 OH MY STARS The Waldorf Curriculum: Astronomy with an excursion into astrology I. Hermann von Baravalle, an associate of Rudolf Steiner, taught at Steiner’s original Waldorf School in Stuttgart, Germany. Later, von Baravalle emigrated to the USA, becoming chairman of the math department at Adelphi College, New York. While there, he helped found the Waldorf Teacher Education Program. Von Baravalle’s publications include a series of pamphlets explaining how various academic subjects should be taught at Waldorf schools. The pamphlets are intended to be read by Waldorf teachers, not by the likes of you and me. In examining them, we get a glimpse behind the scenes at Waldorf schools. What immediately jumps out is that von Baravalle’s approach often empties academic subjects of most of their intellectual content. The pamphlet I will discuss here is ASTRONOMY, An Introduction, outlining a course of sixth graders. [1] Writing about astronomy must have been a great challenge for von Baravalle, given Steiner's astrological, antiscientific, and occult doctrines. As I point out in other essays on this Web site, Steiner spoke of Moon forces, Sun forces, etc.; he taught that the Earth does not orbit the Sun; he tied various human “temperaments” to signs of the zodiac; he stated that Christ, Jehovah, and other "gods" come from the Sun; he asserted that humans colonized the Moon and various planets long ago; he said that Jehovah rules over Jews from the Moon; he said that Lucifer's true home is Venus; he told of Buddha being transferred to Mars; and so forth. How can astronomy be taught at Waldorf schools without revealing Steiner’s extraordinary statements about celestial objects?  Von Baravalle’s solution is to make the study of astronomy essentially subjective. He stresses how the lights in the sky will appear to his gazing students, laboriously describing how the night sky looks from earthly perspectives, and urging students to make drawings of star "movements" (i.e., the apparent movements of the lights in the sky caused by the earth’s rotation). At no point, however, does he tell students what the stars are, how they produce light, how the came into existence, how many there may be in our galaxy, how many galaxies may exist, what the Big Bang was, how old the universe is, how planets actually move (as opposed to their apparent movements), and the like. His astronomy course omits the contents of a true study of astronomy. Indeed, von Baravalle does not distinguish between stars, planets, galaxies, and nebulas. Any light in the sky is, for him, a “star.” He concentrates entirely on appearances and illusory motions; he says nothing about the physics of astronomy. Every bit of information he provides about the “stars” is trivial, subjective, or incorrect. For instance, he asks “What about the speed of the stars? How fast do they appear to move in their courses?” [2] He never gets around to asking how fast stars really move (as opposed to their apparent motions). He doesn't ask how fast the galaxy is moving. He doesn't ask whether the universe is expanding/contracting, or how fast it may be doing so. Instead, he encourages his students to be self-involved and unreflecting. “The Celestial Equator’s Center is Within Ourselves” he announces. [3] In what is supposed to be a course about the solar system, galaxy, and universe, he makes man the measure of all things. Objectivity is outside his frame of reference; his students dwell upon their subjective view of the "stars." His chapters on the Sun do not concern themselves with the Sun’s composition, its distance from the Earth, or other such matters. They are exclusively about the apparent course that the Sun traces through the sky throughout the year. (On the other hand, von Baravalle never explains that Jesus is the Sun God, which we might chalk up to his credit — except that this is another example of Steiner’s doctrines being hidden from students and parents.) Likewise, von Baravalle's chapter on the Moon is entirely devoted to how the Moon looks at various times during the month, and how the phases of the Moon show which direction the Sun (apparently) lies. “Whenever the moon is visible in the sky, it tells us the position of the sun. With the moon as guide, the observer can follow the course of the sun under the horizon.” [4] In truth, there is no mystery about the position of the Sun: It sits at the center of the Solar System. And, of course, the Sun does not follow a course either above or below the horizon: The Earth rotates on its tilted axis, creating this illusion of solar movement. Von Baravalle's chapter on the planets explicitly refers to them as stars. For instance, “The brightest of stars is Venus.” [5] The chapter never discusses the composition of the planets, their distance from the Sun, their orbits, gravities, moons, etc. Again, appearance and illusory movements are stressed. “Mars, too, is seen from time to time for extended nocturnal periods, shining brightly and slightly reddish in the night sky. Its position among the surrounding stars is also seen to shift if repeatedly observed night after night. Its changes are even greater than those of Jupiter.” [6] Why does Mars seem to change more than Jupiter? No explanation is provided (i.e., both planets orbit the Sun; Mars is closer to the Sun — and to Earth — than is Jupiter, hence Mars’s orbit is smaller and faster). Why is Mars red? How many moons does it have? How big is it? How far is it from Earth? What about the canals on Mars (almost everyone believed in Martian canals, until a 1964 space probe disproved their existence — Steiner said there are long, straight lines on Mars resembling canals). Von Baravalle is mum. The final chapter is entitled “Observing the Zodiac.” Here, von Baravalle treats the signs of the zodiac as if they were significant phenomena, but again he only discusses how the groupings of stars that are called constellations appear to an earthbound observer. He avoids Steiner’s astrological teachings while covertly endorsing the underlying supposition that the zodiac is in some sense real and important. In sum, the pamphlet is an example of the way Waldorf teachers can deprive a subject of its content, sidestepping the real issues involved, while encouraging a thoughtless subjectivity in their students. The result is to move students toward the sorts of doctrines Steiner voiced, even while keeping these doctrines hidden in a mist of uncertainty. Students who do not understand the realities of nature are primed for accepting falsehoods about nature. II. Rudolf Steiner’s own statements about astronomy were utterly bizarre. For example, as I indicated earlier, Steiner said that the Earth does not orbit the Sun. And here’s a crucial point for anyone interested in Waldorf schools: Steiner made this statement — twice — when “educating” Waldorf school teachers, preparing them to "educate" Waldorf students.  On Sept. 5, 1919, Steiner told teachers at the first Waldorf school that the movement of the Earth around the Sun is an illusion. “This creates the illusion that the Earth revolves round the sun [i.e., orbits it]. The truth is that the Sun goes ahead, and the Earth creeps continually after it.” [7] Steiner said that, instead of revolving around the Sun, the planets move in line with the Sun. To illustrate his meaning, he drew a zigzag line showing the Sun at “position one” on the line. Ahead of the Sun are three planets, and behind it are three others. As the Sun moves through outer space, he said, these six planets move along with it, in line. “[H]ere are Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, and here are Venus, Mercury, and Earth ... [W]hen the Sun has progressed to the second position we have Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars here, and we have Venus, Mercury, and Earth over there.” [8] This idea, that the planets and Sun move in a file with each other, bears no relation to the real movements of the Sun and planets. The “line” Steiner had in mind is actually a spiral or helix: He said the Sun moves through space in a corkscrew manner, led by three planets and followed by three others. The planetary lineup is interesting, and Steiner actually seems to have confused himself about it. On one occasion, he listed the planets in the order I’ve indicated: Saturn, Jupiter and Mars ahead, the Sun in the middle of the group, and Mercury, Venus, and Earth following the Sun. But twenty days later, Steiner said that Venus is ahead of Mercury, not behind it. We’ll return to this in a moment. But for now, notice that, in either case, his lineup scrambles the real order of the inner planets and it omits the outermost planets. [9] The true order of the planets, counting from the outskirts of the solar system inward and omitting minor planets, is Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury. This list represents the planets’ distances, in their orbits, from the Sun; it does not represent the planets’ order on any mythical “line.” But the biggest flaw in Steiner’s sequence is the way he put the Sun between Mars and Venus (or between Mars and Mercury). In reality, of course, the Sun sits at the center of the solar system, nearest to Mercury, with Mercury and all the other planets orbiting the Sun. Steiner's Sept. 5 statement quite naturally confused his listeners, so on Sept. 25, 1919, during a faculty meeting, one teacher asked for a clarification. “[W]e don't really have a clear understanding about the true movements of the planets and the Sun.” [10] In response, Steiner essentially repeated his previous remarks, trying to describe the optical illusion that he claimed causes people to mistakenly think that the planets orbit the Sun. Drawing his zigzag line again, Steiner pointed at it and said, “[W]hen the Earth is here [one position on the line] and this is the Sun [a different position on the line], the Earth follows along. But we look at the Sun from here, and so it appears as though the Earth goes around it, whereas it is actually only following. The Earth follows the Sun.” [11] Please note Steiner’s exact words: The Earth “appears” to go “around” the Sun, but “actually” it is “only” following. “Only” is definite and unqualified. The Earth doesn't orbit the Sun, it only follows it. The diagrams Steiner created on both Sept. 5 and 25 are basically alike, but on the second date he added a short tangential line, which he drew next to the Earth. [12] The tangent was supposed to show how, from the Earth, the Sun up ahead may seem to occupy a pivot point. According to Steiner, the corkscrew movement of the Sun and planets causes us to see the objects ahead of us (the Sun and the other planets) from varying perspectives, which creates the illusion of circular motions around the Sun. This is clever, perhaps, but it flies in the face of the clear truth, which is that the Earth and all the other planets do indeed orbit the Sun. This is not an illusion. On neither day did Steiner refer to our galaxy, the Milky Way. Still, the corkscrew motion leads the Sun and planets on a trail through the Milky Way, or, as Steiner put it, “into cosmic space.” [13] But Steiner did not describe the solar system's true motion within the galaxy. Instead, he showed the solar system traveling toward the “celestial pole,” which is an imaginary point on the imaginary “celestial sphere.” [14] Steiner helpfully marked the celestial pole on his Sept. 25 diagram. There’s a problem, though. If we are climbing toward the pole, we are not in a galactic orbit; rather, we are making a serpentine progression that ultimately leads in a single direction. This is not what science has established. The actual movement of the Sun within the galaxy is the Sun’s participation in the rotation of the galaxy, within the galactic plane, orbiting the galactic center. Steiner's description of planetary/solar motions has the small defect of omitting the actual motions of the planets. Steiner said that the only real motion is the progression along the corkscrew line. “Everything else is only apparent motion.” [15] “Everything” and “only” are definite and unqualified. But in this, as in so much else, Steiner was wrong. The planets very rarely form a line with the Sun, and they certainly do not adhere to a fixed order along a line of movement. The planets continually shift in their relationship to one another, due to their orbits. Sometimes some planet are on one side of the Sun, sometimes others are. Sometimes some of the planets are more or less in line with one another, but usually they are scattered all around the Sun, at varying distances, at varying points in their orbits. The entire solar system is indeed moving, as a body, through the galaxy, but otherwise Steiner's description does not hold up.  As you can see, Steiner offered an alternative, unconventional theory of astronomy. He did the same with any number of subjects. The test of such theories is experimental/observational verification. The conventional model of astronomical phenomena is supported by vast quantities of verifiable information. Steiner's theory is not. Does this mean that the conventional model is definitely correct? No. Does it mean that the conventional model will not evolve further? No. Does it mean that all astronomical deductions are firmly established, never to be revised? No. (Calculating the distance to other galaxies, for instance, is a tricky business, and astronomers keep refining their techniques.) Likewise, does the lack of evidence for Steiner's view prove him wrong? No. But we have a great deal of information leading us to accept the conventional view, and we have virtually no information that supports Steiner's view. That's where the scientific method has brought us, and Steiner claimed to be scientific. As we have seen, Steiner sometimes contradicted himself. On some occasions — generally when speaking in public — he referred to orbital motions of various heavenly spheres, so at those times he may have seemed to understand the real motions within the solar system. But on two distinct occasions — Sept. 5 and 25, 1919 — when speaking in private, “educating” Waldorf school educators, he served up a deeply flawed set of ideas containing obvious errors. Importantly, when his first effort to present his model was unsuccessful, he did not correct himself, but instead he repeated the errors, stressing their “truth.” “In reality, it is like this.” [16] In reality, when Steiner used phrases like “in reality,” he often made a fool of himself. III. Astronomy may seem like a relatively unimportant subject — some schools may not even offer it. But for Steiner’s purposes, astronomy is crucial. He needed to lure students away from a scientific understanding of the heavens because his own views were so fantastical. Here is a brief tour of the solar system, Steiner-style. I will start at the Sun and work my way out to the various planets orbiting the Sun, although Steiner said they do not orbit, and he put them in a different order, and he omitted some of them while adding an extra one... The Sun: “[T]he physical sun ... is the external expression of the spiritual world that is received at the point where Christ’s physical body is walking around.” [17] Vulcan (a non-planet Steiner believed in): “Not much can be publicly communicated about life on this planet [disappointing, no?] ... only mystery students of the higher order, who may leave their physical body [sic] and acquire supersensible knowledge outside it, can learn something about Vulcan.” [18] Mercury: “If we state that the Negro race was born in cooperation between the normal Spirits of Form [powers: a type of angel or god] and the abnormal Spirits of Form centred in Mercury, then from an occult standpoint we are perfectly correct in describing the Negro race as the 'Mercury race.'” [19] Venus: “Lucifer himself takes part in Earth evolution with the perpetual longing within himself for his true home, for the star [sic] Venus ... [W]hat Lucifer casts off as a husk ... as the physical body is cast off by the human soul at death, shines down from heaven as Venus.” [20] Earth: You know about the Earth. It’s where we are now, except that Steiner would say it is when we are now, because, you see, he said the planets are really stages of human evolution. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether this makes his statements about the planets more or less plausible. Meanwhile, you may want to know that the Earth consists of many layers. One layer “is sensitive to pain and would cry out if stepped upon” [21]; another layer, perhaps confusingly, consists of “substances comparable to nothing upon the earth.” [22] The Moon: “[T]he moon today is like a fortress in the universe, in which there lives a population that fulfilled its human destiny over 15,000 years ago, after which it withdrew to the moon together with the spiritual guides of humanity ... This is only one of the ‘cities’ in the universe, one colony, one settlement among many ... As far as what concerns ourselves, as humanity on earth, the other pole, the opposite extreme to the moon is the population of Saturn.” [23] Mars: “The Buddha wandered away from earthly affairs to the realm of Mars. Until then Mars had been the chosen center of forces designated by the Greeks as fearfully warlike ... The Buddha Mystery on Mars did not take the same course as the Christ Mystery on earth, but Buddha, the Prince of Peace, who, during his last earthly life had spread peace and love wherever he went, was transferred to the belligerent realm of Mars.” [24] Since Mars figures so prominently in occultism as well as science fiction, let’s stay with it a moment or two longer. (Steiner’s doctrines can easily be mistaken for science fiction, but that another story.) “Mars used to radiate different forces. The Mars culture that human beings experience between death and a new birth went through a great crisis in the earth’s fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ... When these conditions came into force on Mars, the natural consequence would have been for Mars to continue sending down to earth human beings who brought Copernican ideas with them, which are really only maya [i.e., illusion]. What we are seeing, then, is the decline of the Mars culture. Previously Mars had sent forth good forces. But now Mars sent forth more and more forces that would have led us deeper and deeper into maya. The achievements inspired by Mars at that time [i.e., Copernican ideas] were ingenious and clever, but they were maya all the same.” [25] You see, the illusion or “maya” created by Copernicus — silly ideas such as that the planets orbit the Sun — is a result of Martian influence. I bet you didn’t know that, did you? But I told you the planets don’t orbit the Sun. Now will you believe me? Jupiter: A tough one. Hang on. (It gets sexy, so the effort may be worthwhile.) “Just as the leaders of the Sun’s evolution [spiritual beings who guided evolution during the “Sun” stage] became the higher I [the “I” is the highest human nonphysical body] that worked in the life body [i.e., the etheric body, the lowest nonphysical body] of the descendants of human beings who had remained on Earth, this Jupiter leader became the higher I that spread like a common consciousness through the human beings who had their origins in the interbreeding of Earth offspring with humans who first appeared on Earth during the period of the air element and then moved to Jupiter.” [26] (The "air element" is an “element” that reveals certain spiritual beings, as do the “warmth element,” the “light element,” etc.; they reflect historical/evolutionary stages. Got that?) I apologize for Steiner’s gibberish. To make up for it, here’s another tidbit about Jupiter: “If you were now to imagine bodies of men forming out of the clouds and flying down to the Earth, that would be a picture of how the new Beings come forth from a kind of cloud-mass on Jupiter ... Just as we on Earth are pervaded by air, so everything on Jupiter is pervaded by wisdom. Wisdom there has substantiality, streams in the atmosphere, discharges itself like rain on Jupiter ... Herein live the Cherubim, who in this realm of existence gather up and give shape to the karma of human beings.” [27] Saturn: “Even on the planet Saturn man was present. Saturn did not shine, but it sounded and could have been heard ... [I]t gradually vanished away, was for a long time invisible, and then shone out as the Sun. The planet Sun [sic] passed through the same process and reappeared as the Moon ... Saturn-man was very different from the human being of today ... he would not have been visible to physical eyes ... The human form was like a kind of auric egg [sic], and within it was a remarkable scaly structure, a sort of vortex, shaped like a small pear and as though made of oyster-shells [sic].” [28] Basically, that's all she wrote. Steiner occasionally mentioned Uranus and Neptune, but not in a very helpful manner. Indeed, he denied that they were really members of the solar system. You see, the ancients spoke of seven planets, so Steiner wanted to stick with that. In particular, he wanted to stick, more or less, to Theosophy's "Seven Sacred Planets. They are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun (standing as a substitute for an invisible planet very near the sun, sometimes referred to as Vulcan), Venus, Mercury, and the Moon (also a substitute for an invisible planet)." [29] Or, as Steiner put it: "The Saturn sphere is really the last one that we ... enter, since Uranus and Neptune do not enter our picture." [30] So, when he absolutely had to admit the existence of Uranus and Neptune, he refused them membership in the solar system: "Then come Uranus and Neptune ... [T]hey circle much farther out and their orbits exhibit such irregularities that in reality they cannot be counted among the planets even today." [31] (At least, for once, Steiner acknowledged that the planets travel in orbits. But he was speaking in public. As we’ve seen, he said something very different when addressing only his confidential followers.) Just about the only use Steiner had for Neptune and Uranus came in working out horoscopes: "Now let us turn to the horoscope of the younger child. Again, here are Venus and Uranus and Mars near together ... [W]hen we examine more nearly [i.e., more closely] the position of Mars, we find it is not, as before, in complete opposition to the moon [i.e., Mars and the Moon are not exactly on opposite sides of the sky]. It is however very nearly so. Although the younger child does not come in for a complete opposition, there is an approximation of opposition." [32] Steiner wasn't into astronomy at all, really; he was into astrology. — Roger Rawlings The night sky and heavenly objects are frequently emphasized in Waldorf schools, as are the effects of the heavens on the Earth (although the more occult influences discussed by Anthroposophists in private may not be spelled for the kids). Here are two typical paintings by a Waldorf student, courtesy of PLANS [http://waldorfcritics.org/] I remember making such paintings — although I can't claim that mine were as accomplished. A spiral galaxy, not unlike our own. There are perhaps a hundred billion galaxies, each containing a hundred billion stars, give or take. [NASA.]  "[T]he human embryo merely rests in the mother's body; it is given form by the sun's forces ... The moon forces become evident, above all, as the inner influence of the lower, metabolic nature of man ... With their whole being human beings are placed into the polarity of the sun forces and moon forces." [Rudolf Steiner, MATERIALISM AND THE TASK OF ANTHROPOSOPHY (Anthroposophic Press, 1987), pp.240-241; R.R. sketch, 2009, based on illustration on p. 241.] Astronomy. [ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, 1771.]  Waldorf students are exposed to many, many myths and the teachings of many religions because Steiner's description of the universe embraces these. Here is a drawing by a Waldorf student incorporating images and symbols from ancient Egyptian beliefs, predominately Nut, the sky goddess who embodies the starry heavens. ENDNOTES [1] Hermann von Baravalle, ASTRONOMY, An Introduction (Rudolf Steiner College Press, 1991, revised 2000 by Norman Davidson). [2] Ibid., p. 7. [3] Ibid., p. 7. [4] Ibid., p.29. [5] Ibid., p.35. [6] Ibid., p.37. [7] Rudolf Steiner, DISCUSSIONS WITH TEACHERS (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 168. [8] Ibid., p. 168. [9] Steiner sometimes acknowledged the existence of Neptune and Uranus. Read on. [10] Rudolf Steiner (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 30. [11] Ibid., p. 30. [12] Ibid., p. 31. [13] Ibid., p. 30. [14] The celestial sphere is “the apparent surface of the heavens, on which the stars seem to be fixed ... The Earth’s axis, extended to infinity, touches this sphere at the north and south celestial poles, around which the heavens seem to turn.” [“celestial sphere.” ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 20 Dec. 2008.] [15] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 30. [16] Ibid., p. 30. Finding contradictions in Steiner's works is easy; deciding what to make of them is something else. Anthroposophy is an exceedingly complex body of teachings, describing what Steiner said is an exceedingly complex spiritual reality. Sometimes "contradictions" in all this can be explained away as a necessary result of complexity — there are hidden, deep connections that rectify superficial conflicts. But sometimes this is not the case; sometimes we spot contradictions that seem to have no extenuation. Such instances reinforce the conclusion we may have already drawn from other evidence, that Steiner was perpetrating an exceedingly elaborate spiritual scam, trusting in elaborations and obfuscations to shield him from criticism. His followers, in any case, often find justification for their devotion in the sheer, stunning complexity of the vision Steiner presented for their awed acceptance. [17] Rudolf Steiner, THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN (Anthroposophic Press, 1990), pp. 65-6. This passage refers to the Sun as it was in times past. Christ, the Sun God, left the Sun and came to Earth. [18] Rudolf Steiner, COSMIC MEMORY: Prehistory of Earth and Man (SteinerBooks, 1987), p. 163. Steiner referred to many planets, such as Vulcan, as both planets and, more essentially, stages of human evolution. We lived, or will live, "on" planets such as Saturn and Vulcan, but the planets at those times were, or will be, very different from the planets we see in the sky today (or don't see, as in the case of fictitious Vulcan). [19] Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), p. 101. [20] Rudolf Steiner, WONDERS OF THE WORLD (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1983), p. 77. [21] Rudolf Steiner, THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH: An Esoteric Study of the Subterranean Spheres (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007) p. 31. [22] Ibid., p. 30. [23] Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 93. [24] Rudolf Steiner, LIFE BETWEEN DEATH AND REBIRTH (SteinerBooks, 1985), p. 207. [25] Rudolf Steiner, ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE MISSION OF CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUTZ (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2000), p. 289. [26] Rudolf Steiner, AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 238. [27] Rudolf Steiner, KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, Vol. II (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1974), p. 48. [28] Rudolf Steiner, FOUNDING A SCIENCE OF THE SPIRIT (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), p. 73. [29] Andrew Rooke, The Solar System: Perspectives from Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science [http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sunrise/37-87-8/sc-rooke.htm ] [30] Rudolf Steiner, AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE: Exploring Our Suprasensory Nature (SteinerBooks, 2000), p. 74. [31] Rudolf Steiner, FROM COMETS TO COCAINE (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001), p. 290. [32] Rudolf Steiner, EDUCATION FOR SPECIAL NEEDS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 196. ◊◊◊◊ I originally posted an early version of this essay at the free-speech forum associated with http://waldorfcritics.org/ . The new address for this ongoing discussion is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/ . I encourage anyone with an interest in Waldorf education or Anthroposophy to consider joining the discussion, or just drop by and quietly follow developments. |
