Henry Miller, Grace Llewellyn, The Teenage Liberation Handbook, society, and school

excerpted from THE WAY OF WONDER: a return to the mystery of ourselves, by Jack Haas

“From the day we went to school we learned nothing;

 on the contrary, we were made obtuse,

we were wrapped in a fog of words and abstractions.”

Henry Miller

            Recognizing this, Grace Llewellyn- in her tragically little-known book The Teenage Liberation Handbook, which is designed to assist youths in escaping from their pedantic tormentors- quotes an eighth-grade student, who says, “The average second grader is a person slightly smarter than the average third grader, because they've had a year less of school.”

            This is an absurd statement, and yet it is only absurd to an absurd society that defends its false reality by the tactical method of teaching its delusions to each younger generation, thus perpetuating the mental ossification.

            Yes indeed, how truly barbaric it is that during the essential years of curiosity and wonder- when it would be much healthier for our bodies and souls to be outside amongst the wind and the trees, singing, and dancing, and playing about- we are instead corralled foolishly into a holding tank, and there we are injected continually with the bitter medicine of dubious realities.

excerpted from:

THE WAY OF WONDER: a return to the mystery of ourselves

by Jack Haas

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Mystical books, visionary art, and fine art photography by Jack Haas