William Washington

One of Reich's chief preoccupations during the summer of 1948 was the orgone energy motor.* (*Reich never published the design for the orgone energy motor and I no longer remember the details of the experimental set-up or its operation. I do recall that it involved the use of an accumulator attached to a wheel; concentrated orgone energy was triggered by a small amount of electricity, an amount insufficient to rotate the wheel without the accumulator. I also recall that when the wheel was rotated entirely by electricity, it had a steady grinding motion.

At the beginning, in early June 1947, when it arrived, it clicked two to five times on the first day in the room and in the orgone accumulator. Then the Geiger-Muller apparatus was silent for many weeks and did not show the slightest reaction. Therefore, I was already starting to think that it was worthless for my orgone research. Yesterday, by chance, out of curiosity, I picked it up again, to see whether it was still dead. When I switched on the power, the apparatus suddenly burst into life.