the most profound, objective thought and experimentation and of the most extreme, para-
noid ideas. How do these pieces fit together? In part, there is the aforementioned disposi-
tion toward pattern-making which, as Ernest Hartmann has suggested^31 , is common to
both creativity and paranoia. But one cannot explain everything. In Donald Hall’s words
about the dual Ezra Pound—the great poet and most generous mentor to other poets, and
the dispenser of the crudest anti-Semitic, pro-Fascist propaganda: “I do not fit these pieces
together; they are together in the mystery of a man’s character and life.”^32
During the fall of 1949, Reich seriously considered staying year round at Orgonon.
He was tired of dividing his time between New York and Maine. In late 1949, he made one
of his few references to his age (he was fifty-two at the time): “I have only a few productive
years left and I must safeguard every moment.”^33 He was also eager for the physicians to
participate more in the scientific aspects of orgonomy. And most of them were prepared to
participate, but only up to a point.
Although not ready to make the move that fall, Reich came to the decision in the
spring of 1950. For a period during that winter Reich was very happy. He had returned to
New York, and was delighted to start the Orgonomic Infant Research Center. However, in
the end he decided that the gains of Orgonon outweighed the losses of leaving the city. As
we have seen, for years he had resented the interruptions to his research and writing caused
by seeing patients. Now he was extremely tired of clinical work, of becoming “entangled”
in people’s problems. Reich also recognized that he was no longer such a good clinician in
the sense of being accepting and patient.
Some half dozen co-workers made the move to Orgonon with Reich in 1950: Ilse
Ollendorff; Eva Reich, who by this time had completed her medical training and whose
interest in her father’s work had grown considerably; H. Lee Wylie, a young physician who
also had some background in physics;Lois Wy veil, the managing director of the Orgone
Institute Press; Simeon Tropp, his wife Helen, and his three-year-old son Jimmy; and I. (As
we shall discover,Wolfe had largely withdrawn as an active co-worker, though his advice was
still valued by Reich.)
In late May 1950,after six months ofnot working with Reich, I returned to
Orgonon, now simply to work with Reich with no thought of being in therapy with him.
That summer I remember as golden. There was a glamour surrounding his activities. Reich
was in a very good mood—active, expansive, human. I was franker with him than I had ever
been and he appreciated it. Among other tasks, I was responsible for the editorial prepara-
tion of the Orgone Energy Bulletin, a quarterly Reich had begun publishing in 1949 to replace
the International Journal for Sex-Economy and Orgone-Research.
There were other incidents that suggested some darker currents beneath the appar-
ently smooth surface of Orgonon’ s relationship with the community. Helen Tropp applied
for a teaching position at the local public school (which Peter Reich now attended) and the
principal informed her that no one connected with Orgonon could be employed there. *
332 Myron SharafFury On Earth
*It is an ironic historical footnote that on July 15, 1981, a symposium was held at Orgonon on “Self-regulation