Wilhelm Reich in Hell

by Robert Anton Wilson, Christopher S. Hyatt (Foreword by), Donald Holmes (Foreword by)

The great psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich once wrote, "No President, Academy, Court of Law, Congress or Senate on this earth has the knowledge or power to decide what will be the knowledge of tomorrow." In 1957, the government of the United States of America jailed Dr. Reich and burned all of his published works. Wilhelm Reich in Hell provides a remarkable new look at the vilification and destruction of a great man who refused to bow to Gestapo tactics.

Genres: Plays, Fiction, Politics, Drama, Psychology

170 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Robert Anton Wilson was an American author, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson helped publicize Discordianism through his writings and interviews. In 1999 he described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth". Wilson's goal was "to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything."
In addition to writing several science-fiction novels, Wilson also wrote non-fiction books on extrasensory perception, mental telepathy, metaphysics, paranormal experiences, conspiracy theory, sex, drugs, and what Wilson called "quantum psychology".
Following a career in journalism and as an editor, notably for Playboy, Wilson emerged as a major countercultural figure in the mid-1970s, comparable to one of his coauthors, Timothy Leary, as well as Terence McKenna.

Reviews

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Temos Reich atravessando os bardos com Masoch e Sade como palhaços num circo onde está sendo julgado como psicodrama em que Satã é ao mesmo tempo o ringmaster, o juiz e o terapeuta, tudo embalado a punk rock. Conta ainda com participações especiais de Leopold Bloom, Ronald Reagan, Marilyn Monroe e Oupensky.

[Matt Buchholz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Paranoid counter-culture ramblings of the most embarrassing ilk. I could maybe recommend the introductory essay, engaging and informative in between stretches of unearned arrogance, but there's no reason to touch the play, artless in that special way that's usually reserved for the unskilled, over-ambitious creative writing majors that never learned how to take criticism

[Maddsurgeon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had been really excited when I first heard that Robert Anton Wilson had written a play, but it was a while before I actually got around to reading this. It was kind of hard to find a copy when I first tried, but apparently New Falcon has reprinted it a couple times since then. This one (not pictured; the 2010 printing) has a new foreward by Eric Wagner.

I liked reading this, but as a drama it feels a little stilted. There's a long introduction with the typical sarcastic logical analysis that Wilson as so great at, but in the play itself Reich tends to carry on a bit, and that sort of thing can drag a stage play down.

The premise is Wilhem Reich on trial in a sort of fantastical purgatorial circus court, where the judge is called the "Ringmaster" and de Sade is prosecuting. De Sade and Reich go back and forth discussing big philosophical ideas in the typical Wilsonian way, and this is where the characters can tend to turn into talking heads (because they effectively are). This doesn't hurt the play too much, because there's a lot of theatricality, including some really great satirical scenes and funny captions, and the vaudevillian bits between de Sade and Masoch are actually quite charming. It gets its point across and it's got a lot of laughs, but without the right director I could see it being really long and too preachy.

I think it would need a really Brechtian style to pull it off on stage, something big and metatheatrical in the style of Weiss' Marat/Sade. I don't think this is a weakness in the play - the Brechtian style is obviously intended - but reading this I kept feeling it was a little bit derivative of Weiss' classic, and not only because of the use of the Marquis.

All in all, a funny play, and Wilson always makes you think. RIYL Marat/Sade, Brecht's Galileo, Prometheus Rising, the Cosmic Trigger, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, or any of Wilson's other works...

[vincent alexis ☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

my only knowledge of Wilhelm Reich prior to reading this was as the inspiration for Kate Bush's Cloudbusting, which is probably sacrilegious or something. but i was looking him up on Wikipedia (because I am an Intellectual) and found the provocative title Wilhelm Reich in Hell. what was he doing in hell? I had to find out!!

i don't agree with R.A.W on everything, he reminds me a lot of Patrick McGoohan in that he has lots of thought-provoking ideas which I don't wholly agree with and which are slightly too libertarian/"wake up sheeple"-ish for me. yet (also like P.M.G) there is something to it which I want to believe in, perhaps from some need for individuality. it's perhaps too apropos that I make this comparison, since Wilson references The Prisoner, my favorite show ever.

as for the actual play, I think it would be a lot better onstage, but I did like Wilson's idea of the nuclear warning computer. a lot of the themes are really ham-fisted though. sadism! masochism! Good! Evil! subtlety is dead. so is Reich, for that matter.

the ending was really great, I appreciated the twist - again, I can see it playing out better in the actual play (apologies for gratuitous wordplay).

[Richard Clay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably not essential RAW. I wonder if I shouldn't start every review of a Wilson book I do with the words 'read Masks of the Illuminati and Cosmic Trigger first'? Wilhelm Reich in Hell is maybe not a great, nor even very good play on the page, but it's only one geat director away from being an evening of theatre you would never forget. I hope Daisy Eris Campbell has it on her 'to do' list.

And there are bits that are mightily effective even when read. The conclusion was surely an influence on DEC's dramatisation of Cosmic Trigger and the Marilyn Monroe sequence is close to moving.

It was written in the 1980s and for it to have the kind of effect RAW was after, anybody staging it now would have to tweak the text a bit. It seems to have been intended for performance at the Hampstead Theatre in London but to have wound up at the Edmund Burke in Dublin. There's going to be a story to tell there. So: for RAW completists on the page, but for almost everybody on the stage.

[Anthony Faber · Rating 2 out of 5]

This got off on to a bad start because the author's Introduction started out with an attack on skeptics for doubting Reich's work, where he should have been slamming Reich for not doing proper clinical trials. The play itself is Theater of the Abusrdish and it's devices were long in the tooth by the time this play was written. It might be better received by people who have a better idea of what Reich did.

[Jonathan D McMillan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth reading just for the introductions

Being a play of his a little light on the word count but it makes up for it in the introductions. If you have read RAW then you will know it is the same ideas architecture books but different.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 50 page introduction rates much higher than the play itself.

[Adam Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

reich was a pedaphile.
nuff said

[David]

Ok, I haven't read this book, but I MUST respond to a claim made in the book description. To say that the government burned all of his published work is simply not true. I have read his work from the 1930's on fascism in the Third Reich.

What was destroyed by the Food and Drug Administration was his sales materials for hocus pocus cures (unlocking the hidden power of orgasm) for cancer that leeched money from families desperate to help their loved ones.

I'm all for genuine research, but what Reich was doing at Organon was simply reveling in the same runaway, abusive capitalism that he was victimized by in fascist Europe.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the essay in the front half of the book is deeply engaging, (I missed my subway stop twice while reading it), the play itself is not as inspiring. As a theater practitioner myself, I would love to see this play done perhaps in an adapted form, so much of it is repetitious, but without introducing new ideas or content, perhaps someone with a red pen and a vision (see Son of Semele Ensemble's website for production photos from their fairly successful stab at it in 2001).

[Felix · Rating 5 out of 5]

After I began reading the play, I found it hard to stop. It may not be the most suitable book to start with if you are unfamiliar with RAW. It might be more beneficial to read "Prometheus Rising" first to grasp RAW's viewpoint better. Nevertheless, RAW will surely stimulate your thoughts as he typically does in his writing. This was a great and incredibly amusing read.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A riotous romp that is as fun on the page as it is in the theater.

[Xiola · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this on a Greyhound bus riding through Washington D.C. The introduction is reason enough to read this book.

[David]

Laugh out loud funny. One of the most enjoyable books I've read in my life.

[David]

I liked this, and was excited to find there is a recording of a production of this play, which I found immediately.