 The Austrian @-@ American philosopher Paul Edwards said that the FDA 's pursuit of Reich had intensified Edwards ' attachment to him . He wrote in 1977 that for years he and his friends regarded Reich as " something akin to a messiah . " Paul Mathews and John M. Bell started teaching a course on Reich in 1968 at New York University through its Division of Continuing Study , and it was still being taught at the time Sharaf was writing Reich 's biography in 1983 , making it the longest @-@ running course ever taught in that division . 
