30 Myron SharafFury On Earth
I read into a kind of Reichian world view. I felt that through Reich I understood fully what
Nietzsche meant when he wrote: “All the regulations of mankind are turned to the end that
the intense sensation of life may be lost in continual distractions.”
Since 1942, Reich had been publishing his quarterly,The International Journal of Sex-
Economy and Orgone-Research. Then, in 1945,The Sexual Revolutionand Character Analysisboth
appeared in English. I waited breathlessly for these publications, and my reading of Reich
was now more systemic and intense. Above all, working hard and living simply in the Army,
I felt that I was practicing what Reich wrote about and was less caught up with my mother’s
fantasies. Still, I experienced great gratitude toward her for putting me in touch with this
“new world.”
The war ended in August 1945, but I was not discharged for another year. On a fur-
lough I saw Reich a second time. My plan was to move to New York as soon as I was dis-
charged, work for him, and go to school at night. He advised me to get my college degree
first. I said there was so little time, thinking of the social revolution I believed to be immi-
nent. I would help to bring about radical change, a kind of Lenin to his Marx. (Later, when
I related this to him, he asked ironically: “And who will be Stalin?”) So I was surprised when
he leisurely waved his arm; he did not seem to share my urgency. Around this time I applied
to Harvard and was accepted.
During the same furlough I began to make contact with others who were interest-
ed in “the work.” I met a woman I shall call Jane Gordon, Reich’s assistant and the young
person I had seen during my initial visit. At that time I was keenly interested in having a rela-
tionship with a girl who was in “the work.” Unfortunately, Jane was married, but she invit-
ed me to come and meet her husband, Sam (as I will call him).
When I visited them at their apartment, they were both cordial and we chatted as
they waxed their skis. I remember their offering me a drink. I didn’t accept—drinking was
neurotic, I thought—but they told me that the Southern Comfort had been a Christmas
present from Reich. I was surprised that Reich did such mundane things as give presents of
whiskey for Christmas.
Jane offered me a cigarette. I explained that I thought “smoking dulled one’s sens-
es.” She said spiritedly that “Dr. Reich” smoked a great deal and she didn’t know of anyone
with keener senses than he.I mulled that over. Sam talked about how he and Jane had lived
together before getting married, something, he said, that Reich approved of. According to
Reich, if the relationship went well, sometimes people liked to have the marriage license to
look at on the wall.Here Sam imitated Reich imitating the person who felt proud of his mar-
riage license on the wall.
During the summer of1946,just before being discharged, I spent another furlough
week in Rangeley, Maine. The Gordons, with whom I had by now become friendly, were
running a camp for children of parents interested in Reich’s work. Reich became angry at
Sam,thinking he was exploiting the connection through Jane in order to make money. Jane
was very upset.I remember discussions with them in which I talked enthusiastically about
Reich’s work. Jane would say: “The work is one thing, the man another.”