life. While continuing with the Oranur experiment, he was using the fruits of that research
as well as other findings to appreciate more fully the partial truths in conservative views he
had long opposed: Freud’s death instinct theory; Freud’s emphasis on the difficulties in inte-
grating self-awareness and self-control with full emotional experiencing of the self; the reli-
gious emphasis on the tenacity of man’s evil; the political conservative’s stress on the dan-
gers of too rapid social change; and the rationality in avoidance of orgonomy.
At the same time, Reich never lost sight of the radical aspects of his own work. He
did not mechanically add old insights, but rather reinterpreted them. The new connections
found their orderly passages within his scientific music. In the sharpness and originality with
which he formulated questions about man’s present illness and potential health, in the passion
and courage with which he sought answers to these questions, in the combination of his atten-
tion to detail and his power of comprehensive generalization, his final work stands unsur-
passed. Reich’s ultimate legacies to those who followed were the most careful guideposts not
only to the potentials but also to the perils of the orgonomic journey. It was an awesome
achievement, especially from a man so severely beset from without and from within.
Oranur certainly marked a new beginning, and with it a burst of destructive rage in
Reich’s personal life. For Reich, new beginnings usually entailed new co-workers and often
a new geographical location. Surrounded by disapproving Viennese colleagues in the late
1920s, he moved to Berlin, where he found more receptive associates. His relationship with
Elsa Lindenberg speeded the end of his increasingly unhappy marriage to Annie. When the
situation became strained in Berlin, Hitler’s advent to power in 1933 forced his departure for
Scandinavia, where again he could match his developing interests in muscular armor and in
the bions with a supportive, if not always fully comprehending, network of colleagues. His
work continued to advance in Oslo; when the attacks developed against him and his rela-
tionship with Elsa had deteriorated, he could emigrate to the United States to begin a new
social and scientific existence.And when life in New York with its responsibilities for ther-
apy and training distracted him from natural-scientific research, he could move to Orgonon,
which permitted an almost exclusive devotion to basic investigations.
But when upheavals started at Orgonon, there was nowhere to turn. He often said
to me and to others,“You can go back”—meaning we could pursue other ways of life—“I
have burned my bridges.” There was no going back for him. More, the very few people at
Orgonon provided little opportunity for human warmth and companionship when his rela-
tionship with Ilse deteriorated so markedly. Where he did reach out, as with Lois Wyvell, the
smalltown gossip in Rangeley added to his sense of strain and bondage.
During these years his relationship with Ilse continued,though with greater emo-
tional distance between them. In the fall of 1952, Ilse and Peter moved into a small house
in Rangeley, while Reich tried to live at Orgonon when the atmosphere permitted him to do
so.But a final separation was not easy. The ties between them were strong, they had a child
in common to whom Reich was devoted, they had work in common. Again rather typically,
Reich made the focal issue Ilse’s difficulty in following Oranur developments, especially the
374 Myron SharafFury On Earth