26 Myron SharafFury On Earth
A young assistant greeted me, and said that “Dr. Reich” was waiting for me in his
basement laboratory. So I went downstairs. I dimly recall many laboratory instruments and
devices but was too dazed to note them at the time.
Most striking initially was Reich’s appearance. I had expected an academic, profes-
sorial-looking person, but the only thing about him typically “scientific” was a white labora-
tory coat. Otherwise, there was an earthy, almost peasant look to his face. He was ruddy-
looking a redness I later learned was partly due to a skin condition he had long suffered
from. His dark brown eyes were mobile and sparkling, reflecting interest and amusement,
impatience and friendliness. His smile was unusually open and warm as he reassured me
while I apologized for being late.
This description does not do justice to a certain quality of suffering in his face. It
was nothing obvious. He did not look at all depressed, nor did he put on any airs; on the
contrary, he was remarkably simple and matter-of-fact. But his face looked scarred, as
though he had experienced considerable turmoil, and the shock of white hair combined
with his expression gave the appearance of a man much older than forty-seven. Twenty
years later I would gain some real understanding of the personal tragedies as well as the sci-
entific struggles that had already left their marks on Reich at this point.
He seemed tall to me (in fact,he was 5 feet 10 inches) and there was considerable
physical strength in the oaklike frame, combined with a supple quality. The impression of
largeness was intensified by his weight. Since 1940 he had acquired a distinct potbelly.
Reich asked me how I “got here.” I was muttering something about a taxi when he
interrupted impatiently: “No, no, no ... I mean how did you find out about me?” When I
mentioned that my mother had told me about his books, Reich looked down and his mouth
fell open, the expression resembling that of a disappointed child. He simply said “Oh,” in a
crestfallen way, as though he had expected I had heard about him from a more academic or
professional source.
Next he asked:“Are you healthy?” I remember being surprised by the question,
although he asked it in a matter-of-fact way, as one might say, “How are you?” but with real
interest in the answer,I was familiar enough with his writings to know that he was not refer-
ring to my everyday health, but was talking about my “genital health,” my “orgastic poten-
cy.”Being fairly inexperienced at the time (as well as inhibited), I replied in an embarrassed
way that I didn’t know whether I was healthy or not. He tactfully dropped the subject.
One of my special concerns was the sexual problems of other students at the
University of Chicago. I raised the subject of how “sick” other people were, prepared to go
on at length, but Reich interrupted again: “I know, I know ... I spent much time with youth
in Austria and Germany.Someone should pick up that kind of work again, I am entirely in
natural science now.” Typically, he was not interested in prolonged descriptions of issues
with which he was already familiar or thought he was familiar.
During my stay in Chicago, I had read Korzybski’s Science and Sanity,a book on gen-
eral semantics that was causing quite a stir at the time,though one no longer hears much
about it today. I told Reich I thought there were many similarities between his “theories” and