- Neill arranged a visit to America that included a lecture tour and a stay with Reich at
Orgonon. Ilse’s description of Neill’s visit at Orgonon is worth quoting:
Neill and Reich talked deep into the night over a glass of whiskey and
innumerable cigarettes. All their favorite topics were taken up: criticism, recogni-
tion, socialism, communism, sex-economy in pedagogy, and especially the newborn
child, as Neill had recently become a father of a little girl and found this experience,
as did Reich, a marvelous field of study.... Neill saw some of the experimental work
that was going on at Orgonon but he maintained that he did not fully understand
it One incident that Neill remembers very clearly is that one afternoon, during
which we all sat together talking about cars and other mundane matters, Reich told
Neill that such drawingroom conversations about nothing were sheer agony for
him, they took him out of his sphere of thinking and he could not participate. This
was always true for Reich, and was mentioned as a part of his character by many
others to whom I talked. He could not and would not participate in chitchat and
small talk^26.Then Reich planned the First International Orgonomic Conference for late August
1948 to give all the co-workers, American and European, an opportunity to meet with one
another, hear papers, and exchange views for a few days. Undoubtedly, Reich had in mind
some of the International Psychoanalytic Congresses he had attended in the 1920s and early
1930s. Like them, there was to be a social reception to precede the conference. Neill arrived
from England, Raknes from Norway, and Dr. Ferrari Hardoy, a psychiatrist who had earlier
studied with Reich, from Argentina.
Walter Hoppe was also scheduled to attend. Hoppe, a German psychiatrist, had
emigrated in the thirties to Palestine; had made contact with Reich’s writings in the early
- Subsequently, Reich and he corresponded frequently and Hoppe had his first orgone
accumulator built while the war was still on.Hoppe experimented with the medical use of
the accumulator more extensively than any other physician with the exception of Reich.
Reich greatly appreciated his independence, daring, and quick grasp of functional principles.
He looked forward to meeting Hoppe in person.
Inexplicably, Hoppe was detained at Ellis Island upon arrival in New York on
August 28.Reich was furious at this capricious action by the immigration officials. The anger
and hurt from the FDA investigation, the hospital incident, and accusations of insanity that
had overwhelmed him during the past year were now unleashed on behalf of Hoppe. In a
torrent ofactivity he sent telegrams to the State Department, the Justice Department, Ellis
Island, and his lawyer Arthur Garfield Hays. “This too is research,” he commented. “He
cures their cancers and theythrow him in jail.*’ He attributed Hoppe’s detention to bureau-
cratic stupidity rather than any animus against his work from the federal government. The
reasons for Hoppe’s detention never did become clear.
On August 30, Reich succeeded in obtaining Hoppe’s release. Wolfe accompanied
326 Myron SharafFury On Earth