One of Reich’s principal reasons for moving to Oslo in the fall of 1934 was that
Harold Schjelderup, an analyst and professor of psychology at the University of Oslo, had
offered him the use of laboratory facilities at the Psychological Research Institute connect-
ed with the university. While in Sweden, Schjelderup had begun treatment with Reich; now
he wanted to continue, partly in order to learn his technique. Schjelderup was not especial-
ly interested in Reich’s experimental work; indeed, he later became quite critical of it. It was
the kind of trade-off typical for Reich: people wanted therapy from him and to learn about
his technique; in return he received diverse help from them.
What Reich had in mind was to investigate whether there were differences in elec-
trical activity ofthe skin in states ofpleasure and anxiety,and,in particular, whether there
were differences of the erogenous zones^9 .Once in Oslo, Reich sought the help of an assis-
tant to decide on the appropriate kind ofapparatus to test his hypotheses. The apparatus,
an oscillograph and an amplifier, which they decided to build, cost around 3,000 Norwegian
kroner or about 500 dollars at the time. Reich raised this money through his clinical and
teaching activities.From 1927 to 1933, a large part of Reich’s earnings from private practice
had gone to support his sex-political activities; after 1934, the bulk of his earnings as a ther-
apist—and he earned well, charging around $15 a session in 1934—would be devoted to his
experimental work.
Characteristically, Reich proceeded by combining elements from other people’s
research but at the same time giving them a novel twist. When he reviewed the relatively new
field ofskin electrophysiology, for example, he found techniques had been developed that
might test his hypotheses, but that no one had ever considered using these techniques to
study pleasure. The two available quantitative techniques, both discovered about 1890, were
those still in use today:skin resistance and skin potential measurements^10 .Most work,in
200 Myron SharafFury On Earth