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).

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.

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.

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.

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' 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.

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.

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.

[A] 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.

[3] About the time he turned thirty he got involved in a newspaper debate with the school man Jakob Naadland and bishop Peter Hognestad concerning reward for good deeds.

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.

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.

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.

Compared to classical psychoanalysis, the technique was now extended to the interpretation of character expressions and bodily attitudes, and to working through somatical blockings through direct manipulation.

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".

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.

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).

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.

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.

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).

(Skard, 1975) Raknes organized study circles and was also involved in Reich's journal projects Zeitschrift für Politische Psychologie und Sexualökonomie (published 1934–1938)[5] and Tidsskrift for seksualøkonomi (Norw.

After Wilhelm Reich had left Norway for the United States in 1939, few people associated with the community of Norwegian psychoanalysts where longer willing to defend his teachings.

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.

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).

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 form the foundation for the advanced development in different disciplines that one sees as the aftergrowth after Wilhelm Reich.

(Dannevig, 1975) 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 the areas love and work both.

(Grønseth, 2004) 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"[D] that Raknes himself valued most highly.

(Dannevig, 1975) Ola Raknes was a strong proponent of providing freedom to the child so that it could make its own experiences instead of being told by adults how to perceive things: "Children always pick their own ideals.

His friend and student, Rolf Grønseth said of him that 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 – but that he combined this with an unusual degree of sober attitude.

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."