The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Obi Wan Reich
Psmith
http://www.greylodge.org/occultreview/glor_013/Reich_-_The_Mass_Psychology_Of_Fascism.pdf.
A bunch of folks over there have said they'd like to read along.
I wonder if folks will want to read through the whole reading list at
www.rawilson.com?
RMJon23
> Zarathustra666 over at MLA posted this link:http://www.greylodge.org/occultreview/glor_013/Reich_-_The_Mass_Psych....
> A bunch of folks over there have said they'd like to read along.
>
> I wonder if folks will want to read through the whole reading list atwww.rawilson.com?
Your last URL included the Q mark, so they'll get a 404; you meant
www.rawilson.com ?
Even so, how will "they" know about the reading(s)?
I hadn't even thought of it, but assumed I'd be conducting comments on
TMPoF via email. Shd we do it in alt.fan.rawilson? The more minds that
better. - The Mgt
RMJon23
tome (hallmarks of a Robert Anton Wilson "essential"?) once again last
night in bed - I go to bed at 4AM, so 'twas 9-11 - and it's always an
odd feeling when a text I haven't read for a long time so readily re-
congeals and reactivates that little circuit that was synaptically
strengthened way back when: "Oh, yea...I now remember these points as
if it were only two months ago that I..."
I wish to make two points at the outset that tell you about MY reading
strategy with this book:
1.) My/our powers of negotiating METAPHOR seem put to a mighty test in
this book. I need only point to the still-scientifically-undetectable
"orgone" so seminal (ha!) to WR's thesis. Much, much more on this from
me, and I hope, my fellwo readers, later.
2.) WR, in his Preface to the Third Edition, makes it very clear that
when he's talking about fascism he's talking not about what Germans or
Italians or Japanese did in the 1920s-1945; rather, "Viewed with
respect to man's character, 'fascism' _is the basic emotional attitude
of the suppressed man of our authoritarian machine civilization and
its mechanistic-mystical conception of life_." (this last sentence in
italics in WR's original)
So, for very complex reasons, WR seems to think that fascism is the
automatic default position, throughout human history. (Even before
what we might think of the "machine" age, because, as I unpack WR on
"mysticism" he means authoritarian religious ideologies too, which,
IIRC predate the iPad.) Any notable deviations from the default
position deserve consideration for anomalous status amongst historians
and other thinkers.
So, we need to get away from Authoritarian religions and their spill-
off ideologies. Can anyone find evidence of repressive, emotionally
stunting, authoritarian religious ideologies in our world right where
you are sitting now? (<-----Jest!)
-rmjon23 da Berkeley, CA, Unistat
Psmith
religious ideologies" in my mind/body system at this very moment.
I mentioned the read through of this book over at MLA. I had put my
copy of the Reich book in the car, but I decided to leave it at
school, and I plan to sit down and read a few pages in front of the
computer each school day, starting Monday. What better place to read
about "repressive emotionally stunting authoritarian religious
ideologies"?
I contemplated Reich a bunch last Novemeber when I reread Bob's play
about him and the DVD of the play. I've read very few of Reich's
books, and I haven't seen "WR: Mysteries of the Organism." (Netflix
doesn't have it.)
We did a read through of _The Mass Psychology of Fascism_ a few years
ago at MLA, and I look forward to reading it again.
.
bandito
> ..., because, as I unpack WR on
> "mysticism" he means authoritarian religious ideologies too, which,
> IIRC predate the iPad.) Any notable deviations from the default
> position deserve consideration for anomalous status amongst historians
> and other thinkers.
>
I never felt like I grokked what WR meant when he used the word
mysticism (translation snafu?). I usually just replaced the
'mysticism; with 'faith.' Back then (when we read it at the MLA),
faith had a more negative connotation.
Psmith
functionalism" on both the front and back covers. I don't know what
it means.
Reading the Preface to the Third Edition, I wonder how one penetrates
to the deepest level of human potential without spending a ton of
money on Reichian therapy. I've already spent a fair amount over the
years, and I still seem rather armored.
I have begun reading David Thomson's The Whole Equation: A History of
Hollywood, and he talks about the presentation of the mob in Frank
Capra's films and how easily the lovable, humane, generous individuals
can become dominated by hate and turn into a mob. This seems to fit
in with Reich's notions about fascism.
Psmith
child's joy of living" (xvi). I would like to learn how to do that
better.
Psmith
"grok" might refer to an organismic understanding by the deepest level
of the person.
RMJon23
> Alas, I see "evidence of repressive emotionally stunting authoritarian
> religious ideologies" in my mind/body system at this very moment.
I see "it" in myself, too, as I wilfully suspend disbelief reading WR,
while at the same time reading with a critical, questioning eye...a
reading trick very demanding, as WR can seem, in any given paragraph,
as making wonderful good sense to me, then seeming like a "mad
scientist" with grandiose claims about his theories, then using
astract terms that require the utmost in my Korzybskian-infl powers,
then making statements about the historical milieux, c.1933-42.
I will read TMPoF with the shadow of Wilson in mind: how WR infl him
tremendously, esp in his sociological thought as evidence in writings
1959-76 or so. I proffer the notion of "non-fungibility" RAW has
talked about: each idea deserves consideration; let us avoid either/or
thinking in consideration of WR's ideas. (I originally heard him talk
about non-fungibility w/re/to analysis of conspiracy theories and in
our reading of Ezra Pound; this non-fungibility has seemed, eversince
and evermore, to "be" beyond a surprising number of "public
intellectuals" and tenure-track academics. RAW wants us to THINK!)
EX: "orgone" has been widely treated as a very dated joke by some
writers. Hence a panoply of inadequate readings of WR: he's got this
undetectable "energy" that undergirds his thought, so laff him off,
close the book and put it back on the shelf, and move on to something
more "current" or "materialist" or "substantial." Etc.
To see how RAW read WR in general, you might want to check out
Wilson's Shavian preface to _Wilhelm Reich In Hell_, esp. pp.41-43.
NON-fungibility in action!
As for "evidence" within ourselves:
"My character-analytic experiences have convinced me that there is not
a single individual who does not bear the elements of fascist feeling
and thinking in his structure."
-WR in Preface to the 3rd ed, pp.xiii-xiv
-rmjon23 da Berkeley
RMJon23
I wd think it's something like a 180 from "IF YA DON'T EAT YOUR MEAT,
YA CAN'T HAVE ANY PUDDING!" ...or does that seem too Euclidean?
RMJon23
If one only notes every use of "mysticism" in the Preface to the 3rd
ed, one notes it seems to have a multi-ordinal quality for WR...which
I find as his major weakness; he's trying hard to refine his terms,
telling us how he's changed them w/ea edition in order to be more
"scientific," but I think his prose gets mired in Big Abstractions
sometimes.
Another sense I get of "mysticism": ANY non-biosocial Reichean
"ideology" that has overtaken the body of its adherent. It's like
playing tennis with the net down, Wilhelm!
But I love you anyway...
On p.xx WR sez that it's more clear "today" (1942) than 10 yrs ago
(1932), that "the race theory is a biologic mysticism." <---WR has
that in italics. This use of "mysticism" seems fairly clear to me. And
yet how much headway has humankind made since 1942 w/re/to "race"?
<sigh>
Soon after that line, WR writes that we now know more about "man's
orgastic yearnings," and that "fascist mysticism is orgastic yearning,
restricted by mystic distortion and inhibition of natural sexuality."
He thinks this statement is "more valid" in 1942 than in 1932. This
use of "mysticism" seems isomorphic to Marx's "false consciousness"
but FAR more encompassing; indeed it seems that, because we all have
some form of that bioenergetic force dammed up within us, we are all
victim of this "mysticism." Anyone able to get better resolution on
this one?
WR likes the image of trying to drive an elephant into a foxhole. It
reminds me of Korzybski in Manhood Of Humanity: radicalism about how
humans define themselves and the historical roots of bad ideas with
disastrous outcomes stemming from definitions/widely held beliefs
about what "man" truly "is." I take this as basic Philosophical
Anthropology. AK and WR differ to a small degree, but their tack seems
quite isomorphic...
Programs like Marxism react to the 200 yr old Industrial Rev
(foxhole), but authoritarian warping of the character structure of
individuals goes back maybe 5000 yrs (elephant). Hence, "Twenteith-
century fascism [...] raised the basic question of _man's character_,
_human mysticism_ and _craving for authority_..." -xxvi.,,,Here "human
mysticism" baffles me a tad. I can unpack it in a lot of ways, but I
hope to get by/high with a little help from my friends.
-rmjon23 da Berkeley, CA, Unistat
"CORPORATION: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without
individual responsibility." - Ambrose Bierce, _Devils' Dictionary_
RMJon23
structure to WR's, but this guy was more..."poetic"?:
RMJon23
> I have begun reading David Thomson's The Whole Equation: A History of
> Hollywood, and he talks about the presentation of the mob in Frank
> Capra's films and how easily the lovable, humane, generous individuals
> can become dominated by hate and turn into a mob. This seems to fit
> in with Reich's notions about fascism.
Also check out the Mob in Fritz Lang's _Fury_ (1936)...or just watch
any Lang film and note his view of mass psychology.
I agree with Thomson about Capra.
RMJon23
CORRECTION: a major diff between this philosopher and WR was the
recently more deceased one saw No Way Out. Mind-blowing orgasms
weren't gonna turn the tide, and there was no hope for Work-Democracy.
bandito
I first encountered WR, like sombunall of us here I imagine, through
Wilson’s books. As his predecessor and one time mentor, Sigmund
Freud, stands as the godfather of psychotherapy, WR stands as the
godfather of somatic psychology. Reich brought the body into
psychotherapy and he was WAY ahead of his time.
That said, he seems to me, like Freud, a brilliant pioneer AND a crazy
nut. It sometimes seems as if exceptionally brilliant trail blazer
types are prone to slipping off the edge of sanity on the slopes of
there most far out ideas…
Orgone seems to me no different that chi or prana or life force -
subtle energy that we are not yet capable of measuring properly in
order to conduct true scientific research. No big deal, but when you
start aiming strange contraptions at clouds, people are going to start
asking questions. The main thing that about WR that rubbed me the
wrong way orgone-wise – he seemed rather insistent that orgone was not
the same as chi.
Reichian Therapy seems way overblown (and outdated) to me mostly due
to Hyatt’s repackaging it as Undoing. The main advantage, as I see
it, is that you can self administer the treatment (see:
http://reichiantherapy.net/ ).
A “true” Reichian therapist has to have an MD, which would make them
mightily expensive, and they are damn near impossible to find. I’m
sure there a few exist and I bet most of then are in NoCal… but
anyway…. good luck with that. You’ll probably have a little better
luck finding a practitioner of bioenergetic therapy, developed by
Reich’s student Alexander Lowen. Or you’ll have an even better
chance of finder a rolfer in your area, or a good body-centered /
somatic psychotherapist.
bandito
>
> Soon after that line, WR writes that we now know more about "man's
> orgastic yearnings," and that "fascist mysticism is orgastic yearning,
> restricted by mystic distortion and inhibition of natural sexuality."
> He thinks this statement is "more valid" in 1942 than in 1932. This
> use of "mysticism" seems isomorphic to Marx's "false consciousness"
> but FAR more encompassing; indeed it seems that, because we all have
> some form of that bioenergetic force dammed up within us, we are all
> victim of this "mysticism." Anyone able to get better resolution on
> this one?
I feel more confused than ever. I'm starting to relate mysticism with
his freudian terms like distortion, inhibition, repression - mysticism
now seems like a non-rational belief system arising as a result of the
armoring.
As a side note, modern neuroscientific research has lately verified
freud's ideas on repressed emotion (the cause of character
armoring). The mechanism, disassociation, stems from unconscious,
right hemisphere processes.
see: http://simplycharly.com/freud/allan_schore_freud_interview.htm
> Programs like Marxism react to the 200 yr old Industrial Rev
> (foxhole), but authoritarian warping of the character structure of
> individuals goes back maybe 5000 yrs (elephant). Hence, "Twenteith-
> century fascism [...] raised the basic question of _man's character_,
> _human mysticism_ and _craving for authority_..." -xxvi.,,,Here "human
> mysticism" baffles me a tad. I can unpack it in a lot of ways, but I
> hope to get by/high with a little help from my friends.
Lately I think of primate behavior (Sapolsky's A Primate Memoir) and
how there's always an alpha male. Methinks that authoritarian
warping of the character structure goes back much farther than 5000
years. Sometimes terms like the emotional plague bother me
because, well for many reasons....
a) it assumes something is wrong. medical model. diagnose illness,
apply bandaid. Perhaps this is simply a necessary stage in human
evolution - the pressure necessary to propel us to the next
dissapative structure...
b) it assumes there was health, then a plague suddenly came a long -
sometimes I see this when I think of the emergence of modern
industrial society and the stresses and pressures that came along with
it. Sometimes I wonder if it was there all along.
c) I forgot.
bandito
> see:http://simplycharly.com/freud/allan_schore_freud_interview.htm
This sentence seems really important to me:
"Over the last two decades, science has for the first time seriously
explored an essential component of subjectivity, bodily-based
emotional processes (hence, the current "emotional revolution")."
Psmith
I find it interesting how highly Bob valued this book in the 21st
century, as evidenced in TSOG and the reading list on his website. He
turned away from the Democratic Party after the death of Peter
McWilliams and Bob's disillusionment with Clinton. The 2000 election,
9/11 and the Bush presidency accelerated this process.
Orgone also reminds me of Reiki and the Force.
Pink Floyd does keep coming up.
I loved "Fury." I finished The Whole Equation, which blew me away. I
think Thomson has deeper insights about the power of media than
Marshall McLuhan.
Psmith
DeMeo's response to 9/11. (DeMeo commented on what he saw as
pathological hatred of Jews in parts of the Muslim world.) I enjoyed
Saharasia as well.
Dr. Gathers, do you see Leary as "a brilliant pioneer AND a crazy
nut"? Despite his flaws, Leary seemed sane to me.
The film "Kinsey" made me think about Reich. Both men confronted
strong anti-sex and anti-pleasure (and anti-science) aspects of our
culture. If Prop. 19 passes here in California, I expect an explosion
of anti-pleasure rhetoric in the USA (hopefully a small explosion). I
would love to see legalization, but I fear we won't see it for years.
ARW23
"In our Democracy everyone is entitled to a doughnut.
Some get the doughnut......Others get the hole in the
doughnut."
- Dusan Makavejev, "WR: The Mysteries of Organism" (1971)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImC1qVM_eok&feature=related
My first encounter with Wilhelm Reich's "The Mass Psychology of
Fascism" was as a mandatory reading at the university as a part of a
class called Political Philosophy. From book burning in 1956 to
mandatory reading in 1980. (Would this count as some kind of
progress?)
Only some nine years earlier (1971) an avant-garde film director,
Dusan Makavejev, made the anarchic art-film "WR: Mysteries of
Organism" exploring work of Wilhelm Reich, the relationship between
communist politics and sexuality, what the orgasmic orgone has to do
with repression and totalitarianism.
The film was banned in Yugoslavia shortly after it was made in
Yugoslavia. (I wonder if today the film is a mandatory watch for
students at the film academy?)
ARW23
RMJon23
I consider WR: The Mysteries of the Organism as required viewing for
RAWphiles. Anarchic, mixing of "non-fiction" (EX: footage of WR in
Maine) and "fiction" (a severed talking head fits here), orgies, 1960
student-revolutionary scenarios, Tuli Kupferberg (RIP), etc. What a
wonderful, trippy, anarchistic film!
RMJon23
> Bob dug Saharasia by neo-Reichian James DeMeo, although Bob disliked
> DeMeo's response to 9/11. (DeMeo commented on what he saw as
> pathological hatred of Jews in parts of the Muslim world.) I enjoyed
> Saharasia as well.
I remember reading parts of that email exchange; I wish I'd printed it
out. RAW seemed very indignant that DeMeo seemed so blase about the
Muslims: because "they" live in a desert (WR hyperbolic metaphor:
bereft of luscious, sexy biological life, green-ness, plants, water,
ORGONE!...it's reflected in their character structure and hence they
are hopeless...)...suffice that RAW the para-Sufi saw things as much
more complex. READ DeMeo's _Saharasia_! 'Tis on RAW's Required Reading
list. Or, one of those lists...
>
> Dr. Gathers, do you see Leary as "a brilliant pioneer AND a crazy
> nut"? Despite his flaws, Leary seemed sane to me.
>
> The film "Kinsey" made me think about Reich. Both men confronted
> strong anti-sex and anti-pleasure (and anti-science) aspects of our
> culture. If Prop. 19 passes here in California, I expect an explosion
> of anti-pleasure rhetoric in the USA (hopefully a small explosion). I
> would love to see legalization, but I fear we won't see it for years.
I was reading WR last night and thought of Liam Neeson's face, playing
Kinsey in Condon's film. I thought it was very good biopic,and,
golly..why wasn't it a "bigger" success? Any irony at play here?
To those who haven't seen it, here's the trailer. Please excuse the 10-
sec mersh at the beginning:
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4192404249/
I expect Prop 19 to pass, but I also think the Authoritarian/Fascist
forces WR talks about to take over and DELAY the initiative's
implementation. I would be beyond delighted to go into a store and buy
some stash, no prescrptions or Qs asked, by January...but I seriously
doubt that will happen. I am, at this moment, more optimistic than
Psmith; I think we Californicators will be able to buy legal weed
before "years," whenever that seems...
Psmith
Pound and/or Confucius.
"First causes" - Hannibal Lector
Psmith
Four's "I Love a Man in a Uniform."
The discussion of the rise of the Nazi Party in response to bad
economic times gave me eerie thoughts about the future of the Tea
Party.
RMJon23
Also: Korzybski?
Okay, I confess I LOVE reading translated, turgidly-prosodic Germanic
philosophy, although WR seems far less opaque than others. In Chapter
1, "Ideology As A Material Force," pp.3-33, I see too many ideas to
comment upon, so I'll just pick a few.
-One way of reading this chapter w/RAW in mind: WR seeks (for us) to
ground in a biophysical way the 4th circuit. In RAW's 8CB model, the
3rd and 4th are in a heavy-dialectical dyad. The intellectual insights
WR brings (3rd) attempt to explain in the most radical way WHY the sex-
repression in the 4th exists. In this chapter he only hints at 5th
circ body rapture, but we RAWphiles strongly suspect free-flowing,
free-from-persecution libido seems to play a bigtime role win a way
out of patriarchal-authoritarian-fascist-loudmouth-led History.
-WR was an early part of nascent mostly-German intellectual that later
became known as "The Frankfurt School." He contributed a review to
their first in-house periodical. These thinkers - all of them very
impressive intellectuals, in my opinion - sought to link Freud's ideas
with Marx, to diagnose why Germany could've gone from the pinnacle of
"civilization" - cultured, well-educated masses - to 1914, and then to
1933. (They got really serious when Hitler started throwing elbows
around, grabbing his lebensraum, and almost all left for England or
the US...) But on pp.26-27 WR seems to distance himself from them (WR
was always para-Frankfurt, in my view), See p.27-28 and what WR gives
as a reading of his Frankfurt colleagues (they weren't called
"Frankfurt School" then, as far as I can tell), starting with
"Psychoanalytic sociology tried to analyze..." to last full sentence
on p.27, "and its representatives are unswerving in their opposition
to such efforts."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School
WR distances himself from these Wig Thinkers with his own "sex-
economic sociology," in which he seems to think he has done a better
reading of Marx and Freud: he has maintained more fidelity to both
geniuses, and, more importantly, he has done the radical deed more
effectively than any of the others, via synthesis of Marx and Freud.
-WR apparently believed in a "matriarchal primeval period" (27) which
was one of the things that seperated him from the Frankfurters. As of
today's date I see no great evidence in history or anthropology that
this existed, but it's a wonder-full idea, and WR is not the only
great thinker who believed in this bygone utopian era. I see the idea
of past civilizations that were more of a "partnership" more tenable.
The idea of a Fall from Matriarchy to Patriarchy seems, within the
History of Ideas, a powerful meme indeed.
-p.26, "Freud's _second_ great discovery...," childhood sexuality, is
laughable. RAW writes somewhere about this, saying women who have
taken care of baby boys for eons have noticed they get erections.
Millions of women had known about childhood sexuality before "Freud's
great discovery." Freud embedded this fact within a dizzyingly rich
theoretical stew that WR finds of great value. We might say that, with
Freud's theory of childhood sexuality, it became a "material fact," in
a Marxist sense.
-p.18 and Jumpin' Jesus phenomena: WR points out that character
structure gets formed very early, pre-adolescence, during a point in
some economically-influenced ideology that flows through kulch and
critically affects the kid, all osmotic-like. And yet, ideological
change flows at a far slower rate than the rate of change of material,
industrial production; hence, it seems, this is part of the reason
most people will fall towards reactionary politics, rather than
revolutionary ones. Is this too fanciful a reading?
-p.14-19 provided me with a very exciting discussion in one of my
favorite areas, the sociology of knowledge, as I understand it,
heavily influenced by Karl Mannheim's _Ideology and Utopia_, and esp
Berger and Luckmann's _The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise
In the Sociology of Knowledge_, which RAW has cited a couple times in
his books, and which he told me "made a lot of sense." If anyone wants
to get into it, feel free to email me. I will say that WR seems to
grope for an encompassing idea of humans and their total ideological
environment, and how the mechanisms of society/economy work
dialectically with the individual, down to inhibited/repressed/
subconsious biological processes. And he does a hell of a job, in my
opinion. But I see a more workable scheme in the phenonological
sociology of Berger/Luckmann, who were greatly infl by Alfred Schutz,
who studied with Husserl.
Sorry to have typed too much here...
-rmjon23 da Berkeley, CA, Unistat
"Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means
that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed,
autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee."
-Helen Keller
RMJon23
Speaking for myself, I find it impossible to not think of Faux News/
Tea Partiers when reading _The Mass Psychology of Fascism_. I had my
reasons for starting this book on 9/11, less than two months from an
election...
RMJon23
omissions! I just read my most recent long post and found multiple
embarrassments...I have some notes by my side, but for the most part
I'm sorta typing while staring out the window, focusing on nothing
visually but my thoughts. I often don't look at the screen, but man o
man! I probably should look at it. - mj
bandito
>
> Dr. Gathers, do you see Leary as "a brilliant pioneer AND a crazy
> nut"? Despite his flaws, Leary seemed sane to me.
Well, I was in a bit of a grumpy, critical mood when I wrote that.
Seems like far too many of my posts are composed from a grumpy,
critical mode.... but that's another story.... I guess computer
screens make me grumpy.
Anyhow, I see Leary as similar to Reich and Freud. Crazy brilliant.
Crazy bold and daring in pioneering new frontiers... And by crazy, I
mean that they were talented and daring beyond my comprehension.
Leary took daring to a new level.
So what do I mean by sane anyway... let's get all Thomas Szaszasz on
your assass. no, let's not.
I'd say that Freud never resolved his own Oedipal complex and his
failure to integrate that into himself resulted in him projecting his
own issues on the rest of the world to such a large extent that he
really got carried away with the who Oedipal, libido, sexual thing.
Reich - well the orgone thing simply got out of hand...
Leary... hmmm. sane, sure. I think we could call all three of them
sane. I won't argue that. They certainly weren't "insane," just
fucking nuts. And everyone has their personality, sure. If I were
to be critical of Leary.... no let's not. I'l
Rev. 11D Meow!
now, lettuce prey
Don Stockbauer
> I Am A Glass Of Lemonade FOREVER!
>
> now, lettuce prey
Hey, kitty - watched "Straw Dogs" yet???????????
Psmith
recommended Adorno's book on Wagner. I read a book on Stockhausen in
the 90's which recounted some of his interactions with Adorno. I read
Gershom Scholem's book on Walter Benjamin, and Paul Schrader's essay
on the film canon mentions Benjamin. http://paulschrader.org/articles/pdf/2006-FilmComment_Schrader.pdf
.
Psmith
RMJon23
> Sometimes terms like the emotional plague bother me
> because, well for many reasons....
> a) it assumes something is wrong. medical model. diagnose illness,
> apply bandaid. Perhaps this is simply a necessary stage in human
> evolution - the pressure necessary to propel us to the next
> dissapative structure...
> b) it assumes there was health, then a plague suddenly came a long -
> sometimes I see this when I think of the emergence of modern
> industrial society and the stresses and pressures that came along with
> it. Sometimes I wonder if it was there all along.
> c) I forgot.
"Shall I project a world?" - Pynchon
(I hope it's not just Bandito, Psmith, ARW and me reading this
thread.)
In WRIH, RAW uses a Korzybskian mode of assessing particular ideas of
WR's, viz:
"The Emotional Plague as _metaphor_ , I rate at around 9, for reasons
to be given shortly. The Emotional Plague as a _concrete illness_ I
rate at around 2 or 3." - p.42
I listened to an Antero Alli podcast that was at his website. He seems
to gloss the EP as stemming from mind-body dualism, with our sick
consumer society as a producer of alienation, in particular alienating
people from psychosomatic synergy and pursuit of the own creativity.
RAW and many - if not most - of his influences neologized. We can get
into the Whorfian aspects of this, or why many academics and hardcore
rationalists think neologisms and their creators are somehow suspect,
but RAW clearly sees the minting of new terms in a Whorfian way, as a
form of intellectual free play, and as form of liberation. How
neurologically "deep" and ingrained seems it for humans to use their
creativity to try to describe something that may or may not "really"
"be" "out there"?
Metaphor!
Who wuz it said he who can read metaphor can read history?
And Sigismundo writes Uncle Pietro:
"And even in the corrupt gospels of the Church, from which the true
_gnosis_ has been largely expurgated, the text still stands: "I said:
Ye are gods" (John 10:34) and a million fools gape at the page and
have not the wit or courage to understand. For the most diabolical of
all gods, the creator who towers above all creators, the tyrant who
enslaves the world, is _he who invented guilt_. I am rather sure that
this Moloch, this creator-monster, was the first priest, or the first
swindler (in those days the concepts may not yet have been
distinguished). Human beings then _learned_ to _judge and despise
themselves_; an uncomfortable state, from which they chronically
sought escape by judging and despising one another. And of all
creations, this is the hardest to _uncreate_, because it left the
deepest wound; it left, in fact, that festering suppuration that is
normal consciousness in our species today. It is this creator of evil
in the world, I think, who is remembered allegorically as he who said,
'Thou shalt have no gods but me,' and who thereby reduced the other
gods to devils and worms crawling in the dust: to humanity as we know
it." - pp. 384-385, _The Widow's Son_, Robert Anton Wilson
So: either some priest-asshole created the concept of guilt/shame, or
it's biologically hard-wired into us, or possibly an admixture of both/
and...Anyway, it somehow "caught on"...sorta like how a plague catches
on?
fuzzbuddy
the 3rd edition and chapter one and all the comments in this thread so
far.
I love the bit in the preface by WR:
When a fascist character, regardless of hue, is heard sermonizing
about the "honor of the nation" (instead of talking about the honor of
man) or the salvation of the sacred family and the race" (instead of
the community of toiling mankind); when he is seen puffing himself up
and has his chops full of slogans, let him be asked quietly and simply
in public:
"What are you doing in a practical way to feed the nation, without
murdering other nations? What are you doing as a physician to combat
chronic diseases, what as an educator to intensify the child's joy of
living, what as an economist to erase poverty, what as a social worker
to alleviate the weariness of mothers having too many children, what
as an architect to promote hygeinic conditions in living quarters?
Let's have no more of your chatter. Give us a straightforward,
concrete answer or shut up!"
I think it would be great to see this put to politicians in power on
live TV.
I hadn't heard of WR: Mysteries of an Organism before but it looks
great from the like ARW23 gave.
Psmith, I was looking online to find out the meaning of the symbol of
orgonomic functionalism. I found this site, but am not much clearer
myself:
http://pw1.netcom.com/~rogermw2/Reich/functionalism.html
Great Carlin link RM Jon 23!
Bandito this is the 1st time I've tried reading WR, and I'd agree
Orgone does sound like Chi to me.
"bioenergetic force damned within us" - could this also relate to
Kundalini and getting into the 5th-8th circuits? i.e. human potential
rather than something negative?
I'm gonna check out the Kinsey film that looks interesting, I hadn't
heard of it before.
There's a fun little youtube video here by Kate Bush with Donald
Sutherland playing WR and Kate Bush playing his son:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRHA9W-zExQ
And on the wiki for WR there's mention of him meeting with Einstein to
do an orgone experiment (about 1/2 way down the page):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich
I'm gonna give WR in Hell another watch and onto reading Chapter 2,
look forward to more discussion.
RMJon23
On Sep 19, 6:59 am, fuzzbuddy <fuzzbu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, I've just caught up and finished reading the foreword, preface to
> the 3rd edition and chapter one and all the comments in this thread so
> far.
> I love the bit in the preface by WR:
>
> When a fascist character, regardless of hue, is heard sermonizing
> about the "honor of the nation" (instead of talking about the honor of
> man) or the salvation of the sacred family and the race" (instead of
> the community of toiling mankind); when he is seen puffing himself up
> and has his chops full of slogans, let him be asked quietly and simply
> in public:
> "What are you doing in a practical way to feed the nation, without
> murdering other nations? What are you doing as a physician to combat
> chronic diseases, what as an educator to intensify the child's joy of
> living, what as an economist to erase poverty, what as a social worker
> to alleviate the weariness of mothers having too many children, what
> as an architect to promote hygeinic conditions in living quarters?
> Let's have no more of your chatter. Give us a straightforward,
> concrete answer or shut up!"
I loved that passage too. I thought it sounded "stark, staring sane,"
as RAW once wrote.
> I think it would be great to see this put to politicians in power on
> live TV.
You might have to get into your inner Yes Men to get close enough to a
politician in order to ask that on the tube. Can you imagine asking
Palin this Q?
> I hadn't heard of WR: Mysteries of an Organism before but it looks
> great from the like ARW23 gave.
> Psmith, I was looking online to find out the meaning of the symbol of
> orgonomic functionalism. I found this site, but am not much clearer
> myself:http://pw1.netcom.com/~rogermw2/Reich/functionalism.html
>
> Great Carlin link RM Jon 23!
>
> Bandito this is the 1st time I've tried reading WR, and I'd agree
> Orgone does sound like Chi to me.
>
> "bioenergetic force damned within us" - could this also relate to
> Kundalini and getting into the 5th-8th circuits? i.e. human potential
> rather than something negative?
I like this idea!
> I'm gonna check out the Kinsey film that looks interesting, I hadn't
> heard of it before.
Kinsey got his degree in Zoology, and IIRC studied insects before
getting into Sexology. His approach was more positivistic than WR's,
to my way of thinking. But I love his quote (which I'll have to
paraphrase from memory):"The only 'unnatural act' is one that is
physically impossible to do."
> There's a fun little youtube video here by Kate Bush with Donald
> Sutherland playing WR and Kate Bush playing his son:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRHA9W-zExQ
Whoa! I'd never seen that. Good catch.
> And on the wiki for WR there's mention of him meeting with Einstein to
> do an orgone experiment (about 1/2 way down the page):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich
http://www.encyclopedianomadica.org/English/reich_einstein_experiment.php
> I'm gonna give WR in Hell another watch and onto reading Chapter 2,
> look forward to more discussion.
Inward and Upward!
bandito
> > about the "honor of the nation"
might as well throw "honor of the corporation" into that mix...
> > Psmith, I was looking online to find out the meaning of the symbol of
> > orgonomic functionalism. I found this site, but am not much clearer
> > myself:http://pw1.netcom.com/~rogermw2/Reich/functionalism.html
>
> > "bioenergetic force damned within us" - could this also relate to
> > Kundalini and getting into the 5th-8th circuits? i.e. human potential
> > rather than something negative?
The way I see it, these concepts of "orgonomic functionalism" and
"bioenergetic force damned within us" refer to an ability to tolerate
and process emotional material. When we lack the ability to tolerate
negative emotions, we disassociate (lose contact and relationship with
the present moment) and these emotional energies get locked up within
our bodies. Well, at least sumbunall of us do that...
fuzz: "human potential rather than something negative?"
This is how I see the "emotional plague" as the pressure driving us to
the next level of evolution...
Psmith
Eva David
> Howdy Fuzzbuddy and thanks for the links.
Shit, what chapter are we on? I've been reading the book & reading the
posts. But I never have both book & computer with me the same time to
be able to add to the discussions.
I don't know much of shit about Glen Beck. Sometimes I see him on the
tv at the bar where I work. For some reason, when I read Reich's
references to "mysticism," all I can think about is Glen Beck. I think
he might be alluding to our curiosities about all that resides within
the unknown. I think in contemplating the unknown, man becomes like a
child in need of some authority to make claims about what exists
there. People who make claims that connect the understood with the
unknown turn the mysterious into Reich's mysticism as I understand it.
Does that make any sense? That's just how I read it. There is power in
being the authority in unknown waters and sailing the country in that
direction when you want power over them. I have a direct quote in mind
from the book that I'll get to later.
I love you all! Glad to be here playing in Reich with y'alls :-)
Psmith
as his lack of a sense of humor. I wonder whether humor can
facilitate muscular relaxation. I suspect it can. Your reference to
Glen Beck makes me think of Jon Stewart's wonderful parody of Mr.
Beck.
(I enjoyed Thomas Pychon's essay on Jon Stewart:
http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_dailyshow.html .)
I think we started chapter five two days ago.