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Wilhelm Reich

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:1,500.00 - 2,000.00 USD
Wilhelm Reich

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Auction Date:2018 Jul 11 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Rare TLS in German, signed “Wilh. Reich,” one page both sides, 9 x 12, lnternationales Institut fur Sexual Okonomische Forschung letterhead, August 14, 1937. Letter to Hedy and Oskar Bumbacher in Zurich, Switzerland, in full (translated): “Your letter once more refreshed me. It is healthy to see clearly. Just now we are busy here protecting our work, which is endangered from all sides, against ruin in and shallowness. A problem has been solved that also concerns your basis in your letter. The catastrophic end of all this what nowadays goes under the name socialism is unavoidable, although the materialistic concept of history was never as clearly revealed as now. The very first task is therefore to survive and one can survive only if one is anchored in firm, satisfying and fruitful work. Politicking, which erroneously is considered work and a vocation, is not only one of the reasons for the catastrophe, as it turns out now, but also the weakest basis for material and ideological existence.

My advice, therefore, urgently given to you is: Don’t use your efforts too much with ideological exertion of influence, but concentrate your entire energy to learn the rudiments of a practical field of work in a decent and orderly manner. Thus one can escape the wave of the reactionary movement, and preserve a piece of the future by taking work seriously. I fully understand that you don’t connect with the purely ideological part of your work, because nowadays there is no basis for the ideology of which we dream. On the other side, one can find many friends in the working process. Because of the great increase of biological and physiological work, we will need many co-workers in this field, people with specific schooling. They might become bacteriological, biological and also chemophysical specialists and find employment with us. If any one of your workers is serious in his desire to become a sexual economic (sexualoekönomischer) therapist, he should either study medicine or pedagogics thoroughly.

I don’t know your special interests and suitability. We give the same advice to all friends who have not been anchored already in occupations. Oskar Bumbacher now seems to want to become an ‘analyst’. This profession is obvious, but I wish to warn you for two reasons: 1.) He needs a long time to study, if he wants to produce serious work, and 2.) you can become a sexual-economic therapist only if you are either a physician, pedagogue or a very skilled and versatile psychologist. Psychoanalytical training is just the opposite of what you need (given the present standard) to become a good sexual-socioeconomic therapist. I have nothing against Dr. Meng but your work with him would render collaboration with us more difficult, for purely practical reasons. Sexualsocioeconomic training in the correct fashion is, unfortunately, available only in Copenhagen and Oslo possibly. Please understand that psychoanalysis and sexual-socioeconomic treatment today are opposites. Our publication is well read in Spain, also in the front lines, although not yet translated into Spanish. Our friend in Spain surely will become acquainted with people through the Libreria Horizonte, which gets sexual-political literature and shows interest." In fine condition, with two filing holes to the left side.

In 1927, Reich wrote The Function of the Orgasm, which stated that the discharge of sexual energy is necessary for individual health, and that sexual repression is an integral part of all authoritarian societies. After 1930, he became active in Germany’s sexual-politics movement, and was subsequently expelled from the German Communist Party in 1933 and then the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1934. Reich worked in Scandinavia between 1933-39, developing a theory of character structure and physical therapy to treat muscular rigidities and spasms caused by underlying neuroses. In 1939, he left Austria and established an Orgone Institute in the United States, developing the orgone box, which he claimed had the ability to restore energy and cure illnesses. Declared a fraud by the Food and Drug Administration, Reich was sentenced to two years in prison, where he died.