 This is a continuation of the essay "Unenlightened." III. Waldorf: Light and Dark Steiner revealed his intentions for Waldorf schools during discussions at the first Waldorf. The following quotations come from books published by the Anthroposophic Press in a series called “Foundations of Waldorf Education.” ◊Steiner wanted Waldorf schools to spread Anthroposophy: “One of the most important facts about the background of the Waldorf School is that we were in a position to make the anthroposophical movement a relatively large one. The anthroposophical movement has become a large one.” [1] ◊To this end, Steiner arranged that “[We] need to make the children aware that they are receiving the objective truth, and ... anthroposophy has something to say about objective truth ... Anthroposophy will be in the school.” [2] ◊To that end, the “staff consists of anthroposophists.” [3] Steiner elaborated on that last point, thus: “As Waldorf teachers, we must be true anthroposophists in the deepest sense of the word in our innermost feeling.” [4]
The educational process at the Waldorf school I attended was both circumspect and subtle. Instead of teaching us explicit doctrines, the Anthroposophists on the faculty — those teachers who understood what Waldorf was really about — typically tried to lead us by indirection. They sensitized us to the supernatural, and then they worked, quietly, to nurture in us a feeling of intuitive connection to the spirit realm. [5] Their conception of that realm was largely determined by visions Rudolf Steiner claimed to have attained through clairvoyance. Our school days were pleasant — mellow and tranquil. There was scarcely any unruliness or rude behavior at Waldorf. Pranks and mild rebelliousness were not completely unknown, but they were rare. (Incorrigible troublemakers were weeded out during the application process or they were expelled.) Arriving at the school each day was like entering a refuge from worldly turmoil. The morning began with a prayer, although no one called it that. [6] In the lower grades, we would then have classes about myths or Bible stories (Steiner believed that myths and legends tell of spiritual beings who really exist; these tales also serve as markers along the route of mankind’s spiritual evolution). [7] Interspersed with these supernatural lessons we had classes in math and geography and history: regular subjects. We had no textbooks — we copied lessons written on the blackboards for us by our teachers. Reading was not emphasized in the lower grades. We had no "Weekly Reader", no "Dick and Jane". We laid our heads on our desks and listened as our teachers recited or read to us — often tales of the magical or mystical. At other times of the day, we knitted, and crocheted, and played simple woodwind instruments en masse. Sometimes we merely gazed about us while our teachers spoke. The teachers urged us to imaginatively identify with whatever we studied or saw — to feel the life-force coursing through a tree, or absorb an eagle’s noble spirit, or experience the meaning of a boulder. In art classes, we were taught to produce misty watercolor paintings with no straight lines or clear definitions. There was something otherworldly about the images we created, bearing no resemblance to ordinary physical reality, yet completely unlike the stick-figure cartoons kids often produce. The teachers didn’t say so, but our paintings were in effect talismanic representations of the spirit realm. [8] In dance classes, we performed “eurythmy,” a form of bodily movement that looks a bit like slow-motion modern dance, but that was actually intended to teach us the proper stances to manifest spiritual states of being — calling upon influences from our past lives and preparing the basis for our future lives. [9] We did eurythmy while manipulating therapeutic copper rods and holding our pelvises strictly still. We were made to feel that eurythmy had an especially strong spiritual component. Our teachers didn’t need to articulate their beliefs about such matters; their tone of voice and facial expressions conveyed the seriousness of the tasks they set us. The eurythmy instructors made a particularly powerful impression in this regard — an impression they underscored when they arranged student performances for school assemblies. These performances were almost invariably solemn, and often they were freighted with spiritual significance. In one of my class’s first public eurythmic displays (coming in about the third or fourth grade), we enacted the creation of the world — the emergence of light, the separation of light from darkness, the separation of dry land from the waters, and so on. We portrayed angels and archangels and the fulfillment of God’s commands. I played the role of God Almighty.  By the time we reached the upper grades, our spiritual conditioning was fairly well advanced and our curriculum began to seem somewhat more conventional. We had a few textbooks now — although sometimes these were simple collections of primary texts: important historical documents from the US revolution, for instance, or from European history, with little editorial commentary. Our teachers told us what to make of the texts. In art classes, realism was increasingly permitted; and our dancing now included some ballroom instruction. But Waldorf’s essential nature remained. Throughout most of each day, throughout most of the curriculum, the spiritualistic vibe persisted. Eurythmy persisted. Misty watercoloring persisted. We sat through lessons on the shortcomings of science and the failings of modern technology. Our math classes were infused with Platonic idealism: The numbers, operators, and geometric figures we worked with were, we learned, rude shadows of their true, perfect counterparts residing in an ideal, supersensory region. [10] In literature classes, we read carefully selected novels having themes consistent with Anthroposophy, [11] interspersed with works of supernatural and even theological content: THE ODYSSEY, THE DIVINE COMEDY, PARADISE LOST. Most of the works assigned to us are literary classics, and as such they are perfectly defensible as high school reading matter. But much of what we read, taken in the context of the misty spiritualism that filled our days, reinforced the constant, subtle pressure exerted on us to move toward mysticism. Thus, our headmaster — John Fentress Gardner — devised reinterpretations of important works of American literature that endeavored to bring those works into line with Anthroposophical doctrine. [12] Such slanted versions of American and European intellectual history worked their way into our studies. Mr. Gardner guided us in reading spiritualistic essays: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s SELECTED WRITINGS, for instance, and Thomas Carlyle’s ON HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP. I still have my copies of these books, in which I see that I dutifully underlined passages honoring Jesus [13] and praising “Christianism.” [14] Our teachers rarely acknowledged their interest in Jesus, but His presence was subtly central in much of our “nonsectarian” schooling. [15] During my senior year, our school chorus — which included every student in the high school — spent many weeks rehearsing and finally performing Handel’s “Messiah". We were encouraged to read disguised Christian parables by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, who were members of a coterie known as the Oxford Christians. [16] The central annual event for the entire school was the Carol Sing each December. Students, parents, faculty, and alumni filled the candlelit auditorium, which for the evening became a kind of chapel. The Sing was our community bonding experience. It was solemnly reverent (all the carols were traditional birth-of-Jesus songs — no secular ditties about Santa Clause or reindeer or snowmen), and it always culminated in “Silent Night” — which most of us sang in English but some sang in contrapuntal German. (It is crucial to realize that while Rudolf Steiner’s teachings emphasize Christ Jesus, they are not consistent with orthodox Christianity. In fact, Steiner’s doctrines are gnostic and heretical. See my essay “Was He Christian?” at this Web site.) The effects of Waldorf’s educational program gradually accumulated in our heads and hearts. After I had been at the school only a few years, the notion of trying to see the world clearly had lost almost all meaning for me. Everything seemed to me symbolic rather than concrete — although what the symbols stood for was vague. Everything had its hidden, mystical deeps. It’s hard to remember now precisely how I was led to adopt this attitude, but it is entirely consistent with Steiner’s teachings: “I must emphasize this again and again, that the saying ‘the world is Maya’ is so vitally important.” [17] A booklet written by Mr. Gardner is suggestive. [18] Discussing Waldorf educational practices, Mr. Gardner says, “Is not the contrast between mountain and sea a cause as well as an image of deep contrasts in the moral experience of mankind? Mountains define, but by the same act they also divide. They teach integrity, but may go further to instill antipathy.” [19] The language is more elevated than any that our teachers would have used with us, but the message is very familiar to me: Nothing is what it is, it is always something else, something higher, or lower. Accordingly, it is foolish to think that a mountain is merely a towering mass of rock and earth — it is a manifestation, a lesson, an image bearing on our moral experience. Later in the booklet, Mr. Gardner writes, “Understandably, many teachers today [at conventional secular schools] do not recognize that the world-content has something to give, through completely experienced thought, to every power of the human soul. Their training has not led them to appreciate that within each of its facts the apparent world conceals many levels of truth....” [20] Properly trained teachers at Waldorf schools don’t make that mistake: They always direct attention away from the “apparent world” to the many concealed “levels of truth” in order to empower the human soul. They have their eyes on what lies beyond — real or otherwise. And that is the key: real or otherwise. Peering deeply, seeing beyond superficial appearances is, of course, wise. Indeed, it may be considered the essence of wisdom. But you must see what is really inherent in the phenomena you study — you must not perceive “hidden truths” that are mere figments of your own imagination. Steiner's followers often commit precisely the error of substituting fancies for facts. They “perceive” occult states and events that do not actually exist. They fantasize, and they base the education of Waldorf students in these fantasies.  We should pause over one phrase used by Mr. Gardner: “completely experienced thought.” For Steiner and his followers, the truest thinking is not rational cognition or brainwork, which they deem dry and un-heartfelt. An “experienced” thought is felt — it is thought tempered by imagination — it is more akin to emotion than to cool, rational conceptualizing, and it often leads to complication or even mystification rather than to clarity. Ask yourself whether this is the sort of thinking what you want for your children. Nothing in the physical world is real. What we see around us isn’t what it is. It is all illusion. The Anthroposophical solution is to feel one’s way past appearances by opening outwards through imagination or clairvoyance (in Anthroposophy, these terms are sometimes synonymous). According to Steiner: “Essentially, people today have no inkling of how people looked out into the universe in ancient times when human beings still possessed an instinctive clairvoyance.... If we want to be fully human, however, we must struggle to regain a view of the cosmos that moves toward Imagination again....” [21] One implication of the foregoing is that Waldorf schools would find little benefit in explicitly teaching their students Anthroposophical doctrines, even if the students were old enough to comprehend them and there were no other incentives for the faculty to keep mum. Memorizing doctrines is brainwork, which does not help us (and possibly may hinder us) in our efforts to become “fully human.” [22] So Waldorfs generally work to inculcate the doctrines and attitudes of Anthroposophy at an unconscious, emotional level, rather than at the dry, dull intellectual level. I should stress again that not everyone at our Waldorf school was an occultist. Most of the students, lots of the parents, and even a fair number of the teachers seemed to be regular folks. And there were a few apparent fence-sitters, teachers and parents who seemed to sense something spiritually alluring about Waldorf without fully committing themselves to it. But among the faculty, undeniably, there were also the others, the true believers: individuals who always seemed to be trying to peer through the thin tissue separating the physical realm from the spiritual (as they might have put it). [23] They were serious individuals, mainly, who sometimes got faraway looks in their eyes — yet they also had a sort of steel in them, a sense of sureness. They possessed holy secrets, keys to cosmic truth. Sometimes some of the secrets were partially revealed. Surprisingly, at least a few of the secrets seemed to involve race. During twelfth grade, my class was taught biology by our headmaster, Mr. Gardner. I don’t know what credentials he had in biology, if any [24], but because he was headmaster, his authority was unquestioned. I respected him greatly — he was tall, dignified, articulate — just what a dominant male should be. Still, I remember being troubled by a lecture he delivered one morning. Mr. Gardner laid out for us the overarching structure of the family of man. He explained that the various races stood at different levels of moral development — each was forging its own destiny. He said these things sympathetically, with no hint of condescension. Yet the vibe was in the room that morning: The terms he used were more metaphysical than biological. The Oriental races, he said, are ancient, wise, but vitiated. The African races are youthful, unformed, childlike, he said. Standing near the center of humanity’s family are the currently most advanced races, the whites, he said. (To my shame, I must admit that I was sufficiently struck by these notions to write a paper essentially parroting them. I got a good grade, of course.) [25] I also remember a lesson our class received in a related subject: botany. The teacher in this instance was Hertha Karl, who taught both German and “earth science.” Her background is, to me, a closed book — but of all the Waldorf faculty, she made the least effort to disguise her devotion to Steiner. She drew figures-of-eight on the blackboard and lectured us about “lemniscates”: the mystic interaction of the “telluric” and “etheric” forces, which is the basic structure of nature, she said. During one day's main lesson, she veered off topic to warn us never to receive blood transfusions from members of other races (all of us were white). Blacks and Orientals have blood types that are physically different from ours, she taught us: Receiving such inferior blood would harm us. The moral once again was that racial identity has great significance. There is no way for me to prove that Mr. Gardner and Mrs. Karl made the remarks I have attributed to them. All I can do is offer my solemn oath that I have carried clear, consistent memories of those remarks throughout my life. If my memory has grown dim or betrayed me in any particulars, nonetheless I am confident that my account of these two lessons is, in all essentials, accurate. One bit of tangential confirmation: Years after leaving Waldorf, I learned that the things Mr. Gardner and Mrs. Karl said were largely consistent with Steiner’s doctrines. As I've said, all the students in my class were white, which would have freed Mr. Gardner and Mrs. Karl to speak openly. Today, Waldorf schools seem to be fairly well integrated — and I trust the faculties are free of racial bigotry. But I wonder how those faculties reconcile racial integration with the racism that infects Anthroposophy. I hope that teachers as Waldorf schools no longer engage in open discussions of superior/inferior races, and I doubt that the word “Aryan” (which Steiner used often) is spoken aloud much now. The task of downplaying Steiner's racism is made easier, in English-speaking countries, because some translations of Steiner’s books from the original German omit certain “difficult” passages. Anthroposophists outside Germany who rely on expurgated texts may understand Steiner’s basic teachings about race, but they are shielded from Steiner’s most bigoted assertions. One of Steiner’s basic racial tenets is that the division of mankind into races was a crime committed by two disruptive spirits. The devils Lucifer and Ahriman interfered with the harmonious evolution of humanity by causing older forms of mankind to survive even while other segments of humanity evolved to higher levels: “Lucifer and Ahriman ... fought against this harmonious tendency of development in the evolution of humanity, and they managed to change the whole process so that various developments were shifted and displaced. While there should have been basically only one form of human being ... Lucifer and Ahriman preserved [earlier human types] ... even into the time after the Atlantean flood. Thus, forms that should have disappeared remained. Instead of racial diversities developing consecutively, older racial forms remained unchanged and newer ones began to evolve at the same time. Instead of the intended consecutive development of races, there was a coexistence of races. That is how it came about that physically different races inhabited the earth and are still there in our time although evolution should really have proceeded [unimpeded].” [26]  Set aside the question of Atlantis (“the Atlantean flood”) for the moment. Note that the older racial forms preserved by Lucifer and Ahriman would necessarily be less evolved and hence inferior to newer forms. Anthroposophists often argue that Steiner was not a racist. Yet making distinctions between races, and placing whites at the top of a racial hierarchy, are recurrent themes in his work. In Steiner’s view, the simultaneous existence of multiple races is, in itself, wrong. Correcting this “error” means removing inferior racial strains. “A race or nation stands so much the higher, the more perfectly its members express the pure, ideal human type ... The evolution of man through the incarnations in ever higher national and racial forms is thus a process of liberation [leading to] an ideal future.” [27] Attaining a “pure, ideal human type” may or may not be desirable goal. Racism would end if we all became alike, which Steiner said will happen when the highest humans move on to new, better incarnations, and the lowly and wicked are left behind. But this invidious vision obviously runs contrary to the more enlightened ideals of diversity, multiculturalism, and mutual respect among races. In closing this section, I’d like to return to — and expand — a point I made a moment ago. I cannot swear that all of my memories are accurate, of course. But the research I have performed in recent years indicates that the description I’ve offered of my schooling is in line with Rudolf Steiner’s stated objectives for Waldorf education. In reading Steiner today, I find that almost everything he says rings a muffled bell of familiarity in my memory. I take this as at least indirect confirmation that what I have written about my school years is essentially accurate. Still, I urge you to evaluate my statements by comparing them with Steiner’s. I believe you will find that they are wholly in line with one another. What I am giving you, here, is a reliable exposition of Waldorf education. — Roger Rawlings  Above is one of our eurythmy instructors. Below is a scene from a high-school eurythmy class. To preserve the privacy of my old schoolmates, I have concealed their faces. Both images are from our school yearbook, THE PINNACLE. Ahriman in his cave — based on a sketch by Steiner. (Rudolf Steiner, ART (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 145.) [R.R., 2009.] Rudolf Steiner [Rudolf Steiner, THE STORY OF MY LIFE (Kessinger Publishing, facsimile of 1928 edition, Anthroposophical Publishing Co.), frontispiece.] Please go on to the next section of “Unenlightened” — “Waldorf's Impact” http://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/waldorfs-impact . ◊◊◊◊ For more on Steiner's racist remarks and racism in Waldorf schools, please go to: For a report of racism discovered in Waldorf schools recently, in the USA, please use this link: ◊◊◊◊ ENDNOTES [1] RUDOLF STEINER IN THE WALDORF SCHOOL, p. 156. [2] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 495. [3] EDUCATION FOR ADOLESCENTS, p. 60. [4] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 118. [5] In sensitizing a child to the supernatural, Waldorf teachers are at least partially trying to preserve what Anthroposophists say is the child’s innate connection to the spirit realm. I quoted a portion of the following passage earlier; here is a more extensive excerpt: “Childhood is commonly regarded as a time of steadily expanding consciousness.... Yet in Steiner’s view, the very opposite is the case: childhood is a time of contracting consciousness.... [The child] loses his dream-like perception of the creative world of spiritual powers which is hidden behind the phenomena of the senses. This is ... the world of creative archetypes and spiritual hierarchies. "In mastering the world of physical perception the child encounters difficulties in that he first has to overcome a dream-like yet intensely real awareness of spiritual worlds. This awareness fades quickly in early childhood, but fragments of it live on in the child for a much longer time than most people imagine. "In a Waldorf school, therefore, one of the tasks of the teachers is to keep the children young.” [PORTRAIT OF A WALDORF SCHOOL, pp. 15-16.] Think about the implications of keeping children young as opposed to helping them to mature. [6] I don’t fully trust my memory to resurrect the precise words of the prayers we recited. As I recall, the teachers would lead the prayers and we would follow along. Our brains didn’t need to be much engaged. But the subliminal effect of praying, and the tone it set for the day, were powerful. After checking various sources, I can report a consensus that a “verse” written by Steiner and beginning “The Sun with loving light...” was/is used in the lower grades at typical Waldorfs. The sources are also in general agreement that the following “verse” written by Steiner was/is often used in higher grades. It, too, is clearly a prayer, in this case addressing God and asking for blessings. There are slight differences in some lines as quoted by the various sources. I point out a few of these discrepancies below. For Steiner’s original wording, see PRAYERS FOR PARENTS AND CHILDREN (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), pp. 46-47. The title is “Morning Verse for the Higher Classes.” Note that Steiner’s original version of this “verse” shuns the circumlocutions “World Creator” and “Creator Spirit”: The word quoted by the Rudolf Steiner Press in both instances is “God” — or in the original German, “Gottesgeist,” the spirit of God. (The “verse” I discussed earlier “The Sun with loving light...”, titled “Morning Verse for the Four Lower Classes”, appears on pp. 44-45 of PRAYERS FOR PARENTS AND CHILDREN.) I look into the world in which the sun is shining, In which the stars are sparkling, In which the stones repose, Where living plants are growing, Where animals live in feeling. Where the soul with spirit power Gives strength unto my limbs. [One source gives the former two lines as “Where man within the soul Gives dwelling to the spirit.”] I look into the soul that lives within my being. God’s spirit lives and weaves [One source says instead “The World Creator weaves”] In sunlight and in soul-light, In cosmic space without, In depths of soul within. To Thee, Creator Spirit, I turn myself [One source gives this line as “To Thee oh spirit of God, I want to turn myself”] To ask that strength and blessing, For learning and for working, May ever grow within me. 1) www.mothering.com/discussions/archive/index.php/t-213635.html 2) www.openwaldorf.com/anthroposophy.html 3) www.waldorfcritics.org/active/archives/WCA0212.1.html 4) www.highmowing.org/the_experience/student_handbook/morning_verse/ 5) Todd Oppenheimer, “Schooling the Imagination,” THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, Sept. 1999, offprint distributed by the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America, p. 7. (“A Sense of Ethics,” THE ATLANTIC ONLINE, cited earlier, originates in Oppenheimer’s essay.) [7] Concerning the significance of myths, Steiner said this, for example: “I have demonstrated to you the connection between a myth such as the Baldur myth and great all-encompassing manifestations of human evolution. [paragraph break] Our scientific simpletons who conduct research into myths and legends can go no further than to maintain that they are an expression of creative folk imagination. In reality, however, they encompass deeply significant truths which are revealed particularly through the fact that they are truly worked out down to the last detail.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE KARMA OF UNTRUTHFULNESS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), p. 276.] Note that Steiner extends his assertion beyond myths to legends (he said much the same about fairy tales, as well). Note also his explicit opposition to the findings of science (although in this instance his definition of “science” seems awfully elastic). Another example: “We must not look merely for astronomical facts in such a myth as the myth of Osiris, but we must see in it the result of the deep clairvoyant insight of the wise priests of ancient Egypt. They embodied in this myth what they knew concerning the evolution of earth and man. [paragraph break] Actual facts concerning the higher Spiritual Worlds lie at the foundation of all myths....” [Rudolf Steiner, UNIVERSE EARTH AND MAN IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO EGYPTIAN MYTHS AND MODERN CIVILIZATION (Kessinger Publishing, 2003), p. 94.] Steiner here extends his claims to “all myths.” His endorsement of clairvoyance is also noteworthy. A widely published Anthroposophist gives this sequence for the teaching of myths, etc., in Waldorf schools: Kindergarten and first grade, fairy tales; second grade, legends; fourth and fifth grades, Norse and Greek myths; thereafter, Indian, Persian, and Egyptian myths. [Roy Wilkinson, THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF STEINER EDUCATION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), p. 87.] Old Testament stories are told in third grade [Ibid., p. 62]. He prescribes much the same order in TEACHING ENGLISH (Rudolf Steiner College Press, 1976, reprinted 1997) — see my essay “Oh My Word”. Essentially the same order is prescribed another Anthroposophist, with some interesting additional notes: first grade, fairy tales — “History is not a separate subject”; second grade, legends and stories about saints — “History is not a separate subject”; third grade, Old Testament stories — “History is not a separate subject”; fourth grade, Norse myths — history is finally established as a subject separate from fairy tales, legends, and myths; fifth grade, ancient history, including the myths of India, Persia, Egypt, Babylonia, and Greece — history and myths seem to overlap again here. [Eugene Schwartz, WALDORF EDUCATION (Xlibris Corporation, 2000), pp. 75-76.] Think of the confusion that can arise in young minds when factual history is blurred with fabulous tales — or, to put this more strongly, when fantasies are presented as fact. An aside: Franz E. Winkler, MD, was a presiding Anthroposophical presence at my Waldorf school. In 1960, he published a well-reviewed book, MAN, THE BRIDGE BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (Harper & Row). It is essentially a disguised presentation of Anthroposophical dogma. At one point, Winkler discusses fairy tales. His comments bear on several subjects I have discussed here. Please see my essay "Rankings" here at Waldorf Watch. In the cause of full disclosure, I should state that I was acquainted with Franz Winkler. He was one of my doctors. My parents sent me to regular MDs for annual checkups and for medications when needed. But they also sent me to Dr. Winkler, from whom I received few nostrums except herbs. Instead, Dr. Winkler prescribed mental exercises such as visualizing a pencil in complete detail and then visualizing all the steps in its manufacture. This is the sort of exercise Steiner prescribes in such books as KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT (Anthroposophic Press, 1944) — steps intended to provide complete conscious control of the mind, leading — according to Steiner — to both physical health and clairvoyance. I can’t say what, if anything, the herbs did for me, but I never developed psychic powers. I wasn’t explicitly told that I should even try. (Critics of my work might claim that I oppose Anthroposophy because my personal failings prevent me from exercising clairvoyance and thus seeing the beautiful truths of Steiner’s doctrines. Like everyone else, I have my shortcomings, but they are irrelevant to this discussion. Clairvoyance is a fantasy. People who claim clairvoyant powers are either fooling themselves or fooling us, or both.) [8] At Waldorf, we often employed wet-on-wet watercoloring (wet brushes spreading watery paint over wet paper), a technique that effectively prevents a young child from creating recognizable images of the real world. Instead, as elementary school students, my classmates and I produced colorful but blurred pictures that corresponded nicely to Steiner’s description of the spirit realm: rich in color but devoid of clean lines and clear-cut forms. (We inhabit the spirit realm during the intervals between our earthly lives, according to Steiner’s doctrine of reincarnation.) “You see, when the soul arrives on earth in order to enter its body, it has come down from spirit-soul worlds in which there are no spatial forms. Thus the soul knows spatial forms only after its bodily experience, only while the aftereffects of space still linger on. “But though the world from which the soul descends has no spatial forms or lines, it does have color intensities, color qualities. Which is to say that the world man inhabits between death and a new birth (and which I have frequently and recently described) is a soul-permeated, spirit-permeated world of light, of color, of tone; a world of qualities not quantities; a world of intensities rather than extensions.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE ARTS AND THEIR MISSION (Anthroposophic Press, 1964), p. 23.] Steiner taught that the various art forms have metaphysical effects — which is a major reason that students at Waldorfs paint and sculpt and make music, and so forth, as much as they do. Thus, the paints we used in our watercoloring were, from an Anthroposophical perspective, magical: Their hues provided entree into the spirit realm. If we would but open our souls — as through painting or music — we could begin to participate in an interchange between the physical and spiritual worlds: “We have seen that colours and musical notes are windows through which we can ascend spiritually into the spiritual world, but life also brings us windows through which the spiritual enters our physical world.... If we fail to perceive the fact that spirit descends to us through such windows, it is like someone who cannot read opening a beautiful book. He has the same thing in front of him as someone who can read, but if he cannot read he sees unintelligible scribbles.... A person who cannot read world phenomena is like a cosmic illiterate where these phenomena are concerned.... In the time of ancient clairvoyance human beings were far less illiterate in the spirit.” [Rudolf Steiner, ART AS SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF MYSTERY WISDOM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), pp. 111-112.] [9] Of all the art forms, eurythmy has particular significance in Steiner’s system (see, e.g., ART AS SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF MYSTERY WISDOM, p. 41 and p. 50). One result is that Steiner’s statements concerning eurythmy are particularly arcane. To offer a quick rundown: Eurythmy enables the physical body to make direct connection with the spiritual realm. Our physical bodies are, in a sense, merely tools that enable us to do eurythmy. Eurythmy gives us access to aspects of our previous lives, and it creates — in our limbs — effects that will carry over into our next lives. (If the following quotation remains difficult to decipher, focus on the final sentence.) “In a certain sense, we take from earthly life only the physical medium, the actual human being who is the tool or instrument for eurythmy. But we allow this human being to make manifest what we study inwardly, what is already prepared in us as a result of previous lives; we transfer this to our limbs, which are the part of us where life after death is being shaped in advance. Eurythmy shapes and moves the human organism in a way that furnishes direct external proof of our participation in the supersensible world. In having people do eurythmy, we link them directly to the supersensible world.” [Rudolf Steiner, ART AS SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 247.] [10] Platonism is the proposition that abstractions such as numbers and geometric forms have an objective existence apart from, and superior to, their reflections in the real world. Steiner credited geometry with fostering his knowledge of the spirit realm: “In my relation with geometry I must now perceive the first budding forth of a conception which has since gradually evolved in me ... [T]he reality of the spiritual world was to me as certain as that of the physical.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE STORY OF MY LIFE (Anthroposophical Publishing Company, 1928), p. 11.] Steiner credited Plato with living on the ideal or spiritual plane. “The mood in which I came to Weimar was tinged by previous thorough-going work in Platonism ... How did Plato live in the ideal world, and how did Goethe?” [Ibid., p. 142.] [11] I shouldn’t pass too quickly over the ordinary novels we were assigned — they help illustrate how our teachers were able to inculcate Anthroposophical values in us without explicitly discussing Steiner or his doctrines. For example, we studied Willa Cather’s MY ANTONIA, which deals with Manifest Destiny as enacted by a pair of Christian families: The forces of destiny want white people like them to take possession of the North American continent, and religious faith helps the families to overcome their difficulties. We also studied CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, the story of a remorseless, apparently irredeemable murderer. Yet the novel ends in a passage to which no Anthroposophist could object: The murderer clutches a New Testament while the author projects for him “a new story, the story of the gradual rebirth of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his gradual passing from one world to another....” [Fyodor Dostoyevsky, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Penguin Books, 1951), p. 559.] I do not mean, of course, that Cather and Dostoyevsky were Anthroposophists — those authors would have been shocked by such a suggestion. But our teachers selected reading matter that was, in varying degrees, congruous with Anthroposophical positions. See my accounts of other books we were recommended or assigned. [12] E.g., John Fentress Gardner, “MELVILLE’S VISION OF AMERICA: A New Interpretation of Moby Dick (The Myrin Institute, 1977). This booklet appeared several years after my class graduated from Waldorf, but it is representative of Mr. Gardner’s work. Mr. Gardner considered MOBY DICK a precursor to Rudolf Steiner’s teachings. His analysis of the novel ties into such Anthroposophical tenets and subjects as reincarnation (p. 31), Ahriman (p. 30), opposition to intellect (p. 40), affirmation of imagination (p. 24), affirmation of Goethean science (p. 27), the rulership of the archangel Michael (p. 41), and so forth. In many instances, his interpretations are stretches — Mr. Gardner’s interpretation has found very little acceptance among Melville scholars. The essence of the booklet later reappeared in Mr. Gardner’s book, AMERICAN HERALDS OF THE SPIRIT (see the next endnote), in which Mr. Gardner quietly acknowledges his admiration of Rudolf Steiner — a reference tucked into an appendix. For discussions of Steiner’s teachings on reincarnation, Ahriman, etc., see my other essays. The Myrin Institute was devoted to spiritualism, in particular Anthroposophy. On p. 3 of MELVILLE’S VISION, the Institute describes itself as believing “that a genuine reconciliation of the modern scientific attitude with a spiritual world-concept is the most essential need of modern man.” Rudolf Steiner’s claimed that Anthroposophy fills precisely that need, although Steiner’s work was in fact profoundly antiscientific. See my essay “Steiner’s 'Science'” at this Web site. [13] “[In] the thick darkness, there are not wanting gleams of better light ... miracles in the earliest antiquity ... the history of Jesus Christ ... prayer....” [Ralph Waldo Emerson, THE SELECTED WRITINGS OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON (Random House, 1940), p. 40.)] Emerson was a leader of the American Transcendentalists, a loosely allied group whose religious quest sought truth through subjective insight rather than through experience and rationalism. Emerson affirmed man’s ability to transcend the world described by science and thus to attain a direct personal revelation of God. Mr. Gardner contended that Emerson and other American writers of that period were spiritual antecedents of Rudolf Steiner. After resigning due to the scandal reported in the NEW YORK TIMES, Mr. Gardner wrote AMERICAN HERALDS OF THE SPIRIT [Lindisfarne Press, 1991], about the Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Herman Melville. The third appendix deals with “Rudolf Steiner’s extensive and immensely fruitful research.” Mr. Gardner’s thesis is that Emerson et al. anticipated — in somewhat vague form — spiritual doctrines that Steiner would sharpen and perfect, “lending them the clarity of something fully experienced....” (p. 298). Theosophists have similarly claimed Emerson as a predecessor to Helena Blavatsky, a founder of their faith. [See THEOSOPHY, Vol. 24, No. 1, 1935.] Emerson drew on some of the same sources mined by Steiner and Blavatsky, but the parallels between his work and theirs goes little beyond affirmation of human transcendent potential and a conception of the divine influenced by Eastern religions, especially Hinduism. To understand what Mr. Gardner meant by Steiner’s “research,” it is important to realize that Steiner conducted precious little research in any ordinary sense. He explicitly denied that his doctrines derived from his reading, and he was not an experimenter in any of the true sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, and the like. Steiner’s “research” consisted of his study of Goethe and other mystic philosophers, and his purported use of clairvoyance to ascertain spiritual "realities”. This is what Mr. Gardner meant by research: He cites Steiner's occultist book, STAGES OF HIGHER KNOWLEDGE, first published in 1905. [14] “Paganism emblemed chiefly the Operations of Nature ... Christianism emblemed the Law of Human Duty ... What a progress is here....” [Thomas Carlyle, ON HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP {published in the same volume as Ralph Waldo Emerson, REPRESENTATIVE MEN} (Doubleday & Company, undated), p. 99. {Carlyle’s book originally appeared in 1841.}] Carlyle was known for his idiosyncratic language. “Christianism,” of course, is Christianity. “Emblemed” means “was emblematic of” or "represented". Influenced by German Transcendentalists, Carlyle in turn influenced Emerson. One significant difference between the two men, however, is that Carlyle was mordant and angry, whereas Emerson espoused idealistic hope. The hallmark of Carlyle’s spirituality was hatred of the Devil, not adoration of God. Carlyle wrote that all contemporary forms of religion are outworn — that a new religious system is needed. For Waldorfers, it would be a short step to believe that the need Carlyle so presciently identified was filled by Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy. [15] Late in his life, Mr. Gardner wrote TWO PATHS TO THE SPIRIT: Charismatic Christianity and Anthroposophy (Golden Stone Press, 1990). On p. 8, he says “Both paths [i.e., charismatic Christianity and Anthroposophy] acknowledge Christ Jesus as the ultimate Shepherd of human souls, finding in His life the archetype of all human experience, and seeing in His Baptism, Crucifixion, and Resurrection the pivotal events of human history.” I cannot know how much Mr. Gardner’s beliefs may have changed since he ran the Waldorf School decades earlier. He writes that his interest in charismatic Christianity is newfound (pp. 1-2), but he maintains his advocacy of Anthroposophy — and he attributes the same Christian core to both “paths”. More important, the words I have just quoted and the sanctioned activities at Waldorf under Mr. Gardner are consistent with Rudolf Steiner’s heretical but insistent reverence for Christ: “What, then, is this mysterious impulse making its victorious way through the world? ... It is the Christ himself. He goes from heart to heart, from soul to soul, living and working in the world regardless of whether he is understood as evolution progresses through the centuries.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE FIFTH GOSPEL: From the Akashic Record (Rudolf Steiner Press), pp. 11-12.] Notice the reference to evolution. Steiner embraced an evolutionary theory that is at odds both with science and with the Bible. At our school, Jesus was always emphasized, if only in passing, quietly. Apparently the school today remains devoted to Jesus — perhaps more forthrightly so. In 2007, the school’s institutional Christmas card bore the inscription: “In deepest Winter Night/is born the World’s Future Light". For more about Steiner’s views on Jesus, see my essay “Was He Christian?” at this Web site. [16] See R. J. Reilly, ROMANTIC RELIGION (Lindisfarne Press, 2006). Lewis’s Christianity lies near the surface of his fiction; Tolkien’s is more hidden. For analyses of the Christian message in Tolkien’s books, see Ralph C. Woods, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO TOLKIEN (Westminster John Knox Press, 2003) and Kurt D. Bruner & Jim Ware, FINDING GOD IN THE LORD OF THE RINGS (SaltRiver, 2001). Tolkien’s enthralling Christian mythology, which does not immediately appear to be Christian, would have obvious appeal to a Christian school that wanted to appear nonsectarian. I remember Tolkien’s books being sold in our school lobby at Christmastime. (That’s where I got my copies — after which I reread THE LORD OF THE RINGS once a year until I graduated.) Tolkien’s trilogy is better known, but Lewis’s “space trilogy” has perhaps been more influential. OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET, PERELANDRA, and THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH are, in effect, anti-science fiction. In the first two volumes, the protagonist travels to Mars and Venus; in the final volume, he concludes his adventures back on Earth (with the help of Merlin, whom he summons from suspended animation). The cosmology of the novels is a reworking of the ancient great chain of being. [See ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, “Great Chain of Being.”] Lewis locates various gods on the planets, where they preside in the service of God and his Son, called “Maleldil” in the trilogy. The following comes from the chapter “Descent of the Gods.” To set the scene: The “gods", who go by the names of the planets they rule, are visiting Earth to help in the battle against demonic powers. “Saturn ... stood in the Blue Room. His spirit lay upon the house, or even the whole Earth, with a cold pressure such as might flatten the very orb of Tellus [i.e., Earth] to a wafer ... Suddenly a greater spirit came — one whose influence tempered and almost transformed to his own quality the skill of leaping Mercury, the clearness of Mars, the subtler vibration of Venus, and even the numbing weight of Saturn ... [H]is mighty beam turned the Blue Room into a blaze of lights ... For it was great Glund-Oyarsa, King of Kings ... known to men in old times as Jove and under that name ... confused with his Maker — so little did [man] dream by how may degrees the stair even of created being rises above him.” [C. S. Lewis, THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH (Scribner, 2003), pp. 323-324.] Jove, or Jupiter, is the highest god in Roman mythology. The Hebrew God — Lewis’s “Maker” — is Jehovah, or Jahve, or Yahweh, or Elohim. Lewis suggests that Jove and Jahve have been confused by some.  The great chain, an interpretation. [R.R., ~ 1975, using MORE ALTAIR DESIGN (Pantheon, 1974).] Steiner’s vision is, in various ways, similar to Lewis’s. ◊ Both men locate “gods” on or in celestial spheres: planets, moons, and stars. Thus, Steiner places Jahve (Jehovah) on the Moon: “[The] further evolution of man has only been possible because one of the Elohim, Jahve, accompanied the separation of the Moon [from the Earth] — while the other six spirits remained in the Sun — and because Jahve cooperated with His six colleagues....” [THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS, p. 99. For “Elohim,” see the Encyclopedia Britannica, “Elohim” — it was a Canaanite plural noun that the Hebrews adapted as a single noun, a name for God.] ◊ Just as Lewis distinguishes between Jove and God, Steiner finds a difference between Jehovah and God. Note that, in the passage I’ve quoted, Jahve is only one of the “Elohim” and he must cooperate with his “colleagues” to achieve his benevolent purposes. The distinction Lewis draws between gods seems valid; Steiner’s distinction may be something else. ◊ Both Steiner and Lewis posit variants of the great chain of being, beginning a short distance below mankind and stretching far, far above. According to Steiner, entities superior to humanity include zeitgeists, spirits of form, exusiai, dynamis, and kyriotetes; while attendant nature-spirits include undines, sylphs, and salamanders. “Abnormal” spirits are associated with planets and cause mankind’s five “root races” (Negro, Malayan, Mongolian, Caucasian, and Red Indian). [THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS, pp. 15-16, 65, 83-85.] ◊ Both Steiner and Lewis tell of interplanetary journeys, Lewis in fiction, Steiner in “truth.” Indeed, Steiner recounts human migration to various planets: “[D]uring the Lemurian epoch of earth-evolution [i.e., long ago] only very few human beings had outlasted, on the earth itself, the happenings of this evolution ... the majority of souls withdrew from the earth to other planets, continuing their life on Mars, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, and so forth.” [Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982), p. 36.] Lewis was an orthodox Christian who used fiction to express his beliefs in fanciful terms. Steiner often strayed far from Biblical teachings, asserting that his heterodox doctrines describe reality. How many of my caring, intelligent Waldorf teachers accepted Steiner’s furthest-out doctrines? I don’t know for sure, but I hope not many. [17] THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS, p. 64. [18] John Fentress Gardner, THE EXPERIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE (New York: The Myrin Institute Inc. , 1962). [19] Ibid., p. 19 [20] Ibid., p. 26 Mr. Gardner later expanded his booklet, adding chapters. The latest edition of the resulting book is still available — under a different title — from its publisher: EDUCATION IN SEARCH OF THE SPIRIT (Anthroposophic Press, 1996). [21] ART AS SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY, p. 256. Imagination is far from being a reliable faculty. It can easily lapse into hallucination and insanity. See, e.g. James Phillips and James Morely, IMAGINATION AND ITS PATHOLOGIES (MIT Press, 2003). I am inclined to consider Steiner a charlatan, deceitful but rational. It is possible, however, that he was mentally unbalanced. If he actually had the astonishing “clairvoyant” visions he claimed, he almost certainly was hallucinating. Hallucinations have at least five salient, overlapping characteristics. 1) “[W]e should call hallucinating a paranormal activity” because the process does not make use of our five normal senses. 2) “[A] hallucination must display sufficient vividness to allow it to enter into competition with our ongoing perceptual activity” — the vision is so strong that we give it at least equal weight with the reports of our senses. 3) “Still another basic characteristic of hallucinations is that their contents are experienced as ‘out there’” — a hallucinator considers the vision to be outside the self, s/he does not recognize it as a subjective condition. 4) A hallucination is usually “beyond our conscious control” — we’re not aware of creating or fabricating it. 5) A hallucination causes “belief in the empirical reality of its content” — the vision is felt to be true, the objects “perceived” are experienced as fully real. [IMAGINATION AND ITS PATHOLOGIES, pp. 73-77.] Steiner’s purported “clairvoyant” visions seem to fit most of these criteria. This does not prove that Steiner was hallucinating — as I’ve said, I doubt he did — but it is suggestive. The more important question, however, is whether Waldorf education, emphasizing nonrational “thought”, may lead children into dangerous territory where the distinction between the real and the unreal is lost. [22] Anthroposophists claim that intellect is not neglected at Waldorf schools, it is simply nurtured in a different way. “In spite of — or rather, because of — the attention paid to the realms of feeling and will, thinking receives a stronger development in a Waldorf school than elsewhere.” [PORTRAIT OF A WALDORF SCHOOL, p. 24.] This brings us back, for a final time, to a decisive concern about Waldorf education: the kind of “thinking” that is taught. According to Steiner, children pass through three stages of development, which he said recapitulate stages of human evolution. [See. e.g., Earl J. Ogletree, “Rudolf Steiner: Unknown Educator,” THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL, Vol. 74, No. 6. (Mar., 1974), p. 347.] The stages are described this way by A.C. Harwood: “During the first seven years a child approaches his environment through the activity of his will. What he sees he must manipulate.” [PORTRAIT OF A WALDORF SCHOOL, p. 17.] During the second seven years, “the inward life of feeling” is paramount. [Ibid., p. 18.] The third seven-year period finally produces the dawning of “intellectual thought.” [Ibid., p. 24.] The claim that Waldorfs foster the intellect is, at best, moot. Waldorf-style “intellectual thought” is intended to be moderated by the faculties of intuition and/or imagination and/or clairvoyance. Taught that logic (i.e., methodical reasoning) is insufficient, the Waldorf student is directed toward “spiritual experience” that is notionally “self-evident” (i.e., no proof required). It is questionable whether this is genuine thinking at all or merely a form of wishfulness: “To what extent will [a child’s] thinking become purely logical and colorless, unenriched by imagination, uninformed by experience? ... More than ever, therefore, should the attempt be made with our adolescents to preserve from the earlier stage of childhood those capacities which are natural to it, and to unite them with the new gift of intellectual thought. For this means to transform thought from what it is at present — the capacity for abstract hypothesis — into the capacity for self-evident spiritual experience.” [Ibid., pp. 23-24.] Ask yourself whether an education aiming at such a form of “thought” is likely to equip individuals for life in the real world. In brief: Should we teach our children to live rationally in the real world or to have unsubstantiated intuitions of unseen worlds? Here is a quick summary of relevant Steiner doctrines: Humans used to possess greater clairvoyant powers than is common now [a]. In order to evolve properly, humanity has to pass through a phase of materialism and material-brain thinking (while striving, of course, to avoid the snares of these) [b]. Blonds have the best brains [c]. Thinking is the Aryans’ special field of endeavor [d]. Germans (Aryan) are enabled by their mythology to understand human evolution particularly well [e], and Germans’ mission now entails comprehending the world from many angles [f]. Austrian-German Rudolf Steiner took upon himself what may be considered an extension and fulfillment of the German national/racial mission, to create in Anthroposophy a system that organizes spiritual wisdom gleaned from around the globe. (His task was greatly simplified by the prior work of the Russian Helena Blavatsky [g], but let’s not quibble. Steiner claimed that his work was entirely the result of his own clairvoyant visions [h], not research or borrowings, but again let’s not quibble.) Our future evolution will enable us to gain greater clairvoyant capacities than ever before [i]. Waldorf schools shepherd students toward “pictorial” thinking [j] such as intuition and imagination [k], which are associated with clairvoyance [l]. In some instances, “pictorial” thinking may be indistinguishable from clairvoyance [m]. Some of the “thoughts” that we intuit or imagine come to us from our previous existence in the spirit realm [n]. The future course of our evolution is mildly astonishing: To pursue this topic, please see my essay "Everything" and the essays that follow it. [a] e.g., NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), p. 63 [23] In 1974, the Anthroposophic Press published THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER, an account of communications between a dead German soldier and his living sister. The book reports that Rudolf Steiner read transcripts of the soldier’s messages, which he pronounced “absolutely authentic communications from the spiritual world.” [p. vii] The book’s Introduction explains that the messages were different from those sent by dead persons who “are still earth-bound [sic], ‘just beyond the thin veil’ that separates them from those of us living on earth.” [p. viii, Introduction by Joseph Wetzl. I have not been able to establish this, but it is possible that this Joseph Wetzl was my class's homeroom teacher during grades 6, 7, and 8. The names, in any case, are the same.] [24] According to a letter I received from Jamie L. Gigolo, Assistant Registrar at Teachers College, Columbia University, John Fentress Gardner received a BA with a major in “Curriculum & Teaching — Childhood Education — Older Children” on Feb. 26, 1947, and an MA with a major in “Rural Education” on Dec. 17,1947. In June, 1974, Adelphi University (Garden City, NY) awarded Mr. Gardner an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters. [John Fentress Gardner, THE IDEA OF MAN IN AMERICA (The Myrin Institute, 1974), p. 3.] [25] Mr. Gardner may have misrepresented Steiner’s views slightly. A more conventional reading is that, according to Steiner, blacks are childish, Asians are adolescent, whites are adult, and “red Indians” are senescent. See, e.g., Toos Jeurissen, “Waldorf Salad with Aryan Mayonnaise??” www.waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/waldorf_salad.html [26] Rudolf Steiner, THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN: The Evolution of Individuality (Anthroposophic Press, 1990), p. 75. Ahriman is, originally, an evil spirit posited by Zoroastrianism. His main characteristics are greed, envy, and anger. [See ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, "Ahriman."] Steiner taught that Ahriman tries to limit humans to their physical bodies and the materialistic, brain-centered thinking of which these bodies are capable. [See Rudolf Steiner, THE INCARNATION OF AHRIMAN: The Embodiment of Evil on Earth (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2006)]. In re Atlantis: According to Steiner, Atlantis and its predecessor, Lemuria, actually existed. I discuss this in some detail in my essay “Atlantis and the Aryans” at this Web site. Occultists have many reasons for keeping secrets from the uninitiated. One of the simplest and most human reasons can be simple embarrassment. Anthroposophists may wish to believe every statement Steiner ever made, and undoubtedly many do attain this highest degree of belief — and yet some of them may recognize that admitting various details of their faith could prove awkward. Admitting to Steiner’s racism and his belief in Atlantis may well fall into this category. For other hateful and astonishing remarks made by Steiner, see “Steiner’s Bile” and “Steiner’s Blunders” at this Web site. Racism can be subtle. It may show itself in abusive treatment, but it may also show up as patronization. Some Waldorf schools now include many nonwhite students in the photos and videos they offer for public relations purposes. Perhaps these schools are truly free of racism, but perhaps some harbor a condescending attitude toward nonwhite races. Racism is present when a person is judged — positively or negatively — on the basis of race instead of personal attributes. I described, above, how one of the teachers at my Waldorf school warned white students against receiving blood transfusions from non-whites. Her warning was consistent with Steiner's teachings. “[T]his question of race is one that we can never understand until we understand the mysteries of the blood and of the results accruing from the mingling of the blood of different races." [Rudolf Steiner, THE OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD (Health Research Books, 1972), p. 13.] Steiner asked "How can a negro [sic] or an utterly barbaric savage become civilized?" [Ibid., p. 13.] He said the answer depends on blood and whether a race "be on the up- or down-grade of its evolution...." [Ibid., p. 13.] Steiner taught that whites are evolving upwardly while other races, having risen as high as they can, degenerate. "The white race is the future, the race that is creating spirit." [Rudolf Steiner, VOM LEBEN DES MENSCHEN UND DER ERDE (Verlag Der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, 1961), p. 62.] According to Steiner, whites can advance to higher spiritual levels because they are capable of high clairvoyant abilities. But mingling whites' blood with blood from other races would cut off this possibility. "The physical organism of man survives when strange blood comes in contact with strange blood, but clairvoyant power perishes under the influence of this mixing of blood, or exogamy." [THE OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD, p. 42.] Exogamy is sexual pairing outside one's own ethnic group, tribe, or race. It is equivalent to miscegenation, one of the prime bugaboos of racists. [27] KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT, p. 149. |