Poe: MesmericRevelation

http://www.eliteskills.com/c/5235

Poe's short story here served merely as a backdrop for explaining the tenets of early 19th century spiritualism. The general laws of mesmerism are then laid out for the reader in graphic form as follows;

1. Its facts are almost universally admitted despite the skeptics







2. A fellow is cast in an abnormal condition resembling death







3. The "impressed" person employs only feebly the external organs of sense







4. Yet perceives with keenly refined perception through unknown channels







5. Matters beyond the scope of the physical organs







6. These steps detail the forced onslaught of a natural mystical sequence or the sequence of a vision so it seems. The similarities of these states are blatant.







7. The intellect is exalted and invigorated







8. The subject's susceptibility increases with its frequency






9. The elicited phenomena commensurately become more extended and pronounced






10. Colloquy between the narrator and sleepwalker Mr Van Kirk..He had been suffering under confirmed phthisis and the narrator had been summoned to his bedside. He had acute heart pains and the application of mustard to the nervous system occasioned no relief.






11. He sent for the narrator not to administer to his ailments but to answer.if possible, certain physical impressions causing Van Kirk anxiety and surprise.






12. Van Kirk gives his reflections upon the immortality of the soul as heightened by the mesmeric experiences had by him.






13. He would not be intellectually convinced by the mere abstractions of philosophers and moralists. He only half felt as if by intuition but never intellectually believed in the existence of the soul's immortality. The mesmeric influence has caused a deepening of the feeling to equate with the acquiescence of reason.





14. Mesmeric exaltation enables ratiocination not accessible in the normal waking state.




15. God is not spirit nor is He matter as we understand matter. There are gradations of matter we know not of.




16. The profound self cognizance evinced by the sleep waker results in the cause and effect present while in the sleep waking state.Only the effects are present in the "conscious state".




17. Immateriality is a mere word. Gradations increase in rarity to unparticled matter and the law of impulsion and permeation is modified. Unparticled matter permates all things and impels all things. V. lists his studies : Cousin, Charles Elwood of Mr Brownson.



18. Unparticled matter is beyond luminiferous ether.



19. Interspaces must vanish and mass of rarified matter coalesce. The slight resistance of the heavenly bodies "objects" to the idea of absolute coalescence.



20. When there are no interspaces there can be no yielding. Resistance of bodies is commensurate to their density.



21. The communication of the luminous body is explained in detail and the limits of the organs of the rudimentary body are expanded ,with the organs not as necessary conduits.



22. God is the perfection of matter, and it is not irreverent to speak of matter in the context of equating God as this perfection.


23. We are never bodiless as there are 2 bodies rudimental and complete and this is alluded to in the glorious spirit body described by Paul as the "better resurrection" made of infinitely finer matter. Man is but the incarnation of the divine mind. Note this quote from the text of the story: the rudimental and the complete, corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the butterfly. What we call "death," is but the painful metamorphosis. Our present incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected, ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design. P. But of the worm's metamorphosis we are palpably cognizant. V. We, certainly- but not the worm. The matter of which our rudimental body is composed, is within the ken of the organs of that body; or, more distinctly, our rudimental organs are adapted to the matter of which is formed the rudimental body, but not to that of which the ultimate is composed.


24. Rarified matter does not contain the rudimentary organs of sense and so we cannot identify with this rarified body. The luminous body might best be described as (quoted as follows: A luminous body imparts vibration to the luminiferous ether The vibrations generate similar ones within the retina; these again communicate similar ones to the optic nerve. The nerve conveys similar ones to the brain; the brain, also, similar ones to the unparticled matter which permeates it. The motion of this latter is thought, of which perception is the first undulation. This is the mode by which the mind of the rudimental life communicates with the external world; and this external world is, to the rudimental life, limited, through the idiosyncrasy of its organs.


25. Note the author's comments on pain and pleasure and the notion of substance.


26. The poetic use of Azrael's hand is curious and I will look up this allusion.

Mesmeric Revelation AnalysisAuthor: Prose of Edgar Allen Poe
Type: Prose
Views: 442
WHATEVER doubt may still envelop the rationale of mesmerism, its startling
facts are now almost universally admitted. Of these latter, those who doubt, are
your mere doubters by profession- an unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There
can be no more absolute waste of time than the attempt to prove, at the present
day, that man, by mere exercise of will can so impress his fellow as to cast him
into an abnormal condition, of which the phenomena resemble very closely those
of death, or at least resemble them more nearly than they do the phenomena of
any other normal condition within our cognizance; that, while in this state, the
person so impressed employs only with effort, and then feebly, the external
organs of sense, yet perceives, with keenly refined perception, and through
channels supposed unknown, matters beyond the scope of the physical organs;
that, moreover, his intellectual faculties are wonderfully exalted and
invigorated; that his sympathies with the person so impressing him are profound,
and, finally, that his susceptibility to the impression increases with its
frequency, while in the same proportion, the peculiar phenomena elicited are
more extended and more pronounced. I say that these- which are the laws of
mesmerism in its general features- it would be supererogation to demonstrate;
nor shall I inflict upon my readers so needless a demonstration to-day. My
purpose at present is a very different one indeed. I am impelled, even in the
teeth of a world of prejudice, to detail without comment, the very remarkable
substance of a colloquy occurring between a sleep-waker and myself. I had long
been in the habit of mesmerizing the person in question (Mr. Vankirk), and the
usual acute susceptibility and exaltation of the mesmeric perception had
supervened. For many months he had been laboring under confirmed phthisis, the
more distressing effects of which had been relieved by my manipulations; and on
the night of Wednesday, the fifteenth instant, I was summoned to his bedside.
The invalid was suffering with acute pain in the region of the heart, and
breathed with great difficulty, having all the ordinary symptoms of asthma. In
spasms such as these he had usually found relief from the application of mustard
to the nervous centres, but to-night this had been attempted in vain. As I
entered his room he greeted me with a cheerful smile, and although evidently in
much bodily pain, appeared to be, mentally, quite at ease. "I sent for you
to-night," he said, "not so much to administer to my bodily ailment, as to
satisfy me concerning certain physical impressions which, of late, have
occasioned me much anxiety and surprise. I need not tell you how skeptical I
have hitherto been on the topic of the soul's immortality. I cannot deny that
there has always existed, as if in that very soul which I have been denying, a
vague half-sentiment of its own existence. But this half-sentiment at no time
amounted to conviction. With it my reason had nothing to do. All attempts at
logical inquiry resulted, indeed, in leaving me more sceptical than before. I
had been advised to study Cousin. I studied him in his own works as well as in
those of his European and American echoes. The 'Charles Elwood' of Mr. Brownson
for example, was placed in my hands. I read it with profound attention.
Throughout I found it logical but the portions which were not merely logical
were unhappily the initial arguments of the disbelieving hero of the book. In
his summing up it seemed evident to me that the reasoner had not even succeeded
in convincing himself. His end had plainly forgotten his beginning, like the
government of Trinculo. In short, I was not long in perceiving that if man is to
be intellectually convinced of his own immortality, he will never be so
convinced by the mere abstractions which have been so long the fashion of the
moralists of England, of France, and of Germany. Abstractions may amuse and
exercise, but take no hold on the mind. Here upon earth, at least, philosophy, I
am persuaded, will always in vain call upon us to look upon qualities as things.
The will may assent- the soul- the intellect, never. "I repeat, then, that I
only half felt, and never intellectually believed. But latterly there has been a
certain deepening of the feeling, until it has come so nearly to resemble the
acquiesence of reason, that I find it difficult to distinguish the two. I am
enabled, too, plainly to trace this effect to the mesmeric influence. I cannot
better explain my meaning than by the hypothesis that the mesmeric exaltation
enables me to perceive a train of ratiocination which, in my abnormal existence,
convinces, but which, in full accordance with the mesmeric phenomena, does not
extend, except through its effect, into my normal condition. In sleep-waking,
the reasoning and its conclusion- the cause and its effect- are present
together. In my natural state, the cause vanishes, the effect only, and perhaps
only partially, remains. "These considerations have led me to think that some
good results might ensue from a series of well-directed questions propounded to
me while mesmerized. You have often observed the profound self-cognizance
evinced by the sleep-waker- the extensive knowledge he displays upon all points
relating to the mesmeric condition itself, and from this self-cognizance may be
deduced hints for the proper conduct of a catechism." I consented of course to
make this experiment. A few passes threw Mr. Vankirk into the mesmeric sleep.
His breathing became immediately more easy, and he seemed to suffer no physical
uneasiness. The following conversation then ensued:-V. in the dialogue
representing the patient, and P. myself. P. Are you asleep? V. Yes- no; I would
rather sleep more soundly. P. [After a few more passes.] Do you sleep now? V.
Yes. P. How do you think your present illness will result? V. [After a long
hesitation and speaking as if with effort.] I must die. P. Does the idea of
death afflict you? V. [Very quickly.] No- no! P. Are you pleased with the
prospect? V. If I were awake I should like to die, but now it is no matter. The
mesmeric condition is so near death as to content me. P. I wish you would
explain yourself, Mr. Vankirk. V. I am willing to do so, but it requires more
effort than I feel able to make. You do not question me properly. P. What then
shall I ask? V. You must begin at the beginning. P. The beginning! But where is
the beginning? V. You know that the beginning is GOD. [This was said in a low,
fluctuating tone, and with every sign of the most profound veneration.] P. What,
then, is God? V. [Hesitating for many minutes.] I cannot tell. P. Is not God
spirit? V. While I was awake I knew what you meant by "spirit," but now it seems
only a word- such, for instance, as truth, beauty- a quality, I mean. P. Is not
God immaterial? V. There is no immateriality- it is a mere word. That which is
not matter, is not at all- unless qualities are things. P. Is God, then,
material? V. No. [This reply startled me very much.] P. What, then, is he? V.
[After a long pause, and mutteringly.] I see- but it is a thing difficult to
tell. [Another long pause.] He is not spirit, for he exists. Nor is he matter,
as you understand it. But there are gradations of matter of which man knows
nothing; the grosser impelling the finer, the finer pervading the grosser. The
atmosphere, for example, impels the electric principle, while the electric
principle permeates the atmosphere. These gradations of matter increase in
rarity or fineness until we arrive at a matter unparticled- without particles-
indivisible-one, and here the law of impulsion and permeation is modified. The
ultimate or unparticled matter not only permeates all things, but impels all
things; and thus is all things within itself. This matter is God. What men
attempt to embody in the word "thought," is this matter in motion. P. The
metaphysicians maintain that all action is reducible to motion and thinking, and
that the latter is the origin of the former. V. Yes; and I now see the confusion
of idea. Motion is the action of mind, not of thinking. The unparticled matter,
or God, in quiescence is (as nearly as we can conceive it) what men call mind.
And the power of self-movement (equivalent in effect to human volition) is, in
the unparticled matter, the result of its unity and omniprevalence; how, I know
not, and now clearly see that I shall never know. But the unparticled matter,
set in motion by a law or quality existing within itself, is thinking. P. Can
you give me no more precise idea of what you term the unparticled matter? V. The
matters of which man is cognizant escape the senses in gradation. We have, for
example, a metal, a piece of wood, a drop of water, the atmosphere, a gas,
caloric, electricity, the luminiferous ether. Now, we call all these things
matter, and embrace all matter in one general definition; but in spite of this,
there can be no two ideas more essentially distinct than that which we attach to
a metal, and that which we attach to the luminiferous ether. When we reach the
latter, we feel an almost irresistible inclination to class it with spirit, or
with nihilty. The only consideration which restrains us is our conception of its
atomic constitution; and here, even, we have to seek aid from our notion of an
atom, as something possessing in infinite minuteness, solidity, palpability,
weight. Destroy the idea of the atomic constitution and we should no longer be
able to regard the ether as an entity, or, at least, as matter. For want of a
better word we might term it spirit. Take, now, a step beyond the luminiferous
ether- conceive a matter as much more rare than the ether, as this ether is more
rare than the metal, and we arrive at once (in spite of all the school dogmas)
at a unique mass- an unparticled matter. For although we may admit infinite
littleness in the atoms themselves, the infinitude of littleness in the spaces
between them is an absurdity. There will be a point- there will be a degree of
rarity at which, if the atoms are sufficiently numerous, the interspaces must
vanish, and the mass absolutely coalesce. But the consideration of the atomic
constitution being now taken away, the nature of the mass inevitably glides into
what we conceive of spirit. It is clear, however, that it is as fully matter as
before. The truth is, it is impossible to conceive spirit since it is impossible
to imagine what is not. When we flatter ourselves that we have formed its
conception, we have merely deceived our understanding by the consideration of
infinitely rarefied matter. P. There seems to me an insurmountable objection to
the idea of absolute coalescence;- and that is the very slight resistance
experienced by the heavenly bodies in their revolutions through space- a
resistance now ascertained, it is true, to exist in some degree, but which is,
nevertheless, so slight as to have been quite overlooked by the sagacity even of
Newton. We know that the resistance of bodies is, chiefly, in proportion to
their density. Absolute coalescence is absolute density. Where there are no
interspaces, there can be no yielding. An ether, absolutely dense, would put an
infinitely more effectual stop to the progress of a star than would an ether of
adamant or of iron. V. Your objection is answered with an ease which is nearly
in the ratio of its apparent unanswerability.- As regards the progress of the
star, it can make no difference whether the star passes through the ether or the
ether through it. There is no astronomical error more unaccountable than that
which reconciles the known retardation of the comets with the idea of their
passage through an ether, for, however rare this ether be supposed, it would put
a stop to all sidereal revolution in a very far briefer period than has been
admitted by those astronomers who have endeavored to slur over a point which
they found it impossible to comprehend. The retardation actually experienced is,
on the other hand, about that which might be expected from the friction of the
ether in the instantaneous passage through the orb. In the one case, the
retarding force is momentary and complete within itself- in the other it is
endlessly accumulative. P. But in all this- in this identification of mere
matter with God- is there nothing of irreverence? [I was forced to repeat this
question before the sleep-waker fully comprehended my meaning.] V. Can you say
why matter should be less reverenced than mind? But you forget that the matter
of which "mind" or "spirit" of the schools, so far as regards its high
capacities, and is, moreover, the "matter" of these schools at the same time.
God, with all the powers attributed to spirit, is but the perfection of matter.
P. You assert, then, that the unparticled matter, in motion, is thought. V. In
general, this motion is the universal thought of the universal mind. This
thought creates. All created things are but the thoughts of God. P. You say, "in
general." V. Yes. The universal mind is God. For new individualities, matter is
necessary. P. But you now speak of "mind" and "matter" as do the metaphysicians.
V. Yes- to avoid confusion. When I say "mind," I mean the unparticled or
ultimate matter, by "matter," I intend all else. P. You were saying that "for
new individualities matter is necessary." V. Yes; for mind, existing
unincorporate, is merely God. To create individual, thinking beings, it was
necessary to incarnate portions of the divine mind. Thus man is individualized.
Divested of corporate investiture, he were God. Now the particular motion of the
incarnated portions of the unparticled matter is the thought of man; as the
motion of the whole is that of God. P. You say that divested of the body man
will be God? V. [After much hesitation.] I could not have said this; it is an
absurdity. P. [Referring to my notes.] You did say that "divested of corporate
investiture man were God." V. And this is true. Man thus divested would be God-
would be unindividualized. But he can never be thus divested- at least never
will be- else we must imagine an action of God returning upon itself- a
purposeless and futile action. Man is a creature. Creatures are thoughts of God.
It is the nature of thought to be irrevocable. P. I do not comprehend. You say
that man will never put off the body? V. I say that he will never be bodiless.
P. Explain. V. There are two bodies- the rudimental and the complete,
corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the butterfly. What we
call "death," is but the painful metamorphosis. Our present incarnation is
progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected, ultimate,
immortal. The ultimate life is the full design. P. But of the worm's
metamorphosis we are palpably cognizant. V. We, certainly- but not the worm. The
matter of which our rudimental body is composed, is within the ken of the organs
of that body; or, more distinctly, our rudimental organs are adapted to the
matter of which is formed the rudimental body, but not to that of which the
ultimate is composed. The ultimate body thus escapes our rudimental senses, and
we perceive only the shell which falls, in decaying, from the inner form, not
that inner form itself; but this inner form as well as the shell, is appreciable
by those who have already acquired the ultimate life. P. You have often said
that the mesmeric state very nearly resembles death. How is this? V. When I say
that it resembles death, I mean that it resembles the ultimate life; for when I
am entranced the senses of my rudimental life are in abeyance and I perceive
external things directly, without organs, through a medium which I shall employ
in the ultimate, unorganized life. P. Unorganized? V. Yes; organs are
contrivances by which the individual is brought into sensible relation with
particular classes and forms of matter, to the exclusion of other classes and
forms. The organs of man are adapted to his rudimental condition, and to that
only; his ultimate condition, being unorganized, is of unlimited comprehension
in all points but one- the nature of the volition of God- that is to say, the
motion of the unparticled matter. You may have a distinct idea of the ultimate
body er.by conceiving it to be entire brain. This it is not, but a conception of
this nature will bring you near a comprehension of what it is. A luminous body
imparts vibration to the luminiferous etherThe vibrations generate similar
ones within the retina; these again communicate similar ones to the optic nerve.
The nerve conveys similar ones to the brain; the brain, also, similar ones to
the unparticled matter which permeates it. The motion of this latter is thought,
of which perception is the first undulation. This is the mode by which the mind
of the rudimental life communicates with the external world; and this external
world is, to the rudimental life, limited, through the idiosyncrasy of its
organs. But in the ultimate, unorganized life, the external world reaches the
whole body, (which is of a substance having affinity to brain, as I have said,)
with no other intervention than that of an infinitely rarer ether than even the
luminiferous; and to this ether- in unison with it- the whole body vibrates,
setting in motion the unparticled matter which permeates it. It is to the
absence of idiosyncratic organs, therefore, that we must attribute the nearly
unlimited perception of the ultimate life. To rudimental beings, organs are the
cages necessary to confine them until fledged. P. You speak of rudimental
"beings." Are there other rudimental thinking beings than man? V. The
multitudinous conglomeration of rare matter into nebulae, planets, suns, and
other bodies which are neither nebulae, suns, nor planets, is for the sole
purpose of supplying pabulum for the idiosyncrasy of the organs of an infinity
of rudimental beings. But for the necessity of the rudimental, prior to the
ultimate life, there would have been no bodies such as these. Each of these is
tenanted by a distinct variety of organic rudimental thinking creatures. In all,
the organs vary with the features of the place tenanted. At death, or
metamorphosis, these creatures, enjoying the ultimate life- immortality- and
cognizant of all secrets but the one, act all things and pass every where by
mere volition:- indwelling, not the stars, which to us seem the sole
palpabilities, and for the accommodation of which we blindly deem space created-
but that space itself- that infinity of which the truly substantive vastness
swallows up the star-shadows- blotting them out as non-entities from the
perception of the angels. P. You say that "but for the necessity of the
rudimental life, there would have been no stars." But why this necessity? V. In
the inorganic life, as well as in the inorganic matter generally, there is
nothing to impede the action of one simple unique law- the Divine Volition. With
the view of producing impediment, the organic life and matter (complex,
substantial and law- encumbered) were contrived. P. But again- why need this
impediment have been produced? V. The result of law inviolate is perfection-
right- negative happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong,
positive pain. Through the impediments afforded by the number, complexity, and
substantiality of the laws of organic life and matter, the violation of law is
rendered, to a certain extent, practicable. Thus pain, which is the inorganic
life is impossible, is possible in the organic. P. But to what good end is pain
thus rendered possible? V. All things are either good or bad by comparison. A
sufficient analysis will show that pleasure in all cases, is but the contrast of
pain. Positive pleasure is a mere idea. To be happy at any one point we must
have suffered at the same. Never to suffer would have been never to have been
blessed. But it has been shown that, in the inorganic life, pain cannot be; thus
the necessity for the organic. The pain of the primitive life of Earth, is the
sole basis of the bliss of the ultimate life in Heaven. P. Still there is one of
your expressions which I find it impossible to comprehend- "the truly
substantive vastness of infinity." V. This, probably, is because you have no
sufficiently generic conception of the term "substance" itself. We must not
regard it as a quality, but as a sentiment:- it is the perception, in thinking
beings, of the adaptation of matter to their organization. There are many things
on the Earth, which would be nihility to the inhabitants of Venus- many things
visible and tangible in Venus, which we could not be brought to appreciate as
existing at all. But to the inorganic beings- to the angels- the whole of the
unparticled matter is substance; that is to say, the whole of what we term
"space," is to them the truest substantiality;- the stars, meantime, through
what we consider their materiality, escaping the angelic sense, just in
proportion as the unparticled matter, through what we consider its
immateriality, eludes the organic. As the sleep-waker pronounced these latter
words, in a feeble tone, I observed on his countenance a singular expression,
which somewhat alarmed me, and induced me to awake him at once. No sooner had I
done this than, with a bright smile irradiating all his features, he fell back
upon his pillow and expired. I noticed that in less than a minute afterward his
corpse had all the stern rigidity of stone. His brow was of the coldness of ice.
Thus, ordinarily, should it have appeared, only after long pressure from
Azrael's hand. Had the sleep-waker, indeed, during the latter portion of his
discourse, been addressing me from out the regions of the shadows?

Poe: MesmericRevelation

http://needmoreshelves.blogspot.com/2009/08/poe-fridays-on-saturday.html

Mesmeric Revelation(read the full text here)Well. I think Poe was attempting to explain some of the tenets of early 19th century spiritualism. The narrator mesmerizes (hypnotizes) a man who is dying, and asks the man a bunch of questions. The dying man then says many things about God, ether, spirits, etc. I found it interesting from a historical perspective, but didn't really ENJOY reading it. It certainly wasn't a great story, but it was not a horrible read.

Korczak:The Little Republic Established

http://korczak.com/Biography/kap-9.htm

The image of orphans as exclusively from poverty is a misconception very definitely brought to light in the case of orphan and violin prodigy Grigori Schmukler. They were free of troublesome personnel and could start breathing "easier" .Grigori played folk songs in the glassed cubicle between the dorms. Korczak after the lights went out in the cubicle in semidarkness kept writing. The picture created of his enjoyment of the muffled voices is so mentally picturesque and amenable to the reader's imagination. He dared the children to dream even of their unrealistic goals in a book called Glory. Note The Unlucky Week and why an imaginative boy cannot do anything right at school or home because adults (teachers and parents) cannot understand his feelings. This inability to comprehend the child, does it derive from the laziness of the adult world or is it done on purpose by the adult world, or a mixture of both? The child as hero speaking colloquially and not stiltedly, what a refreshing picture of the child! Walking among the beds listening to the children at their most vulnerable. Had he the right? The scientist had to pry and the educator in him questioned the morality. The many kinds of sobs of children and the centuries weeping a truth expressed poetically as inscrutable but simply possessed by an understanding soul. Note the story of the eight year old boy with a toothache. It seems that those stories are infinitely repetitious with some details changed.

The strangeness of the aura of light was viewed by Korczak and would be incomprehensible to the outside world unless one would be in the midst of the orphanage dorm in the still of night and the the young waifs were revealed in their true auras. Was it Janusz' imagination as to what he wanted to imagine in wanting his children to soar to the heights? Ironically Moishe's fresh flow of tears was produced by Janusz' intended consolings often the effect of such consolings. It was a more complex task to console these inconsolable orphans as no right words or acts could be found much 0f the time.

Even children have bouts of nostalgia and leave the orphanage to seek their old environment. They were dealt leniently by the children's court. He launched the orphanage newspaper, 'the alphabet of life,' and what experiences were unfolding.

Was the orphan's home too Polish and assimilationist ,although observant of the Shabbos customs? The answer is that the customs were kept,yes kept .

Korczak made the Sabbath fun for the children. After their baths, he led them in a long line "snaking up and down the stairs. They had a festive dinner after the candles were lit and played lotto and won little candies. He would then go to the boys' or girls' dorm depending on whose turn it was to tell a story.He was an erudite story steller but favored old fairy tales, Puss N'Boots in particular.The cats pranks were cunning and ingenuity to win his poor master a princess. The belief in magic forces was their surrogate protection where the forces of the real world were hostile and invasive.

Korczak knew that children who feel worthless in a society that doesn´t value them, who feel angry and powerless because their parents, due to death or poverty, can no longer protect them...

Fairy tales were close to life in overcoming of obstacles by perseverance and force of will.

The boys clamored for a fairy tale and pulled him to the ground when a flock of sheep came from nearby and the boys clamored after the flock and the flock taught Korczak humility.

It was almost a year before Korczak and Stefa felt they had established a
firm base for the little republic. ("For want of a foundation, the roof fell
in," became one of his favorite expressions.) They were exhausted but triumphant
at finding themselves free of the troublesome personnel. The child could now
become the "patron, the worker, and the head of the home."
Not all of the
orphans were from poor families. Grigori Schmukler, a violin prodigy, was
admitted at the age of twelve after the death of his father, a doctor. Korczak,
who loved music, arranged for Grigori to give small fund-raising concerts in the
salons of some of the orphanage´s patrons. And at night, before the children
went to sleep, he sometimes invited Grigori into the glassed-in cubicle between
the two dormitories to play Gluck and Polish folksongs for everyone. After the
lights were out, Korczak would sit in the semidarkness of the cubicle writing,
like a pilot in a cockpit responsible for the well-being of his crew. He enjoyed
the murmur ofmuffled voices that wafted in, for he understood "the deep, warm,
spiritual yearnings of children for softly whispered confidences, melancholic
reminiscences, and heartfelt advice."
And he was curious. "What were you
talking about in the dormitory last night?" he might ask the next day.The
children were unselfconscious in their replies:"I was telling him what it was
like when my dad was alive.""I asked him why Poles don´t like Jews.""I told him
if he tried harder, you wouldn´t be angry with him.""i said when i grow up, I
want to take a trip to the Eskimos and teach them to read and build houses like
ours."
Korczak responded warmly as the orphans spoke of their innermost
feelings. No one knew more than he how paradoxical life was: he wanted them to
have brave dreams, but he also wanted them to be realistic about the chances of
those dreams coming true. "Dare to dream" he wrote in a book called Glory, about
three children with high but unrealistic goals. "Something will always come of
it." In The Unlucky Week, an imaginative boy, very much like Henryk Goldszmit,
can´t do anything right in school or at home because his teacher and parents are
incapable of understanding his feelings. The stories caught the fancy of the
public. Korczak was the first in Polish literature to create a child as hero,
one who spoke colloquially rather than in the stilted language that fictional
children, always peripheral to the plot, had been burdened with in the past.
While Korczak was recotding his orphans´ patois, he was aware that they
managed to repress during the day. Walking among the beds listening to the
"symphony of children´s breathing," observing the grace or torment of the
dreamers' positions-even as he fretted over whether a cough was bronchial or
just caused by nerves-he took notes for a "major book" on sleeping children and
the night. Yet the thought crossed his mind: Did he have the right to observe
these children when they were most vulnerable? "Why pry? ." he asked himself.
"Let Nature keep her secrets." But the scientist had to pry, even as the
educator brooded about the morality involved.
Sometimes he would sit
tormented in his cubicle, knowing there was nothing he could do to reassure a
child who was mourning a dead parent or lonely for his brothers and sisters.
Tears were inevitable, but he could never get used to the choked, hopeless,
tragic sobs, which must have reminded him of his own at that age when he grieved
over his sick father. He knew that there are as many kinds of sobs as there are
children: from the "quiet and private, to the capricious and insincere, to the
uncontrolled and shamelessly naked." "It is not the child, but the centuries
weeping," he wrote in his notebook.
An eight-year-old boy woke with a
toothache. Grabbing Korczak´s hand, he spilled out his anguish: ". . . then my
mother died. Then I was sent to my grandmother, but she also died. Then i was
taken to my aunt´s but she wasn´t home. It was cold. My uncle took me in. Very
poor. I was hungry. His children were sick. He put me in the storage room so I
wouldn´t catch anything. My teeth always hurt at night. Then a woman took me for
a short time, but she walked me to a square and left me. It was dark. I was
afraid. Boys started to push me. Then a policeman took me to the station.
Everyone was Poles. They sent me to my aunt. She shouted at me, and made me
swear not to tell you everything that´ s happened to me. Can I stay here? I can?
Aren't you cross with me for throwing the ball on the grass? i didn't know it
was forbidden."
"He fell asleep," Korczak noted. "It was strange, but for a
brief moment I definitely saw an aura of light around his tired eight-year-old
head. I had seen such a phenomenon only once before." And he added:"Even as I
write this, i know that no one will understand. It is impossible unless one has
been in a large orphanage dormitory in the still of night."
The worst
ruffians, who bad tried his patience all day, might break down at night. When he
heard Moishe sob, he rushed to his bed. "Don´t cry. You´ll wake the others."
Then, kneeling beside him, he whispered:"You know I love you. But I can't let
you get away with everything. The wind didn't break the windowpane. You did. You
tried to ruin everyone´s games, didn´t eat your supper, and started a fight in
the dorm. I´m not angry . . . "It didn´t surprise Korczak that his words only
produced a fresh flow of tears: "Sometimes consolation has the opposite
effect-it can aggravate rather than soothe the child´s feelings." But although
Moishe´s sobbing was of an even gyeater intensity than before, it was briefer.
"Maybe you're hungry. Shall I get you a roll?" The boy refused. "Sleep now,
sleep, son," Korczak whispered. Then he touched Moishe lightly. "Sleep."
Korczak felt humble at this moment. If only he could shield his children
from danger, "keep them in storage" until they became strong enough for
independent flight: " An easy enough job for a hawk or hen to warm chicks with
her own body. For me, a man and teacher of children not my own, a more complex
task. I long to see my little community soar, dream of them flying high.
Yearning for their perfection is my sad, secret prayer. But when I am realistic,
I know that as soon as they are able they will take off-prowl, stray´ or
plunder-in search of nourishment and pleasure."
Some of the children did
stray off the property for short excursions: several girls went back to the old
shelter on Franciszkanska Street just to see it again, and three brothers walked
out of town to visit their old house and the forest where they had played. They
had to appear before the children´s court (which operated irregularly those two
years before World War I) for breaking the rule about not leaving the grounds
without permission and being late to supper. The judges were lenient, and
Korczak noted that "even children have nostalgia, a longing for that which once
was and will not return."
Predicting that, in the future, teachers colleges
would offer courses in educational journalism, Korczak launched the orphanage
newspaper, which he called the "alphabet oflife" because it linked one week to
another and bound the children together. "With a paper, we´ll be able to know
everything that´s happening," he said. "It doesn´t matter that we begin with a
small handwritten one. Someday we´ll type it, maybe even print it. ´,
The
children waited eagerly for Saturday mornings when it was Korczak´s custom to
read his special column in the paper aloud. (Generations of children would
recall the vividness of his style and the warmth of his voice.) "Do you
remember," he wrote in one column, "how you didn´t have any close friend when
you arrived here, and you felt sad and lonely? Do you remember who pushed or hit
you and told you to give him something and you had to obey? . . . Now there are
new children who feel the same way you did, and don´t know their way around. We
hope you will take care of your new comrades." And in another: "We waited for it
to happen. And it is happening. Children are bringing gifts to their families
from our horne. We wondered what sort of presents they would be: maybe needles,
pencils, a bar ofsoap? But, no, they are very different! One girl told her
brother a fairy tale she heard here, a boy sang a song he had just learned,
another demonstrated how he could wash dishes, and a few reported what they had
read in our newspaper."
The children delivered their "gifts" every Saturday
afternoon after lunch when they were permitted to visit whatever family members
they had left. Korczak felt strongly that they should not lose contact with
their relatives. "Children without a family feel handicapped," he said. "Even a
bad family is better than none." However, as a health precaution, children were
not allowed to stay overnight. When they returned at seven in the evening, they
were checked for lice.
There were rumblings in the Warsaw Jewish community
that the Orphans Home was "too Polish." Korczak was accused of running an
"assimilationist f actory" even though the orphanage kept kosher and observed
the Sabbath and every Jewish holiday. It even invited many of its supporters to
its annual Passover seders. Grigori Schmukler remembers the rabbi who conducted
the first seder, and how disappointed he and the other children were when they
dashed out the door that had been opened for Elijah and didn´t find anyone. But
they did find the matzoh which had been hidden in a locker in the dining hall
and were given candy as a prize. ______
The children looked forward to Sabbath
dinner each Friday night, not only because of the importance it had had in their
own homes, but because Korczak made it so much fun. After their baths, after he
had led them in a long line snaking up and down the stairs through the house,
after the Sabbath candles were lit and they had a festive dinner, after they
played lotto and won little candies, after they had put on their pajamas and
were in bed, Korczak would come up to either the boys´ or the girls´ dormitory,
depending on whose turn it was, to tell a story.
He could easily have made
up a new one each time, but he favored the old fairy tales, especially ."Puss in
Boots." He never tired ofrecounting the pranks of that seemingly worthless cat
who managed by cunning and ingenuity to win his poor master a princess and a
kingdom. Korczak knew that children who feel worthless in a society that doesn´t
value them, who feel angry and powerless because their parents, due to death or
poverty, can no longer protect them, need to believe that there are magic forces
that can help them overcome their difficulties.
"I always thought in terms
of obstacles," he wrote. "if I´m traveling somewhere by ship, then there´s a
storm. IfI´m in charge of some project, I have trouble at first, and only in the
end do I succeed. Because it´s boring if things go well from the start . . ."
Fairy tales, with their obstacles that the hero or heroine must overcome through
perseverance and strength of will, appealed to him because they were so close to
life.
"is it true?" he once heard a child ask while he was telling a story
that involved a wizard, a dragon, fairies, and a princess under a spell. Another
child answered in a superior voice: "Didn´t you hear him say it was a fairy
tale?" Faced with the question of how children perceive reality, Korczak decided:
"The story lacks reality for the child only because we have told him that fairy
tales are not true."
Korczak was drawn to the implicit moral of these
tales-that simple, good people are ultimately rewarded for their virtuous nature
while the wicked are punished. He reveled in his role of storyteller, describing
Puss in his elegant breeches and high boots, the feather tucked jauntily in his
cap, the tension when the King´s chariot appears with the Princess who will
eventually marry Puss´s poor master. And no matter where he was in the plot, he
wasn´t offended when the youngest dropped off to sleep, because, as he liked to
say, he had learned a "lesson in humility" from a flock of sheep at summer camp.
It happened during an outing after he gave in to the bovs´ clamor for a fairy
tale. They had pulled him to the ground, fought over who would sit next to him,
and hung breath- lessly on his every word. Just as he was getting to the most
exciting part, a flock of sheep ambled by, bleating and kicking up dust, and
Bromberg (who was always losing things, like his buttons) jumped up, shouting:
""Look, sheep!" All the boys immediately leapt up and ran toward the flock,
forgetting the storyteller. At first, sitting there alone, Korczak had been
upset, but later he realized that he had the sheep to thank for making him "less
arrogant, even modest."

noir city blues

The short excerpt from Vanity Fair below outlines the grand contour and strokes of reactions to the spectrum of an historical period,an epoch. It paints a nihilist or existentialist picture 0n canvas and raises to our consciousness this canvas of bleak images to bring to the forefront a vision of a sterile and meaningless universe depicted in the noir films of the 40's and 50's at their height but starting in the 30's. Even Romance,the affirmation of meaning in the humanistic model, becomes perilous in these vapid winds.

Noir City Blues

"Between the Great Depression and the start of the Cold War, Hollywood went
noir, reflecting the worldly, weary, wised-up under current of midcentury
America. In classics such as Laura, Sweet Smell of Success, and Double
Indemnity, where the shadows of L.A. and New York pulse with killers, corpses,
and perilous romance, failure is not only a logical option but a smart-talking
seduction."- Vanity Fair March 2007

- Vanity Fair March 2007

Janusz Korczak The Children's Republic

http://korczak.com/Biography/kap-9.htm

The child's disguises are like no other of a professional actor and can beguile the most astute of observers who are thrown off guard by the masks the child wears.The children were in temporary quarters until October 1912 and were in the countryside where their lively imagination of wild animals was given full reign. Children's' imaginations are much more supple and fertile than ours grown frigid and partially sterile with age and insensitivity. The description of the Krochmalna street orphanage widely contrasts with the rat infested environment of these children of the slums.Korczak and Stefa went from bed to bed comforting the children and all that mattered in the world is that this experiment not fail. Never ending were the surprises from the children and they resisted the advantages of the orphanage ,the orphanage itself ,with "absolute resistance and resentment."

• they were dwarfed by routine and impersonal necessity.



• they were unmoved by Korczak's ' dignity of work'



• His restraint paid off and the children eventually flocked around him.
  
  

The Children´s Republic The child-a skilled actor with a hundred masks: a
different one for his mother, father, grandmother or grandfather, for a stern or
lenient teacher, for the cook or maid, for his own friends, for the rich and
poor. Naive and cunning, humble and haughty, gentle and vengeful, well behaved
and willful, he disguises himself so well that he can lead us by the nose.- How
to love a Child

Because the orphanage wasn´t completed on schedule, the children were unable to move in until October of 1912. They had already vacated their former shelter and were forced to wait in temporary quarters in the countryside long after it had been deserted by summer vacationers. Used to the bustle of the crowded city slums, they were filled with anxiety, imagining the surrounding woods to be full of cannibals and wild animals. When "those noisy, frozen, excited, impudent" boys and girls finally arrived at 92 Krochmalna one rainy afternoon, they were still carrying sticks and clubs from their woodland games and looked a little wild themselves.
The four-storied white house, one of the first in Warsaw to have central heating and electricity, loomed before the orphans like something out of a fairy tale. They wandered breathlessly through the huge first floor room, with its tall windows and two-story cathedral ceiling, that was to serve as a dining hall, study, and play area, and stared in disbelief at the tiled bathrooms with toilets that flushed, and with gleaming porcelain sinks equipped with both hot and cold running water, all so unlike the foul, rat-infested outhouses they had known. Everything, even the tiled kitchen, was clean and beautiful, as if designed for very important people. After dinner, the children were bathed in the large porcelain tubs.
Then, dressed in warm nightclothes, they were shown to their assigned beds in the boys´ and girls´ dormitories, which were separated by a small glassed-in room from which Korczak planned to observe and reassure them.
The smallest children were given iron cots separated by wooden partitions, which Korczak had designed with a wide hole in the middle in case they woke in the night and needed to reach out for someone. But still they were scared, large and small alike. One of the girls, who had never slept without her two sisters huddled against her on their dirty straw pallet, burst into tears. And a boy who had never seen a bed with white sheets before crawled under it. Korczak and Stefa went from cot to cot, touching the children, kissing them, comforting them, until everyone was asleep. Setting up their little republic was to prove a sixteen-hour-a-day job-without breaks, holidays, or weekends, Korczak would say. And Stefa would recall that for the first few years she was so busy she couldn´t take part in the real life of Warsaw. she might as well have been living, in a provincial town. But for both of them all that mattered was that this shared experiment not fail.
As it turned out, Korczak would refer to that first year of the Orphans Home as the worst year of his life. He had believed that after his camp experiences he could never again be taken by surprise, but he was wrong. Rather than appreciating their new accommodations and accepting the rules of communal life, the children had "declared war" even before he realized what was going on. For the second time he was confronted by a menacing community before whom he stood helpless. Overwhelmed by all his regulations, the children adopted a position ofabsolute resistance that no cajoling could overcome. Coercion produced resentment. The new home they had been waiting for so eagerly had become hateful.
Only later did Korczak realize how difficult it was for the children to give up their old way of life. Shabby and imperfect as their former shelter had been, lacking light and adequate furnishings, they actually missed it. They were "dwarfed by the magnificence´' of this new setting. The "impersonal necessity" of a regular routine seemed to "erase" them. Those children who had been leaders wilted and failed; those who had been cooperative now balked at every turn. They were unmoved by Korczak's lofty sentiments about the dignity of work. (" A clean polished table is as important as a neatly written page.") They watched skeptically as he placed the mop and broom, which he proclaimed noble works of art, in a place of honor by the dormitory door.
Refusing to bow down to a mop and a broom, they rebelled, became conspiratorial. They put pebbles down the washbasins, disconnected the bell, scribbled on the walls. They spread rumors at lunch that a worm had been found in the soup, and refused to eat. They took bread from the table, which was forbidden, and hid it under their pillows and mattresses. Things would get irretrievably lost or misplaced. Who did it? No one knew. Who spilled it? Who broke it? Silence.
Sometimes, when Korczak was shouting-"Stealing again! I´m not going to waste my energy on the education of crooks!"-he found his voice breaking and his eyes smarting with tears offrustration. He consoled himself that every new teacher must experience this difficult testing hour. But he knew that, no matter how harassed he felt, he had to give the impression that he was in control of the community. He learned not to "fly off the handle, " even when one of the biggest rascals broke an expensive china urinal while cleaning it, and not long after a jar containing more than a gallon of cod-liver oil. His restraint paid off; it won him "an ally " Slowly the "collective conscience" was aroused. Day by day a few more children came over to his side.
After six months, when everyone was finally beginning to settle in, fifty new children were admitted. Once again the little community was in turmoil as the newcomers rebelled and defied authority. The new staff also caused problems. A school had been organized in the home by the philanthropists, but the teachers they hired walked about like "aristocrats, " creating an "abyss" between themselves and the cook, janitor, and washerwoman, to whom they felt superior. Hating pedantry of any kind (he often said he would rather leave a child in the care of an old woman who had bred chickens for five years than with a newly graduated nurse), Korczak dismissed the teachers, who he truly did believe were less essential than the menial workers who kept the orphanage functioning. He sent the children off to schools in the area, retaining only one instructor to help with homework.

The Gold Bug Reexamination of the drawing the Death's Head

Jupiter states that his master was bitten by the gold beetle which occasioned his "eccentric illness" and he visited the narrator for a purpose ,the import of which will shortly become known.

He dreamed of gold (Le Grand) after being bitten the very night of the narrator's visit.

"Well, well," I said, "perhaps you have — still I don't see them;" and I handed
him the paper without additional remark, not wishing to ruffle his temper; but I
was much surprised at the turn affairs had taken; his ill humor puzzled me —
and, as for the drawing of the beetle, there were positively no antennæ visible,
and the whole did bear a very close resemblance to the ordinary cuts of a
death's-head. He received the paper very peevishly, and was
about to crumple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at
the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant his face grew
violently red — in another as excessively pale. For some minutes he continued to
scrutinize the drawing minutely where he sat. At length he arose, took a candle
from the table, and proceeded to seat himself upon a sea-chest in the farthest
corner of the room. Here again he made an anxious examination of the paper;
turning it in all directions. He said nothing, however, and his conduct greatly
astonished me; yet I thought it prudent not to exacerbate the growing moodiness
of his temper by any comment. Presently he took from his coat-pocket a wallet,
placed the paper carefully in it, and deposited both in a writing-desk, which he
locked. He now grew more composed in his demeanor; but his original air of
enthusiasm had quite disappeared. Yet he seemed not so much sulky as abstracted.
As the evening wore away he became more and more absorbed in reverie, from which
no sallies of mine could arouse him. It had been my intention to pass the night
at the hut, as I had frequently done before, but, seeing my host in this mood, I
deemed it proper to take leave. He did not press me to remain, but, as I
departed, he shook my hand with even more than his usual cordiality.
It was about a month after this (and during the interval I
had seen nothing of Legrand) when I received a visit, at Charleston, from his
man, Jupiter. I had never seen the good old negro look so dispirited, and I
feared that some serious disaster had befallen my friend.
"Well, Jup," said I, "what is the matter now? — how is your master?"
"Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as
mought be." "Not well! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does
he complain of?" "Dar! dat's it! — him neber plain ob notin —
but him berry sick for all dat." "Very sick, Jupiter! — why
didn't you say so at once? Is he confined to bed?" "No, dat
he aint! — he aint find nowhar — dat's just whar de shoe pinch — my mind is got
to be berry hebby bout poor Massa Will." "Jupiter, I should
like to understand what it is you are talking about. You say your master is
sick. Hasn't he told you what ails him?" "Why, massa, taint
worf while for to git mad about de matter — Massa Will say noffin at all aint de
matter wid him — but den what make him go bout looking dis here way, wid he head
down and he soldiers up, and as white as a gose? And den he keep a syphon all de
time" — "Keeps a what, Jupiter?" "Keeps a
syphon wid de figgurs on de slate — de queerest figures I ebber did see. Ise
gittin to be skeered, I tell you. Hab for to keep mighty tight eye pon him
noovers. Todder day he gib me slip fore de sun up and was gone de whole ob de
blessed day. I had a big stick ready cut for to gib him d—n good beatin when he
did come — but Ise sich a fool dat I had n't de heart arter all — he look so
berry poorly." "Eh? — what? — ah yes! — upon the whole I
think you had better not be too severe with the poor fellow — do n't flog him,
Jupiter — he can't very well stand it — but can you form no idea of what has
occasioned this illness, or rather this change of conduct? Has any thing
unpleasant happened since I saw you?" "No, massa, dey aint
bin noffin onpleasant since den — 'twas fore den I'm feared — 'twas the berry
day you was dare." "How? what do you mean?"
"Why, massa, I mean de bug — dare now."
"The what?" "De bug — I'm berry sartain dat Massa Will bin
bit somewhere bout the head by dat d—n goole-bug." "And what
cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposition?" "Claws
enuff, massa, and mouff too. I nebber did see sich a d—n bug — he kick and he
bite ebery ting what cum near him. Massa Will cotch him fuss, but had for to let
him go gin mighty quick, I tell you — den was de time he must ha got de bite. I
did n't like de look ob de bug mouff, myself, no how, so I would n't take hold
ob him wid my finger, but cotch him wid a piece ob paper dat I found. I rap him
up in de [column 3:] paper and stuff piece ob it in he mouff — dat was de way."
"And you think, then, that your master was really bitten by
the beetle, and that the bite made him sick?" "I do n't tink
noffin bout it — I nose it. What make him dream bout de goole so much, if taint
cause he bit by de goole-bug? Ise heerd bout dem goole-bugs fore dis."
"But how do you know he dreams about gold?"
"How I know? — why cause he talk about it in he sleep — dat's
how I nose." "Well, Jup, perhaps you are right; but to what
fortunate circumstance am I to attribute the honor of a visit from you, to-day?"

A bad period for all Czarist oppression incarceration

http://korczak.com/Biography/kap-8.htm

Thousands of Polish elite and intellectuals wre impriosned or sent to Siberia during the Czarist oppression. Korczak spent months in jail with Ludwik Krzywicki,the renowned sociologist ,in

Spokojna prison.Ludwik was a renowned sociologist and was focused and could shut out the irritations of envrionment and by observation Korczak learned discipline when incarcerated by the Nazis.The Universities were closed and the abortive 1905 reforms were rescinded. Released from prison, and back at the orphanage, the Eliasbergs told him of their dream of a modern orphanage and caught him at the right time to make a radical change in his life. He became director of an orphanage ,yes, to feed his reformatory zeal, the real reason being, as is quoted, he felt best when among children. The orphanage was a laboratory for clinical observation where he could detect symptoms of the whole child and enable the scultping of that child's soul. Korczak was a pioneer of moral education "concerned with the grammar of ethics" and the orphanage was his laboratory to conduct the shelter,the utopia as a shelter for the homeless. Krochmalna street had a split personality referred to by Isaac Singer, an uncoverable deep stratum.He was creating a spiritual space apart from the crass world on Kochmalna Street. Note Korczak's eulogy on the death of Waclaw Nalkowski, a man who died the way he wanted to die, that could no longer exhude "sustenance" to Korczak. His visit to the Forest Hill Orphanage in England is most revelatory as described in his biography . Out of that experience he forged himself anew as if reborn as the chidless defender of the rights of the child as he most assuredly was.

Life in the shelter became more important to Korczak as life outside became
more harassed. On July 22, 1909, which happened to be his birthday, Korczak´s
sister´s husband, Jozef Lui, died at the age of thirtynine. (Nothing is known of
Lui -whose odd name adds to the mystery- or of his marriage to Anna, who by then
was a French legal translator.) It was a bad period for everyone. In a new wave
of Czarist repression, thousands of the elite of Polish society-among them
intellectuals, socialists, and members of the revolutionary party-were either
imprisoned or sent to Siberia. The universities were closed, and most of the
reforms won in the abortive revolution of1905 were abolished. Society magazine,
which Jadwiga Dawid had started when Voice was closed by the police four years
earlier, was itself forced to stop operating. Whatever the cause, political
pressure or Dawid's involvement with another woman - or a combination
ofboth-Jadwiga had a nervous breakdown. She would throw herself into a well the
following year, at the age of forty-six.
Korczak was rounded up with many
other writers and incarcerated In the same cell with in Spokojna prison. He was
relieved to find himself. Ludwik Krzywicki, the renowned sociologist, whom he
knew from Flying University days. A radical socialist who had translated Marx
into Polish, Krzywicki was as acquainted with jail cells as he was with
classrooms, where he was known for his dazzling lectures - many of them prepared
behind bars. Going in and out of prison had become an accepted way of life for
him, one that he didn't question, unlike Jan Dawid and Waclaw Nalkowski, who had
long felt the futility of political activity as a means of solving Poland' s
internal problems.
Krzywicki had learned to endure life in cramped
windowless cells where his "longest walk" was seven paces and his only companion
a fly (about whom he wrote long letters to his son). Korczak was amazed at how
the professor was able to shut out the irritations of the environment and to
concentrate on keeping his inner self intact. He spent each day as if he were in
his own study, spreading his papers and maps over the grimy floor and tracing
the migrations of ancient tribes. During the two months they spent together, it
is believed that Krzywicki encouraged his young friend to pursue his goals.
(Korczak was to draw upon the discipline he learned from Krzywicki when he was
incarcerated, years later, by the Nazis.)
Released from prison through the
intercessions of a highly placed Polish family whose child he had treated,
Korczak once again spent as much time as he could with Stefa and the children at
the shelter. Eliasberg and his wife confided to him their dream of moving the
children from that inadequate building into a large, modern orphanage. Stefa had
agreed to assume general management, they said, and if someone like Korczak was
involved, they were sure that the Orphans Aid Society could attract more patrons
and raise the large amount of money needed. The Eliasbergs had caught Korczak at
the right moment; discouraged by the political situation and still restless at
the hospital, he was ready to make a radical change in his life.
In 1910,
Warsaw society learned, with some surprise, that Janusz Korczak intended to give
up a successful medical practice and literary career to become the director of
an orphanage for Jewish children. Few people understood that medicine alone was
no longer enough for this visionary pediatrician - that it did not, as Erik
Erikson said of Gandhi´s law practice, "feed his reformatory zeal." The
orphanage would give him a chance to put some of his educational ideas into
practice, and though it might appear he was making a sacrifice in taking it
over, it did not seem so to him. "The reason I became an educator was that i
always felt best when I was among children," he told a young interviewer many
years later. But the decision had not been easy. "The road I have chosen toward
my goal is neither the shortest nor the most convenient," he was to write."But
it is the best for me-because it is my own. I found it not without effort or
pain, and only when I had come to understand that all the books I read, and all
the experiences and opinions of others, were misleading."
Part of the
difficulty in making his decision lay in assuring himself that he was not
betraying medicine by leaving the hospital for the orphanage. (It was a conflict
he never fully resolved.) He wanted to believe that rather than renouncing
medicine for pedagogy, he could combine the two disciplines. Using the orphanage
as a laboratory for clinical observation, he wanted to work out an educational
diagnostic system based on tangible symptoms. Just as a doctor diagnosed disease
by the complaints of the patient, so the teacher had to be aware of the moods of
his pupil: "What a fever, a cough, or nausea is for the physician, so a smile, a
tear, or a blush should be for the educator." Medicine was concerned only with
curing the sick child, but pedagogy could nurture the whole child. As an
educator, he could be the "sculptor of the child's soul."
His little
republic would not be as ambitious as the School of Life he had once envisioned
on the shores of the Vistula-a utopian center with shelters for the homeless, a
hospital to provide knowledge of the suffering of the body "without which there
is no education," a bank for practical instruction on handling money, and a
pawnshop to teach "the transience of unessential things." But it would still be
a just community whose young citizens would run their own parliament, court of
peers, and newspaper. In the process of working together, they would learn
consideration and fair play, and develop a sense of responsibility toward
others, which they would carry with them into the adult world. In helping his
orphans to respect others, a first step toward gaining self-respect, Korczak was
a pioneer in what we now call "moral education." He was concerned not with
teaching children their ABC's - they would go to public school for that-but with
the grammar of ethics.
The underlying philosophy of the children´s republic
was: children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today. They are
entitled to be taken seriously. They have a right to be treated by adults with
tenderness and respect, as equals, not as masters and slaves. They should be
allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be: the "unknown person" inside
each of them is the hope for the future.
Had Korczak been given a choice,
the little republic would have comprised an integrated group of Jewish and
Catholic children, but that was not possible. Each religious denomination was
responsible for its own, and the Orphans Aid Society was a Jewish philanthropy.
Still, Korczak hoped to bridge the religious gap by being active in the Polish
Teachers Union and presenting his work as a possible model for all boarding
homes, Polish and Jewish alike.
A plot of land was purchased in a poor,
mixed Catholic and Jewish working-class neighborhood at 92 Krochmalna Street.
Like so many Warsaw streets that reflected the haphazard way the Jews and Poles
had accommodated to each other over the centuries, Krochmalna had a split
personality. (Isaac Bashevis Singer, who grew up at No. 10, called Krochmalna "a
deep stratum of an archaeological dig which I could never uncover.") The
sprawling tenement houses at the notorious lower end indiscriminately harbored
thieves, racketeers, and prostitutes along with poor Hasidic rabbis (such as
Singer´s father), pious housewives, and more than its share of Warsaw´s three
hundred thousand impoverished Jewish porters, shoemakers, and artisans.
The
upper end ofKrochmalna, by contrast, was less populated. There was even a small
orchard on the orphanage´s piece of land, which was bordered by small factories,
shops, and wooden houses, and in the midst of them a simple Catholic church.
The planning of the orphanage was a "momentous experience" for Korczak, who
met a few evenings a week with the two architects at the Eliasberg home. For the
first time he understood "the prayer of work and the beauty of real activity,"
He was not merely designing a building with walls and windows; he was creating a
spiritual space. He wanted to get as far away as possible from "the cages of
city apartments" and the unhygienic boarding houses that, "combined the defects
of the convent and the barracks." His goal was a spacious, light, and airy
structure that satisfied the individual need of every child. He marveled that "a
square on the blueprint today becomes a hall, a room, a passageway tomorrow."
But he learned to be cautious in his enthusiasm: "Every snap decision was a
directive to the artisan, who gave it permanent form." Every idea had to be
weighed in terms of money, feasibility, and utility. He decided that a teacher
is not entirely proficient unless he or she understands building materials: "A
small shelf a metal plate, a nail in the right place, each may solve an acute
problem."
The eldest of the Eliasbergs´ four daughters, Helena, remembered
how she and her sisters looked forward to the nights the funny doctor came to
work with the architects: "We had never seen a grownup like him. He kissed our
hands when he arrived as if we were ladies, and came over to us from time to
time to laugh and joke. He even let us draw on his bald head with the colored
pencils he was using on the blueprints."
While waiting for the orphanage to
be built, Korczak spent about half a year in Paris, training with pediatric
specialists and looking at orphanages and detention centers, much as he had done
in Berlin three years earlier. Paris had a long history of sheltering ‚migr‚
Polish writers and artists, and one can imagine that Korczak visited with some
of them.
He would tell friends later of his walks along the Seine and visits
to the galleries and museums. He came away from his experience realizing that he
felt temperamentally closer to the French than to the Germans. Berlin had taught
him "to simplify and be inventive in small matters, to concentrate on what he
knew step by step, and, systematically, to go forward from that," but Paris
taught him "to think of whatever we do not know, but should like to know, must
and will know" Berlin was a workday filled with small worries and efforts, but
Paris was the festive tomorrow with brilliant premonition, powerful hope, and
unexpected triumph. In Paris he pored over the "wondrous" books of the French
clinicians and, flushed with excitement, dreamed of writing the definitive book
on the child.
The death of Stefa Wilczynska´s father in January 1911
probably brought Korczak back to Warsaw. It was an inauspicious beginning for
the new year. Then, in February, Waclaw Nalkowski, Korczak"s mentor from the
Flying University, collapsed on the street at the age of fifty-five and died a
few days later in the hospital. The loss of Nalkowski sent shock waves through
Warsaw´s intellectual community' or what was left of it. Dawid was in Cracow, a
lonely man after Jadwiga' s suicide, writing on the psychology of religious
experience. And now Nalkowski, with his uncompromising principles that made him
foes as well as friends, could no longer give Korczak sustenance. In his eulogy
at the funeral, Korczak sought to console the large crowd of Polish patriots.
A happy man died-a man who lived the way he wanted, and died the way he
wanted, in a hospitalbed. He was not killed by those who today, like cowards,
sing his praise. He was not killed by those who lived and got fat eating the
crumbs of his thought. He was not killed by those who could not see his
greatness. He did not fight any of them. He merely dismissed them with a toss of
his head. It was Death who felled Nalkowski. Let us rejoice that he lived on
Polish soil.
Helping Nalkowski´s widow, herself a geologist, organize his
papers and seeing to last-minute details of the orphanage plans did not lift
Korczak´s spirits. Right after the cornerstone of the building was laid on June
14, 1911, he left for England to visit orphanages there-but also, one suspects,
to shake his depression. He was to have an experience there that appears to have
given him a clearer sense of the direction his personal life was to take. It
began with a refreshing ride from London to the suburb of Forest Hill to visit
an orphanage. He was struck by the large windows and wide benches of the
trolley, the smoothness of the ride. He was equally impressed at finding Forest
Hill an affluent suburb with rolling green lawns as far as the eye could see. He
felt like a country bumpkin as he admired the clippers on long poles which the
gardeners were using to cut hedges, and paused for a while to see how a lawn
mower worked.
But the biggest surprise was the orphanage, "two little
one-story houses sitting together like twins, thirty boys in one, thirty girls
in the other." Why would an affluent area like Forest Hill have orphans? he
wondered. What do the people die of in a place like this? The director greeted
him politely and showed him around "with no trace of German arrogance or French
formality." He saw the carpentry shop where the boys trained, and the laundry,
sewing room, and embroidery workshop for the girls. Every child had his or her
own garden plot, and kept rabbits, doves, or guinea pigs. There was even a
museum next to the school that held, among other treasures, one small mummy.
On leaving, he signed the visitor´s book-Janusz Korczak, Warsaw. He didn´t
need language to know what everyone had been thinking as he was shown around:
´Warsaw? A strange guest from far away. Why is he looking at everything with
such interest? The school? But there are children, so there must be a school.
The orphanage? But there are orphans, so they must have someplace to stay.
Swimming pool? Playground? But all of this is necessary.´
He was conscious
of his threadbare clothes and worn shoes and felt like a beggar who had wandered
in by chance. Walking back to the trolley stop, he was again overwhelmed by the
luxuriant green lawns, the manicured parks, and the large community swimming
pool. Suddenly perceiving his life as "disordered, lonely, and cold," he saw
himself as a shabby stranger, alienated and alone. And it came to him with
sudden clarity that the son of a madman, "a slave who is a Polish Jew under
Russian occupation," had no right to bring a child into the world.
This
realization "cut through him like a knife," he would write, and immediately he
felt as if he had "committed suicide." The child he might have fathered died
with him at that moment, but there emerged a "revitalized" man who took for a
son "the idea of serving the child and his rights." He who was ambivalent about
so rnany things had now settled once and for all on remaining childless. He was
giving up the responsibilities of marriage and family at which his father had
failed-and for which, in truth, he, Janusz Korczak, had never shown any
inclination. Though he could not remain a child´ he would inhabit the world of
childhood, but as the "responsible pedagogue"> his father was not. He was
thirty-three: almost the same age his father had been when he was born.
"Out
of a mad soul we forge a sane deed," he wrote in later years. The deed was "a
vow to uphold the child and defend his rights." No religious order had asked him
for such a vow-but he was to uphold it as conscientiously as any priest.

The international medicinal conference in Munich in October 2008

I will be reading the blog on the Obama overtures to obtain a consciousness overview.I will also be reviewing The international medicinal conference in Munich in October 2008 where the Mochica method was presented before amazed onlookers. (FROM PREVIOUS POST)

The press agent's email for this conference was (and is) I believe
kerstin.buerger@messe-muenchen.de. I intend to email him concerning this medicinal conference and the Introduction of the Mochica Method of Chiropractic.

http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1358827

You can obtain additional information and photos for downloading at www.icmmuenchen.
de
Press contact:
Kerstin Bürger, ICM Project Communications, Tel. (+49 89) 949 20722,

Here is the copy of the email I sent.

(No Subject)‏
From:
Edward Yablonsky (edwyablo@hotmail.com)
Sent:
Thu 7/16/09 5:29 PM
To:
kerstin.buerger@messe-muenchen.de
Cc:
Edward Yablonsky (edwyablo@hotmail.com)
.ExternalClass .EC_hmmessage P
{padding:0px;}
.ExternalClass body.EC_hmmessage
{font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana;}
I am writing to you regarding the Medicinal conference in Munich in October 2008 regarding the introduction of the Mochica chiropractic method from Peru introduced at the Conference. Can you obtain info for me on that event. edwyablo@hotmail.com