In Defense of Wilhelm Reich:Opposing the 80-year's War of Mainstream Defamatory Slander Against One of the 20th Century's Most Brilliant Physicians and Natural Scientists

I was glad that DeMeo cleared up some misconceptions from Orgasmatron, such as Aurora Karrar's claim that Reich killed his dog, but the fact of the matter is that DeMeo's writing style is pretty terrible, at times calling Reich's detractors as "smutty" or "nasty." One particularly vile line in the book is "Kinsey's efforts did not merely aim to decriminalize neurotic sexual expressions . . . such as homosexuality and bisexuality, but to "normalize" them." While it is understandable that Reich saw homosexuality as a neurotic sexual expression, considering the time he lived, it is completely anachronistic for DeMeo, in 2011, to hold the same views. DeMeo spends a good portion of the book decrying the "sexual license" of our society, while seeming to forget how much worse off human beings were under the iron thumb of sexual repression.Also, as far as Reich's 'scientific' work on orgone, DeMeo seems to think there is some vast conspiracy by mainstream science to bury Reich's 'discoveries', but the truth is that just isn't how science works. If there was truly something to Reich's orgone, mainstream science would have embraced it long ago. Personally, I wonder if Reich, in his later "orgone" years wasn't 'touched in the head.' Claiming that your cloud-buster scares off malevolent radiation-spreading UFOs and that the planes in the sky were sent to watch over your family are things Reich actually believed.It was because of Reich's social and sexual ideas, and not his orgone energy research, that earned him the ire of the American people - but the FDA used his orgone research as an excuse to punish him for his sexual and social ideas. If Reich hadn't been so stubborn, and had shown up in court the first time he was asked, he probably could have argued his case under the First Amendment. That Demeo paints the ACLU as a commie organization "out to get Reich" is just ludicrous. The ACLU offered to defend Reich under the First Amendment and Reich turned them down because HE saw them as a commie organization.Honestly, "Adventures in the Orgasmatron" was an entertaining read, but I am glad DeMeo cleared up some of the lies of omission and slander, especially about Reich's dog. Personally I think Orgasmatron is worth reading for the history of sexual movements in Europe and America, but if you want to read about Reich, read "Fury on Earth" by Myron Sharaf or read Reich himself.

This summer, I read James Demeo's In Defense of Wilhelm Reich alongside of Turner's Adventures in the Orgasmatron, as, to improve perspective, I like differing views of the same subject. While the mounds of evidence and arguments in both books are daunting to read through, overall I found Demeo's views revealing and Turner's views obscuring.About 150 years ago, the young scientist Thomas Henry Huxley came to the defense of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution, becoming known as "Darwin's bulldog." Darwin and his theory were under heavy public attack from journalists defending orthodoxy, both scientific and religious. See, for example:[...]With Huxley's ferocious public defense, and, over the decades, with the incisive help of many others, Darwin's basic thesis made headway despite the slanders. However, Darwin's struggle for understanding and acceptance still rages around the world.James Demeo has been the most ferocious public defender of Reich's later work, although there are others who are fighting for a decent review of Reich's theses. Science historian James Strick's excellent book, Wilhelm Reich, Biologist, comes to mind, for example.Turner strikes me as a modern journalist who has assembled many facts and fictions to create an odd, slanderous portrait of Reich, which he hopes sell to a public as soft porn. On the other hand, Demeo, as a scientist, builds his thesis fully on verifiable facts alone. Compare DeMeo's to Turner's discussions of Reich's and Kinsey's different understandings of health and sexuality. DeMeo clarifies, while Turner muddies. Best, of course, would be to read Reich's original works.In the 1940s and 1950s journalists spurred by political agendas created a caricature of Reich, a fictitious Reich, portraying him as a pornographic charlatan instead of the fine scientist that he was. The U.S. courts convicted this fictitious Reich, jailed him, and burned his journals and books. The scientist James Demeo rises here to defend Wilhelm Reich against another public campaign of journalistic slander.When politics overwhelms the slow, careful work of scientific inquiry, truth is lost.