Wilhelm Reich in Hell

Author| Robert Anton Wilson
Country| United States
Language| English
Genre| play
Publisher| New Falcon Publications

Publication date

| 1987
Pages| 170
ISBN| 1-56184-108-0

Wilhelm Reich in Hell is a play written by Robert Anton Wilson and published as a book in 1987. The play has been staged several times, with productions in Santa Cruz, Dublin, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The play is about Wilhelm Reich, whose writings on orgone and psychoanalysis were burned by the US government in 1956, in a fictional afterlife trial. The many factual and fictional characters in the play include Marilyn Monroe, Uncle Sam, and Wilhelm Reich himself. It has been described as a punk rock drama by Wilson. It shares similarities with The Devil and Daniel Webster, one of Wilson's favorite films in his youth.[1][2]

Besides a long essay by Wilson, the book contains two forewords: one by Christopher Hyatt, the other by Donald Holmes.

## Content[edit]

Reich is prosecuted in Hell by Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, portrayed as circus comedians. The American Medical Association, presented as a punk rock group, delivers Reich's insanity diagnosis in aggressive song. The conductor of the proceedings, a circus ringmaster, insists that Reich must prove everyone else insane to be exonerated. Many characters from across the American ideological conflicts are present, like Marilyn Monroe and Ronald Reagan, as witnesses. The play is a social critique of society's artificial distinctions between good and evil, sanity and insanity, and the infringement of people's natural freedoms.[1]

## See also[edit]

* List of plays with anti-war themes

## References[edit]

1. ^ a b Langer, Adam (15 September 1994). "Wilhelm Reich in Hell". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on 28 November 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2022.
2. ^ Wagner, Eric (2011). "Books by Robert Anton Wilson". An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson (2nd ed.). New Falcon Publications. ISBN 1-56184-165-X.

## External links[edit]

* Robert Anton Wilson Website page on Wilhelm Reich in Hell

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Robert Anton Wilson

Fiction|

* The Sex Magicians (1973)
* The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975)
* Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy (1979)
* Masks of the Illuminati (1981)
* The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles (1982–1991)

Philosophical
and non-fiction|

* Playboy's Book of Forbidden Words (1972)
* Sex, Drugs and Magick (1973)
* The Book of the Breast (1974)
* Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977)
* Neuropolitics (1978)
* The Game of Life (1979)
* Prometheus Rising (1983)
* The New Inquisition (1986)
* Natural Law, or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy (1987)
* Ishtar Rising (1989)
* Quantum Psychology (1990)
* Cosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth (1991)
* Cosmic Trigger III: My Life After Death (1995)
* Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults and Cover-ups (1998)
* TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution (2002)

Plays and
screenplays|

* Wilhelm Reich in Hell (1987)
* Reality Is What You Can Get Away With (1992)
* The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1997)

Essays|

* The Illuminati Papers (1980)
* Right Where You Are Sitting Now (1983)
* Coincidance: A Head Test (1988)
* Email to the Universe (2005)

Related|

* Semiotext(e) SF
* Discordianism
* Operation Mindfuck
* Principia Discordia
* Guerrilla ontology
* Fnord
* Hagbard Celine
* Celine's laws
* Ewige Blumenkraft
* Reality tunnel
* 23 enigma
* SNAFU Principle
* Chaos magic
* Church of the SubGenius
* Ivan Stang
* Discordian works
* Association for Consciousness Exploration
* Timothy Leary
* Eight-circuit model of consciousness
* E-Prime
* "The map is not the territory"
* Illuminati (game)
* Tale of the Tribe

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Wilhelm Reich

Ideas|

* Orgastic potency
* Character analysis
* Vegetotherapy
* Freudo-Marxism
* Orgone

Works|

* "Concerning Specific Forms of Masturbation" (1922)
* Genitality in the Theory and Therapy of Neurosis (1927)
* Character Analysis (1933)
* The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
* The Sexual Revolution (1936)
* The Function of the Orgasm (1942)
* Listen, Little Man! (1945)

Other|

* Cloudbuster
* W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971)
* Me and the Orgone (1971)
* "Cloudbusting" (1985)
* Wilhelm Reich in Hell (1987)
* The All Souls' Waiting Room (2002)
* The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich (2013)

* Category

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