sciousness, of involuntary contractions—sets it apart from the usual analytic concern with
verbalization and cognitive mastery of the emotive and irrational. Indeed, there is irony in
the fact that Reich chooses as his criterion of mental health the individual’s capacity to go
beyond mental phenomena, to have no thought, no consciousness even, but to surrender
completely to the involuntary and to sensations of pleasure.
In this emphasis on the wordless, the ineffable, Reich revealed himself as closer to
the truths of certain philosophers and poets than to his fellow psychoanalysts. Nietzsche
had written: “All the regulations of mankind are tuned to the end that the intense sensation
of life is lost in continual distractions.”^12 Wittgenstein asserted that the most important
matters of life were essentially not discussable; they were beyond words. And Conrad Aiken
has described how most of us reveal only little glimpses of our lives:
... All the while
Withholding what’s most precious to ourselves,—
Some sinister depth of lust or fear or hatred,
The somber note that gives the chord its power;
Or a white loveliness—if such we know—
Too much like fire to speak of without shame^13.Reich’s emphasis on the involuntary and nonverbal in orgastic experience later
earned him the criticism that he was anti-intellectual, a celebrater of the Lawrentian “pulling
of the blood” at the expense of the ego, or of man’s cognitive mode of functioning. The
charge is unwarranted. Reich was in no way opposed to clear, rational thinking.Character
Analysis, for example, represents a very high order of sustained, original, intricate conceptu-
alization. Indeed, Reich argued that nothing interfered with productive thinking more than
“sexual stasis,” since with it often went a nagging preoccupation with sexual fantasies and a
heavy investment ofenergy in quelling the inner turmoil.
Reich’s claims for the importance of orgastic potency left him open to more spe-
cific criticisms than the accusation of romanticism. The charge has been made that Reich’s
evidence for his claims was slim.But as Charles Rycroft has commented: “Whereas the typ-
ical civilized man with his inhibiting character armor only experiences partial releases of ten-
sion which are similar to orgasm, the genital character experiences an ultimate vegetatively
involuntary surrender of which lesser mortals have no inkling.... One is ... left wondering
how Reich knew, from what experiences of his own or his patients he derived this
insight.”^14
Since an important source for Reich’s concept of orgastic experience was in fact his
own life, let us turn again to the relationship between his ideas and his personality in private
life.
It is clear from the vicissitudes of Reich’s relationships with women that his sex life
varied considerably. When he was nineteen years old, Reich for the first time experienced
“orgastic potency”in his relationship with an Italian woman. This was different from his
96 Myron SharafFury On Earth