The Øther 2009-2010

 

Symbolic Paralysis: Revisiting Reich’s Theory of the Orgone

By Arshavez Mozafari, York University

Abstract: In this article, Wilhelm Reich’s theory of the orgone (abstract cosmic energy) is revisited for the purpose of proposing the importance of its very untenability. Although Reich’s pre-orgonomic findings have been used to supplement critical theory, it is argued here that the theory of the orgone was not a result of a dialectical appropriation of psychoanalysis and Marxism, but a reflection of proletarian (im)possibility. In this way, orgonomy can be said to be of more import than Reich’s pre-orgonomic findings. Through several Lacanian (through Žižekian optics) thought experiments, an attempt is made to extricate Reich from his Symbolic paralysis; his experience of being undead.

We need to minimize the importance accorded to certain moments in history. The resurrection of Wilhelm Reich has been attempted on numerous occasions. It would be beyond the scope of this project to claim the failure of such attempts. However, one thing is rather patent: Why unearth when all one needs to do is make a couple slight adjustments to the life-support apparatus? The innovative former psychoanalyst and Communist Party member continues to float through history’s continuum in a state of Symbolic paralysis. The purpose of this paper will be to introduce a possible method of extracting Reich from his vegetative conundrum. The main assertion diverts from the important traditional (yet politically benign) discourses surrounding the man. The neo-Reichian attempt at verifying the theory of the orgone (“universal primordial energy working behind all manifest biological energy and penetrating all existing matter” (Pietikainen, 2002, p. 160)) serves as a hindrance due to its very persistence (Young, 2008, p. 10). More blame can be heaped upon psychotherapists who fail to “give Reich much credit” for Reichian based extrapolations (Young, 2008, p. 13). Even body-psychotherapists who owe much to Reich’s theoretical insistence upon the importance of somatic processes (Young, 2008, p. 9) restrict any possibility of remuneration. All of this is because of the politically benign concentration on orgonomic content. It is the representative function of orgonomic biophysics and its essential untenability which is of crucial import. The rest of this paper will attempt to substantiate this diversion and hence offer the possibility of an additional Reichian supplement to critical theory.

Breakdown
The paper has been split into various parts. It will be important to briefly delineate each section before we begin. With the first section, we commence with a Žižekian inspired thought experiment. To start, it will be suggested that Reich’s permanence within the Symbolic Order is a result of the paradoxical attempt made by the Other to reduce Reich to non-existence. It will then be posited that the pseudo-science of orgonomy was the direct effect of Reich’s immersion within the Austrian proletarian movement of the interwar years. The latter, representing a fissure within the prevailing capitalist edifice, exposed momentarily the contents of the Real. A direct result of this connection between orgonomy and the proletariat is the notion that Reich unconsciously lost his dialectical bearings, placing orgonomic functionalism at odds with both Marxism and psychoanalysis. This is not readily apparent on a superficial level but identifiable through a symptomatic reading. Reich’s later thought made a deep-rooted yet superficially benign glissade away from his earlier quasi-adherence to the dialectical method in positing orgonomy’s autonomous superiority. This will be further substantiated throughout the piece. With the total loss of the dialectical character of Reich’s work, most especially during his orgonomic or mature years, there appears (in more coalesced form) an internal contradiction. This is elucidated through the forcible withdrawal of the very content of orgonomy back into the person of Reich. The importance of the representative function of orgonomy is posited while implicitly (through the disintegration of orgonomy’s claim to dialectical progeny) augmenting the principal contradiction of the Marxian conception of class struggle.

Next, an attempt is made to deal with Reich’s innovative character-analysis. After a basic draw-up of the character, we address the purpose behind characterological analysis, mainly the attempt to dissolve neuroses. Next, a hypothetical criticism made by a psychoanalyst will be examined. This concerns the supposed untenability of the displacement of ontogenetic treatment onto mass coordinates. Reich’s response is outlined, concentrating on the issue of intensifying existing contradictions. This is done through the augmentation of existing contradictions and the unraveling of those that are hidden. In the discussion of the difference between a neurotic character trait and symptom, an attempt is made to conduct character analysis on Reich’s methodology. By abstracting his superficial adherence to dialectical thinking, it is essentially denaturalized and effectively expunged. Through this process, the contradiction between Reich’s conscious adherence to dialectics and his unconscious atomism are brought into full view. As already stated, the primacy of Reich’s pre-orgonomic partial fidelity for the traditional conception of class struggle is once again augmented through solidification.

The following section deals with the important formulation that consciousness transforms at a slower pace than the forces of production. By drawing upon this point, it will be argued that Reich projected onto the masses his own inability to coagulate the contents of the Real in any substantive manner. Although it would be customary to discard his theory at this point, it is argued that it is orgonomy’s unequivocally fallacious status that serves our purposes. While Reich was certainly an intelligent individual who offered groundbreaking insights concerning the development of psychoanalysis and more somatically inclined disciplines, it is his utter confusion in the midst of the proletarian movement that marks the latter’s herculean and formidable disposition. In order for the destabilizing potential of the proletariat to be fully understood and utilized, orgonomy must be embraced for its very speciousness. Once placed adjacent to Marx’s socio¬economic theory, we are not left with an irreconcilable dichotomy. On the contrary, what is left is a mutually sufficient duality. While Reich was unable to fully categorize what he experienced during the proletarian riots, Marx was for the most part able to do so. While the latter’s theories may appear as a dead dogma for some, we will allow orgonomy to represent the awesome puissance of what Marx was for the most part able to symbolize. This will express the vitality of Marx. The paper is concluded along these lines.

The second last section is an extension and culmination of the ambitious assertions made in the first section. Inspired by a Žižekian reading, we will attempt to further substantiate the perspective introduced by alluding to some of Reich’s autobiographical accounts and more general aspects of his life. We first deal with a paradigmatic moment during Reich’s participation in the proletarian movement. After a catastrophic setback dealt to the rioting unemployed, Reich visited a friend’s residence. It was here where Reich’s Symbolic degeneration became conspicuous, along with orgonomy’s unequivocal attachment to the proletarian experience. By clashing with the later admission of Symbolic permanence, Reich realized a highly static disposition. Along with the resultant paralysis, this is emblematic of how one can never be fully exposed to the Real because of the eventuality of subjective liquidation. There is always a fragment of you still anchored within the signifying chain. Next, we conduct a recapitulation and further substantiation of the final point made in the last section. We observe how orgonomy’s representative function is equatable to Marx’s theories in terms of their relatedness to proletarian (im)possibility. Whereas Marx was for the most part successful in his scribal role, Reich came up short in a significant way. The differentiation that is engendered will serve an important role in our concluding remarks. To put it succinctly, the science of orgonomy was meant to be fallacious. It is this specious character which confers it a semblance of contemporary relevance. When we speak of orgonomy today, it should be its representative function that is augmented. In order to posit this, its content needs to be forcibly withdrawn back into the person of Reich, thus clarifying Reich’s theoretical atomism. This engenders a paradoxical union between orgonomy and Marxism. There is a reassertion of the primacy of an unfeigned and consistent dialecticism after Reich’s unconscious regression into atomistic thinking is exposed and liquidated.

As mentioned, a main basis behind Reich’s indeterminate paralysis stretches back to the beginning of the paper. Through both the commencement of Reich’s Symbolic degeneration taking place in his friend’s residence and the Other’s feigned ignorance of the former’s death, which ironically elides his once predestined Symbolic death, a stalemate is construed. Extrication from this vegetative state involves a vindication through a reappraisal of orgonomy’s positive representative function. Customary appropriation of Reich’s pre-orgonomic findings only involves partial vindication. This is evident in Eugene Victor Wolfenstein’s (1993) critique of Reich. Away from this, we briefly return to the residence scenario and comment on the spontaneous and incalculable ubiquity of the Real and the notion of a final embrace, i.e. one’s total assimilation into the Symbolic Order. It is suggested that Reich partially evades this customary eventuality. The Other’s full acceptance of Reich, via a full scale campaign of remuneration, marks his foreclosed and unassailable inclusion into the Order. This would result in the exhaustion of his revolutionary prowess.

It would be banal to simply issue a counterweight to Reich through Wolfenstein. Although the latter’s critique of Reich proved helpful in his own appraisal of Psychoanalytic-Marxism, it only beacons a partial vindication. This is because orgonomy is termed unanalyzable due to its distanced proximity from the parameters of scientific analysis. This is true of its pseudo-scientific content. However, as mentioned and what will be followed up on, it is the representative function of orgonomy which adheres to the sensibilities of Marxism. As we conclude, we take orgonomy and place Marxism adjacent to it. What we discover are two bodies of work that attempt to symbolize the (im)possible. While orgonomy failed, it nevertheless revealed the explosive potential of the proletarian experience. Marx, in contrast, was for the most part capable of transcribing the underpinning reverberations of the prevailing order. Marx’s scientific elaboration of this (im)possibility can work in direct conjunction with orgonomy. The latter’s vindication is to come through the recognition of what it represents.

Reich has one life left
When Wilhelm Reich was being hauled away for incarceration, his overall composure and conduct during the final court proceeding signaled a certain possibility. This was further augmented with his death. The possibility of a plethoric output of hagiographical works, not only from his close circle of orgonomically inclined disciples but also by the psychoanalytic community, was surely to be realized, expressing remuneration for all the years Reich had dedicated to the development of depth psychology. The American state occluded this possibility by destroying a large bulk of his publications, thus attempting to expunge Reich’s very positioning within the historical scheme. The psychoanalytic community had similarly conducted a campaign of erasure by supposedly disowning the man’s very existence. This was done quite eloquently by avoiding the inscription of his death. The total refusal by the psychoanalytic community, through its scholarly organs, to express remorse over Reich’s exclusion from their ranks, was symbolized by their refusal to issue a single obituary. To take a modest Žižekian detour for a moment, it is as if the Other’s (in the form of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), an integral facet of the Symbolic Order) misrecognition of Reich’s corporeal demise necessitated his very Symbolic permanence. In other words, Reich continues to live through the Other’s very attempt at destroying him. Reich’s son mentions a joke that was circulating around the time his father was expelled from the IPA: “Some analysts … said that Reich came to Lucerne and put up a tent right in front of the [organization’s] Congress” (2003, p. 113). Although his son would reject this, suggesting that Reich was camping elsewhere, it is emblematic of the elder Reich’s recalcitrant positioning within the Order. Later on in the paper we encounter an antithetical movement which seeks to nullify this trajectory. What is produced is an indefinite paralysis.

Orgonomic biophysics was Reich’s unfortunate yet predictable detour from the normative structure of orthodox psychoanalysis. His pseudo-scientific conclusions regarding atmospheric sexual energy were a misguided outgrowth of his flirtation with the Real, that pre-/post-Symbolic realm which evades symbolization. This flirtation took place predominantly during his participation in key interwar riots conducted by unemployed Viennese workers. The maneuverings of the rebellious workers allowed them to unknowingly reposition themselves closer to the remainder of what had yet to be symbolized. It was through the proletariat which allowed Reich to experience an irruption of the Real. Orgonomic functionalism would have never blossomed if it were not for this experience.

Due to the spontaneous character of the riots, the very ineffectiveness of leftist propaganda on the Viennese masses reflected the institutionalized left’s unyielding assimilation into the circuitry of what it was supposedly meant to expunge. Contra to this, and as his biographical writings evince, it was Reich’s participation in the Austrian proletarian movement of the interwar years that necessitated a divergence in theoretical trajectory from conformity to Freudian and Marxian precepts to the development of orgonomic theory. It was the presumed profundity of this experience which led him to this diversion. Although this presumption is readily apparent, Reich unconsciously dismissed the fact that both Freud and Marx dabbled with the Real. The atomistic quality of orgonomy is recognition of this dismissal. It does not matter how many times Reich enunciated the congruence between orgonomy and Marxism, for it does not justify the anti-dialectical character of the former. What can be deduced from this is that orgonomy’s claim to dialectical coalescence is fallacious. Reich’s inability to coagulate the contents of the Real and his disavowal of the psychoanalytic and Marxist ability to (for the most part) do so produced the atomistic conception of orgonomy. A superficial reading of Reich would generate an immediate rebuke over such a claim. Because of this, the exposure of Reich’s unconscious defense of theoretical atomism, as seen in his theory of the orgone, should be developed.

In an attempt to legitimize the supposed profundity of orgone’s discovery, Reich, by maintaining his pseudo-dialectical bearings, suggested that orgonomic functionalism was simply an extension of both psychoanalysis and Marxism. However, after a symptomatic reading of some of his writings and evaluating key aspects of his life, it becomes increasingly clear that orgonomy was meant to sever Reich from his pre¬orgonomic life. In his interesting study regarding the utopian character of Reich’s later thought, Petteri Pietikainen likewise asserts that a rather intense tectonic shift occurred during his life, pushing him away from his Freudo-Marxist identity (2002, p. 158). His exposure to the concrete manifestation of the proletarian movement, which was supposed to strengthen his conviction of both Marxism and psychoanalysis, actually pushed him away. In order to maintain his methodological coherency, Reich utilized dialectical logic in the same way he denied his utopian inclinations (Pietikainen, 2002, p. 169). Dominant structural discourses at the time necessitated this strategy. This is evidenced in Reich’s compulsive self-restraint, especially when faced with overbearing organizational bureaucracies. Unconsciously, however, Reich believed that orgonomy evaded dialectical logic. In the beginning of People in Trouble, Reich quotes Engels as the latter rehashes the process of aufhebung in a partial manner:

And so in the course of development all former reality becomes unreal, loses its necessity, its right to existence, its reasonableness. In place of the dying reality emerges a new, viable reality—peacefully, when the old is reasonable enough to die without struggle, violently, if it blocks the path of this necessity. (Reich, 1976, p. 1)

What is peculiar about this quote is that the process of sublation is emptied of the content of the negated reality. It matters not whether Engels delineated the sublatory process in more complete form somewhere else, or that he completed his thoughts only a couple sentences later. What is crucial to understand is that Reich chose this quote in its particularity as a prefatory mantle piece. It is not made clear, in accordance with dialectic logic, that the negated content is raised to a stage of symbiotic alliance with the triumphant antithetical force. This can be reflected back on Reich’s unconscious decision to totally dislocate his theory of the orgone from preceding processes, most notably Marxism and psychoanalysis.

As a direct corollary of the quote by Engels, Reich quite conspicuously states “that the discovery of the primordial cosmic energy has rendered ineffective and outdated all petty political quibbling and all thinking in terms of class or of the unconscious” (Reich, 1976, p. 4). In addition, Pietikainen draws a revealing parallel between naturphilosophische, a system of thought based on German Romanticism with the main premise that there is a “functional unity of organisms”, and Reich’s utopianism. The primacy of contradictory relations is superseded by a certain homogeneity. The fact that he adhered to this metaphysical hypothesis from “as early as 1922” (Pietikainen, 2002, p. 162) (which came into full fruition during the unemployment riots) points to an underlying theoretical framework beyond dialectics.

One rather obvious point that can be made is that the attempt at conflating both psychoanalysis and Marxism has in recent years made long strides towards a comprehensive sublation. Wolfenstein’s work on the matter attests to this fact. This in itself reflects Reich’s atomism. Beyond this, Wolfenstein does a good job of pointing out Reich’s “not-very-dialectical dialectics of nature” (1993, p. 56). For instance, the expulsion of the Freudian death-drive, no matter how problematical, marks Reich’s tendency towards quelling congenital contradictions. In this paper, we will compensate for this disavowal by purging the very the content of orgonomy and thrusting it back into the person of Reich. Through this exercise, a particularly Reichian internal contradiction is elucidated. In addition to Wolfenstein’s intervention, Reich’s megalomaniacal character, as properly diagnosed by the psychiatrist who examined him in prison, points to a psychological origin of this atomism. There were also noticeable narcissistic tendencies that his son points out (Rubin, 2003, p. 115). For instance, in reference to the acrimonious relations between the elder Reich and Anna Freud, it is said that the former equaled Freud’s self-absorbed behaviour: “my father was not a team player … He also had to be number one.” His odd fascination for the United States now becomes manifest. How poetic for the United States, as the apotheosis of the privatized and atomistic lifestyle, to be the final home of orgonomy.

As is widely known, Reich sought to fill in the Marxist blind spot regarding psychology. This was conducted in a manner that allowed for the autonomy of both categories to be maintained. In accordance with a language laden with dialectical references, Reich frames the relationship between the two in familial terms:

Psychoanalysis is the mother, sociology the father, of sex-economy. But a child is more than the sum total of his parents. He is a new, independent living creature; he is the seed of the future. (Reich, 1970, p. xxiii)

This ironically coincides with Reich’s vilification of the authoritarian family structure. By framing it in these terms, the unconscious appraisal of the formula is revealed. Just like the child on the verge of sexual emancipation but still within the patriarchial family structure, orgonomy seeks to expel itself from the theoretical entanglement with Marxism and psychoanalysis, thus asserting an atomistic existence.

As is emblematic of his later thought, Reich even goes so far as to assert that Marx himself left open the possibility of allowing others to produce superior theories. In a way, Marx is presented as a theorist who, like researchers in the natural sciences, welcomes his eventual supersession. The antithetical paradigm that is meant to advance this supersession is Reich’s orgonomic functionalism: “In his philosophical writings, Marx stressed repeatedly that man with his biological organization is the final ‘precondition of all history’” (Reich, 1976, p. 70). In this way, the surface-based adherence to dialectical logic conceals Reich’s guilt for having slowly moved away from this methodology and because of his attempt at remaining consistent. To recapitulate, and as argued earlier, the slow shift away from his highly inconsistent adherence to the dialectical method is noted as being a direct byproduct of his proximity to the Real during the proletarian riots. As a result of this experience and the resultant turn towards atomism, it will now be asserted that Reich never fully understood what he experienced.

Character-analysis
Because of his training in psychoanalysis, Reich reserved substantial room for the analysis of character traits which at the time was quite novel. This considering the amount of attention traditional symptomatic neurosis was being given, especially by hardline adherents of orthodox Freudianism. Put succinctly for the sake of brevity, character traits encompass mannerisms or general behavioural tendencies, including modes of speech, body language, and other elements that have been well entrenched or internalized as naturalized aspects of the personality. It is this naturalistic quality that compels certain character types to be well conducive to capitalist imperatives. This is veritably apparent in those who appear the most docile and willing to cooperate with analytic rules. Reich concludes that these individuals who appear cooperative turn out to be the most intransigent later on in treatment (1990, p 21). The character is usually molded by social conditions and the family dynamic. The purpose of character-analysis is to dissolve the state of “dependency” individuals harbour towards superior figures. This is done through consistent “strengthening of the ego” (Reich, 1970, p. 181).

Because Reich attended to psychological issues on a mass-scale, he was prepared for reproaches from parties that viewed the transplantation of an ontogenetic discipline such as psychoanalysis onto entire populations as unequivocally untenable. In response to a hypothetical critique by a factitious psychoanalyst, Reich responded with a unique way of properly transplanting the psychoanalytic matrix onto mass dimensions. The key to this was the avoidance of the analytic fixation on a specific ontogenetic cure. In other words, it was not necessary to actually cure collective neurosis, which the psychoanalytic critique correctly posited as being a long term and uncertain endeavor. Reich also conceded that it would be counterintuitive, especially with concern to his own theory regarding the degree of mass characterological stagnation, to assume that the process of exorcising neurotic structures would be a simple activity. Because a prescribed cure would be homologous to the neutralized and innocuous slogans of the multifarious European social democratic and communist parties, Reich suggested that the constitutive social contradictions and their antagonisms should be intensified to the point of structural destabilization. Even before this eventuality, making blatant such contradictions would serve as a precursor to prophylaxis. As Reich put forth:

Consistent sex-economic work gives a tongue to silent suffering and creates new contradictions while intensifying the contradictions that exist already. It puts man in a position where he is no longer able to tolerate his situation. At the same time, however, it provides a means of liberation, namely the possibility of a fight against the social causes of suffering. (1970, p 188)

It should be clearly noted that, for Reich, neurotic character traits differ from neurotic symptoms. This differentiation is significant and reflects the impact Marxian logic has had on Reich’s psychoanalytic formulations. Based on the difference between the symptom’s particularistic basis and the character trait’s structural holism, there is also a unity between the two and this is akin to the relationship between the commodity and the prevailing mode of production. The same way Marx started out with the basic unit of capital in the commodity form and ascribed it the character of capitalism’s microcosmic representation, the symptom is viewed in a similar way vis-à-vis the character structure. Additionally, As Marx ascends from the particular to the general and back again to the study of the particular, Reich performs a similar maneuver. Through character-analysis, he advised future adherents of this method to direct analysand’s towards a position where they would treat their character traits as symptoms. This dissolves the nominally impenetrable quality of the character resistance through the falsification of the lifelong process of rationalization. What has been rationalized, according to Reich, is the notion that one’s character is a congenital attribute of one’s being. Commensurable with this is the rationalization of the capitalist mode of production as being a natural development and the elision of its historical specificity. Once attempts at rationalization have been disabled, the neurotic character trait becomes abstracted and destabilized (Reich, 1990, p. 46). In a way, the system had always been unstable, as Žižek would say. When subsequently viewed as something alien and intrusive, it is at this point when the character trait has transfigured into a symptom; a symptom of the capitalist mode of production:

… in character analysis, we have to isolate the character trait and put it before the patient again and again until he has succeeded in breaking clear of it and in viewing it as he would a vexatious compulsive symptom. In breaking clear of and objectifying the neurotic character trait, the patient begins to experience it as something alien to himself, and ultimately gains an insight into its nature. (Reich, 1990, p. 54)

Before proceeding, we will reconfigure character-analysis by pointing it at Reich himself. By doing so, what will be performed is a requisite process of realignment. This realignment, which has a cohering affect with Marxism as a direct result, is an indispensable step towards Reich’s exoneration. What this endpoint amounts to is the conclusive result of the orgone having gone through a process of exposure. It is not an attempt at contorting with its representative function, on the contrary. It is meant to widen its exposure in order to open the possibility of a momentary conjuncture with Marxism, the very system of thought orgonomy sought to disengage itself from. In what will follow, the content of orgonomic biophysics will be expelled and forced back into the person of Reich. Through this, the possible parallelism between orgonomy and Marxism will be further broached upon.

To begin Reich’s realignment, his outer shell, in the form of a nominal adherence to dialectical logic, should be falsified. This has earlier been attempted. If successful, Reich’s unconscious espousal for theoretical atomism becomes clear. It is my contention that this has been done. What is revealed to us is the pseudo-scientific content of orgonomy and its potent outer shell: its representative function. Abstracted from its unconscious depths, the tendency towards atomism will be thrust back into the person of Reich. As an instantaneous corollary, an internal contradiction that is particular to Reich himself is spontaneously clarified. This is to compensate for his disavowal of the problematical yet dialectically assertive conception of the Freudian death drive. Once orgonomy is emptied of its content, the titular claim to the dialectical appropriation of Marxism and psychoanalysis is forcibly abandoned. Through this, the traditional primacy of class contradiction emerges above the quickly liquidating blanket of titular dialectics. This is not a total disavowal of Reichian thought. On the contrary, what we are attempting to do is trumpet the most integral aspect of orgonomy (i.e. its representative function) and utilize an important aspect of Reich’s earlier thought. The latter is in reference to Reich’s response to the hypothetical critique offered by the fictional psychoanalyst. To help recall, instead of a panacea, Reich proposes both an unraveling of concealed contradictions and the augmentation of those that are in existence. This is precisely what we have done. In other words, we have conducted a transfusion of dialectical thought.

Consciousness and the forces of production
Collective orgastic impotence, according to Reich, transcends class-based demarcations. It is said to be based on the stultification of natural libidinal strivings rooted in the deepest geological layer of the human psyche. This impotence has had a catastrophic impact on the psychological constitution of humans. Characterological cretinism (to use Marx’s oft-cited word) goes beyond the advent of the capitalist mode of production, stretching back thousands of years, meeting the historical node where the initial class-based fissures erupted. A direct corollary of this description is that ideological constructions are preserved longer than the snake’s skin of the forces of production. The interdiction of smooth superstructural polymorphism is due to the inhibition of natural sexual gratification and the resultant crippling effect it has on the human constitution.

What all this meant for Reich can be expressed in a twofold manner. On the one hand and as already mentioned, superstructural polymorphism takes on a slower pace than the evolution of the forces of production. In addition to this, ideological constructions are said to become ossified into material forces (Reich, 1970, p. 17). This is a major reason why Reich was so keen on tackling the characterological structure of the masses. The socialization of the means of production and self-regulation of one’s libidinal economy were equally causational and reinforcing.

Although insightful, something can be said of Reich himself. It could be the case that due to Reich’s inability to inscribe the proletarian experience into the chain of signifiers, he projected his own phenomenological retardation upon the masses as a whole. The creation of orgonomic lexicon (Pietikainen, 2002, p. 170) embodies the grotesque offspring of the symbolization attempt. This being so, Reich’s fascination with extraterrestrial life (Pietikainen, 2002, p. 169) reflects his unconscious understanding of the expansive and formidable substance of the Real. In this way, he understandably failed this monolithic exercise. As we will see, this failure was a blessing.

A Žižekian Excursion
Another modest Žižekian inspired excursion is due. This will help express the unique experience one attains through direct contact with concrete proletarian spontaneity. To begin with, we are confronted by a scenario Reich encountered after a catastrophic setback experienced by the unemployed Viennese workers:

We [Reich and his partner] decided to visit a friend who lived in the vicinity; her father was in a Social Democratic organization and one of her brothers was even a Social Democratic functionary. We arrived and were amazed to find the dining-room table set and decorated with flowers; they were expecting guests. I was without a jacket and tie. The gory events appeared not to have penetrated this room. In my agitated state of mind I suddenly felt out of place and ludicrous in this cool, reserved atmosphere. I wanted to leave but was asked to stay. (Reich, 1976, p. 32)

First thing of note is the way Reich is totally out of sync with the ambience of the residence. Throughout his period of immersion in the workers movement, Reich repeatedly brought to the foreground the obvious claim that he was a member of the bourgeoisie. By doing so, he was reminding himself of his heterogeneous relationship to the workers. Orgonomy’s conception proves this claim falsifiable. Reich was more ingrained than he himself realized, as the confused repulsion experienced in this quote makes clear. This is because orgonomic biophysics was an attempt at symbolizing the (im)possible. Orgonomy succeeded in representing what it had failed to represent: the Real of the proletarian mass movement.

It can be said that prior to his practical involvement in the everyday struggles of the masses, Reich would have felt at ease at his friend’s residence. Yet, in a peculiar way he felt dislocated from his Symbolic role as preeminent psychoanalyst and member of the bourgeoisie. Žižek’s appropriation of Lacan’s idea of the ‘two deaths’ fits seamlessly in this instance. This concept was used early on in the paper but only in brief. It will be important to expand on it while relating it back to our earlier assertions. The first type of death entails the biological expiration we are all familiar with. With the other type, an individual can also cease to exist according to the receptors of the Other. In this instance, we are quite literally observing an autobiographical indication of one’s imminent demise. Although, the moment that Reich’s life flashed before his eyes lasted for another two decades. This slow decades long Symbolic degeneration came to a head with the mainstream exposure of orgonomic biophysics, which essentially (mis)represented Reich’s experience within the realm of the Real having failed to go through a successful process of symbolization.

In this way orgonomy is commensurable with Marx’s socio-economic theories in terms of their function as representations of what each theorist experienced in their relation to the (im)possible. Whereas Reich’s production failed the symbolization process, it was Marx who, for the most part, was successful at transcribing capitalism’s exoskeletal frequencies and exposing the avaricious and essentially sadistic flesh of this mode of production. Marx’s legacy is that he almost fully symbolized what was thought to be impossible to properly integrate into the Symbolic Order. Orgonomy represents a grotesquely deviated attempt at symbolization. In this way, Reich’s orgonomic functionalism can be related to the failed attempts made by the classical economists in properly drawing a holistic schematic of the prevailing mode of production. Orgonomic functionalism was literally meant to be a pseudo-science. This is because Reich was fundamentally unable to properly comprehend the enormity of his experience alongside the Austrian proletariat.

Reich’s attempt at a dialectical appropriation of Marxism had failed and regressed into atomistic thinking in the midst of his personal euphoria as he teetered along the realm of the Real. While Reich retained the language of dialectics, the evolution of the study of the orgone reflects an impassioned attempt at claiming the latter’s unequivocal superiority. For a moment, the objectivity of Marx’s thought and his ability to document a phenomenon that would have otherwise been met by either ignorance or a repulsive non-engagement was dismissed. In other words, if true dialectical appropriation had occurred, orgonomy could have extracted Marx’s convalescent experience in the Real of capitalism’s underbelly. Reich didn’t have the intellectual maturity, very much like the classical economists, to utilize dialectical logic and appropriate Marx during the most crucial instantiation of his life (when participating in the unemployment riots). Classical economic nonparticipation in the Real necessitated its decipherable character. However, as already stated, both here and in our discussion of Reich’s pre-orgonomic findings, the language of dialectics was never dispensed with. This is the indelible contradiction Reich construed. He himself was not cognizant of its paradoxical character. What Wolfenstein regards as a dismissal of internal contradiction via Reich’s disavowal of the death drive, is indeed compensated by our transfusion of Reich’s dialectical role. We did so by elucidating an internal contradiction: Unconscious disavowal of the dialectical method, as evinced through the symptomatic reading of Reich’s writings, is met by its conscious affirmation. Even the concept of Symbolic paralysis expresses an intense contradiction, as we will observe in following paragraph. Along with the augmentation of society’s primary contradiction, we have gone beyond Reich’s inconsistent dialecticism and the elementary establishment of Manichean dichotomies by implementing a rigorous reappraisal of dialectics.

Let’s take a look at a possible contradiction and some further insights into the aforementioned quote. The reader will find a glaring contradiction between the observation that was just made and one that was made at the beginning of the paper. Earlier, it was posited that the omission of all attempts at drafting obituaries on the occasion of Reich’s death in all the major psychoanalytic organs represented his Symbolic longevity. Contra to this, it was just posited that Reich’s feelings of discomfort within his own milieu, i.e. in the residence of a well off bourgeois who held a certain degree of allegiance to the workers movement, resulted in his Symbolic death, with his life flashing before his eyes for nearly two more decades. In order to save his Symbolic existence he attempted to pull himself and his newly acquired experiences back to where only fragments of him remained. By displacing a large portion of his being into the throngs of the masses, only a small fraction of him held claim to his bourgeois identity. He attempted this symbolization by reserving the rest of his biological life to the study of the orgone. Unfortunately, as we just explained, he didn’t succeed in symbolizing an aspect of the Real the way Marx had for the most part done. However, this points to a unique experience that is not often seen. What had happened is that Reich, through the intersection of the two aforementioned trajectories, had entered a state of indeterminate paralysis. The notion of contradiction is reasserted.

However, considering the enduring effort to conflate Marxism with psychoanalysis, we come to the understanding that Reich’s state of paralysis has been elongated for an indefinite period of time. In a way, Reich’s extrication from this state of affairs will be conducted once the importance of orgonomy’s representative function is realized. Wolfenstein’s critique of Reich, although crucial for his Psychoanalytic-Marxist contributions, overwhelming concentrates on the latter’s pre-orgonomic formulations. This points to the partiality of Reich’s vindication. We are not contented with such segmentation. To go about a well-rounded attempt at vindication, orgonomy’s representative function in its utter falsity should be advanced. What is atypical about orgonomy is that it was taken to its fullest potential. After years of self-restraint in the face of organizational bureaucratism, Reich unwittingly took his orgone theory beyond the solar system. This is a vulgar personification of the awesome potency of what he failed to symbolize. It is the utter falsity and excruciatingly alluring quality of Reich’s object of analysis which is of tremendous contemporary import. If the Other precedes Reich’s revolutionary cooption and ceremoniously “rehabilitates” Reich for his early contributions to psychoanalytic theory, then his Symbolic death would be complete. This is why it is imperative for contemporary Marxism to discover the very importance of orgonomy’s specious character.

Periods of revolutionary upheaval involve the protraction of the amorphous parameters of the Real while exposing the fragility of the signifying chain. This results in the emergency mobilization and subsequent readjustment (to meet contemporary needs) of ideology. Although the institutionalized left failed to properly handle the Viennese riots, the Real, in the guise of the riots, did indeed expand significantly during that period. This is in fact why Reich felt so utterly out of place in his friend’s residence. During periods of relative ideological stability and normalcy, the small irreparable ruptures within the Symbolic Order serve as gaps where the Real can make its appearance in the guise of any destabilizing/traumatic event. This is only to be smothered by the ever-prowling ideological apparatus. Returning to Reich’s situation, the obverse is the case. Because of the increasing breadth of the potential revolution, albeit in a spontaneous and immature form, it was the utter banality of bourgeois etiquette which infringed upon Reich’s sensibilities. Reich encountered the prosaic formality of bourgeois etiquette as something terrifying and incalculable. This is what Reich meant when he made the following remark: “The gory events appeared not to have penetrated this room.” A similar reaction can be observed just a couple hours earlier during the height of the confrontation between the state apparatus and the riotous unemployed (Reich, 1976, p. 27). In the waves of thrashing workers, Reich makes a sagacious note on the unordinary obtuseness and mechanical rigidity of the police formations. It was only in the midst of what was impossible to symbolize that such a stark contrast could be drawn with this particular island of symbolization. Reich’s period of courting the Real was practically irreversible. He was never able to totally pull himself back.

During the last part of the quote, we observe Reich being persuaded to stay. All that is missing is the final embrace. One is reminded of the famous picture taken a little while after the Cuban Revolution where Nikita Khrushchev is seen holding Fidel Castro in a tight embrace. This is the concrete personification of Symbolic appropriation. The Cuban Revolution was to be co-opted by a revolution whose potential had dwindled as it itself was brought within the Symbolic orbit a few decades before. Khrushchev, as the embodiment of the Soviet Union, was flirting with the very revolutionary energy it had unfortunately depleted. What is significant about Reich’s situation is that he got up and left a little while later, still tragically confused with the way the Social Democratic functionaries were handling themselves. If Reich had been embraced in a figurative sense, orgonomic biophysics would have never seen the light of day.

Concluding Remarks
Beyond providing a second critical perspective on Reich through Wolfenstein’s intervention, something more fundamental is apparent. Beyond a mere formulaic attempt at gathering beneficial aspects of the former’s theories for the purpose of constructing a more holistic Psychoanalytic-Marxism, a certain attempt at vindication comes to mind. Moving beyond dialectical appropriation for a moment, but never for a second disregarding its utmost importance in advancing the field of Psychoanalytic-Marxism, let us recapitulate our novel assertions.

It has been proven elsewhere ad nauseum the pseudo-scientific basis of orgonomic biophysics. Throughout this paper, no attempt was made to legitimize Reich’s formulations regarding sexual energy or its supposed ameliorative implications. This would undoubtedly disrupt our attempt at adhering to Marx’s scientific approach. However, the study of orgonomy and what it represents is crucial precisely because it was so easily falsifiable. If it was structured in a manner allowing for its cohesive integration into the normative structures of the natural sciences then any notion of vindication would be banal. As Wolfenstein mentions, we are repeatedly met by Reich’s unwillingness or limited ability to take the advantages of his theory to the furthermost conclusions (1993, p. 55). Reich’s orgonomic studies were a result of a premature resolution. Yet it is the very illegality of this premature resolution that was taken to its fullest potential. This is the substance that needs to be harnessed.

The kernel of this potential lies almost hidden in the momentous rupture of the early 1930s Austrian proletarian movement. The Real was fully exposed to Reich as he watched dozens of workers fall in front of Viennese police formations. Although it could be said that a similar proximity was acquired in his youth, when his family slowly disintegrated, Reich’s exposure to the Real during his youth was instantaneous and sporadic in comparison to the drawn out permeation of the interwar proletarian ethos. In a way, it could be suggested that Reich came to be reacquainted with (or actually experienced for the first time) the traumatic experiences of his youth through the proletariat. Whatever the case may be, he was confronted by the same content in both instances. It was the proletariat which provided Reich with access to the undistorted realm of the (im)possible for an extended period of time. Because the study of orgonomy is argued here as being a failure to assimilate this (im)possibility into the signifying chain, both orgonomy and the momentous riots of the early 1930s coincide within a single matrix.

Through a brief symptomatic reading of Reich’s writings, it was evinced that the study of the orgone was displaced from its sequential positioning within Reich’s superficial conception of theoretical dialectics. The antithetical force, in the form of orgonomic biophysics, was raised to a plateau beyond the bounds of both psychoanalysis and Marxism. The essential content of each was dispensed with while Reich retained the semiotic presentation of dialectical supersession. It was asserted that this produced an internal contradiction within Reich himself. In other words, the content of Reich’s claim to theoretical superiority, which was so diligently brought to the fore through his later oeuvre, was reflected back into him. Conscious adherence to dialectics now faced its unconscious dismissal. Paradoxically, dialectical reasoning was retained through this contradiction, only to be exposed in this paper. Due to the clarification of Reich’s unconscious atomism, scientific analysis has once again been brought back to the forefront; precisely through the dismissal of Reich’s self-perceived dialectical role. This is because the pseudo-scientific content was, through our help, forcibly withdrawn. The principal contradiction, as was somewhat more evident in his earlier writings, now re¬emerges in full view. With the primacy of Marx’s notion of class struggle now re¬established, accompanied by the representative function of orgonomy, the matrix in which these two elements intermingle becomes unmistakably patent.

Reich’s retrospective insight into his confused reaction while in his friend’s residence during the height of the proletarian riots was paradigmatic of his Symbolic disillusionment. It was the moment when Reich discovered the malignant disease that would eat away at him for nearly two decades. The Other’s attempt at exempting the arrival of Reich’s Symbolic demise through non-discursive exclusion acted as a miraculous instance of resuscitation. In other words, as Reich’s thoughts descended into an abyss devoid of dialectical reasoning, the Other provided a counterforce that would create a contradiction out of this dismissal. The theorist’s second life was not yet fully exhausted. He floats along history in a vegetative conundrum, awaiting vindication.

To conclude, vindication would come about through the realization of orgonomy’s importance through its very speciousness. It was an incorrigible attempt at inscribing the proletarian experience into normative discursive categories. It should also represent the veritable difficulty of containing this experience, something Marx had so painstakingly done for the most part. By placing orgonomy adjacent to Marxism, we come to assume an advantageous perspective. Orgonomy, with its failed attempt at drawing within coherent parameters the proletarian experience due to its potency, is counterposed by a scientific elaboration of its possibilities in the form of Marxism. We are confronted by a relationship that would serve to contribute to the possible rejuvenation of the left; a left which faces the ever regenerative capacities of capitalism.

References

Pietikainen, P. (2002). Utopianism in Psychology: The Case of Wilhelm Reich. Journal of History of the Behavioral Sciences, 38 (2), pp. 157-175.

Reich, W. (1990). Character Analysis. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Reich, W. (1976). People in Trouble. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Reich, W. (1970). The Mass Psychology of Fascism. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Rubin, L.R. (2002). Wilhelm Reich and Anna Freud: his expulsion from psychoanalysis. International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 12 (2), pp. 109-117. Wolfenstein, E.V. (1993). Psychoanalytic-Marxism: Groundwork. New York: Guilford.

Young, C. (2008). The history and development of Body-Psychotherapy: The American legacy of Reich. Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 3 (1), pp. 5-18.