Wilhelm Reich (1897 - 1957)

Born 24 Mar 1897 in Dobzau, Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine)

Died 3 Nov 1957 at age 60 in US Penitentiary, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania

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Wilhelm Reich is Notable.

Biography

Wilhelm was born in 1897. He passed away in 1957.

Austrian psychiatrist and biophysicist. He founded the Orgone Institute in New York and is credited with the discovery of Orgone Energy.

In 1947, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration obtained an injunction against the interstate shipment of orgone accumulators and associated literature, believing they were fraudulent. Charged with contempt in 1956 for having violated the injunction, Reich was sentenced to two years imprisonment, and that summer over six tons of his publications were burned by order of the court. He died in prison of heart failure just over a year later, days before he was due to apply for parole.

He also invented a technique called "cloudbusting" which he claimed could make rain by manipulating the orgone energy of clouds.

Kate Bush's song "Cloudbusting" is based on Wilhelm Reich and his cloudbuster, and also his imprisonment. It is told from the standpoint of his son Peter who wrote a memoir called A Book of Dreams. It was the second single released from her number one 1985 album Hounds of Love. "Cloudbusting" peaked at no.20 in the UK Singles Chart.

"I still dream of orgonon

I wake up crying

You're making rain

And you're just in reach

When you and sleep escape me"

--Kate Bush, Cloudbusting

The music video was conceived by Kate Bush and Terry Gilliam and directed by Julian Doyle. It starred Donald Sutherland.

Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich
2. "Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVV7-SBTR : 13 December 2015), Wilhelm Reich, 1957; Burial, Rangeley, Franklin, Maine, United States of America, Museum at Reich summer residence; citing record ID 11418, Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11418

See also:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudbuster

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudbusting