“Anthroposophy will be in the school....”

--Rudolf Steiner

SELECTED QUOTATIONS

including

Anthroposophy in Waldorf

The best way to understand the thinking behind Waldorf schools

is to read the words of the schools’ guiding spirit,

Rudolf Steiner. Here are some examples.

Ask yourself whether you want your children to be “educated”

by the followers of a man who said such things.

Note: Steiner rambled. The only way to hold many of his statements

to a reasonable length is to chop out repetitions and irrelevancies,

as I have done. But please check the original texts from which I quote.

You’ll see that I have carefully preserved the essential meaning

of each statement. Why would I do otherwise?

Steiner’s own words amount to a powerful self-indictment.

◊ [Racism] “On one side we find the black race, which is earthly at most. If it moves to the West, it becomes extinct. We also have the yellow race, which is in the middle between earth and the cosmos. If it moves to the East, it becomes brown, attaches itself too much to the cosmos, and becomes extinct. The white race is the future, the race that is creating spirit.” [Rudolf Steiner, VOM LEBEN DES MENSCHEN UND DER ERDE {On the Life of Human Beings and of the Earth} (Verlag Der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, 1961), p. 62.]

◊ [Populations of the Moon & Saturn] “[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.” [Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 93.]  

◊ [Religion in Waldorf] "It is possible to introduce a religious element into every subject, even into math lessons. Anyone who has some knowledge of Waldorf teaching will know that this statement is true. A Christian element pervades every subject, even mathematics. This fundamental religious current flows through all of education." [Rudolf Steiner, THE CHILD's CHANGING CONSCIOUSNESS AS THE BASIS OF PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 94.] Whenever Steiner used the terem "Christian" in such contexts, he meant Anthroposophy (which is hardly Christian in an orthodox sense.)

◊ [Waldorf and Polytheism] “Among the faculty, we must certainly carry within us the knowledge that we are not here for our own sakes, but to carry out the divine cosmic plan. We should always remember that when we do something, we are actually carrying out the intentions of the gods....” [Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 55.]

 ◊ [Non-Orbiting Planets] “[I]t is not that the planets move around the Sun, but these three, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth, follow the Sun, and these three, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, precede it.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 30-31.]

◊ [The Heart] “The heart is not a pump ... Basically the heart is a sense organ within the circulatory system, yet exactly the opposite is taught nowadays.” [Rudolf Steiner, POLARITIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF MANKIND (Steiner Books, 1987), p.56.]

◊ [The Brain] “[T]he brain and nerve system have nothing at all to do with actual cognition.... ” [Rudolf Steiner, THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 60.]

◊ [The Brain] "Try not to tell the stories in a way that causes the children to reflect and understand them in the head." [Rudolf Steiner, PRACTICAL ADVICE TO TEACHERS (Anthroposophic Press, 2000), p. 15.]

◊ [Better than the Brain] “As soon as we begin to think with our fingers — and one can think with one's fingers and toes much more brightly, once one makes the effort, than with the nerves of the head — as soon as we begin to think with that part of us which has not entirely become matter, when we think with the lower part of our being, then our thoughts are the thoughts of our karma." [Rudolf Steiner, BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS 1919-1924 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 126.]

◊ [Waldorf: Anthroposophy’s Stalking Horse] “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.” [Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER IN THE WALDORF SCHOOL (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 156.]

◊ [Jesus and Buddha] “Buddha ... became for Mars what Christ has become for the earth.” [Rudolf Steiner, LIFE BETWEEN DEATH AND REBIRTH (SteinerBooks, 1985), p. 72.] “The Buddha wandered away from earthly affairs to the realm of Mars ... [T]he Buddha accomplished a Buddha crucifixion there.” [Ibid., p. 207.] Steiner generally taught that Christ was incomparable, but sometimes he didn’t.

◊ [Reincarnation] “[R]ealize that looking at the human head you are looking at the transformed body of your previous earth life, and that the head you had then was the transformed body of your preceding life — you must imagine it without the head, of course. The head you see now is the transformed organism of the last life lived on earth. The rest of the organism as you see it now will be the head in the next life. Then the arms will have metamorphosed and become ears, and the legs will have become eyes.” [POLARITIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF MANKIND, p. 59.]

◊ [Waldorf Teachers] “As Waldorf teachers, we must be true anthroposophists....” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 118.] 

◊ [Out-of-Body Experiences, Astrology] “It is above all the moon forces that connect man’s astral and ego organization with his physical and etheric organisms [i.e., physical and nonphysical ‘bodies’] ... Every night, when out of the spiritual world the soul desires to re-enter its physical and etheric bodies, it must place itself within the stream of the moon forces. It is of no concern here — that will be obvious to you — whether it be a new or full moon. For even when, as new moon, the moon is not visible to the senses, those forces are nevertheless active throughout the cosmos that bring the soul back into the etheric and physical bodies from the spiritual worlds.” [Rudolf Steiner, PHILOSOPHY, COSMOLOGY, AND RELIGION (Anthroposophic Press, 1984), p. 83.]

◊ [Racism: Fair Whites] “If the blonds and blue-eyed people die out, the human race will become increasingly dense ... Blond hair actually bestows intelligence. In the case of fair people, less nourishment is driven into the eyes and hair; it remains instead in the brain and endows it with intelligence. Brown- and dark-haired people drive the substances into their eyes and hair that the fair people retain in their brains.” [Rudolf Steiner, HEALTH AND ILLNESS, Vol. 1 (Anthroposophic Press, 1981), pp. 85-86.]

◊ [Choosing Volcanoes and Earthquakes] "[W]e see ... groups of human souls in their descent from pre-earthly into earthly existence wander to regions situated, for example, in the vicinity of volcanoes, or to districts where earthquakes are liable to occur ... [S]uch places are deliberately chosen by the souls thus karmically connected, in order that they may experience this very destiny ... [They think] 'I choose a great disaster on earth in order to become more perfect....'" [Rudolf Steiner, KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, Vol. 2 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1974), pp. 226-227.]

◊ [The Evolved and the Unevolved] “During the Venus stage [of evolution], a distinct cosmic body [i.e., a planet or moon] will break away, containing all the beings who have resisted evolution and constituting an ‘unredeemable moon,’ so to speak.... The part of humanity that has continued to evolve, however, will move on to the Vulcan phase of evolution in a fully spiritualized form of existence.” [Rudolf Steiner, AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 394.]

◊ [Helping Out] “[I]n educating handicapped children we are intervening in a process which in the normal course of development — were there no intervention, or were there misguided intervention — would find its fulfillment only when the child had passed through the gate of death and come to birth again in the next life. We are making, that is to say, a deep intervention in karma. Whenever we give treatment to a handicapped child, we are intervening in karma  [sic]. And it goes without saying, we must intervene in karma this way.” [Rudolf Steiner, EDUCATION FOR SPECIAL NEEDS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 47.] So people who don't believe in karma shouldn't help? But are people so deluded as to believe in karma able to offer any real help?

◊ [Lunacy and Sunstroke]  “If, as he had developed on the Sun, man was called plant man, the man of the Moon can be called animal man ... [T]he Sun man could only elevate himself into a plant by thrusting a portion of his companions down into a coarser mineral realm ... The animal man of the Moon does not yet have firm bones. His skeleton is still cartilaginous. His whole nature is soft, compared to that of today ... His locomotion is not a walking, but rather a leaping, even a floating ... [T]he Moon of that time did not have a thin, airy atmosphere like that of present-day earth, but its envelope was considerably thicker, even denser than the water of today.” [Rudolf Steiner, COSMIC MEMORY: Prehistory of Earth and Man, from the chapter “Life on the Moon” (SteinerBooks, 1987), pp. 193-194.]

 

◊ [Imagine There's No Heaven] "Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 649-650.]

◊ [Clairvoyance] “[J]ust as natural forces build out of living matter the eyes and ears of the physical body, so will organs of clairvoyance build themselves....” [Rudolf Steiner, KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT (Anthroposophic Press, 1944), p. 28.]

◊ [Jupiter Humans] Some people “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." [AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, p. 238.]

◊ [Waldorf’s Spiritualistic Agenda] “We can accomplish our work only if we do not see it as simply a matter of intellect or feeling, but, in the highest sense, as a moral spiritual task. Therefore, you will understand why, as we begin this work today, we first reflect on the connection we wish to create from the very beginning between our activity and the spiritual worlds ... Thus, we wish to begin our preparation by first reflecting upon how we connect with the spiritual powers in whose service and in whose name each one of us must work.” [THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, pp. 33-34.]

◊ [Anti-Semitism] “Judaism as such has long outlived itself and no longer has a legitimate place in the modern life of peoples; the fact that it has nevertheless succeeded in maintaining itself is an aberration in world history the consequences of which had to follow.” [Rudolf Steiner, “Vom Wesen des Judentums” {On the Nature of the Jews}, DIE GESCHICHTE DER MENSCHHEIT UND DIE WELTANSCHAUUNGEN DER KULTURVOLKER, Dornach, 1968; English translation from "Anthroposophy and the Question of Race" (English summary for the media). Council of the Anthroposophical Society in The Netherlands, Zeist/Driebergen, April 1, 2000.]

◊ [Reincarnation] “For the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade independent religious instruction we could move into a freer form and give a theoretical explanation about such things as life before birth and after death. We could give them examples. We could show them how to look at the major cultural connections and about the mission of the human being on Earth. You need only look at Goethe and Jean Paul [i.e., Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, a German author] to see it. You can show everywhere that their capacities come from a life before birth.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 184.]

◊ [Planet Humans, Lucifer, Lower Humans] “These were 'Mars humans,' who also came into existence through interbreeding ... We can also distinguish 'Saturn humans' ... In human beings of this type, both the life body and the physical body had portions that remained untouched by the Luciferic influence. [But] in the case of the lower types of human beings, the life body was too unprotected to be able to withstand the Luciferic influence.” [AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, pp. 238-239.]

◊ [Punishment] "We may never place ourselves in a situation where we may have to relent in a disciplinary decision ... With punishment, we cannot relent." [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 109.]

◊ [Clairvoyance] “If the person devoting himself to the color which covers these physically dense walls were one who had made certain occult progress ... the walls would disappear from his clairvoyant vision ... the walls become like glass, but in the sphere which opens up there is a world of purely spiritual phenomena; spiritual facts and spiritual figures become visible.... many different kinds of elementary beings are around us ... But they cannot all be seen in the same way; according to the capacity of clairvoyant vision, there may be visible and invisible beings in the same space. What spiritual beings become visible in any particular instance depends on the colour to which we devote ourselves. In a red room, other beings become visible than in a blue room.... ” [Rudolf Steiner quoted by John Fletcher, ART INSPIRED BY RUDOLF STEINER (Mercury Arts Publications, 1987), p. 95.]

◊ [Waldorf Teachers, Spiritualistic Agenda] “As far as our school is concerned, the actual spiritual life can be present because its staff consists of anthroposophists.” [Rudolf Steiner, EDUCATION FOR ADOLESCENTS (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 60] 

◊ [Strange Physiology] “We may ask, ignoring the chest for now, why do we have this polarity between the head and the limbs-abdomen? We have it because at a particular point in time the head was ‘exhaled’ by the cosmos. The human head was formed by cosmic antipathy. When the cosmos is so ‘repulsed’ by what human beings have in them that the cosmos expels it, then this form is created.” [THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, p. 61.]

◊ [Initiation, Evolution, Blood] “When the ancient Indians received the teaching of the holy Rishis [i.e., Hindu saints], there was a different way of thinking, a different kind of feeling and willing ... [H]umankind is constantly evolving. People today have an entirely different, finer brain structure, even an entirely different blood formation ... For this reason, today all truths must be formulated differently, and methods of initiation must be designed so that they are appropriate for today's European [i.e., whites].” [Rudolf Steiner, THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 146.] There were fewer nonwhites in Europe during Steiner’s life than today. For Steiner’s opinion about immigration by non-whites, see the next quotation.

◊ [Racism, Blood, Hatred of the French and Africans] “The use of the French language quite certainly corrupts the soul ... The French are also ruining what maintains their dead language, namely, their blood. The French are committing the terrible brutality of moving black people to Europe, but it works, in an even worse way, back on France. It .has an enormous effect on the blood and the race and contributes considerably toward French decadence. The French as a race are reverting.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 558-559.]

◊ [Jesus & the Sun] “It is ... important that the deeds of Christ Jesus are always seen in relation to the physical sun, which is the external expression of the spiritual world that is received at the point where Christ’s physical body is walking around. When Christ Jesus heals, for instance, it is the sun force that heals. However, the sun must be in the right place in the heavens: ‘That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.’ It is important to indicate that this healing power can flow down only when the external sun has set but still works spiritually.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN: The Evolution of Individuality, Lectures from 1909-1916 (Anthroposophic Press, 1990), pp. 65-6.]

◊ [The Heart] “[T]he heart is indeed a sense organ for perceiving the blood’s movement, not a pump as physicists claim; the coursing of our blood is brought about by our spirituality and vitality.” [Rudolf Steiner, AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE: Exploring Our Suprasensory Nature (Steiner Books, 2000), p. 84.]

◊ [Moving Around] “[D]uring the Lemurian epoch 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 ... during the Atlantean epoch, these souls gradually came [back] down to earth in order to incarnate in earthly bodies under the changed earthly conditions. ” [Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982), p. 36.] In case you doubt your eyes, that is really what Steiner taught. He repeated it often, for instance “As we know, around the Atlantean time, human souls gradually came down from the planets to which they had ascended.” [THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN, p. 75]

◊ [Astrological Forces & Strange Physiology] “Women discharge ... human eggs every four weeks. At first they are given up to the moon’s influence for a short time and are protected. But when the female organism dispatches the human egg during the course of the monthly period, it comes under the influence of the earth and is destroyed.” [HEALTH AND  ILLNESS, Vol. 1,  p. 127]

◊ [We Must Understand What the Demon Ahriman Is Doing to Secretly Control the World Economy] “For Ahriman will have tasks, he will have to do this and that, and men must value rightly and make a right use of that which through Ahriman comes into the world. Men will only be able to do this if they are able to adjust themselves now in the right way to that which Ahriman is already sending to the Earth from the Worlds beyond in order that he may control the Economic life upon Earth without being noticed.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE COSMIC NEW YEAR (Kessinger Publishing, 2006), p. 49.] Reading Steiner can be daunting. Stick with it, but only if you have nothing better to do.

◊ [Jelly Humans, Dragons, Lemuria] “Dr. Steiner: ‘You can create a parallel between the Quaternary Period and Atlantis, and easily bring the Tertiary period into parallel ... as the Lemurian Period [Lemuria was an earlier lost land] ... The human being was at that time only jelly-like in external form. Humans had an amphibian-like form.’

“A teacher: ‘But there were still the fire breathers.’

“Dr. Steiner: ‘Yes, those beasts, they did breathe fire, the Archaeopteryx [a dinosaur], for example.’

 

“A teacher: 'You mean that the animals whose bones we see today in museums still breathed fire?'

“Dr. Steiner: ‘Yes.'” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 26.]

◊ [Lucifer, Luciferic Beings, Lemuria] “[W]hen man first began to inhabit the earth as man (that is to say, in the ancient Lemurian epoch), he was already then destined by high-spiritual beings to acquire occult knowledge ... [But] through the encroachment of Luciferic beings, man diverted his power of thought and other soul-powers ... to those things that belong to the physical world.” [Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT SCIENCE AND OCCULT DEVELOPMENT (Kessinger Publishing, 2003), p. 8.] 

◊ [Lucifer & Freedom] “Freedom is the result of the Luciferian influence, and fear and similar feelings.... ” [Rudolf Steiner, AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE (Kessinger Publishing, 1998: 1922 edition), pp.  229-230.]

◊ [Out-of-Body Experiences] “During sleep our astral bodies [sets of soul forces] return to the harmony of the universe again. When we awaken, we bring enough strength with us out of the cosmic harmony into our [physical] bodies so that we can go without being in that state for a while. The astral body returns home during sleep and brings renewed forces back into our life when we awaken ... [O]ur astral bodies are part of a world that embraces additional heavenly bodies. During sleep, therefore, we enter a world that encompasses other worlds in addition to our Earth.” [AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 68.]

◊ [The Spiritual World] “When we climb out of the physical world into the spiritual world ... we shall gain the impression of powers in the spiritual world that take pity, as it were, on our weakness and say, ‘Well! so you were weak in the physical sense world! If only you climb into the spiritual world through the prime [“window”] I must dissolve you, suck you up and break you to pieces. But if you enter through the second [“window”] I will offer you something from the spiritual world and remind you of something that is there as well.’” [Rudolf Steiner, ART AS SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF MYSTERY WISDOM (Rudolf Steiner Press, second revised edition, 1996), p.105.]

◊ [Antiscientific Evolution] “If the evolution of the Earth did not include human beings, then most animals would not exist. A major portion of the animals, particularly the higher animals, rose within earthly evolution only because human beings needed to use their elbows (of course, I speak here only pictorially). At a particular stage in their earthly development, human beings, to develop further, needed to rid their nature, which then was much different than it is now, of the higher animals." [THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, pp. 69-71.]

◊ [Artificial Use of the Dead] “For the remainder of earthly existence the dead will collaborate with us to a high degree. But how they collaborate will be what matters ... It will be important that people on the earth behave in such a way that collaboration with the dead in a good way can be allowed to be guided by them ... There will also, on the other hand, be many attempts to introduce the dead into human life by artificial means. The dead will be brought into human life via a detour through Gemini which in quite a specific way will cause human vibrations to continue resonating in the machines.” Rudolf Steiner SECRET BROTHERHOODS and the Mystery of the Human Double (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004), p. 192.]

◊ [Antiscience] “It would be wonderful if you could stop speaking about gravity. You can certainly achieve speaking of it only as a phenomenon. The best would be if you considered gravity only as a word.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 29.]

◊ [Lemuria, Atlantis, Savages, Civilized Humans, Aryans] “The ancestors of the Atlanteans lived in a region [i.e., Lemuria] which has disappeared ... After they had passed through various stages of development the greatest part of them declined. These became stunted men, whose descendants still inhabit certain parts of the earth today as so-called savage tribes. Only a small part of Lemurian humanity was capable of further development. From this part the Atlanteans were formed. Later, something similar took place. The greatest part of the Atlantean population declined, and from a small portion are descended the so-called Aryans who comprise present-day civilized humanity ... [T]he Lemurians, Atlanteans, and Aryans are root races of mankind.” [COSMIC MEMORY, pp. 45-46.]

◊ [“Temperaments” of Students, and Astrological Signs] “The choleric temperament becomes immediately annoyed by and angry about anything that interrupts its activity. When it is in a rhythmic experience, it becomes vexed and angry, but it will also become angry if it is involved in another experience and is interrupted ... In cholerics, you will generally find an abnormally developed sense of balance (Libra) ... In sanguines (Virgo), in connection with the sense of balance and sense of movement, the sense of movement predominates. In the same way, in melancholics (Leo) the sense of life predominates and in phlegmatics (Cancer) the sense of touch predominates physiologically because the touch bodies are embedded in small fat pads.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 90-91.]

◊ [Punishment] “Under certain circumstances it may be necessary [for a teacher] to spank a child ... I have to admit that there are rowdies.... ” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 22.]

◊ [Strange Physiology] “Your head is not just a lazybones sitting on your shoulders. It is actually the thing that would like to keep you an animal. It gives you the forms of the whole animal kingdom and continually wants to create the animal kingdom. However, due to your torso and limbs, you do not allow yourself to become the whole animal kingdom while you are alive.... ” [HEALTH AND ILLNESS, Vol. 1, p. 185.]

◊ [Our 12 Senses] “First, we have the four senses of touch, life, movement and balance ... The next group of senses, namely smell, taste, sight and temperature are primarily senses of feeling ... I need to add that the sense of I and the senses of thought, hearing and speech are more cognitive senses.... ” [THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, pp. 142-145.]

◊ [Waldorf & Human Robots] “The task of Anthroposophy is not simply to replace a false view of the world with a correct one ... The task is to raise the spirit-soul into the realm of the spiritual, so that the human being is no longer a thinking and feeling automaton ... We should work out of that spirit.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 115.] 

 

◊ [Punishment] “If you give them [i.e., students] a slap, you should do it the way Dr. Schubert [one of the Waldorf teachers] does ... There are physical slaps and astral slaps. It doesn’t matter which one you give, but you cannot slap a child sentimentally.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 323.]

◊ [Post-Jelly] “The human being was similar to a centaur, an extremely animal-like lower body and a humanized head.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 51.]

◊ [Loony Tubers, I] "People who eat too many potatoes and have to make a terrible effort in their heads to cope with potato fermentation therefore tend to be weak in the head. It is mainly the middle parts of the brain that grow weak, leaving only the front parts which make little effort to prevent potato fermentation. It is actually due to the fact that potatoes have come to be widely eaten in recent times that materialism has developed, for this is produced in the front part of the brain." [Rudolf Steiner, FROM ELEPHANTS TO EINSTEIN (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 44.] 

◊ [Loony Tubers, II] "Let us take a very ordinary, practical matter: the eating of potatoes ...  If in spiritual science (anthroposophy is, after all, only a name) genuine investigation is made into how the potato nourishes the human being, the potato is found to be something that is not completely digested by the digestive organs, but it passes into the head through the lymph glands, through the blood, in such a way that the head itself must also serve as a digestive organ for the potato. When potatoes are eaten in large quantities, the head becomes a kind of stomach and also digests ... This kind of knowledge can never be derived from natural science. When things are genuinely investigated with respect to their spiritual quality, it becomes apparent that in this modern age humanity has been seriously injured by the excessive consumption of potatoes." [Rudolf Steiner, THE EVOLUTION OF THE EARTH AND MAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE STARS (Anthroposophic Press, 1987), lecture 8.]

◊ [Subhumans] “[C]ases are increasing in which children are born with a human form, but are not really human beings ... [they] are not reincarnated, but are human forms filled with a sort of natural demon....” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 649-650.]

◊ [Animal Astrology] “[T]he Sun-influence goes as far as the heart and stops short just before the heart. For the head and the blood-forming process, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are at work. Then, from the heart backward, the Moon influence is supported by the Mercury and Venus forces.” [Rudolf Steiner, AGRICULTURE COURSE (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004), p. 41.]

◊ [Jews & the Moon] “[T]he primeval Teachers [spiritual tutors] themselves had then to make their way to the Moon, where they are to this day, and to found a colony there ... From the Moon, Jahveh [i.e., Jehovah] reigned over the heart and soul of the Jewish people, and those of the primeval Teachers who were still associated with the cult and the teaching of Jahveh united with him in the Moon, in order to look out into the cosmos through his eyes ... [O]nly when man views the universe in this way can he have any true conception of the function of the Moon.” [Rudolf Steiner, KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS: Esoteric Studies, Vol. 2 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1974), p. 203.] In line with previous anti-Semites, Steiner associated Jews with the Moon, a “parasitical” body that only reflects light without creating it; by extension, Jews are said to be human parasites. 

◊ [Waldorf’s Spiritualistic Agenda] “Eurythmy [a form of dance initiated by Steiner] 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.]

◊ [Messianic Anthroposophists] “If such authentic souls, such honest anthroposophists can be found, who wish in this way to bear spirituality into earthly life, then an upward movement and dynamic will arise. If such souls do not appear, then decadence will take its inexorable downward course. The world war, with all the evil attendant on it, will be just the beginning of still greater evil. Today humanity stands before a great crisis; either it will see all civilization collapsing into the abyss, or else spirituality will raise up by the power of the Michel impetus, through which the Christ impetus works, thus continuing, enriching and sustaining it.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE KARMA OF ANTHROPOSOPHY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2009), p. 172.]

◊ [Anthroposophy at Waldorf] “You need to make the children aware that they are receiving the objective truth, and if this occasionally appears anthroposophical, it is not anthroposophy that is at fault. Things are that way because anthroposophy has something to say about objective truth ... Anthroposophy will be in the school when it is objectively justified, that is, when it is called for by the material itself.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 495.] Since Steiner promoted Anthroposophy as the key to human wisdom, he is here effectively acknowledging that Anthroposophy will pervade every subject in the Waldorf curriculum. When will Anthroposophy be “called for by the material”? Almost always.

 

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The final quotation, above, invites a further response:

ANTHROPOSOPHY IN WALDORF

Steiner often claimed that Waldorf schools are not meant to teach Anthroposophy to the students.  E.g.,  “We are not interested in imposing our ‘dogmas,’ our principles, or the content of our world-view on young people ... We are striving to include in our instructional methods a way of dealing with individual souls that can originate in a living spiritual science.” [1] In one sense, this is true enough. The intellectual content or “dogmas” of Anthroposophy may not usually be taught, in explicit declarations, to students at Waldorf schools. But in another sense, Steiner’s claim hinges on a distinction without a difference. If Waldorf pedagogy arises from “a living spiritual science” (i.e., Anthroposophy actively employed), then the “individual souls” of the students are continually being worked upon by Anthroposophy. The students may not learn the terminology of Anthroposophy, but they will absorb Anthroposophy’s day-after-day, class-after-class effects. [2] 

Steiner came close to saying as much when he explained “[W]e believe that spiritual science differs from any other science in filling the entire person.... ” [3] A little set of logical deductions: a) If children are to be worked upon by living spiritual science, and if spiritual science fills the whole person, then the children will be filled by spiritual science. b) If students will be filled with spiritual science (Anthroposophy), then a clear function of Waldorf education is to spread Anthroposophy. The spreading can occur by pouring spiritual science into the students (with or without divulging the dogmas), or by arousing parents’ interest in the schools (perhaps divulging a few dogmas, probably a little at a time), or both. As Steiner said: “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 [i.e., one of the most important functions of the school was to spread Anthroposophy]. The anthroposophical movement has become a large one.” [4]

Steiner was reasonably candid about the importance of Anthroposophy to Waldorf schools. “The anthroposophical movement is the basis of the Waldorf School movement.” [5] Still, he continued to maintain that Waldorfs don’t teach Anthroposophy. But: “[W]e had to create our curricula and educational goals on the basis of a true understanding of the human being, which can only grow out of the fertile ground of anthroposophy. Then we would have a universally human school, not a school based on a particular philosophy or denomination.... ” [6] It is impossible to know whether Steiner believed his own statements, but we can usually understand his meaning. In this case, his position was that Anthroposophy is not a philosophy or denomination. It is spiritual science. It is objective truth. It represents “true understanding.” Thus, Steiner could argue that a Waldorf is “not a school based on a particular philosophy or denomination,” because he simply, unilaterally defined Anthroposophy as being neither of these things.

Steiner himself sometimes undercut his claim that Anthroposophical dogma is not taught at Waldorf schools. For example, he said: “For the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade independent religious instruction we could move into a freer form and give a theoretical explanation about such things as life before birth and after death. We could give them examples. We could show them how to look at the major cultural connections and about the mission of the human being on Earth. You need only look at Goethe and Jean Paul [i.e., Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, a German author] to see it. You can show everywhere that their capacities come from a life before birth.”[7] Karma and reincarnation are major elements of Steiner’s mysticism. Other religions share these elements. But if students were to be taught about reincarnation within the context of a schooling that is saturated with Anthroposophy, it would be plain that the students were being taught Anthroposophical dogma.

To sum up, at a Waldorf school “Anthroposophy will be in the school.... ” [8]

 —  Roger Rawlings

◊◊◊◊

Rudolf Steiner

[Rudolf Steiner, THE STORY OF MY LIFE 

Kessinger Publishing, facsimile of 1928 edition,

Anthroposophical Publishing Co.), facing p. 320, close-up.]

Sketches: the first and second Goetheanums,

and detail from "The Representative of Humanity."

[R.R., 2009].

◊◊◊◊

ENDNOTES

[1] Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER IN THE WALDORF SCHOOL: Lectures and Addresses to Children, Parents, and Teachers (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p.26.

[2] In an account of my own experiences as a Waldorf student, I put it like this: “Imagine being educated by a group of dedicated Catholics or Communists or Mormons or Fascists — or members of any ideological group: For year after year, you are taught to think and speak and act in accordance with the group's ideology, but you are never told precisely what that ideology is, and you are never shown any of its central texts. That's what going to Waldorf was like.” I liken the process to brainwashing. (See my essay “Unenlightened” at this Web site.)

[3] RUDOLF STEINER IN THE WALDORF SCHOOL, p. 79.

[4] Ibid., p.156.

[5] Ibid., p.162.

[6] Ibid., p.186.

[7] Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 184.

[8] Ibid., p. 495.