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The Orgone Experience; or, Renewal Is Possible

AUGUST 10 (White Mountains in Maine)

Rain, from drizzle to downpour to drizzle.

We drove to Rangeley and visited the Wilhelm Reich Museum and Shrine.

Reich erected (or had erected, for he was, of course, the great proponent of erections) a granite, three-story Bauhaus atop a peak in the White Mountains. Perhaps fifty yards from the house is the tomb, overlooking valley and mountains: lakes and dense maple and birch forests. Next to the granite tomb (atop which is a bronze bust of the Master) sits one of Reich’s most important inventions, a “Cloudbuster,” which is a large metal frame supporting aluminum or steel tubes perhaps twenty feet long and a spaghetti-tangle of high-power electric wires. With his Cloudbusters, Reich called down the orgone power in clouds to create deluges (when needed by local agriculturalists).

In his first-floor laboratory, the Master had, among other scientific paraphernalia, a large, black microscope, through which he could view the orgone wriggling of the seed of life; on the top floor, the Master had a great brass telescope, through which he could view the cosmos, powered in its mighty churning by the selfsame orgone that propels the sperm toward the egg. Microcosm, macrocosm.

Awed and inspirited, my wife and I sat in an orgone cham­ber, feeling the power of the cosmos flow into our aging, failing selves. Emerging from the chamber after some twenty minutes of absorption, we raced, through the mud and rain, to the Buick Regal that we had rented from Alamo ($148 per week, unlimited mileage) and turned toward our home-away-from-home, the Spillover6 Motel in Stratton, Maine. Our Navy-blue Buick (we would have preferred white or silver!) churned down the muddy road from the Shrine onto Maine Highway 6 and glided faster, ever faster toward the Spillover.

After careening into the driveway and sliding sloshingly to a halt before Unit No. 6, we leapt from the auto; I fumbled, almost in a panic, to unlock the door. We entered. Our raiment flew hither and yon. We plunged onto the queen-sized bed, hardly aware of its thunking collapse, and, our muddy hiking boots still on our feet, we strove for the great, shuddering, liberatory orgonasm.

Later (liberated, Lahd Amighty, Free at Last!), we sat propped in the broken-down bed, sipping diet Coke and watching, beyond the toes of our muddy hiking boots, the Lawrence Welk Show, taped in Escondido. In a small canoe, Guy and Rona paddled about the artificial lake and sang, “My Cup Runneth over with Love.” Suzie and Bobby had fun at the pool, dancing to the lively strains of “Ain’t We Got Fun.” A basso profundo, contentedly angling as he crooned, climaxed (the Reichian influence is pervasive) “Old Man River” by pulling a rubber trout from the artificial lake.

We had dinner at the Stratton Diner: broiled haddock and real mashed potatoes and gravy.

God’s on the thorn, the snail’s in heaven, and all’s Reich with the world.

. No kidding!