Epilogue
When Reich died, the future of his work was in peril. His books were banned, the
accumulator outlawed. Most of his students felt disheartened and were leaderless. Few had
the training or the motivation to continue his scientific momentum.
This bleak state of affairs was not reflected in Reich’s will. Looking into the future,
he had envisioned royalties from his books and inventions, royalties sufficient to pay for the
expense of maintaining Orgonon. All of Orgonon, but particularly the Observatory, should
constitute the Wilhelm Reich Museum, which would preserve for visitors “some of the
atmosphere in which the Discovery of Life Energy has taken place over the decades.”^1
Moreover, Reich envisioned that maintaining Orgonon would only require a small
part of the royalty income. The bulk, he directed, should go to the Wilhelm Reich Infant
Trust Fund,to be established for “the care of infants everywhere” but not specifically for
research on infants and children. Reich added that part of the income could also be used for
basic orgonomic investigations. It is interesting that Reich gave such priority to the care of
infants. Undoubtedly, this decision reflected his love of children. Yet his relegating basic
orgonomic research to a secondary place reflects, in my view, his distrust of the capacity of
his students to carry on such research and his difficulty envisioning such an enterprise with-
out him.
When Eva Reich assumed the trusteeship in late 1957, there were no royalties for
anything. Moreover, she was depressed about her father’s death and uncertain about her own
legitimacy as executrix. In prison Reich had expressed some distrust of her and seemed
inclined to want Aurora Karrer to be the trustee. Although Eva made some efforts to
involve Karrer in the trusteeship, the latter proved unable or unwilling to fulfill this func-
tion. Eva continued to want someone else to assume the role. In 1959 she heard from Dr.
Raphael about a former patient of his, Mary Higgins, who had never met Reich but who was
intensely interested in his work and, it turned out, in the trusteeship. After speaking with
Higgins,Eva offered her the role. She accepted and since 1959 has fulfilled the responsibil-
ities involved^2.
A woman ofindependent means, Higgins was able to devote herself fully to the
trusteeship and to make a loan to the trust fund to start bringing Orgonon, which had dete-
riorated after Reich’s death, into better shape. In 1960, she arranged for publication of
Reich’s books by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, the small but distinguished New York pub-
lisher. As of this date (1982) some sixteen works have appeared, covering almost the full
scope ofhis investigations. They enjoy the kind of steady sale Reich always wished for his
publications.