SERVING THE GODS

Waldorf's Pipeline

Including

"Doing Anthroposophy"

I.

Imagine a polytheistic universe.

Now go a step further: Imagine a polytheistic universe in which a vast host of gods is arranged in hierarchies extending from just slightly above our heads to rank upon rank of deities vastly more spiritual and powerful than mankind.

Now imagine a spiritualistic system consisting of prayers, meditations, and mental/spiritual exercises that enable human beings to gain knowledge of the gods, their hierarchies, and their abodes — what we might call “higher worlds.”

One more step: Imagine that the spiritualistic system enables us not only to know about the gods but also to commune with them and gain the blessings they can bestow.

Any reasonable person would, I submit, consider such a system to be a religion.

Of course, what I have just described is Anthroposophy.

In most of my expositions of Anthroposophy, I’ve relied primarily on quotations from Rudolf Steiner, the father of Anthroposophy. Today I’ll take a different tack, quoting an Anthroposophist who is much closer to us in time than Steiner. This way, we can get a clearer conception of Anthroposophy as it is practiced nowadays.

I’ll put my main reliance on Roy Wilkinson, an internationally known Anthroposophist with more than 60 years experience within the Waldorf school system, first as a student, later as a teacher, and finally as a consultant to Waldorf schools worldwide.

In one of his books [1], Wilkinson describes Anthroposophy in these words: “To complement natural science, to unlock the secrets of existence, another form of knowledge is required, which is only directly attainable by those persons who have developed a special faculty of extended consciousness. This gives access to knowledge of higher worlds, and this knowledge is termed ‘spiritual science’. It has social, ethical and religious implications.” [2]

The “special faculty of extended consciousness” Wilkinson mentions is clairvoyance, although in his book he studiously avoids this word. He apparently does not want to spook a general audience.

A quick aside: Another modern Anthroposophist, even more our contemporary than Wilkinson, is Eugene Schwartz. Early in his book WALDORF EDUCATION: Schools for the Twenty-First Century, Schwartz asks “Must teachers be clairvoyant in order to be certain that they are teaching in the proper way?” [3] Most people outside Waldorf schools would consider this an astonishing question, utterly preposterous. But within Waldorf schools it is par for the course.

Schwartz’s answer to his own question is that clairvoyance is indeed needed, although he suggests that Waldorf teachers may start out simply by using common, everyday clairvoyance, of a kind Schwartz claims everyone possesses: “‘clairvoyant’ faculties that we are already using without being aware that we possess them.” [4] Schwartz adds that Waldorf teachers may develop higher levels of clairvoyance later on. This returns us to Wilkinson.

Wilkinson discusses the higher form of clairvoyance Waldorf teachers should cultivate, and he outlines the techniques they can use for this purpose. “Reference has been made throughout this book to what has been variously termed spiritual perception, enhanced consciousness or knowledge of higher worlds. There follows a short summary here on the path which can be taken to attain such experience.” [5]

The “path” Wilkinson mentions is the one Steiner set out in such works as KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT (which is also available, in a different translation, under the title HOW TO KNOW HIGHER WORLDS). [6] Notice that Wilkinson employs some of Steiner’s terminology, as in his reference to “higher worlds.” The book in which Wilkinson outlines the path is titled THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF STEINER EDUCATION, which carries the subtitle “The Waldorf School Approach.” The most pertinent chapter is titled “Esoteric Development and the Teacher.” Please pause and let the significance of these titles sink in.

Wilkinson effectively replies “Yes” to Schwartz’s question. Teachers, specifically Waldorf school teachers, should use clairvoyance in their work, and to do their work really well, they should develop high levels of clairvoyance. “[T]his is the same path that should be followed by every teacher who takes his vocation seriously.” [7] Every  teacher.

Wilkinson describes some clairvoyance-building exercises, a la Steiner, but he starts by asserting an important proviso: “A first essential is a study of what has been given by the masters as spiritual knowledge, and this must be undertaken without preconceptions and misapprehensions.” [8] So the first step is to study what the “masters” have revealed. This is indistinguishable from ordinary religious study — poring over holy books and so forth — and it skews everything that follows. Studying previous spiritualistic “knowledge” will steer a seeker’s own “clairvoyant insights” in previously established directions, thereby creating the very preconceptions Wilkinson warns against. Presumably a seeker can later use clairvoyance to confirm or reject the doctrines accepted at the start, but this would obviously be difficult, since her/his own insights have been heavily influenced by the unquestioned authorities.

The entire enterprise is thus called into question. But Steiner lays down the same requirement. To "unseal the lips of an Initiate" [i.e., a spiritual master] seekers must "begin with a fundamental attitude of the soul. In Spiritual Science this fundamental attitude is called the path of veneration." [9] "[A]nd veneration is always due when it flows from the depths of the heart." [10] They must accept the teachings of the “masters” in a reverent, uncritical attitude. "Have you ever paused outside the door of some venerated person, and have you, on this your first visit, felt a religious awe as you pressed on the handle to enter the room which for you is a holy place?" [11] To enter, one must be willing to accept, unquestioningly, the teachings of the master within.

This is faith, religious faith. More, it is blind faith, harboring no “thoughts of criticism or opposition." This certainly is not a scientific attitude, despite the claims Anthroposophists make for “spiritual science.” No scientist bows in reverence to another — more typically, each scientist would love to overthrow the theories of other scientists in order to establish his/her own theories. The attitude Steiner and Wilkinson prescribe is uncritical belief — or, in Steiner’s words, “religious awe.”

Wilkinson and Steiner both want to send Waldorf teachers down the path toward a religion, a religion that goes by the name “Anthroposophy.”

II.

Having begun by accepting a preexisting body of doctrines, how can Waldorf teachers sharpen their clairvoyant wits? The exercises Wilkinson describes will be familiar to anyone who has received spiritual guidance from within the Waldorf school movement or any other Anthroposophical operation. I was assigned such exercises when, as a Waldorf student, I had annual checkups with an Anthroposophical doctor. [12]

Wilkinson relays exercises that Steiner prescribed for toning up the imagination, schooling one’s emotions, and ultimately developing elevated psychic abilities. A few quick examples:

◊ Observe “the characteristics of flowers. Why is a red rose the symbol of love? What is the significance behind the name of the dandelion (lion’s tooth). [sic: no question mark] All plants have a gesture, and the search for this increases the imaginative faculty.” [13] We should note that Anthroposophical tenets peek out from behind these questions. For instance, Steiner taught that plants have etheric bodies (nonphysical “bodies” also possessed by animals, humans, and various spiritual beings). Steiner also taught that imagination is, or can become, a reliable “faculty.”

◊ “[O]bserve human beings and, for instance, deduce their temperament from their gait. A light, springy step reveals the sanguine; a measured plod, the phlegmatic.” [14] Again, Anthroposophical tenets: Temperaments or humours (sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic) are categories into which Waldorf teachers shoehorn their students. Steiner associated the temperaments with astrological signs: “In sanguines (Virgo) ... in melancholics (Leo) ... in phlegmatics (Cancer)....” [15] Even more significant, note that appearances reveal underlying spiritual realities — this is a basic Anthroposophical concept: Everything is infused with spiritual forces that we can detect through heightened consciousness.

◊ The exercises seek to discipline various mental capacities. “The student is recommended to practice concentration, to take (for example) a simple everyday object like a pencil and to keep his mind on it. Thought is added to thought about the object without letting the mind wander.” [16] This is the first exercise I was assigned by my Anthroposophical doctor. It is somewhat akin to Buddhist meditation, requiring unswerving concentration, although the Buddhist tries to empty the mind rather than piling conscious thought upon thought. (Steiner also advocated empty-mindedness, in somewhat different circumstances. “The Science of the Spirit teaches us the art of forgetting, which, after all, is only the other side of digesting what one has taken in. This is part of the self-education demanded by spiritual science.... All memorized matter should disappear from the mind to make room for an actively receptive spirit.” [17])

◊ “An exercise of the will is to perform a small act regularly at a particular time of the day.” [18] I was assigned this, too. The purpose is developing self-discipline, taming unschooled impulses. Monks in monasteries use such practices. (I’m no monk. But as a teenager, back in Waldorf, almost... I was self-righteous, extremely serious, and a bit of a prig. I attribute at least some of this to my having attended Waldorf since I was an elementary-school pipsqueak.)

◊ “A particular exercise to strengthen the power of the mind is to review the events of the day in backward sequence, even reversing the order of procedure.” [19] I was assigned this, too. It's worth noting how many of these exercises involve violating reality. The events of the day do not run backwards, but if you can start to think of them in this fashion, you can loosen your commitment to reality, which may lead you to accept utter unreality — Anthroposophy, to give one pertinent example.

Various benefits as well as liabilities might flow from such exercises. What benefits, specifically, do Anthroposophists hope to receive? “Such exercises as the above develop the organs with which the spiritual world can be perceived.” [20] The “organs” Wilkinson means are nonphysical, invisible, spiritual structures: “[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....” [21] Organs of clairvoyance, forsooth. This is another good point to pause and reflect. This (I swear I’m not making this up) is the kind of thing Waldorf teachers believe.

Wilkinson and Steiner describe a system of religious training. It is certainly not scientific training. Each individual moving along the prescribed path is looking inward, experiencing subjective states that cannot be shared with, or checked by, anyone else — and such checking is the essential requirement of any true science. [22] To quote Wilkinson: “Inner activity means esoteric development, and esoteric development provides a revitalizing force which permeates the human being and his work.” [23] Inner  activity. Esoteric  development.

III.  

The benefits Wilkinson and Steiner promise Waldorf teachers are stupendous. Here is Wilkinson: After speaking of “a revitalizing force which permeates the human being and his work”, he continues: “Esoteric development will also attract the interest of the Hierarchies [sic] immediately above man.” [24] In other words, Waldorf teachers will not simply be revitalized, attaining augmented psychic powers. [25] They won’t simply gain new knowledge of the higher worlds. They will actually contact the gods — specifically the lower gods, the ones “immediately above man” — and then they will receive the benefits of the gods’ notice. “In particular it is the Third Hierarchy [the lowest of three Hierarchies] which has concerned itself with mankind in the past, but to attract its attention again the human being has to work on his own soul content. Then the Hierarchy will be in his thoughts and feelings.” [26]

In these passages Wilkinson has begun to describe Anthroposophical theology. There are three Hierarchies. The members of the lowest Hierarchy have taken special notice of us. These gods have recently begun losing interest in us (their “interest in mankind ... is waning” [27]), but we can contact them, reawaken their interest in us, and reap the benefits of their renewed interest. This is professed knowledge of invisible higher worlds and invisible higher beings, gained through a faculty that does not exist (clairvoyance) exercised by invisible nonexistent “organs.” The polite description of such propositions is theology, knowledge of the gods. A less polite description is...

Moving right along, let’s inquire more deeply into the invisible beings Wilkinson has in mind. Anthroposophists pray to God or the Godhead, [28], and they are concerned with all gods, high and low. But in these passages Wilkinson is specifically referring to the divine beings who, in Anthroposophical theology, are called Spirits of Personality, Fire-Spirits, and Sons of Life. Other names for them are Archai (Spirits of an Age, Zeitgeists), Archangels, and Angels. In general, they may be called divine beings or gods. (The hierarchies are originally a gnostic concept. [29] In Anthroposophy, the Second Hierarchy includes Spirits of Form (also called Spirits of Love, creators of ego; Powers, Exusiai), Spirits of Movement (Dynamis, Mights), and Spirits of Wisdom (Kyriotetes, Dominions); the First Hierarchy is occupied by Spirits of Will (Thrones), Cherubim, and Seraphim. [30])

Remember that Wilkinson's immediate concern is the esoteric development of Waldorf school teachers. He explains that Waldorf teachers they can “establish a better connection to the angels”. [31] Many of us might find this a pleasing thought. But if you are a Christian, realize how unbiblical Anthroposophy is. “Ideas should be turned to pre-birth, to appreciate that this life on earth is a continuation of a previous life in the spiritual world before birth, and a life here on earth before that.” [32] Wilkinson is referring to reincarnation. Christians, Jews, and Muslims will find this an alien tenet. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus will find Steiner’s emphasis on Christ alien. Anyone who wants to accept the religion found in Waldorf schools is free to do so, but you should understand what that religion professes. It is not what you learned in church, temple, or synagogue.

According to Wilkinson and Steiner, contacting angels — and particularly, one’s own angel, one’s guardian angel — is not very difficult. “At night, in sleep, the human being meets his angel and together they [human and angel] consult on the next day’s plans.” [33] Wilkinson doesn’t mean that Waldorf teachers can meet their angels in their dreams — Steiner taught that the human soul actually travels into the spirit realm every night. [34] The implication, here, is that Waldorf teachers who wake up with an idea in their heads will assume it is divinely inspired. Woe betide anyone who crosses a Waldorf teacher whose plans have been approved by celestial powers.

If consulting with your angel is easy, contacting the archangels calls for more effort. “To achieve inspirations from the archangels, further meditation is necessary on [i.e., about] the human being and on a wide selection of spiritual truths, for instance, destiny, karma, spiritual evolution, and the advent of the Christ.” These are all Anthroposophical tenets. And so is the following: Proper grammar is important when dealing with archangels: “The archangels have a particular interest in language and are grieved when it is badly used.” [35] Learning about Anthroposophy can inspire giggles — but remember that children at Waldorf schools are put in the hands of people who accept all of this as serious, indeed Revealed, Truth.

Note that Waldorf teacher don’t think they are simply gathering knowledge about the higher worlds: They think they are getting guidance and strength from above, which they can use in their work. In contacting and consulting the gods, they “achieve inspirations.” “Such activities draw the Hierarchies closer and then their beneficial influence flows down into human thoughts and feelings.” [36] Waldorf teachers gain the “beneficial influence” of the gods, which enables them to perform their teaching duties in the proper, sanctified spirit. 

Here’s how Wilkinson concludes. To understand, you should know that the inner circle of Anthroposophists at a Waldorf school is often called the “college of teachers.”

“To foster the connection between teachers and the Third Hierarchy Rudolf Steiner [i.e., a master; perhaps the  master] gave information which could be considered a kind of prayer or meditation. [Note these words, please.] The actual words are available only to college members but the following is the gist of its contents. [paragraph break] He spoke of the teacher’s guardian angel who stands behind him, giving strength and the power of imagination. As a collective body, working together, the college [of teachers] attracts the attention of the next rank, the archangels, who help unite its members and give courage and inspiration. When united in common striving [i.e., when the college is thus united], the archai, in particular the Spirit of the Times (Michael), gives the group the light of wisdom and the creative forces of intuition.” [37]

These sentences are drenched in Anthroposophical doctrine. For instance, Steiner taught that the archangel Michael currently has special responsibility for overseeing human life. He also taught that there is a hierarchy of human consciousness short of true, exact clairvoyance: imagination, inspiration, and intuition.

IV.

The important point is to understand what all of this means in practice in Waldorf schools. Waldorf teachers think they are in contact with invisible beings. They think they receive guidance from them. They think their mission is divinely inspired. They use prayer and meditation, as prescribed by Steiner, to inform their work inside Waldorf schools. They are, in other words, religious missionaries, operating within a gnostic theology.

Staffed by such individuals, Waldorf schools are religious institutions. And the people Waldorf teachers work to convert are their students. Here’s how Rudolf Steiner put it, addressing the teachers at the first Waldorf school at the beginning of its very first term: “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. I ask you to understand these introductory remarks as a kind of prayer to those powers who stand behind us with Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition as we take up this work.” [38]

Waldorf teachers have a connection with “the spiritual worlds.” They serve  the “spiritual powers.” They work in the “name” of these powers. Steiner’s words on these matters are “a kind of prayer.” In overhearing Steiner talking this way to Waldorf school teachers, we are hearing a religious leader underscoring the school’s religious purpose, fulfilling its “moral spiritual task.” There is no science in Steiner’s words. There is faith. There is messianism. There is religion. That’s what Waldorf schools are all about.

V.

In addition to statements that might be “as a kind of prayer”, Steiner cited a specific prayer for teachers:

“For people in general there may be many kinds of prayers. Over and above these is this special prayer for the teacher: [paragraph break] ‘Dear God, bring it about that I — inasmuch as my personal ambitions are concerned — negate myself. And Christ make true in me the Pauline words, ‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’ [paragraph break] This prayer, addressed to God in general and to Christ in particular, continues ‘...[sic] so that the Holy Spirit may hold sway in the teacher.’” [39]

Anthroposophists may argue, over and over, that their ideology is a science, not a religion. And they may claim, over and over, that Waldorf schools are not religious institutions. But the truth is clearly the reverse. Anthroposophists, reverent toward their spiritual master(s), meditate and pray to gain guidance and blessing from the spirit realm. Waldorf teachers “must be true Anthroposophists in the deepest sense of the word in our innermost feeling.” [40] Waldorf teachers “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.” [41] Waldorf teachers “are, in a certain sense, the means by which that streaming down from above will go out into the world.” [42] The blessings from above will come down into the teachers, and flow out from them into their students, and thence out into the world. This is the Waldorf agenda. If it were based in reality, it would be marvelous. If it is based in occultism, self-deception, and blind faith, it is frightful.

The next time you hear Waldorf school students reciting, in unison, prayers written by Rudolf Steiner [43]; or the next time you visit a charming Waldorf festival that happens to fall on or around a holy day [44]; or the next time you watch Waldorf children performing eurythmy [45] — step back and consider what is really happening there. You will be observing the religion of Anthroposophy enacted by children who are guided by teachers who think they have an esoteric pipeline to the gods. If you agree that Waldorf teachers probably do have such a pipeline, fine. Go in peace. But if you doubt that Waldorf teachers possess divine, occult secret wisdom, you might want to find another school for your children.

AFTERWORD:

"Doing" Anthroposophy

Taking the line that Anthroposophy is a science, not a religion, Anthroposophists often speak of "doing" Anthroposophy. What they mean is that, following Steiner's lead more or less diligently, they make their own clairvoyant observations of the spirit realm and reach their own independent conclusions about it.

This is a worrisome claim, more worrisome than openly professed blind faith. In order to think that they are using clairvoyance (which does not exist), Anthroposophists must delude themselves. They imagine things, and then they tell themselves that what they imagine is true. This is a process of directed rejection of reality. We find inadvertent indications of this throughout Steiner's work. For instance, Steiner taught that his followers should reach a stage of spiritual self-discipline in which they can accept their dreams as truth. "[C]hanges ... occur in our dream life when we undertake the ascent to higher knowledge. Our dreams lose their meaningless, disorderly, and disconnected character and begin to form an increasingly regular, lawful, and coherent world. As we evolve further, this new dream-born world not only becomes the equal of outer sensory reality with regard to inner truth, but also reveals facts depicting, in the full sense of the word, a higher reality." [46] Taking dreams as reality, believing in a "dream-born world," is delusion.

The spiritual requirements and exercises described by Steiner and Wilkinson reveal the process leading to this delusion among Anthroposophists. A seeker starts by accepting, without question, the "wisdom" imparted by the "masters." In essence, this means the seeker learns what s/he should see using clairvoyance. The seeker then undertakes various mental/spiritual exercises of the kinds we have briefly reviewed. The mind, heart, and soul are disciplined so that they will travel down the channels the masters have indicated and/or the channels that the seeker elects. Distractions are eliminated, to the extent possible. The mind will not wander, the heart will not quail — the seeker will begin to "see" (imagine, invent) what s/he is supposed to "see." External distractions, such as the testimony of one's senses (the "outer sensory reality") are suppressed, along with any thoughts that run contrary to the chosen imaginings. Thus — miraculously! — having blocked out reality, one begins to "see" what one has been determined to "see" — and nothing else.

Mistrusting one's senses can be wise, obviously. Our senses often deceive us. But the solution is to analyze the reports of our senses, using our capacity for reasoning and the tools provided to us by science. The solution is not to substitute an imaginary world for the real world.

Anthroposophists speak of "living" thoughts, "experienced" thinking, and the like. They mean that they feel  the thoughts or visions that come to them when "doing" Anthroposophy. A rational investigator knows that feelings are utterly unreliable — when you feel  that something is true, that is precisely when you need to step back, reconsider, and apply reasoning. But Anthroposophists do just the reverse. They trust their "disciplined" feelings, their intuitions, their hearts.

The occultist approach can feel wonderful. You want to see wonders, and you do  see wonders. Magically, they are pretty much the wonders you wanted to see! Oh joy! Here is confirmation — what Steiner said, and what I believe, it is true! I see it! I feel it! The heart is full, the spirit soars... It can feel wonderful. But this is no test of truth. It is, indeed, a clear warning signal that you have gone badly astray, sinking into subjectivity and fantasy.

Schisms are common among Anthroposophists, including Waldorf teachers, because Steiner empowered individuals to believe their own dreams. [47] All Anthroposophists must start out accepting the "knowledge" of the "masters" (mainly one master, R. Steiner), and this will inform their fantasies ever after. Still, inevitably, individuals begin to follow different intuitions and subjective preferences, and soon enough their dreams differ from those of their colleagues. Much turmoil and confusion can arise in a Waldorf school as a result.

Each fantasist ultimately becomes his or her own self-referring authority. What I dream is true, and nothing you can tell me will change my mind. This is one reason Waldorf teachers often do not study Steiner's works as deeply as they might. Once they have begun down the track of fantasization, they can cut themselves loose, at least a little, from the master. Steiner himself encouraged this. As we have seen, he said his followers really shouldn't memorize his doctrines, they should empty their minds to "make room for an actively receptive spirit." What they will receive will be his fantasies modified by their own conscious or unconscious desires, but they won't know this, so they will drift away into their imagined "higher worlds", leaving the real world behind.

Steiner didn't expect his followers to diverge far from his own fantasies. He constantly corrected teachers at the first Waldorf school about any and all matters, especially spiritual matters. He employed "exact" clairvoyance, after all, which meant he was right about nearly everything. He instructed his followers to seek the same spiritual precision he claimed to wield: "Anthroposophy seeks for what may be called exact clairvoyance, again to borrow a term from scientific usage; that is to say it seeks to develop a knowledge and perception of the spiritual worlds which is no less exact, no less conscientious in the sense of exact science, than is the best tendency and striving of our natural scientific age." [48] But there cannot be an exact form of a nonexistent faculty. Perhaps without realizing it, in placing reliance of clairvoyance and then urging all his followers to develop their own powers of clairvoyance, Steiner opened a Pandora's box of clashing fantasies.

Consider what all this means for Waldorf school students. Their teachers may wake up believing that, overnight, they consulted with their guardian angels — they will come school armed with ideas they think the angels have approved. No mere mortal child or parent can overturn such divinely inspired ideas. The Waldorf teacher has divine truth, and you don't, so...

Waldorf teachers may also come to school with memories of dreams they had the night before — dreams that they accept as true visions of transcendent realities. They may wish to implement the essence of these dreams in their class work. Indeed, how could they not? Their dreams are true, and a teacher's job is to convey truth, is it not?

The truth can be fuzzy, but that won't deter them. The spirit realm as Steiner described it is a vague sort of place, full of essences, colors, and tones, but no clearly defined forms. It "has no spatial forms or lines, [but] it does have color intensities, color qualities ... 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." [49] The dreams Waldorf teachers have are probably clearer than this (since they are, after all, much like the dreams you and I have). But when these teachers employ their "clairvoyance" during waking hours, the images that arise before their inner eyes may be as indistinct as Steiner's — indistinct but compelling. And the teachers will almost surely bring these visions — perhaps "hallucinations" is a better description — with them into the classroom. A single example: One reason Waldorf school students are often required to do wet-on-wet watercoloring (watercolor paints spread with wide, wet brushes on wet, semi-absorbent paper) is that the results correspond to Steiner's world of "color intensities, color qualities" but no well-defined forms. [50]

Like all true believers, Anthroposophists may be absolutely unbending in their beliefs, utterly rejecting all opposing arguments. They know  the truth, they feel  it, they see  it (sort of), and that's that. Fine. Such ill-founded certainty is nice for them, and they are welcome to it. But think of unbending Waldorf teachers who not only know  unarguable spiritual truths, but who bring these with them to school and impose them in some form on their innocent charges, the students. It is almost too dreadful to contemplate, but indeed this is what Waldorf teachers often do.

And Steiner told Waldorf teachers this is what they should  do. Serve the gods, heed the angels, and never compromise: "As teachers in the Waldorf School, you will need to find your way more deeply into the insight of the spirit and to find a way of putting all compromises aside." [51] No compromises with anything external, such as reality. No compromises with anything at all. Period.

It is almost too dreadful to contemplate.

— Roger Rawlings

ADDENDUM:

Samples

Here is a typical prayer used by Anthroposophists:

O, Powers in the spiritual world,

Let me be outside my body,

Let me be knowing in the world of light,

So that I may observe my own light body.*

And let the power of Ahrimanic forces**

Be not too strong over me.

Let them not make it impossible for me

To behold what passes in my light body.

[Rudolf Steiner, START NOW! (SteinerBooks, 2004, p. 179.]

While some Anthroposophical prayers address God, many — like this one — 

are openly polytheistic and contain clear references to Anthroposophical tenets.

* The light body is our true form, revealed after death. [Rudolf Steiner, AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE (Anthroposophic Press, 2000 ), p. 116.]

** Ahriman is a devil, the supreme intellectual power. (Intellect: bad.)  [Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), p. 167.]

◊•◊

Here is a typical contemplative exercise:

Contemplate: How the point becomes a sphere, yet remains itself.

Once you have grasped how the infinite sphere is still a point, return, 

for then you will see how the infinite can appear in the finite. 

[START NOW!, p. 167.]

Steiner credited geometry with making the invisible, ideal universe recognizable to the human mind.

Note, however, how this exercise violates geometry. A point has no dimension.

It cannot expand into a sphere or anything else having dimensions.

Thus, this exercise — like many others — trains the mind to imagine the impossible;

that is, it trains the mind to accept fantasy for truth.

Perhaps the infinite can appear in the finite (this is often expressed as finding the

universe in a grain of sand), but the exercise does not lead the

mind to a sensible apprehension of this possibility. All that is achieved (if anything) 

is to overthrow logic and condition the mind to accept imprecise, irrational visions.

◊•◊

Here is a typical meditation:

Light from the depths of spirit,

Like the sun, streams outward,

Becoming force of will for living,

Illuminating senses' dimness

To set free energies,

Which ripen, out of inner drives,

Creative powers in human deeds.

[Rudolf Steiner, THE ILLUSTRATED CALENDAR OF THE SOUL, 

Temple House Publishing, 2004), unnumbered page, meditation 31.]

Many Anthroposophical meditations emphasize the inner realm — 

subjectivity, inner light (clairvoyance), inner energies, inner drives. 

Despite denials, this is the rejection of true light — reason, science, objectivity.

Our senses are not so very dim; and our minds (intellects: bad)

are not so very bad. But wholly, wishful subjectivity produces darkness, not light.

◊•◊

Here is a "mantram":

Spirits of your souls, guardian guides,

On your wings let there be borne

The prayer of love from our souls

To those whom you guard here on earth.

Thus, united with your might,

A ray of help our prayer shall be

For the souls it seeks out there in love.

[Rudolf Steiner, THE DESTINIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND OF NATIONS,

(Rudolf Steiner Press, 1987), p. 66.]

Steiner professed a peaceful and loving universal vision, yet he was an ardent German nationalist.

This and other "mantrams" were recited at the beginning and end of 

lectures Steiner delivered during World War I. They seek protection

for the Kaiser's troops: "Once again, let us first of all direct our thoughts

to those who are out there at the front, in the arena of present-day events, 

where they have to stand for what the times demand of them." [Ibid., p. 66.]

Well, plenty of people are patriotic. Steiner was. He was a man

of his time and place, that's all. In any event, it is interesting

to see him incorporating prayers (sorry, "mantrams") in his public events.

◊◊◊◊

For more on Waldorf messianism,

please see "Can't We All Just Get Along?"

For more about mantras, prayers, and meditations,

see "Power Words"

There is one anomalous instance of a dimensionless point expanding into a dimensional form. Ironically, however, it is an instance rejected by Anthroposophists. The Big Bang is thought to have occurred when a nonexistent, dimensionless point or globule suddenly burst into existence and rapidly expanded to become what we now know as the universe.

This event was, however, quite unique. Normally, when we speak of a point, we are referring to a location in two-, three-, or four-dimensional space. But the point or globule that burst into being at the Big Bang did not existence in any type of space. Prior to the Bang, there was no space. Space and time began when the Bang occurred. The point or globule did not exist, prior to the Bang, because it was the universe, and the universe did not yet exist.

Obviously, the Big Bang remains a mysterious event, not yet explained by science. Some see the hand of God in the Bang (although this doesn't entirely resolve the mysteries — where was God before the universe existed, what was S/he doing during the eternal non-time that preceded the birth of the universe, and where did God come from?). But in any case, the Big Bang is not an example of an ordinary point expanding into a sphere and then contracting again.

Here is an item from the Waldorf Watch "news" page:

This is one of the mystical triptychs in the Anthroposophical headquarters building,

the Goetheanum — which is, in effect, a cathedral. [See "Is Anthroposophy a Religion?"]

Waldorf schools, which base their work on the doctrines of Anthroposophy, are effectively churches

staffed by teachers who think of themselves as priests.

[R. R. sketch, 2011.]

* Here's one pithy answer: "It's anthroposophical education. Anthroposophy is Rudolf Steiner's esoteric religion."  [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/message/21851]

** The physical, etheric, astral, and ego bodies. [See “Incarnation”.] The Waldorf curriculum is geared to the arrival of these bodies. [See "Most Significant".]

*** See “Karma”. The doctrine of karma is tied to belief in reincarnation. Waldorf teachers believe that children had many lives before their current incarnations on Earth, and they will have many more lives to come.

**** How can Waldorf teachers know what children had in their past lives and what they will carry into their future lives? By using “occult science” or “spiritual science” — i.e., “exact” clairvoyance. [See “Exactly” and “The Waldorf Teacher’s Consciousness”.]

***** The Waldorf belief system is polytheistic. [See “Polytheism”.] Waldorf teachers seek to serve the gods. “Among the faculty, we must certainly carry within us the knowledge that ... we are actually carrying out the intentions of the gods....”  — Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 55.

****** Waldorf schools are, in effect, Anthroposophic churches, and the faculty are the priests. "The position of teacher becomes a kind of priestly office....” — Rudolf Steiner, THE ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 23. This is why, for instance, each day at a Waldorf school typically begins with prayers recited in unison by teachers and students. [See “Prayers”.]

The spiral form is taken by many Anthroposophists as a symbol

of spiritual evolution: a recursive process of gradual advancement. 

Concentric forms with precious cores are likewise prized as symbols

of inner glory, inner spiritual connection.

Such symbols are literal embodiments or manifestations

of the spiritual states behind them, according to typical Anthroposophical thinking.

[R.R., 2010.]

Much artwork done by Waldorf students is talismanic,

reflecting natural forms into which Anthroposophy

reads occult significance.

(The students are usually not told any of this explicitly,

but they are led silently toward the occult.)

[Courtesy of PLANS.]

[Ernst Haeckel, ART FORMS IN NATURE

(Dover, 1974), detail, cover art.]

Sketches of two windows in the Goetheanum —

the worldwide headquarters of Anthroposophy.

The windows and other art there reflect Steiner's

"clairvoyant" visions.

[R.R., 2009.]

[Blance Cirker, OLD-TIME CUTS AND ORNAMENTS (Dover, 2001), p. 32.]

The mathematics teacher at the Waldorf school I attended said, on several occasions, that if you enter a city from one direction, it will be a different city than if you enter it from another direction. He did not simply mean that you would see the city differently; he meant that the city would literally, truly be different. This concept is consistent with Anthroposophy, which teaches that thoughts exist as real beings in the spirit realm; what we think comes to pass, literally, because we think it. The universe is malleable — our subjective states make the universe different from what it might be if we had different subjective states. Even the import of mathematics would be different if we had a different mental attitude.

This is the radical subjectivity promoted by Waldorf education, and it is clearly wrong. Facts are facts; they do not bend to our preferences. Truth is truth; we do not make something true by thinking it. We find truth by discovering it as it objectively is, apart from any preferences, moods, or wishes of our own. Objectivity is difficult, but it is the goal we should aim for. Waldorf schools, however, follow Steiner in stressing subjectivity.

"[F]acts are simply upon occasion quite different from the concepts we hold of them with our present-day abstract, theoretical grasp of things, so remote from life and reality. There is not even a true grasp of what it might mean to take in the sciences of arithmetic and geometry with quite another soul-constitution than we have to-day, with a mature soul-condition ... The mathematics of the universe, which have become so thoroughly abstract to us, revealed [in the ancient past] something really living, because the revelation found completion in what was brought to understand it." [Rudolf Steiner, THE TWO CHRISTMAS ANNUNCIATIONS (Anthroposophic News Sheet 1938, Supplement 5-6, GA 203.] Steiner was speaking, here, about the mystical meaning of mathematics and geometry (or what is sometimes called sacred geometry). He found occult meaning in numbers, in geometrical design, and indeed in all orderly phenomena. This is what "a mature soul-condition" may find. But is it truly an apprehension, or merely a subjective desire? Is it found in phenomena, or is it read into them?

Our subjective states are, of course, important. How we feel about things is, of course, important. The spirit in which we act is, of course, important. But recognizing the importance of such things should not muddle us. Our inner states are important, but they are separate from — and do not control — outer, objective reality. Steiner's teachings result in such concepts as the following: "If these ideas [i.e., the doctrines of Anthroposophy] are not true, they should be true. What we believe shapes the reality. If we become conscious of these ideas and hold them, they will become true." — Dr. Ronald E. Koetzsch, an Anthroposophist connected with the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America.

What we believe certainly may shape reality if we act on our beliefs — but believing, in and of itself,  cannot make false ideas true any more than it can change the laws of mathematics or the objective facts about the universe. A city is what it is, no matter what street we drive along to enter it. Thinking otherwise does not create higher truths; it is self-deception. Training children to "think" in this manner does them a severe disservice.

Angel images from http://karenswhimsy.com/

and http://www.fromoldbooks.org/.

Here is a contribution I made to an online discussion in October, 2011.

(I have renumbered the endnotes to fit with the notes of this page.)

[http://zooey.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/kingdom-of-childhood-novel/#comment-12418]