Selected Writings: An Introduction to Orgonomy Paperback – January 1, 1963

I first saw this film some 30 years ago. It has been criticised as a sensationalised, inaccurate and excessively eroticised account of Reich's teachings, but it has qualities that make it is worth viewing. Some of the ideas in it were incorporated into psychotherapy, especially of the kind practiced with energy and enjoyment in California by Fritz Perls, including the idea that a person needs to be viewed as a body, not merely a brain.It provides a laugh at Soviet ideas then current, and it might have been this (as much as its erotic aspects) that led to it being banned in the country where it was made (Czechoslovakia, I think - a country where repression of thought was even greater than in Soviet Russia.).It's an odd film, but tends to stay in one's mind - I purchased some of Reich's books after seeing it. It is also interesting in showing the attitudes of people who lived near Reich's centre, a mixture of amusement, perplexity, and occasional hostility. It also describes how, because Reich constructed and sold a peculiar but harmless device said to channel energy into the human body (the "orgone accumulator") he was imprisoned and his books were burned by the Federal authorities. He died in jail.Reich was of interest to many people during his life, including Albert Einstein. Wikipedia give a good account.

An excellent primer on many of Reich's writings, some of which are still controversial 60 years later, others of which have been widely accepted into psychiatric canon. For background on what it was like to live under his influence as a child growing up in Greenwich Village in the 1950's, see "The All Souls' Waiting Room." For an overall picture of Reich's influence on the sexual revolution in America, see Christopher Turner's "Adventures in the Orgasmatron," recently reviewed in The New Yorker magazine.We still need major objective research into some facets of Reich's work. The whole premise that Einstein dismissed his work on orgone energy and the orgone accumulator has now been called into question by new facts about the way the experiments were conducted, not by Einstein, but by his assistant. I think WR may just have been 100 years ahead of his time, delving into quantum physics before it even had a name (and to which Einstein was opposed).

So im not finished the book but from what i have read WR has really got his finger on something here. While i may disagree on certain things in the book, majority of it resonates. I love that he is not afraid to say "orgasm" and that he does not look at it in a degrading way. I also am happy that he was smart enough to have what works he did have left protected. I would like to research more and read about this man. this book is a great start and i reccommend it to anyone that likes to take a walk off the beaten path. Be open minded to his theories and try to see that he was WAY before his time.

Wilhelm Reich has a very powerful writing voice, it is forward and sharp. Getting to the point in a blunt fashion. It is a didactic read, and many of his ideas were ahead of his time. While some of his ideologies are outdated, he was a student of Freud, so it is remarkable that he has come to such modern thinking in the times when " Floating Ovaries Syndrome" was thought to be a disorder. If you don't get the jest read some Freud, then read Reich. To the people who are making Piezoelectric Generators and calling them orgonite, read this book, and stop embarrassing Wilhelm Reich.

Reich is a brilliant although eccentric thinker. This overview hits the highlights. You do not need to buy orgone theory to appreciate his insights into human nature. From emotional armour to the emotional plague, well written and captivating writing for those who wish to understand both their own pain and that which confronts our species.

I suggest that you do not need to read this work unless you are a true believer in Reich. Better to talk to/ work with/ take a class from someone who has assimilated Reich's central tenets (character analysis, the environment/self co-creation, somatic manifestations of disrupted internal processes) than to spend time reading writings of someone who was isolated and persecuted in his mind and in reality and who seemingly had lost touch with reality. I appreciate what Reich contributed to the understanding of humanity but I feel I could have gotten a good sense of that reading a summary of his useful tenets and rather than reading the original works.

This is an excellent overview of Dr. Reich's work. There is still, after 50 years, no better way to learn about it.

good take off on wilhelm reich's work, by way of lowen. incorporates body work with psychotherapy; plus adds work with aura and chakra's

Product arrived within schedule well packaged, undamaged and as described. An interesting read and a well written perspective.

Wilhelm Reich did a big research in so much fields, that is almost impossible to think a book where there is written everything.but this book exist, it is this one.I still have to finish reading, but I can assure you, if you want a panoramic of all that Reich did, this seems what you need.Only experiences with UFOs seems missing...