for certain mystical notions. As his daughter, she had more leeway from Reich than others,
but sometimes he would be mercilessly hard on her. They engaged in frequent battles, trig-
gered at times by his heavy hand. For example, at one point she strongly resented his for-
bidding her to see her mother. He believed this was a necessary antidote to the years when
she had been pressured by her mother’s circle not to see Reich. She felt that Reich’s step was
dictatorial Later, she very much regretted that she had yielded to his influence, just as she
regretted submitting earlier to the influence against him. In one sense, she never entirely lost
her feeling of being torn apart by these opposing forces^20.
By mid-November, Reich was on his feet and back at work. I saw no sign of any
reduced work schedule once he recovered. Indeed, his heart attack seemed to add to his
urgency about eliminating the Oranur reaction at Orgonon and bringing his affairs in order.
He also mentioned at the time that he thought many heart attacks stemmed from heart-
break.
Throughout the winter of 1951-52, the effects of Oranur persisted. The
Observatory was only usable for brief periods of time and the Students’ Laboratory was
closed. I worked in my apartment in Rangeley. By March of 1952, Peter and Ilse had moved
to a small apartment in Rangeley. Reich stayed sometimes at the Observatory, sometimes at
a motel or with Ilse.For several weeks the three lived together again in Dr. Tropp’s home in
Rangeley when Tropp and his family left for a vacation.
There was a grimness and restlessness about Reich in those days. I recall his com-
ing into my apartment and being annoyed that the windows weren’t open. His comments
were often uncommonly curt; he appeared more easily angered than ever.
Yet, however embroiled Reich was with Oranur and its unsettling effects on his
existence, his work proceeded. Several major publications were prepared in 1951, the con-
tents of which will be discussed shortly. The Orgone Energy Bulletincontinued to appear.
Although Reich had transferred considerable responsibility for the training of physicians to
Baker, he never lost his zealous concern for what was happening to his work, the possible
ruination ofwhich by followers as well as enemies was a constant fear. For instance, in 1951
certain examples of“cocktail orgone therapy” occurred, in which some therapists at social
gatherings made inappropriate interpretations to strangers about, say, their orgastic potency
or their body armor.Reich was furious and said that such behavior betrayed a complete lack
of contact with the spirit of orgonomy.
While Reich was plunging forward into new domains through the Oranur experi-
ment, he was also moving backward to survey the body of his work in its entirety. He con-
ceived of publishing a series of volumes to present the essential documentary material on
all phases ofhis life and work. Reich had a deep and abiding fear of distortion of the his-
torical record, a fear that his work and name would somehow be slandered and defamed, not
just currently but into posterity. Also, he was increasingly impressed by the unity of his work
and he wanted to have its different phases ordered in such a way as to reveal this unity and
to reflect the historical perspective. And, as he commented at the time, he did not quite trust
himself to make the right interpretations because of his emotional involvement in every-
366 Myron SharafFury On Earth