Ola Raknes
Encyclopedia
Ola Raknes was a Norwegian psychologist
, philologist and non-fiction writer. Born in Bergen
, Norway, he was internationally known as a psychoanalyst in the Reichian
tradition. He has been described as someone who spent his entire life working with the conveying of ideas through many languages and between different epistemological systems of reference, science
and religion
(Dannevig, 1975). For large portions of his life he was actively contributing to the public discourse
in Norway. He has also been credited for his contributions to strengthening and enriching the Nynorsk
language and its use in the public sphere
.
Raknes was known as a thorough philologist and a controversial therapist. Internationally he was known as one of Wilhelm Reich
's closest students and defenders.
on the island Osterøy
in the Osterfjorden
fjord near Bergen
in a strict pietist
environment. He was married twice: in his first marriage in 1911 with Aslaug Vaa
(1889 – 1965, the marriage was dissolved in 1938) they begot the children Magli
(1912 – 1993), Anne (1914 – 2001), Tora (1916 – 1995), Erik (1919-) and Tor (1923-). The second marriage in 1941 with Gjertrud Bonde (born 1913) gave him the daughter Ada.
. After that he graduated from the Hambros skole in Bergen in 1904. He took his examen artium
as private candidate
at Kristiania katedralskole in 1907. During the winter of 1907–08 he joined the elephant seal-catching vessel Solglimt to the Crozet islands
in the southern Indian Ocean
to collect plants and animals for the university in Kristiania. A liverwort
, Jamesoniella raknesii was named after him. During the summers between 1910 and 1916 he served his military draft duty.
Ola Raknes took on miscellaneous teaching positions in the years between 1910 and 1914 and worked as a journalist
from 1914 to 1916 in the newspaper Den 17de Mai
("the 17th of May") while at the same time continuing his studies. In addition he worked during this period as a hotel worker. In 1915 he took his cand. philol. linguistical-historical "embedseksamen" (a public exam required for most professional positions in the public sphere) with Norwegian language
as major subject and English
and French
as minor subjects. His major thesis was about Egill Skallagrímsson
. In 1916 he was headmaster at Larvik
higher school for one year. In 1917 he got a position as lector
in Norwegian language and Norwegian literature
at Sorbonne
in Paris
, and he spent the four years here earnestly by studying general psychology
, psychology of religion
, biology
, sosiology, and furthermore medieval literature
, medieval philosophy
and theology
on the side of his teaching position. He continued these studies when, after Sorbonne, he began as lector in Norwegian at University College
in London
where he stayed from 1921 to 1922.
Ola Raknes' working capacity was widely spoken of, and during a period he worked both as secretary for Det Norske Samlaget
, while at the same time working on the dictionary and preparing his doctoral thesis in psychology of religion, Møtet med det heilage ("Encounter with the Holy"), which was published in 1927. The dissertation which was also published as a book (and republished again in the 1970s), investigates the phenomenon of religious ecstasy
in view of what was then recent findings and theories in the fields of ethnology
, but particularly in psychology and psychoanalysis. In 1924 he went on to finish studies in pedagogy
. Apart from this he also worked as a literary translator. Raknes studied psychoanalysis at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute
from 1928 to 1929 and at the Orgone Institute in New York
in 1946. From 1929 he had a private practice as psychoanalyst. He published some popularized essays on psychology which he collected in the book Fri vokster which was published in 1949. This was the first book which introduced Wilhelm Reich's theories and therapeutical practice to a Norwegian audience (Dannevig, 1975).
language. In this job which he had until 1910 he dealt with book sales and administrative chores for Det Norske Samlaget
. He provided the momentum behind book publications as well as sales, and he brought the accounting into order, since it hadn't been attended to for the last three years. Being the first secretary
of the Samlaget he made a significant contribution to the establishing of its first real administration in a time period when publishing in Nynorsk was starting to become self-sufficient (Skard, 1975). Ola Raknes joined the Studentmållaget i Oslo (A pro-Nynorsk organization among students in Oslo) which was founded in 1900, and he attained a central position, among other thngs he was elected chairman in 1913 but had to renounce the position. In later times he would serve as an often used speaker both in the 20s and 30s. Already as a student Ola Raknes published French-Norwegian Wordlist. Having returned from London he began working on English-Norwegian Dictionary, which was produced between 1922 and 1927. This as well as French-Norwegian Dictionary, which was written between 1939 and 1942, were both written for the "school book committee" within the Samlaget, where Raknes was a board member between 1915 and 1917.
Ola Raknes loved poetry, and together with I. C. Grøndahl he published the first Norwegian literature history volume in English in 1923. He was an appreciated literary translator, both of scholarly as well as artistic prose. He was the philological supervisor of Henrik Rytter
's ten-volume translation of Shakespeare
. Sigmund Skard
writes of the two dictionaries which Ola Raknes wrote (Skard, 1975), that far from being mere glossaries, they were very personal works which again reflected the quest of Ola Raknes for his identity. Skard compares this work with that of Ivar Aasen
more than 50 years earlier. Aasen had made his way through the entire tributary of Norwegian folk speech and compared it with another Nordic language: Danish
. Skard writes that Raknes, "with strong power of empathy, integrated the values of two of the largest and oldest European cultural languages, procured everything that they possessed, from past to present, and confronted that with his own linguistic heritage and his personal linguistic sense. To check himself he drew in the living present-day speech in one of the richest East Norwegian rural dialects, in collaboration with his first wife, the poet Aslaug Vaa
, as well as her father, the farmer Tor Vaa. Long into the future will these books be the daily benefit to everyone who works with the Norwegian language."
Both the school book committee and to some extent the popular writings committee of which he was also a member from 1911, acted as schools in publishing
where the students had to deal with all aspects of book publishing: market evaluations, editorial reviews, recruitment of authors, practical editorial chores, deals with publishing houses or printers, distribution, marketing and economy. Ola Raknes' dictionaries
were reputedly so meticulous that even the most abject taboo words were included, and they became important tools in the cultural struggle of the Nynorsk movement. From 1922 to 1930 he again worked for the Samlaget, this time as secretary to the board, however, in reality he was director of the publishing house. Raknes also translated
several works of fiction as well as non-fiction into Nynorsk. He did a groundbreaking job in establishing a philological and psychological terminology
for the language.(Dannevig, 1975) Raknes was deeply involved in the Nynorsk movement, which included the Høgnorsk
movement, and he was a founding member of Norsk Måldyrkingslag ("Norwegian society for language cultivation") in 1928.
which these ruminations centered on. Sometime between the age of seven and eleven he began to wonder about what the saved people told, that by repenting they had begot, or been allowed to take part in, a new and better life, a life which the non-repented didn't know of and could not comprehend. He had a vague sense of them being right in some way, but at the same time he felt that they also were wrong. He had an opaque reminiscence of once having experienced this life, in his own words from the time he was about 3 or 4 years old, "when he was a church-builder". Later he considered this to have been a child's way of expressing that he had known another life before. From about the age of ten and several years onward he attempted to come in contact with this other life. He went to edifying meetings in the village, and he often attended church, although he, just like the saved people, figured that that in particular was less important because it was a lesser likelihood that a conversion would start there. It was a constant fear of ending in Hell which spurred him, because he was certain that was where he would go if he failed in finding his way to the new life.
Despite all his toils he never succeeded in attaining religious conversion
. He felt that it would be dishonest of him of he stood up and testified the way some of his friends had done, that he had been graced, and he was also very ambivalent about believing whether all those who did so were totally honest. In hindsight Raknes found that partly what held him back was a fear of relinquishing.
. With the exception of some popularized scientific articles by G. H. Armauer Hansen, this was the first literary encounter he had which made him doubt the religious teachings which he had received until then. Even though he would later forget most of the content of the booklet, it made him consider the belief in eternal Hell
without sense, and it also provided him with courage to trust his own thoughts and feelings a lot more than he had previously dared. When a little later he told his best friend, county school director Per Erdal, about his newly gained perspective on Hell, he was joyed to hear that his friend shared his view. The keen interest in religion would now lose its grip on Raknes for a number of years, and the interest in a life after death disappeared, never to return.
In the years both before and after he, as a twenty-year old, got his examen artium
, it was common practice among his comrades to make jokes about and with both religion, philosophy and psychology, which was deemed more or less as superstition or play with empty words. Raknes felt that such subjects were unfit for someone who had set out to do something useful with his life, which he had. When he began to study philology
after secondary school, he was hoping that the goals and literature which he would study were going to show him a field where he felt that he had a particular calling. However, as absorbing as many subjects seemed at first, none offered to him the labor which would consume him fully. And he felt likewise when it came to the women: He met many whom he liked and also many which, in retrospect, he believed also were fond of him, but during this time it felt like no woman could ever love him – even though that was what he longed for more than anything else.
("May the 17th" a now defunct Nynorsk newspaper, at that time one of the nation's most subscribed to. The name is a reference to the date of the Norwegian Constitution Day
). It was the interest for intellectual activities which brought them together, believed Aslaug's sister-in-law Thora Vaa (married to Aslaug's brother Dyre Vaa
)(Fyllingsnes, page 11). The next years would be focused on more hands-on work: the philology studies, money that had to be earned, as well as an unceasingly growing family. The first daughter, Magli, was born in Oslo the year after Ola and Aslaug married. The family was constantly moving about the first years, and the second daughter, Anne, was born at the Vaa family farm in Kviteseid
in Vest-Telemark
. In between they had been living in Paris where Ola and also Aslaug were enrolled as students, and they also moved back to Paris in 1919. They lived in Rue Bonnard in a milieu of Norwegian artists, Henrik Sørensen
and Dagfin Werenskiold
being their closest neighbours, but hanging out with the artists was more to the liking of Aslaug. When Aslaug caught typhus
and had to return home to Norway after two years in Paris, the two youngest of the then four children went with her while the two oldest, Magli and Anne remained in Paris together with Ola. After the stay in Paris the family lived for about a year in Kviteseid again. Then it moved to an apartment block in Johan Bruns gate at Adamstuen
in Oslo which Ola Raknes had bought. There they lived for four years. Following that they moved to Lysaker
(just outside Oslo's western city limits) where they remained until 1932-33. By then Ola had begun making enough money so that they once more could move back to Oslo (Fyllingsnes, p. 6).
As the 1930s went on, the marriage began to fall apart. Ola Raknes became more absorbed by psychoanalysis while Aslaug Vaa found her path in writing poetry. Her debut occurred as late as 1934.
concerning reward for good deeds. The other two believed that man requires a promise of reward to be able to stay on the straight path. Ola Raknes, however, asserted, "that it is natural for man to love and be good, those are fundamental characteristics of man and needs no other 'payment' than to have the opportunity to function freely" (Raknes, 1959). Subsequent to this debate he started reading different books, mostly at random, about foreign religions, primitive as well as culture religions.
of Norwegian language
and literature
at Sorbonne
in Paris
, and he had planned his stay such that he would get the opportunity to study of his own heart a portion of the time. The first thing he wanted to study was the relationship between French
and Norwegian literature
in the Middle Ages
. He started to read Joseph Bédier
's great work about Les Légendes Épiques, a work which stunned him and convinced him that if he was ever going to understand the effects of Medieval French literature
and its influences, he would also have to know something about Medieval philosophy
and theology. Consequently he contacted the university's professor of these subjects, François Picavet
, studied several of his books, attended his lectures, and had several talks with him. Picavet possessed the enviable quality of making compendia when he had worked on a subject, where he summed up the development up through the present time. In this fashion Raknes started to read William James
' book The Varieties of Religious Experience
, the one book that would make the strongest impression on him above all others, and which later he would translate to Nynorsk. This was the first time that he had experienced that religion was dealt with as a natural phenomenon, and which in any case attempted to free itself from how the religions perceive themselves. He spent many weeks working his way through this book, and he walked about completely absorbed with new thoughts and feelings. Looking back, he writes that most of his friends looked upon him as if he were a loony, although a couple of artists appeared to envy him. On his last birthday, shortly before he died, Raknes described William James as the person who had had the greatest significance in his life (Dannevig). The revelation brought on him by this book was what he had been waiting for and which would show him a field of work to which he could apply himself wholly, one which in any case had importance to him, and maybe also to a lot of others.
Now, Raknes experienced that he could understand the religions from the "inside", even though he himself didn't believe in any dogmatic religion. This would have to be his task, he felt; to point out what really was true and valuable in religions and at the same time how there had entered into each single religion so much that was not true, but quite the contrary, inimical to life. His yearning to obtain further information grew strong. He needed concrete knowledge, both about the various religions, about philosophies of religion
, about ethnology
which provides backdrop and fertile ground for the different religions, and about life in all its appearances. He started to read as much as he could in all of these fields, partly at random, and at the university he attended lectures, classes, and seminars in general psychology
and psychology of religion
. psychopathology
and psychiatry
, and in biology
. Raknes read the basics of the French school of sociology
, works by among others Durkheim
, Mauss
, and Lévy-Bruhl
, and he read numerous books about mysticism
. His favourite was Les grands mystiques by Henri Delacroix
, who was his teacher. He also read the main works of the then fledgling psychology of religion which had its origin predominantly in America, and of ethnology he read among other things a series of books by Roman Catholic missionaries
He continued these studies when, after Sorbonne, he started in a position as Norwegian lector at University College
in London
where he stayed between 1921 and 1922.
In later years of his life he explained: "I count myself a religious man, but I am an opponent of all dogmatic religion. The core of all religion is a certain experience both of oneself as a unit and of the unity between oneself and the universe." (Raknes, 1959)
if he was to go further in understanding human behaviour
. That time, at the end of the 1920s no such method existed except for psychoanalysis
. In 1928, for that reason, Ola Raknes finished up his school work and moved to Berlin
and began studying at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute
with a grant from the Nansen fund. From this point he was lost to philology with the exception of finishing his French-Norwegian dictionary, which had contributed to make it possible for him to go to Berlin. While he attended apprentice analysis in Berlin with Karen Horney
(who was later known as a "neo-Freudian
"), he got convinced that psychoanalytic therapy was a vocation well suited to his abilities and interests. After having delivered a lecture to the Berlin chapter on "Viewpoints on psychoanalytical psychology of religion" in 1929, he was selected as member of the International Psychoanalytical Association
. In the lecture Ola Raknes clearly stated his opposition to Freud's
theories on religion. Raknes experienced progression in his new field of activity, and despite strong opposition from large parts of the medical profession
, he was in the process of making a name for himself.
s, and aggression
, and he was skeptical of the psychological dualism of Freud's theories of these contradictory basic drives, which at first moved between the instinct for self preservation
and sexuality
, and later between the life instinct (Eros
) and the death instinct
(Thanatos
). It was during his stay in Berlin that Ola Raknes heard Wilhelm Reich
's name for the first time, but there would still be some years before he read anything by Reich. He was still busy studying Freud and other "orthodox" psychoanalysts. It was after Reich had published his book Charakteranalyse in 1933 that Ola Raknes in earnest began moving toward Reich's teachings. Following that book Raknes absorbed himself in Die Funktion des Orgasmus, then in Reich's articles in various psychoanalytical journals, and finally in Reich's own Zeitschrift für politische Psychologie und Sexualökonomie. Ola Raknes found it all to be most interesting and rich in perspective, however, this did not cause him to change either his basic attitudes or his psychotherapeutical technique.
where Reich was working at that time. In any case, they met again in August that same year on the 13th psychoanalytical congress in Luzern. There Ola Raknes, together with the two other Norwegian participants, professor of psychology Harald Schjelderup and children's psychiatrist Nic. Hoel (who would later change her name to Nic. Waal), vehemently protested the blackballing of Reich from the International Psychoanalytical Association
(I.P.V.). The Norwegian contingent was later at the congress approved as a distinct group, and this meant they could admit Reich in their membership. Wilhelm Reich did not, however, accept the offer of becoming a member when he later in 1934 moved to Norway. At that time Raknes had already started in apprentice therapy with Otto Fenichel
, whom he counted as one of Reich's friends and co-workers. He had from the outset told Fenichel that he would have gone to Reich if he had been in Norway.
charge, bioenergetic discharge, and mechanical relaxation. In it he wrote, "Most people are going to need a certain amount of practice in noticing their own bodily states before they can experience this life rhythm. But then they are clearly going to experience it, in particular in two guises: in the rhythmical flow that penetrates the entire body when it is able to freely go along with the breathing
, and particularly intense in the state popularly called 'living together', that is in the sexual orgasm
".
concept to encompass a general life energy, which Reich called orgone
– wasn't exhaustively proven with reference to the natural sciences' demands for proof, he felt that from his own observations and experiences it must have some merit. In the book Wilhelm Reich and orgonomy (written in English, but translated into many different languages), which he wrote a few years prior to his death, he explains in an educational and easy-to-comprehend manner the theory and its implications for various scientific disciplines, and in relation to society. How Reich was apparently able to make use of this energy in producing rain, using a so-called cloudbuster, a technical apparatus which is said to focus and project orgone energy, Raknes was himself witness to during a visit to Reich's estate "Orgonon
" in Maine
in 1953:
Six times after the war Raknes traveled to the US to visit Reich, and to keep his skills and knowledge up-to-date with respect to the development of Reich's theories and methods. Then upon his return to Norway, he would replicate as much as he could of the observations and experiments that he had witnessed in Reich's laboratory, experiments which constituted the foundation for the discovery of the bion
s and the orgone energy in the body.
Raknes was of the opinion that what Reich had discovered was what others before him had described, but then using other names, such as animal magnetism
, chi
, and prana
. Raknes also believed that such phenomena as telepathy
and clairvoyance
were real, and felt that the only thing that would cause scientists to deny their existence was narrow-mindedness and dogmatism (Gabrielsen, 1962). He believed that continued investigation and research into the orgone energy would possibly shed light on these phenomena.
Factors drawing Raknes toward the orgone theory were his lifelong curiosity and interest for the origin of religions, the religious experience
and how it shapes man, and he felt it could contribute in shedding light upon these areas on a scientific basis. Furthermore he felt that it constituted an expansion of therapeutic treatment, from being a limited psychotherapy to deserving to be called a biotherapy.
in Oslo
, and there he also had his own "orgone closet" where his patients sat in order to be supplied life energy, a so-called orgone accumulator. He was sought after in many locations around the world, and as late as in his last year of living, albeit tired and marked by illness (Skard, 1975), he traveled to Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, England, and the United States, to visit friends, give lectures and receive patients in orgone therapy. He treated a total of 800 patients, and on his last working day he received five patients.
The work of Ola Raknes as a psychotherpist is being continued by several psychologists in Norway and also branched to other countries, in particular through Gerda Boyesen
and David Boadella
, both students of Raknes, who later established institutions for education of therapists in London
and Switzerland
, respectively.
In 1972, at the age of 85, he initiated the founding of the "Forum for karakteranalytisk vegetoterapi" (this was also the name of a journal which was established in 1992) to assist in recruiting new vegetotherapists (being then at a low point).
, was unusually harsh. The attacks, some of which deteriorated to mudslinging and slander, were often strongly emotional, and Ola Raknes was among those of Reich's proponents who countered the criticism, which was most forcibly promulgated by the psychiatrist Johan Scharffenberg
who insinuated that Reich merely pretended to be a physician, that he performed illegal medical treatment, and that Reich had wanted to perform electrical measurements on insane patients having sexual intercourse (Stai, 1954), and later by physician Gabriel Langfeldt
(Raknes, 1939). Both in conjunction with the strife surrounding Reich in Norwegian public
discourse
, and later, during the resistance which Ola Raknes was met with in his work being an exponent for a controversial branch of psychotherapy, what Raknes "would represent, was founded on one ground only; his own experience and his scientific conscience
. He was not someone merely parroting his great teacher. Nor was he an errand-boy; as a therapist he was in time going to speak out with professional authority. And the only thing that drove him, was what he believe to be the truth. In this respect he showed no deference, and cared not how others might judge him." (Skard, 1975)
s and was also involved in Reich's journal projects Zeitschrift für Politische Psychologie und Sexualökonomie (published 1934 – 1938) and Tidsskrift for seksualøkonomi (Norw. "Journal for sex economy", one issue only published in 1939) which he was editing together with Odd Havrevold
.
in 1939, few people associated with the community of Norwegian psychoanalysts where longer willing to defend his teachings. Even the American Reich supporters were according to Raknes "disappointingly orthodox" (Dannevig, 1975). The only people left to carry on Reich's work appeared to be Ola Raknes and Nic. Waal, and following the death of Waal in 1960, Raknes was sometimes condescendingly referred to as "Reich's last disciple". Nevertheless, several psychiatrists had confidence in him, and his matter-of-fact style and all-over good reputation as a therapist saw to it that the demand from would-be patients never relented, in particular from abroad. And for the last 10 – 15 years of his life Ola Raknes was met with unanimous professional acceptance and veneration. (Skard, 1975; Kile, 1989). One among many, actor Sean Connery
came to Oslo in 1967 to receive treatments by Ola Raknes (Haga, 2002), something which, for the first and only time, made the popular media give attention to his work, as they created a commotion outside his practice (Kile, 1989).
, as well as his manifested ability to systematize, Raknes has meant very much to the development of the psychotherapeutic, biological, and natural philosophical
theories that are usually ascribed to Wilhelm Reich alone". (Dannevig, 1975)
in 1953. He was a member of the Socialist People's Party
also from that year, and that party's successor, the Socialist Left Party
. His opinion was that the making conscious of the individual's bodily-psychological awareness, which he could contribute to through his work, had to progress hand-in-hand with societal changes – in the working place, in family life and in neighborhoods. He felt that the way society was organized created dependent individuals. Those family
types and norms for child rearing which were prevalent created overwhelming sensations of angst, helplessness and feelings of littleness in the small child when its vital urges and needs – sexual or related to contact with other people, or other still – were thrashed, rejected or ignored. This in turn, Raknes felt, led, in the adult individual to a necessity, in order for it to survive, for adaptation through one of two life strategies – either a constant, compulsive striving for power and competitive mentality
, or equally compulsive attempts to ingratiate with those in power, through self-effacing submission and dutifullness. Ola Raknes thus placed the focus on the connection between current character traits in Norwegian society, such as feelings of either superiority or inferiority, competitiveness and self-effacing dutifullness, and characteristic structural traits in society itself such as concentration of power and bureaucratic control, in which the first mentioned provide fertile ground for the latter. (Grønseth, 2004)
and has garnered praise from many directions and has also been translated into many languages. Many people have nevertheless asserted "Liv og religion" ("Life and Religion") to be Raknes' best article, originally a lecture given to the 4th Nordic Psychologist Meeting in 1956 and which deals with the living
, the very feeling of being alive. It has been described as "a wise
man's integrated understanding of what he has encountered in life, but also an encompassing, non-confessional faith
." (Dannevig, 1975) Characteristic of his seemingly rock solid grasp of language as a tool for the conveying of thoughts, Raknes, being a lifelong proponent of the radical Nynorsk language, presented his speech in an "impeccable, pure in style and somewhat conservative Riksmål (a very conservative variant of the Bokmål language) in consideration of the Danes." (Dannevig, 1975)
so that it could make its own experiences instead of being told by adults how to perceive things: "Children always pick their own ideals. As soon as we put up ideals for them, they will start cheating on themselves. They are the ones who should make the choice." (Gabrielsen, 1962) In one of the essays in the book Fri Vokster ("Free growth") Raknes elaborates on how he as a psychologist sees the child's developmental dynamics being critically dependent on being given the opportunity to learn for itself to regulate
such matters as going to the bathroom, what and when to eat and when and how much it wants to sleep, through experiencing and through practicing to master, without the adults spurring the child on.
Such moral rules as not to inflict harm on others or to abstain from stealing, Raknes believed children had to find out about on their own, not through admonitions or prohibitions from the parents: "I believe that when a child lies, it is because it has been punished for telling the truth. And when it steals, it is because it feels neglected in one way or another. [...children] steal the love that isn't given to them." With respect to war Raknes meant for instance that it would be fine if the parents explained why people make wars against each other and to what this can lead, but they ought to leave it to the child to figure out what to make of it all. (Gabrielsen, 1962)
Ola Raknes once said to his friend and student Rolf Grønseth: "I too must be allowed to die at some time". He died pursuant to a brief bout of pneumonia
at the end of January 1975, only a few days after his 88th birthday.
Einar Dannevig sums up his experience of Ola Raknes as a man of spirit: "The clarity of thought and emotion, conveyed through many languages, the ability to simplify with a taste for the big and significant parts of it all together with a genuine modesty and complete absence of ambitions for power made it a distinctive and a big experience to meet Ola Raknes, preferably in person, but also in writing." (Dannevig, 1975)
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
, philologist and non-fiction writer. Born in Bergen
Bergen
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....
, Norway, he was internationally known as a psychoanalyst in the Reichian
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
tradition. He has been described as someone who spent his entire life working with the conveying of ideas through many languages and between different epistemological systems of reference, science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
(Dannevig, 1975). For large portions of his life he was actively contributing to the public discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
in Norway. He has also been credited for his contributions to strengthening and enriching the Nynorsk
Nynorsk
Nynorsk or New Norwegian is one of two official written standards for the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. The standard language was created by Ivar Aasen during the mid-19th century, to provide a Norwegian alternative to the Danish language which was commonly written in Norway at the...
language and its use in the public sphere
Public sphere
The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action...
.
Raknes was known as a thorough philologist and a controversial therapist. Internationally he was known as one of Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
's closest students and defenders.
Family
Ola Raknes was the son of the farmer Erik Askildson (Askjellson) Raknes (1856 – 1926) and Magdali Olsdotter (born Raknes) (1859 – 96) and grew up at the family farm of Raknes in HamreHamre, Osterøy
Hamre is a village and parish in Hordaland county, Norway. The village of Hamre is located near the extreme western point of Osterøy, across the fjord from Knarvik.-History:...
on the island Osterøy
Osterøy
Osterøy is an island municipality in the county of Hordaland, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Nordhordland. The administrative centre is located in Lonevåg in the central part of the island, while the settlement with the largest population is Valestrandfossen with 1,012...
in the Osterfjorden
Osterfjorden
Osterfjorden is one of three fjords surrounding the island Osterøy.The fiord runs between Lindås and Osterøy and is 27 km long, 1-3 km wide. The largest depth is 639 m....
fjord near Bergen
Bergen
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....
in a strict pietist
Pietism
Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...
environment. He was married twice: in his first marriage in 1911 with Aslaug Vaa
Aslaug Vaa
Aslaug Vaa was a Norwegian poet and playwright.-Biography:Aslaug Vaa was born on Nystog in Rauland, in Telemark county, Norway. Her lyrical debut was Nord i leite...
(1889 – 1965, the marriage was dissolved in 1938) they begot the children Magli
Magli Elster
Magli Elster was a Norwegian psychoanalyst, literary critic, poet and translator. She was the daughter of psychologist Ola Raknes and poet and playwright Aslaug Vaa, married to writer and Director-General of the NRK Torolf Elster, and the mother of philosopher Jon Elster...
(1912 – 1993), Anne (1914 – 2001), Tora (1916 – 1995), Erik (1919-) and Tor (1923-). The second marriage in 1941 with Gjertrud Bonde (born 1913) gave him the daughter Ada.
Studies and work side by side
Ola Raknes attended folkeskole (primary school) on the neighbouring farm and then worked for a while on the family's farm prior to enrolling at middelskole (the next higher level in the education system of that time) in VoldaVolda
Volda is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Sunnmøre region. The administrative centre is the village of Volda. The municipality is located about south of the city of Ålesund.-General information:...
. After that he graduated from the Hambros skole in Bergen in 1904. He took his examen artium
Examen artium
Examen artium was the name of the academic certification conferred in Denmark and Norway, qualifying the student for admission to university studies. Examen artium was originally introduced as the entrance exam of the University of Copenhagen in 1630...
as private candidate
Private candidate
A private candidate in the UK examination system is a person who enters an examination but is not enrolled as a student at the centre where he or she sits the exam. They may have trained themselves for the exam or been taught privately or at an institution which is not a registered examination...
at Kristiania katedralskole in 1907. During the winter of 1907–08 he joined the elephant seal-catching vessel Solglimt to the Crozet islands
Crozet Islands
The Crozet Islands are a sub-antarctic archipelago of small islands in the southern Indian Ocean. They form one of the five administrative districts of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.-Geography:...
in the southern Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
to collect plants and animals for the university in Kristiania. A liverwort
Marchantiophyta
The Marchantiophyta are a division of bryophyte plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like other bryophytes, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information....
, Jamesoniella raknesii was named after him. During the summers between 1910 and 1916 he served his military draft duty.
Ola Raknes took on miscellaneous teaching positions in the years between 1910 and 1914 and worked as a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
from 1914 to 1916 in the newspaper Den 17de Mai
Den 17de Mai
Den 17de Mai is a former Norwegian newspaper, issued in Oslo from 1894 to 1935.The founder and first editor-in-chief of Den 17de Mai was Rasmus Steinsvik, who edited the newspaper until his death in 1913. Arne Garborg was co-editor the first four years. Later editors were Anders Hamre and Einar...
("the 17th of May") while at the same time continuing his studies. In addition he worked during this period as a hotel worker. In 1915 he took his cand. philol. linguistical-historical "embedseksamen" (a public exam required for most professional positions in the public sphere) with Norwegian language
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
as major subject and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
as minor subjects. His major thesis was about Egill Skallagrímsson
Egill Skallagrímsson
Egill Skallagrímsson was a Viking Age warrior and skald. Egill is one of the great anti-heroes of the Icelandic sagas.-Life:...
. In 1916 he was headmaster at Larvik
Larvik
is a city and municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Larvik. Larvik kommune - has about 41 364 inhabitants and covers 530 km2....
higher school for one year. In 1917 he got a position as lector
Lector
Lector is a Latin term for one who reads, whether aloud or not. In modern languages the word has come to take various forms, as either a development or a loan, such as , , and . It has various specialized uses:...
in Norwegian language and Norwegian literature
Norwegian literature
Norwegian literature is literature composed in Norway or by Norwegian people. The history of Norwegian literature starts with the pagan Eddaic poems and skaldic verse of the 9th and 10th centuries with poets such as Bragi Boddason and Eyvindr Skáldaspillir...
at Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and he spent the four years here earnestly by studying general psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, psychology of religion
Psychology of religion
Psychology of religion consists of the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to religious traditions, as well as to both religious and irreligious individuals. The science attempts to accurately describe the details, origins, and uses of religious beliefs and behaviours...
, biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, sosiology, and furthermore medieval literature
Medieval literature
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages . The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works...
, medieval philosophy
Medieval philosophy
Medieval philosophy is the philosophy in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century AD to the Renaissance in the sixteenth century...
and theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
on the side of his teaching position. He continued these studies when, after Sorbonne, he began as lector in Norwegian at University College
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
where he stayed from 1921 to 1922.
Ola Raknes' working capacity was widely spoken of, and during a period he worked both as secretary for Det Norske Samlaget
Det Norske Samlaget
Det Norske Samlaget is a Norwegian publishing house founded on 24 March 1868 with the aim to promote and publish books in Landsmål, now known as Nynorsk....
, while at the same time working on the dictionary and preparing his doctoral thesis in psychology of religion, Møtet med det heilage ("Encounter with the Holy"), which was published in 1927. The dissertation which was also published as a book (and republished again in the 1970s), investigates the phenomenon of religious ecstasy
Religious ecstasy
Religious ecstasy is an altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness which is frequently accompanied by visions and emotional/intuitive euphoria...
in view of what was then recent findings and theories in the fields of ethnology
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
, but particularly in psychology and psychoanalysis. In 1924 he went on to finish studies in pedagogy
Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
. Apart from this he also worked as a literary translator. Raknes studied psychoanalysis at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute
Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute
The Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute was founded in 1920 to further the science of psychoanalysis in Berlin. Its founding members included Karl Abraham and Max Eitingon. The scientists at the institute furthered Sigmund Freud's work but also challenged many of his ideas.-History:During the 1920s,...
from 1928 to 1929 and at the Orgone Institute in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in 1946. From 1929 he had a private practice as psychoanalyst. He published some popularized essays on psychology which he collected in the book Fri vokster which was published in 1949. This was the first book which introduced Wilhelm Reich's theories and therapeutical practice to a Norwegian audience (Dannevig, 1975).
Working for the Nynorsk
In May 1908 Ola Raknes, then still a student, became manager and handyman for Norskt Maalkontor (literally "Norwegian language office"), an office dedicated to promoting the still young NynorskNynorsk
Nynorsk or New Norwegian is one of two official written standards for the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. The standard language was created by Ivar Aasen during the mid-19th century, to provide a Norwegian alternative to the Danish language which was commonly written in Norway at the...
language. In this job which he had until 1910 he dealt with book sales and administrative chores for Det Norske Samlaget
Det Norske Samlaget
Det Norske Samlaget is a Norwegian publishing house founded on 24 March 1868 with the aim to promote and publish books in Landsmål, now known as Nynorsk....
. He provided the momentum behind book publications as well as sales, and he brought the accounting into order, since it hadn't been attended to for the last three years. Being the first secretary
Secretary
A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
of the Samlaget he made a significant contribution to the establishing of its first real administration in a time period when publishing in Nynorsk was starting to become self-sufficient (Skard, 1975). Ola Raknes joined the Studentmållaget i Oslo (A pro-Nynorsk organization among students in Oslo) which was founded in 1900, and he attained a central position, among other thngs he was elected chairman in 1913 but had to renounce the position. In later times he would serve as an often used speaker both in the 20s and 30s. Already as a student Ola Raknes published French-Norwegian Wordlist. Having returned from London he began working on English-Norwegian Dictionary, which was produced between 1922 and 1927. This as well as French-Norwegian Dictionary, which was written between 1939 and 1942, were both written for the "school book committee" within the Samlaget, where Raknes was a board member between 1915 and 1917.
Ola Raknes loved poetry, and together with I. C. Grøndahl he published the first Norwegian literature history volume in English in 1923. He was an appreciated literary translator, both of scholarly as well as artistic prose. He was the philological supervisor of Henrik Rytter
Henrik Rytter
Henrik Grytnes Rytter was a Norwegian dramatist, lyricist and translator.He was born in Bjørnør. He made his debut in 1907, with the drama Dømde. Later plays include Bråhamaren , Herman Ravn , Våren , Elva and Prestegarden og øya . All were staged at Det Norske Teatret...
's ten-volume translation of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
. Sigmund Skard
Sigmund Skard
Sigmund Skard was a Norwegian poet, essayist and professor of literature.He was born in Kristiansand as a son of educators Matias Skard and Gyda Christensen . He was a nephew of Johannes Skar and Christopher Bruun, a brother of Bjarne and Eiliv Skard and a half-brother of Olav and Torfinn...
writes of the two dictionaries which Ola Raknes wrote (Skard, 1975), that far from being mere glossaries, they were very personal works which again reflected the quest of Ola Raknes for his identity. Skard compares this work with that of Ivar Aasen
Ivar Aasen
Ivar Andreas Aasen was a Norwegian philologist, lexicographer, playwright and poet.-Background:...
more than 50 years earlier. Aasen had made his way through the entire tributary of Norwegian folk speech and compared it with another Nordic language: Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
. Skard writes that Raknes, "with strong power of empathy, integrated the values of two of the largest and oldest European cultural languages, procured everything that they possessed, from past to present, and confronted that with his own linguistic heritage and his personal linguistic sense. To check himself he drew in the living present-day speech in one of the richest East Norwegian rural dialects, in collaboration with his first wife, the poet Aslaug Vaa
Aslaug Vaa
Aslaug Vaa was a Norwegian poet and playwright.-Biography:Aslaug Vaa was born on Nystog in Rauland, in Telemark county, Norway. Her lyrical debut was Nord i leite...
, as well as her father, the farmer Tor Vaa. Long into the future will these books be the daily benefit to everyone who works with the Norwegian language."
Both the school book committee and to some extent the popular writings committee of which he was also a member from 1911, acted as schools in publishing
Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
where the students had to deal with all aspects of book publishing: market evaluations, editorial reviews, recruitment of authors, practical editorial chores, deals with publishing houses or printers, distribution, marketing and economy. Ola Raknes' dictionaries
Dictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
were reputedly so meticulous that even the most abject taboo words were included, and they became important tools in the cultural struggle of the Nynorsk movement. From 1922 to 1930 he again worked for the Samlaget, this time as secretary to the board, however, in reality he was director of the publishing house. Raknes also translated
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
several works of fiction as well as non-fiction into Nynorsk. He did a groundbreaking job in establishing a philological and psychological terminology
Terminology
Terminology is the study of terms and their use. Terms are words and compound words that in specific contexts are given specific meanings, meanings that may deviate from the meaning the same words have in other contexts and in everyday language. The discipline Terminology studies among other...
for the language.(Dannevig, 1975) Raknes was deeply involved in the Nynorsk movement, which included the Høgnorsk
Høgnorsk
Høgnorsk, meaning "High Norwegian", is a term for varieties of the Norwegian language form Nynorsk that reject most of the official reforms that have been introduced since the creation of Landsmål...
movement, and he was a founding member of Norsk Måldyrkingslag ("Norwegian society for language cultivation") in 1928.
Religious longing
Already at a very early age Ola Raknes was intensely occupied with religion. It was particularly the thought and the fear of HellHell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
which these ruminations centered on. Sometime between the age of seven and eleven he began to wonder about what the saved people told, that by repenting they had begot, or been allowed to take part in, a new and better life, a life which the non-repented didn't know of and could not comprehend. He had a vague sense of them being right in some way, but at the same time he felt that they also were wrong. He had an opaque reminiscence of once having experienced this life, in his own words from the time he was about 3 or 4 years old, "when he was a church-builder". Later he considered this to have been a child's way of expressing that he had known another life before. From about the age of ten and several years onward he attempted to come in contact with this other life. He went to edifying meetings in the village, and he often attended church, although he, just like the saved people, figured that that in particular was less important because it was a lesser likelihood that a conversion would start there. It was a constant fear of ending in Hell which spurred him, because he was certain that was where he would go if he failed in finding his way to the new life.
Despite all his toils he never succeeded in attaining religious conversion
Religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...
. He felt that it would be dishonest of him of he stood up and testified the way some of his friends had done, that he had been graced, and he was also very ambivalent about believing whether all those who did so were totally honest. In hindsight Raknes found that partly what held him back was a fear of relinquishing.
Discovered determinism
During Christmas break, shortly before he turned 17, he stumbled across a booklet about determinismDeterminism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
. With the exception of some popularized scientific articles by G. H. Armauer Hansen, this was the first literary encounter he had which made him doubt the religious teachings which he had received until then. Even though he would later forget most of the content of the booklet, it made him consider the belief in eternal Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
without sense, and it also provided him with courage to trust his own thoughts and feelings a lot more than he had previously dared. When a little later he told his best friend, county school director Per Erdal, about his newly gained perspective on Hell, he was joyed to hear that his friend shared his view. The keen interest in religion would now lose its grip on Raknes for a number of years, and the interest in a life after death disappeared, never to return.
In the years both before and after he, as a twenty-year old, got his examen artium
Examen artium
Examen artium was the name of the academic certification conferred in Denmark and Norway, qualifying the student for admission to university studies. Examen artium was originally introduced as the entrance exam of the University of Copenhagen in 1630...
, it was common practice among his comrades to make jokes about and with both religion, philosophy and psychology, which was deemed more or less as superstition or play with empty words. Raknes felt that such subjects were unfit for someone who had set out to do something useful with his life, which he had. When he began to study philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
after secondary school, he was hoping that the goals and literature which he would study were going to show him a field where he felt that he had a particular calling. However, as absorbing as many subjects seemed at first, none offered to him the labor which would consume him fully. And he felt likewise when it came to the women: He met many whom he liked and also many which, in retrospect, he believed also were fond of him, but during this time it felt like no woman could ever love him – even though that was what he longed for more than anything else.
Falling in love and first marriage
He was twenty-four and a half years old when he experienced his first big love affair since childhood, an event which he experienced as both a revelation and a revolution. Up until this time he had felt as if life only moved ahead in front of him, he being merely a passive spectator. From now on he felt that he lived and that he was himself a part of life, even though he still hadn't found his particular slot work-wise. Ola Raknes and Aslaug Vaa met in the Studentmållaget i Oslo. They also were colleagues as journalists for the newspaper Den 17de MaiDen 17de Mai
Den 17de Mai is a former Norwegian newspaper, issued in Oslo from 1894 to 1935.The founder and first editor-in-chief of Den 17de Mai was Rasmus Steinsvik, who edited the newspaper until his death in 1913. Arne Garborg was co-editor the first four years. Later editors were Anders Hamre and Einar...
("May the 17th" a now defunct Nynorsk newspaper, at that time one of the nation's most subscribed to. The name is a reference to the date of the Norwegian Constitution Day
Norwegian Constitution Day
Norwegian Constitution Day is the National Day of Norway and is an official national holiday observed on May 17 each year. Among Norwegians, the day is referred to simply as syttende mai or syttande mai , Nasjonaldagen or Grunnlovsdagen , although the latter is less frequent.- Historical...
). It was the interest for intellectual activities which brought them together, believed Aslaug's sister-in-law Thora Vaa (married to Aslaug's brother Dyre Vaa
Dyre Vaa
Dyre Vaa was a Norwegian sculptor and painter.-Background:He was born in Kviteseid, Telemark, and later lived and worked in Rauland. Vaa grew up the youngest of five siblings in a wealthy home. His father was one of the largest forest owners in Telemark...
)(Fyllingsnes, page 11). The next years would be focused on more hands-on work: the philology studies, money that had to be earned, as well as an unceasingly growing family. The first daughter, Magli, was born in Oslo the year after Ola and Aslaug married. The family was constantly moving about the first years, and the second daughter, Anne, was born at the Vaa family farm in Kviteseid
Kviteseid
Kviteseid is a municipality in Telemark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Vest-Telemark. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Kviteseid...
in Vest-Telemark
Vest-Telemark
The Vest-Telemark traditional district of Norway comprises the upper and western areas of the county of Telemark. The region consists of six municipalities: Fyresdal, Tokke, Vinje, Nissedal, Kviteseid and Seljord....
. In between they had been living in Paris where Ola and also Aslaug were enrolled as students, and they also moved back to Paris in 1919. They lived in Rue Bonnard in a milieu of Norwegian artists, Henrik Sørensen
Henrik Sørensen
-Personal life:Sørensen was born in Fryksände in Sweden as a son of Severin Sørensen and Helene Høibraaten. He was married to Gudrun Klewe, and is father of physicist Sven Oluf Sørensen.-Painting career:...
and Dagfin Werenskiold
Dagfin Werenskiold
Dagfin Werenskiold was a Norwegian sculptor and painter.Dagfin Werenskiold was born in Bærum in Akershus Colunty, Norway. He was the son of Norwegian painter and illustrator, Erik Werenskiold. He was the brother of Norwegian geologist Werner Werenskiold. He first learned drawing from his father...
being their closest neighbours, but hanging out with the artists was more to the liking of Aslaug. When Aslaug caught typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and had to return home to Norway after two years in Paris, the two youngest of the then four children went with her while the two oldest, Magli and Anne remained in Paris together with Ola. After the stay in Paris the family lived for about a year in Kviteseid again. Then it moved to an apartment block in Johan Bruns gate at Adamstuen
Adamstuen
Adamstuen is a neighborhood in the borough of St. Hanshaugen in Oslo, Norway. It is located south of Ullevål University Hospital. It is served by Adamstuen Station of the Oslo Tramway...
in Oslo which Ola Raknes had bought. There they lived for four years. Following that they moved to Lysaker
Lysaker
Lysaker is a section of and a postal code area of the Norwegian municipality of Bærum, just west of Oslo.Geographically, it is bordered by Lysakerelven on the east, which also forms the border to Oslo; Fornebu to the south; Stabekk to the west; and Jar to the north...
(just outside Oslo's western city limits) where they remained until 1932-33. By then Ola had begun making enough money so that they once more could move back to Oslo (Fyllingsnes, p. 6).
As the 1930s went on, the marriage began to fall apart. Ola Raknes became more absorbed by psychoanalysis while Aslaug Vaa found her path in writing poetry. Her debut occurred as late as 1934.
Religious debate
About the time he turned thirty he got involved in a newspaper debate with the school man Jakob Naadland and bishop Peter HognestadPeter Hognestad
Peter Hognestad was a Norwegian theologist, writer, translator, and Lutheran bishop, born as a farmer's son in Time.Hognestad served as bishop of the Diocese of Bjørgvin from 1916. He translated biblical texts into Nynorsk, and was chief editor of the Nynorsk translation of the Bible from 1921...
concerning reward for good deeds. The other two believed that man requires a promise of reward to be able to stay on the straight path. Ola Raknes, however, asserted, "that it is natural for man to love and be good, those are fundamental characteristics of man and needs no other 'payment' than to have the opportunity to function freely" (Raknes, 1959). Subsequent to this debate he started reading different books, mostly at random, about foreign religions, primitive as well as culture religions.
Religion studies
The same year, 1917, he commenced his four years as lectorLector
Lector is a Latin term for one who reads, whether aloud or not. In modern languages the word has come to take various forms, as either a development or a loan, such as , , and . It has various specialized uses:...
of Norwegian language
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
and literature
Norwegian literature
Norwegian literature is literature composed in Norway or by Norwegian people. The history of Norwegian literature starts with the pagan Eddaic poems and skaldic verse of the 9th and 10th centuries with poets such as Bragi Boddason and Eyvindr Skáldaspillir...
at Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and he had planned his stay such that he would get the opportunity to study of his own heart a portion of the time. The first thing he wanted to study was the relationship between French
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
and Norwegian literature
Norwegian literature
Norwegian literature is literature composed in Norway or by Norwegian people. The history of Norwegian literature starts with the pagan Eddaic poems and skaldic verse of the 9th and 10th centuries with poets such as Bragi Boddason and Eyvindr Skáldaspillir...
in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. He started to read Joseph Bédier
Joseph Bédier
Joseph Bédier was a French writer and scholar and historian of medieval France.-Biography:Bédier was born in Paris, France to Adolphe Bédier, a lawyer of Breton origin, and spent his childhood in Réunion. He was a professor of medieval French literature at the Université de Fribourg, Switzerland ...
's great work about Les Légendes Épiques, a work which stunned him and convinced him that if he was ever going to understand the effects of Medieval French literature
Medieval French literature
Medieval French literature is, for the purpose of this article, literature written in Oïl languages during the period from the eleventh century to the end of the fifteenth century....
and its influences, he would also have to know something about Medieval philosophy
Medieval philosophy
Medieval philosophy is the philosophy in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century AD to the Renaissance in the sixteenth century...
and theology. Consequently he contacted the university's professor of these subjects, François Picavet
François Picavet
François Picavet was a French philosopher, translator and authority on Kant.He is now best known for an 1891 essay, Les idéologues, on the history of ideas and of scientific theories, philosophy and religious and political ideas in France since 1789.- Works:* Mémoire sur le scepticisme *...
, studied several of his books, attended his lectures, and had several talks with him. Picavet possessed the enviable quality of making compendia when he had worked on a subject, where he summed up the development up through the present time. In this fashion Raknes started to read William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
' book The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature is a book by the Harvard University psychologist and philosopher William James that comprises his edited Gifford Lectures on "Natural Theology" delivered at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland between 1901 and 1902.These lectures...
, the one book that would make the strongest impression on him above all others, and which later he would translate to Nynorsk. This was the first time that he had experienced that religion was dealt with as a natural phenomenon, and which in any case attempted to free itself from how the religions perceive themselves. He spent many weeks working his way through this book, and he walked about completely absorbed with new thoughts and feelings. Looking back, he writes that most of his friends looked upon him as if he were a loony, although a couple of artists appeared to envy him. On his last birthday, shortly before he died, Raknes described William James as the person who had had the greatest significance in his life (Dannevig). The revelation brought on him by this book was what he had been waiting for and which would show him a field of work to which he could apply himself wholly, one which in any case had importance to him, and maybe also to a lot of others.
Now, Raknes experienced that he could understand the religions from the "inside", even though he himself didn't believe in any dogmatic religion. This would have to be his task, he felt; to point out what really was true and valuable in religions and at the same time how there had entered into each single religion so much that was not true, but quite the contrary, inimical to life. His yearning to obtain further information grew strong. He needed concrete knowledge, both about the various religions, about philosophies of religion
Philosophy of religion
Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious language and texts, and the relationship of religion and science...
, about ethnology
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
which provides backdrop and fertile ground for the different religions, and about life in all its appearances. He started to read as much as he could in all of these fields, partly at random, and at the university he attended lectures, classes, and seminars in general psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and psychology of religion
Psychology of religion
Psychology of religion consists of the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to religious traditions, as well as to both religious and irreligious individuals. The science attempts to accurately describe the details, origins, and uses of religious beliefs and behaviours...
. psychopathology
Psychopathology
Psychopathology is the study of mental illness, mental distress, and abnormal/maladaptive behavior. The term is most commonly used within psychiatry where pathology refers to disease processes...
and psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
, and in biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
. Raknes read the basics of the French school of sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, works by among others Durkheim
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...
, Mauss
Marcel Mauss
Marcel Mauss was a French sociologist. The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss' academic work traversed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology...
, and Lévy-Bruhl
Lucien Lévy-Bruhl
Lucien Lévy-Brühl was a French scholar trained in philosophy, who made contributions to the budding fields of sociology and ethnology. His primary field of study involved primitive mentality....
, and he read numerous books about mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
. His favourite was Les grands mystiques by Henri Delacroix
Henri Delacroix
Henri Delacroix was a French psychologist, "one of the most famous and most prolific French psychologists working at the beginning of [the twentieth] century."...
, who was his teacher. He also read the main works of the then fledgling psychology of religion which had its origin predominantly in America, and of ethnology he read among other things a series of books by Roman Catholic missionaries
Catholic missions
As the church normally organizes itself along territorial lines, and because they had the human and material resources, religious orders—some even specializing in it—undertook most missionary work, especially in the early phases...
He continued these studies when, after Sorbonne, he started in a position as Norwegian lector at University College
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
where he stayed between 1921 and 1922.
The source of true religion
What Ola Raknes intended in this manner, was for him to be able to explain and demonstrate his strong conviction, which he knew he was yet unable to prove. "I wanted to be able to explain and demonstrate my own conviction, which from already the outset I perceived to be true, even though I was aware that I wasn't able to prove it. The conviction was that the source of all true religion is an inner experiencing of life and growth and contact with something outside of one's own narrow self. In its narrowest form, you can have this experience localized in a wound healing, in its widest form, it is a sensation of communion with the entire universe. At first I meant to call this experience 'growth consciousness'." (Raknes, 1959)Back in Norway
After three years abroad, the finances were at a low-point, and all time had to be directed toward financially profitable work. He taught languages and literature in high schools and wrote his English-Norwegian dictionary. Not until 1927, after he had turned 40, was he able to complete the book he had begun contemplating when he was in Paris, and begun working on in London. The book was Møtet med det heilage ("Encounter with the Holy"), and the next year he got his doctorate based upon it.In later years of his life he explained: "I count myself a religious man, but I am an opponent of all dogmatic religion. The core of all religion is a certain experience both of oneself as a unit and of the unity between oneself and the universe." (Raknes, 1959)
From psychology of religion to psychoanalysis
From his work with the psychology of religion. Raknes had come to the conclusion that he needed some method for investigating the subconsciousSubconscious
The term subconscious is used in many different contexts and has no single or precise definition. This greatly limits its significance as a definition-bearing concept, and in consequence the word tends to be avoided in academic and scientific settings....
if he was to go further in understanding human behaviour
Human Behaviour
"Human Behaviour" is Icelandic singer Björk's first solo single, taken from the album Debut. It contains a sample of "Go Down Dying" by Antonio Carlos Jobim. The lyrics reflect on human nature and emotion from a non-human animal's point of view. The song is the first part of a series of songs that...
. That time, at the end of the 1920s no such method existed except for psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
. In 1928, for that reason, Ola Raknes finished up his school work and moved to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and began studying at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute
Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute
The Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute was founded in 1920 to further the science of psychoanalysis in Berlin. Its founding members included Karl Abraham and Max Eitingon. The scientists at the institute furthered Sigmund Freud's work but also challenged many of his ideas.-History:During the 1920s,...
with a grant from the Nansen fund. From this point he was lost to philology with the exception of finishing his French-Norwegian dictionary, which had contributed to make it possible for him to go to Berlin. While he attended apprentice analysis in Berlin with Karen Horney
Karen Horney
Karen Horney born Danielsen was a German-American psychoanalyst. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views, particularly his theory of sexuality, as well as the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis and its genetic psychology...
(who was later known as a "neo-Freudian
Neo-Freudian
The Neo-Freudian psychiatrists and psychologists were a group of loosely linked American theorists of the mid-twentieth century, who were all influenced by Sigmund Freud, but who extended his theories, often in social or cultural directions...
"), he got convinced that psychoanalytic therapy was a vocation well suited to his abilities and interests. After having delivered a lecture to the Berlin chapter on "Viewpoints on psychoanalytical psychology of religion" in 1929, he was selected as member of the International Psychoanalytical Association
International Psychoanalytical Association
The International Psychoanalytical Association is an association including 12,000 psychoanalysts as members and works with 70 constituent organizations. It was founded in 1910 by Sigmund Freud, on an idea proposed by Sándor Ferenczi...
. In the lecture Ola Raknes clearly stated his opposition to Freud's
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
theories on religion. Raknes experienced progression in his new field of activity, and despite strong opposition from large parts of the medical profession
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, he was in the process of making a name for himself.
From classical psychoanalysis to the character analysis of Reich
Ola Raknes was always searching for improvements of the therapeutic technique, and he was also dissatisfied with the traditional psychoanalytical explanatory models for man's basic drives, instinctInstinct
Instinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular behavior.The simplest example of an instinctive behavior is a fixed action pattern, in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a...
s, and aggression
Aggression
In psychology, as well as other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior between members of the same species that is intended to cause humiliation, pain, or harm. Ferguson and Beaver defined aggressive behavior as "Behavior which is intended to increase the social dominance of...
, and he was skeptical of the psychological dualism of Freud's theories of these contradictory basic drives, which at first moved between the instinct for self preservation
Self preservation
Self-preservation is behavior that ensures the survival of an organism. It is universal among living organisms. In some vertebrates, pain and fear are parts of this mechanism. Pain causes discomfort so that the organism is inclined to stop the pain...
and sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
, and later between the life instinct (Eros
Eros (love)
Eros is one of the four words in Ancient Greek which can be rendered into English as “love”. The other three are storge, philia and agape...
) and the death instinct
Death instinct
In classical Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the death drive is the drive towards death, self-destruction and the return to the inorganic: 'the hypothesis of a death instinct, the task of which is to lead organic life back into the inanimate state'...
(Thanatos
Thanatos
In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the daemon personification of death. He was a minor figure in Greek mythology, often referred to but rarely appearing in person...
). It was during his stay in Berlin that Ola Raknes heard Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
's name for the first time, but there would still be some years before he read anything by Reich. He was still busy studying Freud and other "orthodox" psychoanalysts. It was after Reich had published his book Charakteranalyse in 1933 that Ola Raknes in earnest began moving toward Reich's teachings. Following that book Raknes absorbed himself in Die Funktion des Orgasmus, then in Reich's articles in various psychoanalytical journals, and finally in Reich's own Zeitschrift für politische Psychologie und Sexualökonomie. Ola Raknes found it all to be most interesting and rich in perspective, however, this did not cause him to change either his basic attitudes or his psychotherapeutical technique.
Encounter with Wilhelm Reich
Ola Raknes met Wilhelm Reich for the first time at the Scandinavian psychoanalysts meeting in Oslo in the Easter of 1934. Raknes was very much impressed by this strong personality, and the succinctness of his presentations and during discussions about core elements of the themes that he discussed helped Raknes attain a clearer understanding of many things. Wilhelm Reich's starting point was the psychoanalytical theories of Freud, but as early as 1925, based on experiences gained through volunteer work at his councelling clinic in Vienna for people with sexual problems, he began developing his theory of sex economy, a work which would continue until 1938. Raknes' first choice would be to commence apprentice therapy with Reich immediately, however, he had no way of travelling to SwedenSweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
where Reich was working at that time. In any case, they met again in August that same year on the 13th psychoanalytical congress in Luzern. There Ola Raknes, together with the two other Norwegian participants, professor of psychology Harald Schjelderup and children's psychiatrist Nic. Hoel (who would later change her name to Nic. Waal), vehemently protested the blackballing of Reich from the International Psychoanalytical Association
International Psychoanalytical Association
The International Psychoanalytical Association is an association including 12,000 psychoanalysts as members and works with 70 constituent organizations. It was founded in 1910 by Sigmund Freud, on an idea proposed by Sándor Ferenczi...
(I.P.V.). The Norwegian contingent was later at the congress approved as a distinct group, and this meant they could admit Reich in their membership. Wilhelm Reich did not, however, accept the offer of becoming a member when he later in 1934 moved to Norway. At that time Raknes had already started in apprentice therapy with Otto Fenichel
Otto Fenichel
Otto Fenichel was a psychoanalyst of the so-called "second generation".Otto Fenichel started studying medicine in 1915 in Vienna. Already as a very young man, when still in school, he was attracted by the circle of psychoanalysts around Freud...
, whom he counted as one of Reich's friends and co-workers. He had from the outset told Fenichel that he would have gone to Reich if he had been in Norway.
Character analysis and apprentice therapy with Reich
Shortly after Reich had arrived in Norway, he opened a seminar in character analysis. Raknes was admitted to this despite not having undergone any such analysis himself. He tried out the techniques that he learned on a couple of his patients, with fairly good results. In the fall of 1936 he asked if Wilhelm Reich would accept him for apprentice therapy, both because of personal problems and because he thought that Reich's therapeutic approach was far more efficient than the classical Freudian technique which he had applied so far. Reich was in doubt and felt that Ola Raknes was a bit old and too armored, but in the end he gave his acceptance. Ola Raknes was probably one of the first patients to whom Reich consistently applied his new technique, which he labeled characteranalytic vegetotherapy. Not surprisingly, due to Raknes' advanced age, the restructuring of his character, that is the apprentice therapy, was cumbersome and lasted for almost three years, three sessions a week. The response did not fail to show itself. At times everything felt so destitute and hopeless that he doubted whether he would ever be able to do the work that he still believed he was created to do, in a way he himself would be content with – and if he couldn't manage that, there would be no reason to live even. But after a long period of time he finally began noticing that the energies started to make themselves felt; he started noticing what took place inside of his own organism, and what it would mean to be functioning freely. He was struck by the fundamental differences between characteranalytic vegetotherapy and traditional psychoanalysis. Even though he had read Reich's book on character analysis, and he had also applied the technique on his own patients, having the technique work on his own body was something altogether new. Compared to classical psychoanalysis, the technique was now extended to the interpretation of character expressions and bodily attitudes, and to the working through somatical blockings through direct manipulation. (Raknes, 1959)Characteranalytic vegetotherapy
In his practice Raknes emphasized assisting people in working through to the living in themselves and work to release the innate propensity for development, the "free growth". The way of doing this was by removing the obstacles and blockages standing in the way, and this in turn would be effected when the person learned to acknowledge him- or herself, with their thoughts, feelings and their impulses. The most important part of this was to integrate body perception – to feel what one wanted, to yield to the urge if nothing of significance gainsayed it. In the article "Life and Religion" Raknes pointed to Wilhelm Reich's definition of life as a continuous process consisting of rhythmical shifts between mechanical tension, bioenergeticVitalism
Vitalism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is#a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from biochemical reactions...
charge, bioenergetic discharge, and mechanical relaxation. In it he wrote, "Most people are going to need a certain amount of practice in noticing their own bodily states before they can experience this life rhythm. But then they are clearly going to experience it, in particular in two guises: in the rhythmical flow that penetrates the entire body when it is able to freely go along with the breathing
Breathing
Breathing is the process that moves air in and out of the lungs. Aerobic organisms require oxygen to release energy via respiration, in the form of the metabolism of energy-rich molecules such as glucose. Breathing is only one process that delivers oxygen to where it is needed in the body and...
, and particularly intense in the state popularly called 'living together', that is in the sexual orgasm
Orgasm
Orgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure...
".
The orgone energy
Even though Raknes conceded that the orgone theory of Wilhelm Reich – an expanding of Freud's libidoLibido
Libido refers to a person's sex drive or desire for sexual activity. The desire for sex is an aspect of a person's sexuality, but varies enormously from one person to another, and it also varies depending on circumstances at a particular time. A person who has extremely frequent or a suddenly...
concept to encompass a general life energy, which Reich called orgone
Orgone
Orgone energy is a theory originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich. Reich, originally part of Sigmund Freud's Vienna circle, extrapolated the Freudian concept of libido first as a biophysical and later as a universal life force...
– wasn't exhaustively proven with reference to the natural sciences' demands for proof, he felt that from his own observations and experiences it must have some merit. In the book Wilhelm Reich and orgonomy (written in English, but translated into many different languages), which he wrote a few years prior to his death, he explains in an educational and easy-to-comprehend manner the theory and its implications for various scientific disciplines, and in relation to society. How Reich was apparently able to make use of this energy in producing rain, using a so-called cloudbuster, a technical apparatus which is said to focus and project orgone energy, Raknes was himself witness to during a visit to Reich's estate "Orgonon
Orgonon
Orgonon was the home, laboratory and research center of the Austrian-born psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich . Located in Rangeley, Maine, it is Reich's burial place, and is now open to the public as the Wilhelm Reich Museum....
" in Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
in 1953:
- There had been a droughtDroughtA drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
that had lasted for weeks, and the weather report predicted continued drought across the Eastern United States. Then Reich pointed the apparatus at a certain point in the sky and left it on for an hour and a half. If this is correctly set up, he said, we are going to experience rain within 8 – 9 hours. And quite correctly. After 8 hours we received an 8-hour streaming downpour across some tens of square kilometers surrounding the apparatus! An experience of that sort makes a certain impression. (Gabrielsen, 1962)
Six times after the war Raknes traveled to the US to visit Reich, and to keep his skills and knowledge up-to-date with respect to the development of Reich's theories and methods. Then upon his return to Norway, he would replicate as much as he could of the observations and experiments that he had witnessed in Reich's laboratory, experiments which constituted the foundation for the discovery of the bion
Bion
Bion , Greek bucolic poet, was a native of the city of Smyrna and flourished about 100 BC. Most of his work is lost. There remain 17 fragments and the Epitaph of Adonis, a mythological poem on the death of Adonis and the lament of Aphrodite...
s and the orgone energy in the body.
Raknes was of the opinion that what Reich had discovered was what others before him had described, but then using other names, such as animal magnetism
Animal magnetism
Animal magnetism , in modern usage, refers to a person's sexual attractiveness or raw charisma. As postulated by Franz Mesmer in the 18th century, the term referred to a supposed magnetic fluid or ethereal medium believed to reside in the bodies of animate beings...
, chi
Qi
In traditional Chinese culture, qì is an active principle forming part of any living thing. Qi is frequently translated as life energy, lifeforce, or energy flow. Qi is the central underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts...
, and prana
Prana
Prana is the Sanskrit word for "vital life" .It is one of the five organs of vitality or sensation, viz. prana "breath", vac "speech", chakshus "sight", shrotra "hearing", and manas "thought" Prana is the Sanskrit word for "vital life" (from the root "to fill", cognate to Latin plenus...
. Raknes also believed that such phenomena as telepathy
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
and clairvoyance
Clairvoyance
The term clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
were real, and felt that the only thing that would cause scientists to deny their existence was narrow-mindedness and dogmatism (Gabrielsen, 1962). He believed that continued investigation and research into the orgone energy would possibly shed light on these phenomena.
Factors drawing Raknes toward the orgone theory were his lifelong curiosity and interest for the origin of religions, the religious experience
Religious experience
Religious experience is a subjective experience in which an individual reports contact with a transcendent reality, an encounter or union with the divine....
and how it shapes man, and he felt it could contribute in shedding light upon these areas on a scientific basis. Furthermore he felt that it constituted an expansion of therapeutic treatment, from being a limited psychotherapy to deserving to be called a biotherapy.
Active as a therapist until the end
Ola Raknes had his treatment room in the basement of his home at NordbergNordberg
Nordberg is a neighbourhood in Nordre Aker in Oslo, the capital of Norway.From 1934 to 1992 it was served by Nordberg Station on the Sognsvann Line, but is now served by Østhorn and Holstein on the same line.-References:...
in Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
, and there he also had his own "orgone closet" where his patients sat in order to be supplied life energy, a so-called orgone accumulator. He was sought after in many locations around the world, and as late as in his last year of living, albeit tired and marked by illness (Skard, 1975), he traveled to Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, England, and the United States, to visit friends, give lectures and receive patients in orgone therapy. He treated a total of 800 patients, and on his last working day he received five patients.
The work of Ola Raknes as a psychotherpist is being continued by several psychologists in Norway and also branched to other countries, in particular through Gerda Boyesen
Gerda Boyesen
Gerda Boyesen is the founder of Biodynamic Psychology, a branch of Body Psychotherapy.-Life:...
and David Boadella
David Boadella
David Boadella is a British psychotherapist and founder of a modality of body psychotherapy called biosynthesis, and the author of numerous books including poetry....
, both students of Raknes, who later established institutions for education of therapists in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, respectively.
In 1972, at the age of 85, he initiated the founding of the "Forum for karakteranalytisk vegetoterapi" (this was also the name of a journal which was established in 1992) to assist in recruiting new vegetotherapists (being then at a low point).
A notable figure in public discourse
His support for Wilhelm Reich when he was barred from the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1934 has already been mentioned. During Reich's residency in Norway between 1934 – 39 there were vituperous debates over his theories and practice, and Ola Raknes was one of his strongest apologists. During the so-called Reich strife in the fall of 1937 and throughout 1938 the criticism that was leveled at Reich's theories and methods, in particular from traditional psychiatryPsychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
, was unusually harsh. The attacks, some of which deteriorated to mudslinging and slander, were often strongly emotional, and Ola Raknes was among those of Reich's proponents who countered the criticism, which was most forcibly promulgated by the psychiatrist Johan Scharffenberg
Johan Scharffenberg
Johan Scharffenberg was a Norwegian psychiatrist, politician, speaker and writer.-Early life:Scharffenberg was born in Moss as the son of military officer Hedvard Carl Scharffenberg and Caroline Fredrikke Dietrichson . He was a nephew of priest Johannes W. C. Dietrichson...
who insinuated that Reich merely pretended to be a physician, that he performed illegal medical treatment, and that Reich had wanted to perform electrical measurements on insane patients having sexual intercourse (Stai, 1954), and later by physician Gabriel Langfeldt
Gabriel Langfeldt
Gabriel Langfeldt was a Norwegian psychiatrist. He was a professor at the University of Oslo from 1940 to 1965. His publications centered on schizofrenia and forensic medicine. Among his research projects were studies of the psychology of Nazi sympathisers. He was involved as an expert during the...
(Raknes, 1939). Both in conjunction with the strife surrounding Reich in Norwegian public
Public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individuals, and the public is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the Öffentlichkeit or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science,...
discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
, and later, during the resistance which Ola Raknes was met with in his work being an exponent for a controversial branch of psychotherapy, what Raknes "would represent, was founded on one ground only; his own experience and his scientific conscience
Conscience
Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...
. He was not someone merely parroting his great teacher. Nor was he an errand-boy; as a therapist he was in time going to speak out with professional authority. And the only thing that drove him, was what he believe to be the truth. In this respect he showed no deference, and cared not how others might judge him." (Skard, 1975)
Journal editor
Raknes organized study circleStudy circle
A study circle is a small group of people who meet multiple times to discuss an issue. Study circles may be formed to discuss anything from politics to religion to hobbies...
s and was also involved in Reich's journal projects Zeitschrift für Politische Psychologie und Sexualökonomie (published 1934 – 1938) and Tidsskrift for seksualøkonomi (Norw. "Journal for sex economy", one issue only published in 1939) which he was editing together with Odd Havrevold
Odd Havrevold
Odd Havrevold was a Norwegian physician and psychiatrist. He was a brother of writer Finn Havrevold and actor Olafr Havrevold. He belonged to the first generation of Norwegian psychoanalysts, and became known internationally through his cooperation with Reich and Fenichel...
.
Growing recognition
After Wilhelm Reich had left Norway for the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1939, few people associated with the community of Norwegian psychoanalysts where longer willing to defend his teachings. Even the American Reich supporters were according to Raknes "disappointingly orthodox" (Dannevig, 1975). The only people left to carry on Reich's work appeared to be Ola Raknes and Nic. Waal, and following the death of Waal in 1960, Raknes was sometimes condescendingly referred to as "Reich's last disciple". Nevertheless, several psychiatrists had confidence in him, and his matter-of-fact style and all-over good reputation as a therapist saw to it that the demand from would-be patients never relented, in particular from abroad. And for the last 10 – 15 years of his life Ola Raknes was met with unanimous professional acceptance and veneration. (Skard, 1975; Kile, 1989). One among many, actor Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
came to Oslo in 1967 to receive treatments by Ola Raknes (Haga, 2002), something which, for the first and only time, made the popular media give attention to his work, as they created a commotion outside his practice (Kile, 1989).
Raknes and his influence on Wilhelm Reich
The collaboration and friendship between Ola Raknes and Wilhelm Reich would last through to Reich's death in an American prison cell in 1957. Most people have assumed that the influence between the two for the most part has gone from Wilhem Reich to Raknes, but this may not be the full picture. In the preface to the book Det levande i muskelpanseret ("The Living inside the Muscular Armor") which was published the same year Raknes died, another Reich therapist, Einar Dannevig, writes, "With his modest appearance and infinite loyalty toward his friend, Raknes contributed to a distorted image of himself. He is easily perceived as a loyal and grateful student of the great master even where he expressed opinions of his own which were hard fought for and well tested, Not until after he had turned 80, he wrote in the preface of his book Wilhelm Reich and Orgonomy: 'Some developments of Reich's ideas are due to myself and I am unable to tell, in some cases, which ideas were first mentioned by me, and which ones by Reich'. The fact that this is mentioned this late in a small preface of the best and probably most integrated presentation of Reich's life work having been written, has made many people overlook the fact that Raknes to a higher degree than any other has been co-creating in the development of those ideas which today forms the foundation for the advanced development in different disciplines that one sees as the aftergrowth after Wilhelm Reich. With his firm integrity and independence, coupled with realizations which Raknes had arrived at through his studies in psychology of religion, philosophy, and psychoanalysis before meeting Reich, Raknes becomes a true friend and associate to Wilhelm Reich. With his lacking need for prestige, he was able to satisfy Reich's unusually strong demands for outward loyalty, while at the same time acting tactfully as a correcting agent when Reich in his later years could become the victim of his usually creative, but sometimes too lively and lonely imagination. With his more thorough philosophical background and acquaintance with philosophy of sciencePhilosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
, as well as his manifested ability to systematize, Raknes has meant very much to the development of the psychotherapeutic, biological, and natural philosophical
Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
theories that are usually ascribed to Wilhelm Reich alone". (Dannevig, 1975)
Left-wing society involvement
As he took part in the shaping of society, both the Norwegian and in general, he was focusing on the forces that frustrate and impede free life expression, in both the areas of love and work. He was deeply influenced in this by Reich's sex economical sociology and mass psychology. He was a member of Norwegian Democratic Group and he joined the circle of people centering on OrienteringOrientering
Orientering was a Norwegian newspaper which was initially published in December 1952 as an alternative voice. It was absorbed into Ny Tid in 1975....
in 1953. He was a member of the Socialist People's Party
Socialist People's Party (Norway)
Socialist People's Party was a splinter group of the Norwegian Labour Party . SF was principally dissatisfied with the pro-NATO/European Economic Community external policies of DNA. A group centered around the magazine Orientering had been expelled from DNA...
also from that year, and that party's successor, the Socialist Left Party
Socialist Left Party (Norway)
The Socialist Left Party or SV, is a Norwegian left-wing political party. At one point one of the smallest parties in Parliament, it became the fourth-largest political party in Norway for the first time in the 2001 parliamentary election, and has been so ever since...
. His opinion was that the making conscious of the individual's bodily-psychological awareness, which he could contribute to through his work, had to progress hand-in-hand with societal changes – in the working place, in family life and in neighborhoods. He felt that the way society was organized created dependent individuals. Those family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
types and norms for child rearing which were prevalent created overwhelming sensations of angst, helplessness and feelings of littleness in the small child when its vital urges and needs – sexual or related to contact with other people, or other still – were thrashed, rejected or ignored. This in turn, Raknes felt, led, in the adult individual to a necessity, in order for it to survive, for adaptation through one of two life strategies – either a constant, compulsive striving for power and competitive mentality
Competitiveness
Competitiveness is a comparative concept of the ability and performance of a firm, sub-sector or country to sell and supply goods and/or services in a given market...
, or equally compulsive attempts to ingratiate with those in power, through self-effacing submission and dutifullness. Ola Raknes thus placed the focus on the connection between current character traits in Norwegian society, such as feelings of either superiority or inferiority, competitiveness and self-effacing dutifullness, and characteristic structural traits in society itself such as concentration of power and bureaucratic control, in which the first mentioned provide fertile ground for the latter. (Grønseth, 2004)
A rare aptitude for communication
Out of all that he wrote, it was the article from 1953 whose title in English was "The Orgonomic Concept of Health and its Social Consequences" that Raknes himself valued most highly. It presents a comprehensive psychological and biological perspective of the term healthHealth
Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...
and has garnered praise from many directions and has also been translated into many languages. Many people have nevertheless asserted "Liv og religion" ("Life and Religion") to be Raknes' best article, originally a lecture given to the 4th Nordic Psychologist Meeting in 1956 and which deals with the living
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
, the very feeling of being alive. It has been described as "a wise
Wisdom
Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one's emotional reactions so that universal principles, reason and...
man's integrated understanding of what he has encountered in life, but also an encompassing, non-confessional faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
." (Dannevig, 1975) Characteristic of his seemingly rock solid grasp of language as a tool for the conveying of thoughts, Raknes, being a lifelong proponent of the radical Nynorsk language, presented his speech in an "impeccable, pure in style and somewhat conservative Riksmål (a very conservative variant of the Bokmål language) in consideration of the Danes." (Dannevig, 1975)
Free child rearing
Ola Raknes was a strong proponent of providing freedom to the childChild
Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...
so that it could make its own experiences instead of being told by adults how to perceive things: "Children always pick their own ideals. As soon as we put up ideals for them, they will start cheating on themselves. They are the ones who should make the choice." (Gabrielsen, 1962) In one of the essays in the book Fri Vokster ("Free growth") Raknes elaborates on how he as a psychologist sees the child's developmental dynamics being critically dependent on being given the opportunity to learn for itself to regulate
Self-regulated learning
The term self-regulated can be used to describe learning that is guided by metacognition , strategic action , and motivation to learn...
such matters as going to the bathroom, what and when to eat and when and how much it wants to sleep, through experiencing and through practicing to master, without the adults spurring the child on.
Such moral rules as not to inflict harm on others or to abstain from stealing, Raknes believed children had to find out about on their own, not through admonitions or prohibitions from the parents: "I believe that when a child lies, it is because it has been punished for telling the truth. And when it steals, it is because it feels neglected in one way or another. [...children] steal the love that isn't given to them." With respect to war Raknes meant for instance that it would be fine if the parents explained why people make wars against each other and to what this can lead, but they ought to leave it to the child to figure out what to make of it all. (Gabrielsen, 1962)
The child in all of us
Although Raknes mostly treated adult patients (Dannevig, 1975), it was the child that Ola Raknes focused on so strongly in his educational efforts to promote values and also as a therapist. The child is the center of focus in the article "Life and Religion", in the book Fri Vokster, in his therapy and in himself the way he was – the child in the adult and the child in itself, in center and teeming with life, the child which is devoid of sentimentality and childishness. Ola Raknes manifested this child himself in his eagerness and his joy in searching and in pride in himself the way it can be seen in children, but that has been lost in most all adults – and he combined this with an unusual degree of sober attitude. He saw things simply and straightforwardly and gave them names that all could understand. He could easily be misjudged as being naïve, but in reality he held a broad view. (Grønseth, 1975) Similarly was his repulsion great when it came to use of force and repression of others (Dannevig, 1975).Ola Raknes once said to his friend and student Rolf Grønseth: "I too must be allowed to die at some time". He died pursuant to a brief bout of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
at the end of January 1975, only a few days after his 88th birthday.
Einar Dannevig sums up his experience of Ola Raknes as a man of spirit: "The clarity of thought and emotion, conveyed through many languages, the ability to simplify with a taste for the big and significant parts of it all together with a genuine modesty and complete absence of ambitions for power made it a distinctive and a big experience to meet Ola Raknes, preferably in person, but also in writing." (Dannevig, 1975)
Offices and associations
- Secretary of Det norske Samlaget 1922 – 29. "Heiderslagsmann" (honorary member) 1948
- honorary member of Studentmållaget i Oslo from 1950
- Member of the board of Det norske teatretDet Norske TeatretDet Norske Teatret is a theatre in Oslo. The theatre was founded in 1912, after an initiative from Hulda Garborg and Edvard Drabløs. It opened in 1913, touring with two plays, Ervingen by Ivar Aasen and Rationelt Fjøsstell by Hulda Garborg...
1923 – 47, - Member of the International Psychoanalytical Society 1929 – 38
- Member of Norsk Psykologforening from 1935
- Member of the International Institute for Sex Economy 1939
- American Association for medical orgonomy 1949
- The Wilhelm Reich Foundation 1950 – 56
- American College of OrgonomyAmerican College of OrgonomyThe American College of Orgonomy was formed as a nonprofit institution by Dr. Elsworth F. Baker in 1968. The purpose of the College is to advance the scientific work in the science of orgonomy, originally developed by Dr. Wilhelm Reich.The A.C.O...
from 1968 - Forum for karakteranalytisk vegetoterapi (Norwegian) from 1972
Sources
All sources are in Norwegian- Almenningen, Olaf et al.: Studentar i målstrid: Studentmållaget i Oslo 1900-2000 Oslo, Studentmållaget i Oslo, Det norske Samlaget (2003) ISBN 82-521-5698-3
- Faleide, Asbjørn; Grønseth, Rolf; Urdal, Bjørn (eds.): Dannevig, Einar Tellef: "Innleiing" In: Det levande i muskepanseret. Om kropp og sjel, muskelspenningar og psykoterapi, seksualitet og tilhøve mellom barn og vaksne Oslo – Bergen – Tromsø, Universitetsforlaget ISBN 82-00-02347-8
- Fyllingsnes, Ottar (1998) "Møttest i Mållaget" – Dag og TidDag og TidDag og Tid is a national weekly newspaper in Norway that uses the Nynorsk standard of the Norwegian language. The newspaper was founded in 1962, is politically independent but editorially radical and focuses on culture and politics. The current editor is Svein Gjerdåker. Its circulation is...
– Aslaug Vaa [supplement to Dag og Tid no. 22, 28 May 1998] - Gabrielsen, Bjørn (13 January 1962) "Trollmannens lærling" – Arbeiderbladet
- Grønseth, ErikErik GrønsethErik Grønseth was a Norwegian sociologist, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oslo from 1971 to 1989, and "one of the post-war pioneers of sociology" in Norway. Together with Harriet Holter, he is considered the founder of Norwegian family sociology.As a young man, he was introduced to...
(2004) Raknes, Ola – NorgesLexi [online edition]. Accessed 29 July 2008 - Grønseth, Rolf (1975) "Ola Raknes til minne" – Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologforening, vol. 12, no. 3
- Kile, Svein M. (1989) "Ola Raknes, hjelpar og ven" – Fra Fjon til Fusa. Årbok for Hordamuseet og for Nord- og Midhordaland Sogelag. Vol. 42, pages 58–60
- Nilsen, Håvard: "Ola Raknes" In: Norsk biografisk leksikonNorsk biografisk leksikonNorsk biografisk leksikon is the largest Norwegian biographical encyclopedia.The first edition was issued between 1921 and 1983, including 19 volumes and 5,100 articles...
2nd ed. vol. 7. Oslo, Kunnskapsforlaget (2003) ISBN 82-573-1009-3 - Raknes, Ola (1959) "Ola Raknes" – Norsk pedagogisk tidsskrift. Vol. 43, pages 272–279 [autobiographical article which for the most part was based on a letter which Raknes wrote to Wilhelm Reich in 1950 and which was printed in Orgone Energy Bulletin volume 4 (4), 1952. The article is also printed in Åse Gruda Skard (ed.) Psykologi og psykologar i Norge (Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, 1959)
- Raknes, Ola (2003) "Reichs orgonterapi" – Tidsskrift for Den norske Lægeforening. Vol. 123, number 1634 [From the debate column in the 69th volume (1939)]
- Skard, SigmundSigmund SkardSigmund Skard was a Norwegian poet, essayist and professor of literature.He was born in Kristiansand as a son of educators Matias Skard and Gyda Christensen . He was a nephew of Johannes Skar and Christopher Bruun, a brother of Bjarne and Eiliv Skard and a half-brother of Olav and Torfinn...
(1975) "Ola Raknes" – Syn og SegnSyn og SegnSyn og Segn is a Norwegian cultural and political magazine. It was founded in 1894, and Rasmus Flo and Arne Garborg were the magazine's first editors....
. Vol. 81, number 5, pagese 268–274 [possibly identical to Skard's eulogy at the funeral of Raknes on 4 February 1975 in th chapel of Vestre Gravlund cemetery] - Stai, Arne "Oppgjøret omkring psykoanalysen og Wilhelm Reich! In: Norsk kultur- og moraldebatt i 1930-årene. 2nd ed. Oslo, Gyldendal (1954) ISBN 82-05-11107-3 [1978 edition in the "Fakkel" series]
- Steenstrup, Bjørn (ed.): "Raknes, Ola" In: Hvem er Hvem?Hvem er hvem?Hvem er hvem? is a Norwegian book series, presenting facts about notable persons from Norway. The first edition was issued in 1912, and the 14th edition came in 1994. In the 2008 edition, edited by Knut Olav Åmås, one thousand persons were selected for presentation...
11th ed., page 450. Oslo, Aschehoug (1973) ISBN 82-03-04887-0