The organic vision of Hélan Jaworski

humanity. Now he experiences the strange religious aspirations which historically drove thousands into monasteries and convents or to the crusades. He has an exalted idea of woman, placing her upon a pedestal and worshipping at her feet just as the men of the Middle Ages worshipped the Virgin and dedicated their lives to her service and the troubadours slept with a drawn sword between them and their immaculate beloved.

The beginning of puberty is marked on the great stage of history by strange upheavals in society. First the emergence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Italy and then in Germany of the flagellantes, religious fanatics who went about scourging themselves until the blood ran. This corresponds to the first appearance at puberty of the menstrual fow of woman. Then there was the incredible phenomenon of St. Vitus’ dance which swept over Europe and is mirrored in the choreic disease of adolescents which is still called St. Vitus’ dance. At this stage, too, Europe experienced a great climatic change and for three years there was flooding and appalling weather causing loss of crops and famine. Nature and Society were disturbed just as the whole psychology and physiology of the child is disturbed at puberty.

When the pangs of puberty are over the youth begins to think for himself and experiences the philosophical doubt of the Renaissance. He embarks—if given the opportunity—on endless arguments. He becomes less idealistic and his attitude to woman becomes mote positive—she is no longer regarded as the angelic, chaste beloved, but becomes the mistress. At seventeen the youth has arrived at the age of nubility. The age of children and childlike peoples is over.

In Dr Jaworski’s view we are now at the age of seventeen; historical time and the present time have become one. We are now experiencing the pangs of emancipation. Human consciousness is embracing the whole planet and man must now become a self responsible human being.

If man is to be responsible for himself he must also undertake to be responsible for his environment. Dr Jaworski in his final book The Geon, or The Living Earth, studies man’s relationship with the earth and his responsibility towards it.

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