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CHUCK KELLEY'S RADIX NEWSLETTER NO. 16
Charles R. "Chuck" Kelley, was
the co-founder with his wife, Erica, of the Radix Institute and later,
CHUCK KELLEY'S RADIX NEWSLETTER NO. 16 Spring/Summer 1998 Dear Friends, I have to face it. My correspondence, reading, writing and organizational work has slowed to a creep in the past few years, and has now reached gridlock. More information comes in to me than I can process. Erica pleads, coaxes, tears her hair, all, I'm sorry to say, to little effect. I apologize to those who should have heard from me and haven't; perhaps this letter will provide some explanation. It has been 5 years since I put out the last Chuck Kelley Newsletter. Since then I've written a book I need to tell you about. More than 32 years ago, I became able to state my central mission in life: My work is to study and write of the creative process in nature and its expression in man. To me this is the most important and difficult task in the world, and I believe that I am one of the few people in the world who can do it and do it well.... |
. . |
I knew that the key to my mission was the life force that Reich had called orgone energy but that I had discovered was not energy but a more fundamental substratum of nature than energy. I would come to call it the radix, and call the creative process in nature the radix process. So my mission became to study and write of the radix and the radix process.
In living the years of my life I took many detours and side-tracks. I had to earn a livelihood. There were four children. An organization founded to help in my work was a help for some years, but grew to be a burden. And there was physical illness and injury to cope with. But with Hercu-lean support in all these things from my partner Erica, I succeeded in focussing on my mission long enough and deeply enough to bring together in these last years the core, the essence of what I learned in one book, completed now in manuscript. The main purpose of this letter is to tell you about the book in some detail, and to ask some of you who may be able and willing to help me in the next step.
Information about The New Book takes up the first section of the newsletter. Several Radix and Reichian items comprise the rest. Topics covered by this Newsletter are:
About the New Book The tentative title is LIFE FORCE: The Creative Process in Nature. The book is in three parts. Part One describes the years I spent with Reich's orgonomy before and after his death. These years were the foundation of all that followed. Reich pioneered the concept of a life force -- his "orgone" -- that was real, natural, and central to the scientific understanding of mind and body, psychology and physics. Part Two is the core of the book. The correction of two errors at the heart of Reich's work opened my way to discovery of the radix process and the rush of other extraordinary discoveries about the life force which followed. The final chapters deal with a few of the many applications of these discoveries, including physical applications, freeing blocked feelings, developing human purpose, the evolution of the individual and of our species toward autonomy, and the convergence of science and religion toward a unified view.
CONTENTS
LIFE FORCE
The Creative Process in Nature
FOREWORD by Alice Kahn Ladas, Ed.D.
PART 1. CALL THE FORCE "ORGONE":
The World of Wilhelm Reich
PART 2. CALL THE FORCE "RADIX":
New Discoveries about the Life Force
PART 3. LIFE FORCE AND PERSONAL GROWTH:
Feeling, Purpose, Autonomy, and Spirituality
*************************************************************
Evaluation by Advance Readers
How well does the book succeed
in dealing with its difficult subject matter? I asked half a dozen people
if they would read and candidly appraise the manuscript. Here are some
of their comments:
A wonderful book! Well presented, well done. A wealth
of knowledge of the life force, human development, and the creative growth
process.
The book is, pedantic nit-picking and general nonsense aside,
simply beautiful....I am pleased and deeply grateful that you have pushed
on with your work....It just may, in time, make a positive difference in
the quality of life here on earth.
Your work is most impressive. I admire your originality as
a scientific thinker, and the clear expression of your ideas....
I very much enjoyed your book. Very powerful stuff....It
hangs together well.
The reader is in for a wonderful experience, possibly overwhelming;
I think this book will be the definitive one on the life force for many
years to come.
So I'm encouraged.
The Marketing Problem
So the book is written,
and those who've read it are highly enthusiastic, as their remarks show.
But there is a marketing problem I haven't solved. I haven't been able
to get an agent or publisher to actually read the book. The standard initial
approach for an author needing a publisher or agent for his book is to
send a query letter and a packet with an outline, author bio, and sample
chapter. I've sent such a packet to four carefully chosen agents. All read
and returned my query materials. None asked to receive and examine the
manuscript. One was kind enough to sit down and tell me why she chose not
to consider adding my book to her list. Her comments and the letters and
phone calls to the others reflect the marketing problem the book faces.
The problem I see is that there is not a clear well defined audience for the book. It does not fit in the usual book categories. Look at the outline. Should it be classed as Science? Religion? Psychology? Self-improvement? Philosophy? It has important ramifications for each of these subjects, but doesn't fit comfortably in any of them. Yet it has a clear and well-defined subject matter, an integrity and unity of theme. The problem is that it cuts across traditional subject matter. Every chapter contributes to the understanding of the life force. That is the book's red thread. Anyone who reads it thoughtfully will come to understand this force as few have understood it. It answers questions never answered before about mind and body, spirituality and science, the nature of individual personal growth and its relation to the direction of human evolution. It deals with the process responsible for the creation of the universe, with God and of the individual human soul, anchoring these difficult abstractions in one real natural and knowable process.
But all this is too much. The "too muchness" experienced by Reich and by me is the same. Working directly and carefully with the life force opens too much knowledge. Discoveries pour out. It's overwhelming, so much that it's easy to lose one's bearings.
Reich opened the Pandora's box of knowledge of the life force, but he made crucial mistakes that kept him from quite grasping that to which he came so near. "Orgone energy" was not what Reich thought it was. He came very close. Now the mistakes are made clear. The ultimate mysteries are unfolding. But one needs to grasp the radix process to make them unfold. That is what the book is about!
In any case, the first step is to get
a good publisher for the book. I'm writing letters, making calls, looking
for my publisher. If you can help, please let me hear from you.
Reich's Centennial
The year 1997 marked the 100th anniversary of Reich's birth
and the 40th of his death. There is a worldwide groundswell of interest
in Reich, both his scientific work and Reichian and neo-Reichian therapy
and bodywork. Interest is most intense in Germany and German-speaking Europe,
is strong and growing in the US and Latin America, and is building elsewhere
(Canada, Australia). Reich's publications are available or becoming available
in all the major European languages (and in others I'm told) in authorized
and unauthorized editions. Reich's copyrights are progressively running
out now, encouraging unofficial editions of his work. I don't think many
publishers realize the scope, intensity, and fast-growing world-wide interest
there is in Reich's work today.
BOP (Body Oriented Psychotherapy)
One manifestation of this
interest is the burgeoning worldwide of the new field of Body Oriented
Psychotherapy. (It could be called Reichian psychotherapy.) In the
past 2½ years there has been an international conference in San
Francisco, another a few months later near Boston, and a European Body
Psychotherapy conference honoring Reich's centennial last year in Austria.
Erica and I were sponsored to make presentations at all of these conferences.
These were major conferences, attended by hundreds of people. There were
more than 700 attending last year's European conference in Austria. Major
conferences this year (1998) will include the First Annual Conference of
the newly formed US Association for Body Psychotherapy in Boulder, Colorado
in June, and the newly formed German Association for Body Psychotherapy
the same month in Berlin. A major international one was just announced
early next year near Mexico City.
At the same time, programs and meetings dealing with Reich's scientific work proliferate. The American College of Orgonomy in New Jersey, Jim DeMeo's Orgone Biophysical Research Lab in Ashland, Oregon, and the Reich Museum in Orgonon, Maine are main focusses of Reichian scientific activity in the US. Germany has for years had active Reichian scientific groups.
The deep currents that Reich's work taps
into are those feeding the new scientific paradigm that the finest "new
age" writers express. Reich is the main prophet of the new paradigm.
I like to think that my work makes a major contribution. There are many
others -- Rupert Sheldrake, Larry Dossey, the Institute for the Noetic
Sciences, and the Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, to name just
a few.
Myron (Mickey) Sharaf Dies
Last year's European Reich anniversary conference on Body Psychotherapy
took place in Austria, at a resort near Vienna in May. Well planned and
well attended, people were there from around the world. It was an honor
and a privilige to be invited there along with Myron Sharaf to present
at the conference. He was his usual witty self, perhaps looking a little
tired, but that's all. Many of us septogenarians don't bounce around the
world quite as jauntily as we once did.
I met Myron In Orgonon in the early '50's, in the years after the Oranur Experiment and the onset of the attack on Reich by the FDA. We encountered each other again and again in the years after at Reich meetings, and at Radix conferences when we could get him to speak and do demonstrations of his work. It was always great to see him again. But lunch together in Austria was to be the last time. He went from Austria to Berlin, where he gave a workshop, in the midst of which, and without warning, he died!
He will be remembered as the author of FURY ON EARTH, the remarkable, the definitive biography of Reich. It is a book that will live, along with Reich's own, for generations. But let me say a few things about Myron drawn from my own experi-ence, entirely apart from his magnum opus.
Reich's last years and the decades that followed abounded with sectarian animosities and jealousies. Many of these reflected the belief of certain Reichian groups that their group was the true and rightful heir to Reich's knowledge, and all others were imposters, misunderstanding and distorting the wisdom of Reich. Groups attacked each other, disparaged each other's character and motives, sued and threatened law suits. Many quit trying to develop and explore Reich's ideas because of the unremitting hostility their efforts were met with.
But one person who was able to stay in the center of that cauldron of animosity without ever losing his perspective or his balance was Myron Sharaf. He earned the respect of every Reichian who retained a speck of rationality, and stayed on good terms with Baker and his followers in medical Orgonomy, Lowen and Pierrakos in Bioenergetics, Paul Ritter and David Boadella in England, with Ritter's Orgonomic Functionalism and Boadella's Energy and Character, Reich's family (Peter and Eva) and any number of others, around the world. Myron's articles and presentations were models of judgement, balance, and intelligence, not to mention wit and good humor, in a field where such qualities were rare and badly needed.
They are still badly needed. Mickey,
you died too soon. We need you now! Since we can't have you any longer,
we can only say thanks for all you gave us. It is a magnificent gift!
Trying to Heal the Rift in Radix
The rift that developed after
my retirement I described in The Making of Chickens and of Eagles. It still
dogs the profession of Radix teaching and hurts its growth, even though
Bill Thrash (who succeeded me as Director of the Institute in 1986) has
been out as Director for three years. A new rotating committee form of
management now runs the Institute.
A representative of the new management
and I are entering into dialog to explore whether it may be possible to
develop a more harmonious relationship between us. Wish us luck!
Kelley Publications on Religion
I have written several sermons and some other publications in
recent years on aspects of religion and the life force. Many appear on
our list of publications. This year I have been asked to give the 4th of
July weekend sermon at our Unitarian church, and it will no doubt be added
to the list. Its title will be Liberty, Liberalism and Libertarianism.
In time there may be enough of my writing on religious topics to consider
bringing it together as a small book.
Radix Work with Psychotherapy Clients and with the Public
I am not a psychotherapist, and
Radix work is not psychotherapy but body-oriented personal growth work.
I refer inquirers in search of psychotherapy to appropriate professionals
for treatment. Nonetheless doing Radix bodywork with psychotherapy clients
of mental health professionals has always been an interes-ting and satisfying
part of my practise. People undergoing psychotherapy for a mental illness
or disturbance often have patterns of tension in their bodies, muscular
armor that blocks feelings and interferes with thinking. Radix work can
free such tensions and make a client much more accessible to verbal psychotherapy.
I like working in close partnership with a psychiatrist when a client has
serious mental health disturbances.
Of course, most Radix work is not done
in association with psychotherapy, but directly with clients who enter
the work as an avenue of personal growth. Both Erica and I see regular
local clients, and out-of-towners who come in for programs of concentrated
work, e.g., two sessions per day for a week or more. With the book winding
down, Erica and I will be able to handle a few more clients for ongoing
work. I recommend other prospective students to Radix teachers who display
a Certificate of Radix Training that is signed by me. There are approximately
150 Radix teachers throughout the world who have earned such Certificates.
Training toward such a Certificate is available at present only by personal
arrangement with me.
My Dream
I have a few good working years
left to me, and I have a dream. I wish I could spend these years in physical
research and applications of the life force. I learned from personal experience
that Reich's cloudbusters and orgone accumulators work, that the oranur
effect from placing radioactive material in orgone accumula-tors is real
and devastating, as is DOR, Reich's deadly orgone. At the end of his life
Reich was experimenting with the creation of new matter, with orene, orite,
and melanor, forms of new matter born in Reich's experiments. But there
were important errors in Reich's physics of the life force, which I began
to correct when I discovered the radix process. The dis-covery opens new
portals to understanding and using the life force. Once knowledge of the
radix process is understood and applied, physical science will never be
the same. But research and development is needed to put the discovery to
work.
In my dream I suddenly have $100,000 to
equip a small laboratory, and know that I'll have close to that each year
for staff. I have a technician, a half-time secretary, and funds for scientific
consultants as needed. I'm devoting half time to the work. We focus on
radix instruments and devices, and applications of the radix process. I'm
on the road to new discovery, and I'm excited. That is my dream!
Personal Information
I should tell those who
haven't heard that in July 1995 I got hurt when an oxygen tank was dropped
on my upper back by an attendant during a Delta Airlines flight. It fractured
a vertebra in my neck. It didn't damage the spinal cord, but it affected
my functioning in subtle ways -- I couldn't concentrate well; writing (I
write in long-hand) was physically painful, and the injury exacerbated
my rheumatoid arthritis. It turned out the nature of the fracture was such
that it would never heal. My work was affected enough that I lost a full
two years toward finishing the book. I'm thankful I recovered enough to
finish it.
I'll close with family news. Erica and I still live in Steamboat Landing, a small development on the shore of the Columbia River. I write most days, and Erica and I both teach a light schedule of Radix work. And we row in and walk along the river, and enjoy Erica's garden and the beautiful spring weather. The four "children" (all in their thirties) all live in the Pacific North-west now. Oldest son Tim lives 3 hours north, in Seattle, the others no more than 30 minutes away. Youngest grandson Rhune, son of Eric and Janene, is a year and a half old and is, of course, "remar-kable," as grandchildren are supposed to be, and as are the other two grandchildren, Sarah and Brendan, Rhune's teenaged cousins.
Erica and I are both active in our local Unitarian Church. She heads the music committee, and I do occasional sermons, some of which are available in print, as I said above.
So that's it, after 5 years. I hope that it gets us back in touch!
All the best to each of you.
Charles R. "Chuck" Kelley, co-founder with his wife, Erica, of the Radix Institute and later, Kelley/Radix Education in Feeling and Purpose, passed-away April 30, 2005. With his passing, the "Reichian Movement" lost one of its finest.
NEWS FROM

CHUCK KELLEY
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PUBLICATIONS and TAPES BY CHARLES R. KELLEY, Ph.D. (order below)
__ THE CONVERGENCE OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION, monograph 1996, $3 $_______
__ THE BIRTH OF AUTONOMY, monograph 1995, $3......... $_______
__ NOW I REMEMBER: Recovered Memories of Sexual Abuse,
co-authored by Eric C. Kelley, 1994,
hardback, $20 $_______
__ SEX AND RELIGION, monograph 1992, $3 $_______
__ RELIGION AND PERSONAL GROWTH, monograph 1991, $3. $_______
__ JUDAISM AND PERSONAL GROWTH, 1990, with Reader Commentary and
Author's Reply to JUDAISM AND PERSONAL
GROWTH, 1991, $5 $_______
__ PERSONAL GROWTH AND PSYCHOTHERAPY IN RADIX WORK, monograph 1991. $3
$_______
__ BODY CONTACT IN RADIX WORK, monograph 1988. $5 $_______
__ Reich and Radix: A Memoir, reprinted from Pilgrimage, X (1), Spring
1982. $5 $_______
__ Radix as an Adjunct to the Treatment of Cancer, reprinted from The Radix
Journal II (1&2), 1980. $5 $_______
__ NEW TECHNIQUES OF VISION IMPROVEMENT, 1971. Dated but still valid; includes
description of techniques and discussion
of vision and character. $10 $_______
__ What Is Orgone Energy? reprinted from The Creative Process, II (2 &
3), 1962. $5 $_______
__ A NEW METHOD OF WEATHER CONTROL, Technical Report, 1961. Free to members
of the Science and the Life Force course,
otherwise $15 $_______
__ PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS IN MYOPIA, 1958. Complete, 200-page Ph.D. dissertation
discusses the effects of Bates work
on myopia from a scientific perspective. $30 $_______
__ THE SCIENCE OF RADIX PROCESSES. Collection of articles published in
the Radix
Journal 1978-83, renumbered and bound.
Duplicated with additions in THE RADIX,
VOLUME II below. Free to students in
Science and the Life Force, otherwise $20 $_______
__ THE RADIX, VOLUMES I AND II. Comprehensive collections of articles on
Radix personal growth
and scientific work respectively. Includes
several of the above articles.
Spanish language edition, 1 perfectbound
paperback, $45................................................$_______
English language limited edition, 2-volume
set, $90 ........................................................$_______
AUDIO TAPES
__ SEX AND RELIGION; sermon and discussion, 1992, $10 $_______
__ TRANSFERENCE AND THE REAL RELATIONSHIP IN RADIX WORK, 1992, $15 $_______
__ VISION IN RADIX WORK, 1992, $15 $_______
SCIENCE AND THE LIFE FORCE ONGOING CORRESPONDENCE COURSE (request brochure)
Other Radix literature published prior to 1986 is out of print, but xerox
copies may be available at cost on request.
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