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RANGELEY — Trees at the Wilheim Riech Infant Trust property have been harvested to better expose the views at the Orgone Energy Observatory, as Wilhelm Reich intended, the Board of Directors announced.
The observatory, which housed the Wilhelm Reich Museum, is high on a hill and, until the recent clearing, not visible from the road. The musuem, listined in the National Register of Historic Places, welcomes visitors from all over the world, exhibits works of art, literature, and science, sponsors conferences on social and scientific subjects, operates year-round nature programs and recreational activities for children relevant to the Maine environment. The museum and its programs will continue and be open to the public during the harvesting.
Reich, who came to Rangeley in 1940, bought the farm and mostly fields, which he called Orogon.
Over the years, the trees grew and the museum could no longer be seen, not even from Dodge Pond Road. Many of the trees were a danger to the buildings, especially from forest fires.
The Board decided that clearing the trees from the buildings and museum was necessary to help prevent the building from catching fire and burning before the Fire Department could arrive.
Reich, a renowned Austrian psychoanalyst, research physician and scientist who lived in New York, first arrived in the region by accident. He and his wife, Ilse Ollendorff, were driving into Oquossoc during a rainstorm that had drowned out a camping trip in the White Mountains, and found a cabin for rent on Bald Mountain Road on the shoreline of Mooselookmeguntic Lake.
Reich during his stay made several significant observations regarding his field of research that convinced him that the Rangeley Lakes Region would be an ideal location for his research during the summer, as opposed to the heat and humidity of his home and laboratory in New York City.
Orogon was completed in 1948, and Reich described it this way:
“The western wing has a flat roof suitable as a deck for observation of the western sky. The roof of the main building is flat and also usable for observation The deck overlooks the whole region above the surrounding hills. The White Mountains 100 miles away to the south, Saddleback Mountain to the east, and Mount Bigelow to the northeast form important points of observation. Two lakes, Dodge Pond to the east and Rangeley Lake to the south, provide excellent areas for observations of the pulsatory movement of the atmospheric orgone energy.”
In 1956, his published books, research journals and bulletins — comprising thousands of pages — were banned and burned by order of a U.S. Federal Court. The destruction of several tons of Reich’s publications about psychiatry, medicine, biophysics and sociology constitutes one of the most heinous examples of censorship in this country, the release said, and a part of Rangeley history.
