Record of a Friendship

Forest Hills, New York
February 7, 1944
My dear Neill,
I was glad to have your letter of January 18th.
I am also glad that you finally decided to make the effort to obtain
the metal. Build the accumulator so-to-say around your body, so that
the inner walls are not further than 2-3 inches away from your body.
If you have enough metal, then you can make a single or double extra
layer around the accumulator, 2-4 more side walls and 1-2 more back
and top walls. This increases the concentration of the Orgone within
the accumulator 2-3 times, and decreases, of course, the time you have
to sit in it. You feel it better and the results are obtained more quickly.
In case you do not obtain enough metal for the box, then build a
simple sheet to put under the bedcovers, so that it covers you on both
sides and on top of the body, by simply bending the metal. Then again
you have metal inside and organic material outside. The effect is not
quite as good, but it is near.
Now a few words on the general situation: Please be sure that I
understand your situation as far as the school is concerned thoroughly
well. Not only because I know your work and the world in which it
has to operate, but also because I find myself in a quite similar situa­
tion. As you have troubles with the [character] structure of your teachers,
I am often in complete despair concerning some of my assistants. Very
often I wonder whether it would not be wiser not to teach at all and not
to produce any followers at all, in order to prevent superficiality and
disastrous sloganism. This is the sort of thing that happens: The patent
application for the Orgone Accumulator has been filed now for more
than two years. Lately, the Commissioner of Patents in Virginia told
my patent lawyer that he would not grant the patent "no matter what
proof I would bring forth." "Do you think," he said, "I want to go out
on a limb and to make myself ridiculous."
Well, that's that. People are enthusiastic when they read my book or
the articles in the journal. But I know that they do not understand it
really. The more convinced I become that my basic findings concerning
the human structure and its consequences in the social set-up are right,
the greater becomes my despair, because there is nothing I can do about
it besides sticking to the truth and thus exposing myself to great
dangers. There cannot be any doubt that the average human being,
whoever he may be, fears nothing more, dreads nothing more terribly
than realizing himself and the truth of his deeds and thoughts. He is