Customer Reviews

Book of Dreams

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"I still dream of Organon"...goes the song 'Cloudbusting' by Kate Bush. That is how we discovered this moving, if somewhat curious, book. The Book of Dreams tells the true story of a man (Peter Reich) recalling (through a series of flashbacks) his close and loving relationship with his father - the famous scientist Wilhelm Reich. Wilhelm Reich was at the forefront of scientific thinking on human sexuality and, in particular, the 'Cosmic Orgone Energy Theory' in the 1930s and '40s. He wrote many books on the subject, including the then enlightening 'The function of the Orgasm.' He also experimented with various forms of energy, attempting to capture 'Orgone' - energy in its purest form. Together with his young son, Peter, he went on to build a machine that could affect cloud formations, capture 'Orgone' and, to all intents and purposes, make clouds rain. Although the book touches on many interesting scientific ideas, the book concentrates mostly on Peters memories, on the love, devotion and encouragement he received from his father. On his father's insistence that he stay in touch with his feelings and not become hard like most people in the world -hardness in people, Reich senior believed, made people ill. He didn't want Peter to suffer from that illness as he grew up. Reich senior was later arrested for his beliefs and his experiments and died soon after in prison. Much of his research was destroyed by 'the authorities,' leaving a (still) young Peter with only his memories, most of which as an adult he could only recall through his dreams. Informative, gripping and eminently readable.

Even though it's a pricy out-of-print book, A Book of Dreams is worth the money. The language is beautiful and the way the story unfolds is really great. I should have bought this ten years ago--if you're on the fence, just do it. Peter Reich perfectly captures the experiences of dreams and childhood.
But I have to disagree with the comments about Patti Smith's lyrics. I just finished the book and looked up her lyrics, and they don't seem to be Peter's words at all. If they were, she would have known that Peter rode on the tractor with Tom, not Wilhelm. She just loosely bases the song on this story.

A son's memories of his father, Wilhelm Reich, during his last years. At times you feel as though you are standing next to Dr. Reich as he shares his feelings, saying to his son "I may be killed. You must be brave."

Peter's memory of the FDA Agents, who came to Organon to supervise the destruction of the Orgone Accumulators, is particularly stunning and vivid--YOU ARE THERE.

Kate Bush's song, Cloudbusting, is based on this book.

This book contains the childhood memoirs of Peter Reich. As the son of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, Peter led a bizarre life. He lived with his parents on the family estate of Orgonon in the backwoods of Maine. Not only did his father develop a unique form of psychotherapy, but he also was a theorist who experimented with unknown forms of energy. As Wilhelm's only child, Peter was one of the first recipients of Reich's therapy methods, which involved special forms of touch, energy channeling, "softening the stomach", and inducing vomiting (in Peter's account). Peter was also made lieutenant in his father's defensive squad that protected the earth from UFO attacks through the use of "accumulator guns". The elder Reich eventually got in trouble with the FDA for manufacturing and promoting medical equipment without proper testing for safety and effectiveness. The court case involving his work eventually landed him in jail through contempt of court. Not long after being sent to prison, he passed away, apparently of heart failure. Upon his father's death, Peter found himself at the tender age of 13 forced to confront his father's legacy of brilliance and madness. Up until the time of his father's death, he had believed everything his father told him, not knowing enough of contemporary scientific theories to understand how different his father's version of reality was from most other people's, nor having established an identity of his own through which he could objectively choose between his father's explanations and standard scientific approaches. In this book, Peter tries to sort out for himself what is real and what is not, what is his, and what is his father's.

The book reads like the proverbial onion-chapters move in a dreamlike fashion from one period of time to another. Sometimes it's hard to tell if what Peter is describing actually took place, or whether it was all an imaginative game in his head. By the end of the book, the reader will have some inkling of the confusion in Peter's mind, but, like Peter, may not be capable of saying what really happened. In any case, this is very much a book about Peter Reich, and not Wilhelm Reich, although readers who want to learn more about Wilhelm Reich may find some clues to his ideas through the interpretation of his son, who experienced them first hand and without question.

It might be mentioned that the NSA destroyed his lab and all his work-but kept his documents-while he died in prison-there was a mass recall ordered of his books back from retailers and publishers, and there was a bookburning bonfire in Wash DC- Ive seen pictures;
If he was a quack-as they charge-they would have ignored him or at worst shut him down-even a couple years in the brig-but burning his books and sending him to life in prison-he was onto something that the Fascist Gov didnt like.
Further, whenever they used the CLOUDBUSTER, which essentially caused charged particles to collect in one spot, attracting water vapor, UFOs would appear. He could also quell great storms by dispersing the DOR-deadly orgone. "Orgonon" as Kate mentions in the first line, was the Orgonon Institute where Reich lived and worked
You can bet the NSA took notice

He wrote THE MASS PSYCHOLOGY OF FASCISM, among a dozen other books, mostly on psychology and repressed sexual energy-he believed in 'free love'-and was a little ahead of his time. Kate's emotion put all the pain and all the hope into her performance-as a little boy who loved his deeply loved his father and mutually-sadly watched him be taken away-never to be seen again. It is likely they tortured him in prison.It is a very moving piece of film.
Donald Sutherland stopped dead in the middle of a Hollywood production just to fly to the UK to do this with Kate.
SCALAR technology and weather control-to a point are already a reality-and HAARP-a new horror super weapon that can destroy the ionosphere, and fry armies-and cities from a distance;-are likely outcomes of the evil uses of Reichs and Teslas work and research. HAARP's PR babble-"they are creating ways to communicate with submarines over the horizon" Do they think were dumb-how do we communucate with subs over the horizon now? VIA SATELLITE!

The only glaring flubs I noted were that the 'NSA' agents looked and dressed more like prim and proper Downing street Accountants , and they drove a RRs(?) instead of black sedans-suits and sunglasses were absent.

[I still dream-of Organon-I wake up crying...]
[I just know that something good is gonna happen-I dont know when-but just saying it could even make it happen...]

Sadly this is one one of the last pieces Michael Kamen worked on - a true genius-before he died. The arrangement s are heart rending and Kates singing is so heart felt which is why I love her.
Reichs books have been in and out of print over the years-and only because someone had the foresight to stash away the galleys proofs
I dedicate this notation to Wilhelm, Peter-and to Kate- one beautiful lady that has been a part of my life for many years.

Sizeable chunks of the lyrics to Patti Smith's Birdland are taken almost from this book

This is a sad book by a lost young man who hadn't yet found his identity. It's clear he was struggling to find it, but remained stuck in his childhood and embedded in the identity of his father, Wilhelm Reich, a famous and mentally disturbed man.

It's worth reading the first 50 or so pages of this 190 page book, to get an idea of Peter Reich's childhood and to see the degree to which his father was off-kilter and bad-boundaried. But after that the book loops off into pointlessness. (In fairness, though, this book does provide a uniquely intimate portrait of Wilhelm Reich, which is almost certainly why it got published in the first place.)

What was most painful for me in reading it, though, was seeing how idealizing and even adoring Peter was of his father--a father who might, at best, be described as very neglectful. One might accept this idealization more easily in a child, but Peter was well into his 20s he wrote this book.

A quick a quotation (from page 173) that captures this: "I think what hurts me most, in the most personal way, is that I feel mankind is groping blindly toward some understanding of the great forces at play in the universe and that my father was one of the very few men in history who understood this rhythm, the first to understand the function of the orgasm, things that glow in the dark spontaneously."

Sad.