Reich, Wilhelm

The Mass Psychology of Fascism

New York, NY: Orgone Institute Press, 1946. First American Edition. Hardcover. " "Away from the animal! Away from sexuality!" is the leitmotif of all human ideology. No matter whether the Fascist puts it in terms of the racially pure "Ubermensch," the Communist in terms of proletarian class consciousness, the Christian in terms of the "spiritual-moral" nature of man, or the liberal in terms of the "higher human values." All these ideologies have one and the same basis: "I am not an animal; I have invented the machines, not the animal. I am not a sexual being, like the animal." Hence the overemphasis of the intellect, of "pure" logic over against the instinct, of culture against nature, of the mind against the body, of work against sexuality, of the state against the individual, of the Ubermensch against the Untermensch." (from Chapter X(2), pgs. 290-291) The famous, still-controversial treatise by Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), the renegade Austrian psychoanalyst & cult figure. Reich's core idea was human sexual repression as the source of its individual & societal violence & self-destruction. Here he analyzes the phenomenon of Fascism, especially Hitler & the Nazis, as the ultimate harnessing of repression toward total disaster. Of course, we Third Mind purveyors & collectors are aware of Reich's profound influence on our favorite members of the Beat Generation, especially William S. Burroughs. This writer beheld WSB's own Orgone Accumulator (a device invented by Reich) during my once-in-a-lifetime visit with the aging but still luminous Great Man at his home on February 18, 1995. For Reich, the human sexual orgasm was the antidote to repression & its deadly consequences. Offered here is the "First English Edition, 1946/ Translated from the manuscript of the revised and/ enlarged third edition" of the work first published in 1933 in the German language as "Die Massenpsychologie des Faschismus." (copyright page) Hardcover, without dust jacket scarcely available in any half-decent condition. Reich & his works were as suppressed as some of the worst societal mechanisms he warned against in them, & he died in an American prison awaiting parole, many of his books including this title confiscated & burned. Judge for yourself whether Reich was prescient, at least partially correct, over-the-top or all of the above- & what might have lit up the mind & contributed to the profundity of WSB. In relatively good-to-near-fine condition with mild rubbing & occasional spotting to dark blue cloth front, back covers & spine; mild wear at edges & corners of same incl. small areas of fading, bumps at corners & very slight loss of cloth at all corners & spine-edges; moderate rubbing, browning, scratching & some small spot-stains to edges of text block; medium fading to dyed upper edge of same. Interior good-to-near-fine with mild browning to blank paste-downs, endpapers & (mostly to blank margins of) all page leaves; underlined ink signature of previous owner on front paste-down; same owner's marginalia throughout (appx. 30/344 pgs.), mostly underlinings & bracketing in pencil with occasional ink & commentary, generally unobtrusive & hardly if at all obscuring any words or letters; initials of same owner in blue-colored pencil(?) on rear paste-down. Good- Near Fine. [Item #4522]

Price: $200.00