Sep 26 2007
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Wilhelm Reich, Little Rock and UFOs
Reich and his “cloudbuster”
After our interview last Sunday, I asked parapolitical researcher Kenn Thomas if he would write a guest column for Ufomystic. It was through Kenn that I first met Nick Redfern at the Laughlin UFO Congress in 1998. Thomas’ magazine Steamshovel Press, has examined the variegated intricacies of the political, scientific, and social power structure for over a decade, and his books, such as The Octopus and Maury Island UFO are classics in “conspiracy” literature.
It was also through Kenn that I was introduced to the story of Wilhelm Reich, a psychologist who had emigrated from the oppressive political climate of 1930s Europe for the freedom of the US, only to find scientific oppression that eventually landed him in prison, where he died in 1957. His theory of “emotional armoring” stated (in part) that people resisted ideas because of deep-seated feelings, and not from any new information that had been proven by rational thought and/or experiment. This could be applied to anything from racial integration to UFOs.
And now, here’s Kenn Thomas:
The Little Rock Nine, a group that integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in September 1957, observed its anniversary Monday even as the protests in Jena, Louisiana underscored continued racial strife in the US. But the plight of the Nine was not the only social oppression that America suffered in 1957–the UFO cover up was in full flower and UFO believers were handily marginalized and even prosecuted. The scientist Wilhelm Reich was thrown in jail in part for exploring human energy potential and therapeutic techniques not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but also because he reported using the consequent technology to battle UFOs in the Tucson desert.
Reich had been condemned as a medical quack, his books had been burned and his “life energy” boxes, precursors to a type of device called a “cloudbuster†that harnessed atmospheric energy, were destroyed. Reich had harmed no one and, indeed, had helped many with his understanding and manipulation of what he called the “orgone.†He witnessed several UFOs on his estate in Maine and reported on the use of the orgone cloudbuster guns to cause them to go away. He did the same on a famous trip to the desert southwest that he documented in his last book, Contact With Space. By his own estimation, he fought the first battle against space intruders, and won. The FDA, of course, never truly followed Reich’s scientific protocols on either orgone technology or cloudbuster guns, and convicted Reich on technical violation of its injunction to stop distributing orgone boxes.
Authorities threw Reich in a prison cell in Lewisberg, PA from which he did not emerge alive. In memos to the prison chaplain before his death, however, Reich continued to write passionately about the social situation in the US. His note from September 1957 even includes reference to the disturbance at Little Rock Central High School. He emphasized the very psychological and emotional undercurrents he felt were being ignored in the broader social arena of conspiratorial 1950s America, what prevented many from seeing the space ships he saw in abundance:
I am merely fulfilling my public duties as a U. S. citizen and worker in planetary affairs if I continue to point out where the true danger to our social and personal existence is placed–Emotional Poisoning: disruption through sowing distrust throughout our society, doping and drugging of our population, espec. our YOUTH; draining us financially through areas [...]race, a camouflage of the true menace, the Emotional Poisoning a’la Little Rock racial upheavals; keeping our high placed officials at bay through fear of sexual scandals [Clinton!--kt], railroading efficient men and women into prisons or lunatic asylums through [?] up there environments; subverting justice by whispered little lies & frightening or using judges. Doing all this destruction unnoticed as it were by all those responsible…now lyrics were subverted by such use of stupidities & evasions on our part [rock'n'roll!--kt], especially by the staid reluctance to talk bluntly and take the bull by the horns. The bull is really no more than a few slimy tape worms eating away at our emotional guts. It is high time to start giving social power to the established functions of Love, Work & Learning as bastions against the tapeworms.
The prison memo form includes this banal and perhaps prescient statement: “Your failure to specifically state your problem may result in no action being taken.” Reich’s imprisonment was in part the end result of mis-reporting on him that appeared in the New Republic under the editorial leadership of a now-confessed communist spy named Michael Straight in a book entitled, After Long Silence. New Republic made its own pronouncement about Little Rock in its July 7, 1958 edition, complaining about the Supreme Court’s failure to stop legal challenges that were slowing down the integration process. The Supreme Court, opined New Republic, “must stand the ground they themselves have assumed, or the grand experiment they inaugurated will end in bitter farce, with consequences for the state of the union that stagger the mind.”
Clearly the magazine had a better view of the possible consequences of Supreme Court actions than the Court itself. The consequences of Reich’s work with UFOs, and the implications of the study of psychological character structure on the understanding of race issues has continued over the years. Writing in a chapter called “Racism and Slavery” in The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (1972), my old friend historian George Rawick notes the impact of
that great underground classic of modern thought, Character Analysis, 3d ed. rev., first published in German in 1933, and its less well-known but significant companion, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, first published in German in 1933, both written by Reich. While I cannot subscribe to all of Reich’s system, this chapter could not have been written without his monumental attempt to relate Marx and Freud which loosened the ideological armouring of Western rationalism for me and many others.
Although Reich never stated it explicitly, clearly he saw that same “armoring†as the block that keeps so many from accepting the realities of the UFO issue.
Kenn Thomas’ new book, The Conspiracy Files, as well as the new issue of Steamshovel Press, are available through his website.
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September 26th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
When I was young…ER, I remembered seeing an old color movie that had a very weird plot involving a scientist that had developed a revolutionary machine that could help to attain longevity so the knowledge of a person would not be lost or discontinued.
The plot also dealt with UFOs and MIBs, and I supposed it was loosely based on Wilhelm Reich.
Anyone else saw this movie? Could you tell me the name?
September 26th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Greg:
It was actually 1998 when we first met at Laughlin – time flies!
September 26th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Nick,
Fixed in the text. Thanks.
We’ve known each other almost TEN YEARS?! Geez.
September 26th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
RPJ,
Sounds almost like the story of George Van Tassel (re: machine that bestows longevity.)
I’ve heard of that film too. Can’t think of the name. Anyone?
September 26th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
In some vague way, it seems that people who are open emotionally, not stressed out, no rigid in their conceptual views, maybe those people are more able to anomalous phenomena. I wonder if someone could ever do a study on that factor. I seem to remember Jacques Vallee & John Keel that when investigating UFOs one should pay attention to the witness & see if there is something unusual going on there. In that sense I can see the relevance of Reich, his worldview, & UFOs.
September 27th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Thanks for the correction Greg. Yep, it seems that movie was based on Van Tassel. From whay I’m reading in wikipedia, Adamsky and him were not close friends
September 27th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Thanks, Greg, for running the article. I’m always happy when I can find something to write about that links up with a current event, and, of course, always happy to trumpet the story of Wilhelm Reich.
This new book of mine, Conspiracy Files, has a section that links Reich up to the national scene at the time, including with the stories about how Eisenhower supposedly met both with Reich and with aliens, the times of which comprise two mysterious gaps in the official record. I’m still waiting on the packagers of the book to settle on US and UK publishers, but it’s out in Australia from Murdoch Books, and of course available as PDF from Steamshovel.