Acknowledgments CONTENTS
So many people helped so much in my research and writing that in retrospect the
enterprise lives for me as a cooperative venture. Its social nature was enhanced by the length
of the undertaking: formal work began eleven years ago but I have been heading toward the
goal of a Reich biography since 1946. Also, as I detail in Chapter2, this project was often
less the focused writing of a book than a painful process of self-discovery, requiring as much
help from others as did the more intellectual components of the task.
I want to thank first those I interviewed about Reich and his work: Elsworth F.
Baker, Kari Berggrav, Grete Bibring, Richard Blasband, David Boadella, Walter Briehl, Edith
Buxbaum, Lilian Bye, K. R. Eissler, Ernst Federn, Margaret Fried, George Gero, Bernard
Grad, Jerome Greenfield, Nathan Cabot Hale, Sidney Handelman, Charles Haydon, Ottilie
Heifetz, Morton Herskowitz, Sigurd Hoel, Grethe Hoff, Rosetta Hurwitz, Edith Jacobson,
Jo Jenks, Lia Laszky, Elsa Lindenberg, Alexander Lowen, Bob McCullough, Gladys Meyer,
Mitzi Mills, A. S. Neill, Use Ollendorff, Ernst Papanek, Ola Raknes, Chester M. Raphael,
Eva Reich, Peter Reich, Tom Ross, Lore Reich Ruben, Fredrick Silber, Victor Sobey, Gisela
Stein,Richard Sterba,Kenneth Tynan, Nic Waal, James A. Willie, and Lois Wyvell.
Some of these interviews were brief. Others required several sessions. The book
itself will make clear, for example, how much the vivid, detailed recollections of Lia Laszky
and Ottilie Heifetz, both now deceased, help me to understand the young Reich more fully.
However, only here can I convey what a personal pleasure it was to get to know their lively
minds and temperaments. Of those I met in the course of the research, Elsa Lindenberg
also holds a special place. Between 1957 and 1978 we met five times, for several hours on
each occasion. Her depth of perception and emotion enriched not only my work but also
my life.
My relationship with some ofthe interviewees antedated the research by many
years. I would like to single out a few of these old friends for special thanks. Use Ollendorff
gave me the benefit ofher warm support and was always available to discuss a troublesome
point about Reich’s personality or work. Also, until I made my own biographical effort I did
not fully appreciate the value ofher concise volume,Wilhelm Reich: A Personal Biography.
Whenever I had a question about the facts, I could rely on her information to be accurate
to the smallest detail. I am grateful for her permission to quote so extensively from her biog-
raphy.
When I began my research, Peter Reich was deeply engaged in setting down his
own recollections ofReich in A Book of Dreams.He generously helped me not only with
information but by sharing the peculiar pleasure and pain of trying to capture in words one’s
evolving vision of an extraordinary father and teacher.
Ofall those who knew and studied with Reich, Eva Reich has perhaps the most
extensive knowledge ofhis work and life. I am forever thankful that over countless hours
she shared that knowledge with an unrestrained givingness. Like Use, she had no need to try
8 Myron SharafFury On Earth