“No person is held qualified to form a judgment on the contents 
of this work, who has not acquired — through the School of 
Spiritual Science itself or in an equivalent manner recognized 
by the School of Spiritual Science — the requisite preliminary 
knowledge. Other opinions will be disregarded....”
— Prefatory note appearing at the
beginning of some Steiner texts [1]

“[M]y knowledge of spiritual things is the
result of my own perception.”
— Rudolf Steiner [2]

STEINER’S ILLOGIC

 
It may be enlightening to consider just how logical or plausible Rudolf Steiner’s teachings are. In brief, did he make sense?

Steiner called his teachings “spiritual science.” He said that his books and lectures present objective, verifiable facts about the spirit realm. It would seem, then, that the standards of reason and proof that are applied to other sciences should also be applied to Steiner’s “science.” Indeed, Steiner said as much. In defending Anthroposophy from charges that it is unreasonable, he stated “[S]ane and earnest thought not only can but must [emphasis by Steiner] be the touchstone of all the facts presented. Only one who submits what is here advanced to logical and adequate examination, such as is applied to the facts of natural science, will be in a position to decide for himself how much reason has to say in the matter.” [3] 

Although Steiner asserted that his teachings were factual, sane, and scientific, he also erected a thicket of defensive ploys that tend to derail rational criticism. He said that his occult statements were based on his personal spiritual experiences, and therefore he could present them as firmly established truths, not mere theories. He said that his teachings were beyond the comprehension of anyone who disagreed with him. He said that the only way to test his statements was to develop the same clairvoyant powers he possessed. He said that the language in which he clothed his findings had variable meanings. While tipping my cap at Steiner’s defensives efforts, I will argue that no such statements deserve rational assent.

FIRST LOOK

 
We can begin our examination of Steiner’s irrationality by looking at the claims I have just now paraphrased. This will only be a first, rough pass. We’ll return to examine matters in more detail later. One concession we can make immediately: Let's concede that Steiner very rarely strove for formal logical rigor, so we should not judge his statements by strict standards. To be fair, we should not be too hard on him concerning forms of thought he considered inadequate. Here's another concession, as well. I am not a logician; a professional logician might well poke holes in my efforts here. But my goal is modest. I simply want to use easily grasped standards of rationality to get a handle on Rudolf Steiner's work — in other words, I want to consider the quality of Steiner's books and lectures using good, solid, real-world sense. I hope everything I say will be true, but I will ask for a bit of charity. I'll cut Steiner some slack, and I'll hope you will cut me some, too.

 
OK: Let's take a first look at Steiner's claims as I have just now paraphrased them.

◊ One cannot be the witness who validates one’s own assertions (as in, Steiner says he knows what he’s talking about: He assures us that he has seen the stuff he says he has seen). Vouching for the accuracy of one's own statements boils down to “I am right because I say so.” >“To the members of the jury: I prove my innocence by stating that I am innocent.” >“Sit down, son — you’re going to jail.” Taking Steiner at his word is extremely helpful if one is to become an Anthroposophist. Steiner said his teachings are scientifically sound. That is apparently good enough for some people.

◊ Let’s consider the same point from a different angle. The only thing that logically can be known about people who disagree with Steiner is that they disagree with him. They are not necessarily right or wrong. The only way to logically show that they are wrong is to show that Steiner is right. But Steiner did not show that he is right. He merely asserted that he is right. He claimed a lot but proved nothing.

◊ Establishing impossible conditions for testing propositions is clearly invalid. Requiring us to become clairvoyant is like requiring us to grow additional heads. Steiner actually said that we need to grow “organs of clairvoyance” [4]. A clever defense, but bad science. To make his requirement valid, Steiner needed to prove that clairvoyance is possible. He didn’t. 

◊ Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. >“I saw it with my own eyes” has, on innumerable occasions, led to faulty verdicts in criminal cases. If I tell you that yesterday I saw George W. Bush knock down an old lady and steal her purse, you might (depending on your political affiliation) think that I probably saw someone who merely looked like G. W. Bush, not the man himself. Or, of course, I might have been hallucinating. Or I might be lying. In any event, before sending G. W. Bush to the pen, you should want far more than my eyewitness report. >“I saw it with my clairvoyant 'eyes'” takes this to another level. Such testimony must be even more suspect.

◊ About his two-sided language: Steiner asserted, for instance, that the names of planets do not exactly apply to physical spheres in the cosmos but, often, to stages of human evolution — or, generally, both. Saying that something is something else — or, actually, two different, logically separate things — produces nothing but confusion and, ultimately, the end of discourse. If I say that by “cats” I mean both felines and cool guys, confusion rather than clarity is likely. >“Cats relieve themselves in litter boxes.” Distinctions must be made, not elided. Complex matters can be expressed clearly — and for the sake of reason, they must be.

◊ Conclusions cannot be postulated. In any logical system, such as plane geometry, a few basic postulates must be accepted as self-evident, such as: Only one straight line can be drawn between two points. The postulates must be few and obvious. Conclusions, by contrast, must arise from a rigorous process of proof. It is not self-evident, for instance, that a diameter perpendicular to a chord bisects the chord and its arcs, but this conclusion can be proven by a simple series of deductive steps. Clairvoyance cannot be postulated. “Spiritual science” is not self-evidently a real discipline. Simply defining something as true is invalid. Almost all of Steiner’s assertions require proof; almost none get it. [5] 

TWO PRINCIPLES

 
Let’s see what else we can discover. I won’t discuss huge numbers of Steiner’s statements, nor will I try to include examples of every type of logical blunder Steiner committed — we would all die of boredom. Instead, I’ll attempt to satisfy our curiosity with a few representative examples. To facilitate discussion, I will offer Steiner statements that many readers will find familiar.

Two basic requirements of logic are set out in the principles of consistency  and non-contradiction. These are virtually axiomatic. To be logical, you must make statements that are consistent with one another, and you certainly cannot make statements that flat-out contradict one another. 

Consistency is a broader concept than non-contradiction. Inconsistent statements do not necessarily invalidate one another, as contradictory statements do, but they are hard to fit with one another. If you tell one group of people one thing and another group another, you are being inconsistent. You may get away with it, but you will win no awards for honesty. Politicians violate the principle of consistency pretty often. Meeting with public school teachers, they promise increased funding for public schools. Meeting with anti-tax zealots, they endorse the solemn need to cut all taxes. It is difficult to reconcile these statements since public schools are funded by tax dollars. This is one reason politicians are generally considered liars. 

Steiner was, at least occasionally, similarly inconsistent. Addressing teachers at the first Waldorf school, he said “The things I say here, I could not say to parents.” [6] Saying different things to teachers and parents may be canny. It may be politic. It may even be necessary. But it is not truthful.

Contradiction, even more than inconsistency, smacks of intellectual dishonesty. It is not difficult to find specific Steiner statements that overthrow each other, but I want to look at this question with a wider focus. Steiner tried to reconcile various irreconcilable religions in order to roll them up in the package he called Anthroposophy. (Theosophists and others also aim for an all-in-one religion, but we aren’t concerned with them here.) Steiner's doctrines include polytheism, the centrality of Christ, reincarnation, and evolution. Reconciling these tenets is, at the least, a challenge. If Steiner was a Christian, for instance, he should have taught that salvation through Christ results in eternal bliss in Heaven (“My father's house”). Instead, he taught that a good soul progresses toward perfection through a very long karmic process of repeated incarnations. He called this process evolution. The inverse of evolution is involution: Bad souls fall through downward incarnations to lower and lower levels. 

Here are three of Steiner’s pronouncements:

◊ “[P]eople live repeated earthly lives.” [7]

◊ “What, then, is this mysterious impulse making its victorious way through the world? ... It is the Christ himself. He goes from heart to heart, from soul to soul, living and working in the world regardless of whether he is understood as evolution progresses through the centuries.” [8] 

◊ “Monotheism ... can only represent an ultimate ideal; it could never lead to a real understanding of the world....” [9]

Christianity, like Islam and Judaism, is a monotheistic faith: There is but one God. Steiner admitted the supremacy of the Godhead [10], yet he often spoke of “gods,” as when he told Waldorf teachers that they must carry out the gods’ (plural) intentions. [11] Steiner tried to reconcile the various elements of his doctrines by, for example, asserting that few people except for himself understand Christ’s real nature and mission (“regardless of whether he is understood as evolution progresses through the centuries”): Jesus assists humanity in its future evolution through the mechanism of reincarnation. This will come as a surprise to most Christian ministers and theologians.

On the issue of multiple gods, Steiner did not so much resolve matters as make a choice: He opted for polytheism as a truer vision than monotheism (which can “never lead to a real understanding of the world”). We could permit Steiner to embrace both monotheism and a modified polytheism if we agreed that by “gods” he meant entities such as angels and cherubim: God’s attendants. But this would boil down to an affirmation of monotheism, with the subsidiary “gods” losing any real claim to that title, whereas we have just seen Steiner assert that polytheism is the way to go. So no deal.

What do we have here, then? To the extent that Steiner revered Christ, he was a polytheistic Christian. Does this make sense? No. It is possible to spin elaborate rationalizations that seem to remove contradiction from this  picture; Steiner devoted much of his time to such efforts. But in the end, irreconcilable beliefs remain irreconcilable — they contradict one another. Here is a crucial instance: One of Christ's central and most beautiful teachings is that we should love one another as we love ourselves. Every human being deserves compassion; all are morally and spiritually equal. Like the good Samaritan, we should show compassion even to our enemies. This is a doctrine of radical love. Try to reconcile it with Steiner's teachings that some humans belong to inferior races, that good white humans will have to defeat bad colored races, and that some human beings are not really human (a contradiction in itself): They are robots or even demons in disguise. Rather than teaching universal human equality, Steiner taught deep inequality. Anthroposophists may argue that Steiner loved subhumans and inhumans. But this, too, reflects a contradiction: Designating some people as demons is clearly not an act of Christian love. (I have discussed these matters at some length elsewhere: See my essays “Steiner's Racism”, “Was He Christian?”, and the final section of “Unenlightened,” titled "Compassion and Its Absence.)

Where does our discussion to this point leave Christians who may want to accept Steiner’s teachings? Logically, they can do so only if, first, they agree that their churches have misled them about Jesus, and, second, they agree to reject central New Testament teachings. In other words, they can join Steiner if they are prepared to become non-Christian Christians. Does this make sense?  

LOGIC AND REALITY

 
Steiner constantly skated on the edge — and often beyond the edge — of reason. [12] But this brings us to an important empirical point. Being illogical isn’t necessarily the same thing as being wrong. In our topsy-turvy world, illogical things often turn out to be true.>“I'm a New Yorker, but I root for the Arizona Diamondbacks.” Doesn’t make sense, but there it is: Fact. The same may hold true in the spiritual realm. Possibly the spiritual realm is so far beyond our comprehension that our paltry logic doesn’t apply there. Maybe the spirit realm is so strange, from our perspective, that it is simultaneously Christian and not Christian, monotheistic and polytheistic, geared to salvation after one life and yet also somehow geared to evolution over countless lives. Our minds can’t grasp such a state of affairs, but maybe that’s how things really are. We may just have to accept it.

But do we? The question for us here is whether Steiner gave us any good reason to follow him into wonderland. Put it like this: He invites us to a place that is beyond our comprehension, but in order to choose to follow him, we need a comprehensible rationale. What reason does Steiner give us for believing him? His visions blow away some people, but the standards we are applying here — and which he accepted, remember: the standards of “logical and adequate examination” — require an irrefutable argument. Why should we disavow the testimony of our senses and brains to accept Steiner's teachings? Has Steiner given us a compelling reason? If you are unsure of the answer, please keep reading.  

THE MIDDLE

 
Various logical laws arise from the underlying principles of logic. Let’s look at just one law, for the moment. The laws tend to overlap, or at least they may seem to do so. In essence, all illogic boils down to a failure to think, talk, or write in such a way that one’s statements are reasonable deductions from one’s premises. Mathematics is rigorous logic applied to quantities. Symbolic logic can be considered the effort to apply math-like precision to ordinary language, discussions, and transactions. To treat Steiner fairly, I will confine our discussion to logical errors of the sort that anyone at any time should know to avoid.

Steiner frequently violated the law of the excluded middle, which states that you cannot divide the difference between true and false: A proposition is either true or it isn’t. Steiner tried to duck this law. He explicitly stated that “true” and “false” do not apply in spiritual science: “The concepts of ‘true’ and ‘false’ are dreadfully barren, prosaic, and formal. The moment we rise to the truths of the spiritual world, we can no longer speak of ‘true’ and ‘false’....” [13] Anthroposophy is a large-scale attempt to split differences and/or to ignore them.

Some may consider Steiner’s position extremely “deep”: The spiritual realm is more profound than our human concepts of true and false, right and wrong, yes and no. Well, maybe so. But in that case, I repeat: Why would anyone believe Steiner? He has given us no comprehensible reason to do so. Indeed, he has stated that no comprehensible reason is possible.

Let’s stipulate that God is beyond human understanding. But is heaven incomprehensible? People aspire to go to heaven because they know, at least to some degree, what the word “heaven” refers to. Now think about a realm where human concepts and comprehension do not apply, a place where there is no “true” or “false.” Not only logic but also religious teachings would totter if such a realm existed. For instance, let’s consider the miracle of Jesus’s birth. >“Jesus was born of a virgin.” Does it make sense to say that this statement is neither true nor false? Mary was or was not a virgin, surely — and surely it couldn’t have been something in-between. Can we wriggle out of this problem by saying that Mary was a physical human, so the birth of the Savior was not a spiritual event? Not if we consider His birth to be one of the great miracles performed by God. 

Let’s go a step farther. For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that Mary’s physical condition was irrelevant to the miraculous birth of the Son of God. So, then, let’s put aside all physical matters and ask some wholly spiritual questions. Are angels God’s attendants? Is there such a place as heaven? Is God omniscient? Does God know whether there is such a place as heaven? Does God know whether God is omniscient? According to Steiner, there are no true answers to these questions (concerning “the truths of the spiritual world, we can no longer speak of ‘true’ and ‘false’....”). What can Steiner mean except that spiritual “truths” are not “true”? Is there any rational way to accept such a proposition? Does it stand up to “logical and adequate examination”? No. Judged by the standards Steiner himself accepted, his statement is false.  

ABSURDITY

WIDE SCREEN

 
Illogic is easiest to spot when it occurs within narrow confines: within a few sentences, say. But we can learn even more by adjusting our focal length to consider what we might call Steiner’s meta-fallacies — those that pervade wide swaths of his work. We’ve already done this with Steiner’s self-contradictions. Let’s look at two more examples.

Appeal to authority is a fallacy in which one cites an authority as if the citation were sufficient to prove a point. >“Einstein (or Steiner) said so-and-so, so it must be true.” The most egregious form of appeal to authority occurs when you cite an “authority” who actually has no real knowledge of the subject under discussion. >“Einstein said baseball is the best sport, so it must be true.” Einstein’s views, in such a case, carry little weight.

Even when we cite an authority in his/her field of expertise, the citation by itself does not prove anything. Authorities can be mistaken. “Experts” used to assure us that the Sun orbits the Earth, for instance. Also, because they can be mistaken, experts often disagree with one another. Will a rate cut by the Fed bolster the stock market? Sage A says X, Sage B says Y. We haven’t gotten anywhere.

We can also distinguish an implicit form of appeal to authority. This is an error Steiner committed over and over. He would cite an “authority,” or drop a name, or refer to a mystical tradition, and then press on as if he had made a reasonable point. Steiner denied that he did this [19], but he did. His works are studded with references to occult texts, Christ’s disciples, holy men of differing faiths, Buddha, Hindu scripture, Persian demons, mythological gods, creatures of folk lore, etc., etc. But nothing is proven by simply referring to some person or some thing — nothing is proven even by citing vast hordes of such individuals or entities. In the real world, proving a proposition requires the submission of genuine evidence which is then subjected to rational analysis. Steiner almost never did this.

Steiner was highly educated. He could awe some people with his apparently limitless knowledge. He did not credit his education for his store of esoteric information — instead, he said that his personal spiritual experiences included examination of the Akashic Record, a celestial compilation of essentially all knowledge. [20] Various mystic traditions refer to the Akashic Record or some similar repository of transcendent wisdom. But merely associating your claims with claims made by others does not prove anything, nor does tracing information to an invisible data storehouse. (It would be a brave student who footnoted a term paper with references to the Akashic Record; braver even than those who cite Wikipedia.) Steiner asserted that he had seen many things that we cannot see. Maybe he did. Or maybe he was mistaken. Or maybe he was fooling us. Or maybe he was fooling himself. We cannot know without evidence supported by valid reasoning. Steiner’s undocumented assertion that he knew a whole bunch of secret stuff is worthless. [21]

CIRCLING

 
Taken as a whole, Steiner’s oeuvre is an embodiment of tautology  or circular reasoning. This fallacy occurs when one starts and ends in the same place, merely rephrasing the premise and offering it as a conclusion. >“Cattle are herbivores, hence cows eat grasses.” This is perfectly true, but it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. Steiner was forever offering such remarks. I’ll paraphrase a few that readers may have come upon before. >“Spiritual beings are all around us because the spirit realm infuses all of the physical realm.” >“We can recall episodes from our past lives because we carry previous experiences within us during the process of reincarnation.” >“We are engaged in the universal process of spiritual evolution because everything tangible manifests upward-striving or downward-decaying spiritual entities.” People who find such sophistry convincing are excellent candidates for Anthroposophy. (I’m tempted to add >“Anthroposophists fall for tautologies since circular reasoning is irresistible to devotees of spiritual science” — but perhaps I shouldn’t.)

Steiner said that his understanding of the spiritual world broadened and deepened over time. But he also said that he had been right all along: His later work confirms his earlier work. (In a late revision of AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, Steiner wrote “[T]he outline I offered in Esoteric Science fifteen years ago [in the first edition] remains unshaken as far as I am concerned. Everything I have been able to say since then, if inserted into this book in the right place, seems only to elaborate that outline.” [22] Note that the “outline” is the entire contents of the book.) We can easily verify Steiner’s faithfulness to his own views (although, in truth, Steiner shifted ground more than he lets on). When we open a Steiner book, we know beforehand what we will find. There may be some some new details, even some surprises (for instance, books in which Steiner discusses beekeeping), but the core message will always be that ◊the heavily populated spiritual realm is all around us, ◊spiritual presences infuse our lives, ◊all creatures above and below are evolving (going up spiritually) or involving (going down spiritually), ◊ the spirit world is not what science or orthodox religions teach, ◊the realm of the spirits can be known through clairvoyance, ◊Steiner can light the way ... and so on. Steiner almost never starts at point A and then reasons his way to point B. He starts at point A, tap dances, waves his hands, and finally — after a display of verbal contortions — ends triumphantly at point A. (Even when discussing bees, Steiner takes us from A to A: e.g., “The group soul of a beehive ... has attained a level of evolutionary development that human beings will later reach in the Venus cycle....” [BEES (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 176.] The details are unexpected, perhaps, but the gist is what we’ve heard over and over: spirit realm, spiritual evolution, planets as stages of evolution, etc. [23])

One might argue that I’m attacking Steiner for being consistent, but that argument misses my point. Steiner’s conclusions tend to be reassertions of his premises, little more. Rather than establishing persuasive chains of reasoning, Steiner walked in circles. How could he have done more? He would have advanced his case — moving us, if not himself, from A to B — if he had provided at least a little confirming evidence. (I’m now speaking of a subject I will return to in our examination of insubstantiality.) Steiner might have produced a spirit that is clued in to earthly affairs, for instance. A gnome or goblin would be recalcitrant, so how about a guardian angel? If the spirit were invisible and inaudible to anyone but Steiner, Steiner might at least have conversed with it in our presence. From his invisible guest, he might have gathered some information that would floor us, such as that an earthquake will occur in fifteen seconds. So we would take out our watches, count down, experience the fearful quake, and presto, be convinced. But Steiner didn’t fool with such proofs. He conducted his spiritual explorations in private, within the confines of his cranium (although he would deny that last part: He taught that real thinking doesn’t occur in the brain. [24]) Perhaps he was wise to work in private. His mentor, Madame Blavatsky, claimed psychic powers much like those he claimed. But foolishly, she held demonstrations — seances and the like. Unfortunately for her, this allowed people to observe her fakery in action. In 1885, the London Society for Psychical Research officially pronounced her a fraud. She retired from public exhibitions thereafter, devoting her time instead to writing her masterpiece, THE SECRET DOCTRINE. [25] Steiner saw and learned. 

Please remember that Steiner said he was teaching us about a type of science to which the standards of physical sciences apply. By his own admission, then, he failed to fulfill his standards: “logical and adequate examination.” He cut himself some slack, however, because he modestly stated that his work “may be numbered among the noblest achievements of humanity.” [26]

MEANING

 
For a statement to be useful in the search for knowledge, it has to mean something, and that meaning must be clear enough for comprehension and analysis. Steiner’s language fails this test in interconnected ways.

Obfuscation: Steiner often used language that snowed his audiences rather than informing them. Those who have studied Steiner learn his codes, so they can more or less grasp his meaning. But even for such students, Steiner’s language is elusive, implying a profound wisdom without sharing much of that wisdom. “Just as the leaders of the Sun’s evolution became the higher I that worked in the life 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.” [27] If we weren’t dealing with a spiritual sage (and, if fact, we aren’t), we would urge Steiner to rephrase such sentences in plain language. But he just poured out such stuff and kept going.

Obfuscating language serves as a great impediment to reasoning. If it were not an ad hominem [28], I would be tempted to say that Steiner was a liar who cynically intended to thwart comprehension and analysis. Steiner’s defenders would say that he used such language because he was attempting to convey virtually ineffable truths. But whatever can be said at all can be said clearly, if one takes the trouble. Consider the Bible. Aside from prophetic passages and terms over which we might haggle (>“Is my “neighbor” just the guy next door or, really, everyone?), most of the Bible is perfectly plain, even though it conveys truths that Jews, Christians, and Muslims agree are incontestably profound. 

Equivocation: We can consider this a subset of obfuscation and an extension of the principle of non-contradiction: It consists of hedging your statements so that they are two-sided. Steiner peppered his lectures with such equivocations, often marked by phrases like “in a sense.” (A Google search for “in a sense” in Steiner’s books would approach infinity. Sorry: I jest. But it would be a lot.) Variations: I’ll cite just one instance for each, out of charity: “in a manner of speaking” [29], “so to speak” [30], “I speak here only pictorially” [31] and “[this] is only an imagistic way of talking” [32], “as it were” [33], and the like, in a sense. 

Of course, we all use such phrases. But when they become a recurrent refrain, they flag a problem. Steiner knew that his style was tough: “[My] books require the goodwill of the reader in dealing with a difficult style of writing....” [34] Note how this neatly puts the burden on the reader, not the author. Instead of correcting the problem in his language, Steiner ran with it. We’ve already looked at his comments about planets/stage of evolution, which is just one striking example. 

As I’ve already conceded, the spirit realm may be a place of flux, multiplicity, and complex manifestation. But that isn’t the issue, here. Steiner’s exposition is needlessly equivocal. I gave the counterexample of the Bible. This time, let’s take one from physics. Quantum mechanics describes a completely bizarre deep level of reality where subatomic particles can be in two places at once, where time can run backward, where merely looking at something causes it to change, and so forth. Our minds can scarcely cope with that weird realm. Yet we can discuss it in lucid, precise language: The exposition makes sense. In Steiner’s exposition of the spiritual realm, not so much.

Nonsense: Language is gutted when it is used to peddle misinformation. Let’s return to Steiner’s remarkable views on the motion of the Sun and planets. Stating those views, he employed seemingly impressive scientific jargon, but his grasp of the terms he tossed around was shaky. Speaking to Waldorf teachers, Steiner claimed that the “Earth follows the Sun. The incline is the same as what we normally call the angle of declination. If you take the angle you obtain when you measure the ecliptic angle, then you will see that. So it is not a spiral but a helix ... The angle that encloses the helix is the same as the path of a star near the North pole ... [T]he North pole remains fixed, that is the celestial North Pole.” [35] 

An awesome display or knowledge. Except — well, let’s break it down. The solar/planetary motion is “not a spiral, but a helix.” This statement would be illuminating if “helix” and “spiral” weren’t synonyms. [36] In truth, the Earth does actually travel in a spiral, but not the one Steiner described. Steiner said that the Sun and six planets wing through space together, along a spiral path. “[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 ... [I]t appears as though the Earth goes around it [i.e., the Sun], whereas it is actually only following. The Earth follows the Sun.” [37] This is bunk. The planets orbit the Sun. But, since the Sun itself orbits the center of our galaxy, the orbits of the planets are stretched: At the end of an orbit, a planet does not return to the place where the orbit began, but it arrives at a point farther along the Sun’s galactic orbit. (By the way, the solar system includes Neptune and Uranus, as well as numerous minor planets such as Pluto. Steiner’s erroneous scheme does not account for these.) 

“[T]he North pole remains fixed.” No cigar. The terrestrial north pole shifts. The shifting is called the precession of the equinoxes (I can use fancy lingo, too). The celestial north pole is an imaginary point in the sky around which stars seem to circle. This point is an illusion caused by the Earth’s rotation. As the Earth’s north pole changes position, so does the celestial north pole. (Steiner carefully distinguished between the fixity of the terrestrial and celestial poles — “that is the celestial North Pole” — but this is pointless.) Since the precession of the equinoxes has great implications for astrology, and since astrology figures in Steiner’s doctrines, his ignorance about the movement of the poles is shocking, simply shocking. But apparently some things are not recorded in the Akashic Record. [38]

Steiner’s fancy terminology (declination, ecliptic...) doesn’t add anything but a patina of learning — a very thin patina. The Waldorf teachers whom Steiner addressed apparently accepted his guidance on astronomy as on virtually everything else. But let’s move more circumspectly. For instance, what angle would we get if we “measure the ecliptic angle”? Maybe, let me guess, the ecliptic angle? If we accept the ecliptic angle as equal to the angle of declination, then Steiner’s words undergo a near-truth experience. But, upon careful examination, the vestiges of truth evaporate. ◊“The Earth follows the Sun.” No. The Earth and the Sun are gravitationally linked, but the Earth is not arranged in a line with the other planets, no matter how snaky. ◊For the same reason, there is no “incline.” The Earth does not follow the Sun either uphill or down. ◊The ecliptic — an imaginary circle on either the celestial sphere or the surface of the Earth — is defined by the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, but Steiner says the Earth does not orbit the Sun. ◊“Stars” (some of which are actually distant galaxies or even more distant galaxy clusters) that appear to be near the pole occupy different angular distances from it, so there is no single “angle that encloses the 

LOGIC AND REALITY, PART 2

 
Logic is concerned with the forms of statements, not — strictly speaking — the contents of those statements. But in the real world, contents are crucial. No statement can be true, in reality, if it expresses empty thoughts. Even if Steiner had been a careful logician, his work would fail this essential test:

Steiner almost invariably committed the mistake of insubstantiality  (aka fantasy), which for our discussion we can take as failure to provide evidence. Logicians do not worry much about evidence. A statement can be considered logically true even if it lacks factual content. For example, the following syllogism is logically true but factually absurd: (A) All dogs can fly; (B) Barney is a dog; therefore (C) Barney can fly. >“Aha!” cries the Anthroposophist. “Your vaunted ‘logic’ is disconnected from reality. It allows you to believe that dogs can fly!” Sorry. It does no such thing. Logic tells us how to think rationally, not what to think about. If you start with silly premises (“All dogs can fly”) then you will reach silly conclusions (garbage in, garbage out: GIGO). The tool of logic, employed by people who take care to start with fact-based premises, enables us to ascertain truths about reality: truths in both senses: logically true and factually true.

Finding examples of insubstantial statements in Steiner’s works is embarrassingly easy. Steiner almost never bothered with evidence. In reading the following, ask yourself: By what authority does Steiner say these things? What sort of thinking do we see in action here? Do these statements compel acceptance? What proof does Steiner offer? I’ll keep these quotations brief, which opens a possible rebuttal: I have left out the evidence! Well, no, I haven’t. Steiner did. Please go to the passages I quote and look around for evidence, either before or after. Hint #1: You have better ways to spend your time. Hint #2: Consider what Steiner says about the human head (third quote, below). What does this tell us about his view of mental processes?

◊ “There were also [spiritual] beings who had detached Mars from the common cosmic substance and made it their dwelling place.” [41] 

◊ “What spiritual beings become [clairvoyantly] 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....” [42] 

◊ “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.”[43] 

◊ “[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.” [44] 

◊ “[T]he heart is indeed a sense organ for perceiving the blood’s movement, not a pump as physicists claim.” [45] 

◊ “[T]he scientist would, in principle, always say that minerals, plants and animals would develop without the existence of people. [paragraph break] This is incorrect ... 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....” [46]

We could dig deeply into all such statements, but I’ll offer just a quick response to the last one. Steiner’s evolutionary theory was completely at odds with the findings of science. Notice that Steiner actually affirms his disagreement with science. Vast volumes of evidence have been accumulated to support Darwinian evolution. Where is the evidence for Steinerian evolution? As usual, Steiner offers none. This is characteristic of most claims he makes. He performed no field work or experiments to substantiate “spiritual science.” He just spoke.

Steiner pretended to tell us about reality, but his remarks lacked substance. They blow away on the slightest breeze. They do not recommend themselves to our brains.

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Painting by a Waldorf student

[courtesy of PLANS].

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How to make the impossible plausible, almost.

Parts 1, 2, & 3.

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To consider Steiner's "logic" on the subject of karma,

please use this link: "Karma"

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ADDENDUM

I'm painfully aware of my limitations, in the field of logic and elsewhere. 

I am, indeed, painfully aware of what seem to me to be humanity's limitations. 

I have spiritual yearnings, I aspire, I dream. 

I'd love to have the sky open up, and God to peer down, calling out 

"Roger Rawlings! Here is the Truth. And here's what I want you to do with the remainder of your life..." 

I would find such an event fairly impressive, and I would adjust my behavior accordingly.

I don't mean to make light of this. 

I utterly respect spiritual hopes and desires. 

In my very first essay about Anthroposophy, I wrote of to honor true reverence. 

But my limitations (or strengths: sometimes, in humans, these are the same) 

cause me to want solid facts and also logic. 

Granted, if anything like what I just described were to happen, 

if God made his will plain to me, I would yield — who am I to refuse God? 

But short of that, I truly think the wise course is to admit limitations, 

be humble, and try to make whatever progress we can with 

the abilities that we verifiably possess.

Many months after writing the essay you have just read, 

I posted a message on the Internet. It builds on and expands the arguments I made, above. 

Here it is, edited slightly for use here. If you’d like to see the original, please use this link: 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/message/11671

Rudolf Steiner spurned logic. He argued (not very logically) that logic impedes the acquisition of knowledge. We should look inward, he said; trust our hearts, trust our powers of “clairvoyance.” He was clearly wrong — among other flaws in his position is the minor defect that there ain’t no such thing as clairvoyance. [52] But he was adamant.

“[M]an is a Microcosm and contains within himself the secrets of the Great World outside ... [W]hat we perceive inwardly — our thoughts, our feelings, our will-impulses, our memory-pictures, when regarded from the other side, from without, in a macrocosmic sense, can all be recognized again in the kingdom of nature [i.e., what we find inside ourselves is true of the wide world beyond ourselves] ... [But] to mere thoughts reality is a matter of indifference; they only hold to logic. But this same logic can prove the most contradictory things in the sphere of reality.” [53] That is, our subjective states are  — or can be — reliable and true, whereas logic is worthless, really, because you can prove anything at all by using logic.

We would all like to believe that we are “microcosms” — that is, we’d like to think that our hearts and souls, perhaps even our bodies, are harmonized with the great truths and powers of the universe. Certainly we’d like to believe that we can trust our hearts, “our feelings, our will-impulses” — we’d like to think that what we *feel* is right, and thus that *we* are right. But, sadly, there is very little evidence to support this pretty idea; and note that Steiner provides none. Indeed, human history provides overwhelming evidence that we cannot trust our feelings or inner compasses. War after war has been waged, and millions upon millions of people have been slaughtered, because two opposing sides, both totally convinced that they were in the right, decided to settle their differences through barbarity. [54] If anything, this seems to be strong evidence that we are wrong, since this “solution” occurs to us so often.

But, back to the question of logic. Steiner attempted to illustrate the unreliability of logic by telling a little story: 

“Once upon a time a lion, a wolf and a hyena set out upon a journey. They met an antelope. The antelope was torn to pieces by one of the animals. The three travelers were good friends, so now the question arose as to how to divide the dismembered antelope between them. First the lion spoke to the hyena, saying, 'You divide it.' The hyena possessed his logic. He is the animal who deals not with the living but with the dead. His logic is naturally determined by the measure of his courage, or rather of his cowardice. According to whether this courage is more or less, he approaches reality in different ways. The hyena said: 'We will divide the antelope into three equal parts — one for the lion, one for the wolf, and one for myself.' Whereupon the lion fell upon the hyena and killed him. Now the hyena was out of the way, and again it was a question of sharing out the antelope. So the lion said to the wolf, 'See, my dear wolf, now we must share it out differently. You divide it. How would you share it out?' Then the wolf said, 'Yes, we must now apportion it differently; it cannot be shared out evenly as before. As you have rid us of the hyena, you as lion must get the first third; the second third would have been yours in any case, as the hyena said, and the remaining third you must get because you are the wisest and bravest of all the animals.' This is how the wolf apportioned it. Then said the lion, 'Who taught you to divide in this way?'To which the wolf replied, 'The hyena taught me.' So the lion did not devour the wolf, but, according to the wolf's logic, took the three portions for himself.” [55]

Arguments that begin with “once upon a time” should usually excite skepticism, and Steiner’s is no exception. In this tale, Steiner thought he was showing that logic failed both the hyena and the wolf. Therefore, logic is unreliable. QED.

But wait a moment. Steiner was correct that logic can prove anything, pro or con if a) the premises are accepted, and b) genuinely logical reasoning is used. For example, the proposition that the sky is made of water can be proven, logically, IF the premises are sound and IF logic is actually employed:

Major premise: Everything blue is made of water.

Minor premise: The sky is blue.

Conclusion: The sky is made of water.

This is perfectly logical, but it is also perfectly wrong, because the major premise is wrong. So, in a way, Steiner was right. Logic can be tricky; it may seem to “prove” statements that are wrong. But Steiner’s analysis is awfully shallow. There is no flaw in the logic of our little syllogism; there is a factual flaw in one of the premises. If we use factually true premises then logic is perfectly reliable. 

No to beat a dead horse, but Steiner was mistaken. Consider, he spoke of the hyena using “his logic” which is “naturally determined by the measure of his courage, or rather of his cowardice.”  But this is bunk. Logic is logic; hyenas don’t have a different logic from anybody else (if they use logic at all, that is — which is doubtful). Logic is logic and facts are facts. If you have them both, then you can reason well and prove truths. In other words, Steiner did not illustrate what he thought he illustrated; what he actually illustrated was his misunderstanding of logic. Remember, he said that logic can “prove” anything. This is not right, if we remember that logic needs to be used in conjunction with solid facts. Also, we might bear in mind that inner states — the kind Steiner says are, or can be, reliable — are extremely flexible. We can imagine or intuit or “clairvoyantly perceive” anything we want. Believing in *these* is the unreliable approach.

Let’s take a gander at the sort of argument Steiner often used. It is clearly illogical, which was okay by him; but, unfortunately for him, was is also clearly wrong or, at a minimum, he left it completely unproven:

“Genghis Khan was the pupil of a priest who had been initiated into these Asian mysteries, and he instilled into Genghis Khan the following. The time has now come for divine justice to scour the earth. The charge has been laid upon you to put this divine justice into operation ... This campaign was intended to carry into European culture influences that would [cause] the souls of men to believe in divine justice ... This was the inner purpose of the Mongol onslaughts that spread from Asia, and which, as you know, were not overthrown by physical deeds ... Although the Mongols were the victors, they turned back to Asia.” [56] So, the Mongols attacked Europe for occult reasons, and they retreated for occult reasons.

Do you see the flaw in Steiner’s “reasoning”? Actually, there are more than one [57], but let’s focus on this:

The Mongols retreated.

I don’t know why.

Therefore, occult powers did it.

This is a huge, utterly irrational, leap. Essentially, Steiner used what we might call the Argument from Personal Ignorance. In his book, THE BLIND WATCHMAKER, Richard Dawkin discusses the Argument from Personal Incredulity: “I personally don’t believe X, therefore X must be wrong.” [58] Steiner went even further into illogic and error. In essence, he argued: “I don’t believe or know X, therefore Y must be true.” But come on, just because Steiner didn’t know why the Mongols retreated is no reason to assume that the explanation for the retreat was X, Y, or Z. If Steiner didn’t know why the Mongols retreated, the only statement he should have made on the subject is “I don’t know why they did this.” He was obviously not entitled to leap from “I don’t know” to “I do  know and the reason is such-and-such.” (Of course, he thought he did  know: He thought his clairvoyance gave him the answer. Or, possibly, he was just spinning yarns, fraudulently claiming powers and knowledge that he knew he did not possess. The only way we can figure him out is to use facts and logic, but he withheld the facts, so all we can know is that he said very, very strange things, none of which is proven or, evidently, true.)

Many mystics use faulty “reasoning” of the sort Steiner employed, but the rest of us should not be taken in. Fallacy is fallacy. Illogic is illogic. In fact, what Steiner has really shown us is how essential logic is. We need facts (which Steiner didn’t supply) and we need logic (which Steiner didn’t use), because only then can we find truth.

By the way, why did the Mongols retreat? The answer is pretty simple. They used bows and arrows; their enemies started to use guns: “[A]fter the 14th century both European and Chinese artificers were able to begin elaboration of more and more efficient guns. By about 1650 handguns had become powerful enough to make nomad [i.e., Mongol] bows obsolete.” [59] Other factors were also involved, but we don’t need to dig into them here. All that concerns us at this moment is that Argument from Personal Ignorance is, in polite language, invalid. Steiner didn’t know why the Mongols retreated, which leads us to the conclusion that he didn’t know. Period. Nothing else logically follows. He just didn’t know.

•••

Taking a cue from Dawkins, we might consider a form of argumentation I'll call Argument from Antipathy. Most of us are prone to it. Confronted by an idea we dislike, we reject it. This is a natural response, but it is clearly illogical. You tell me that human beings utterly cease to exist when they die. I dislike this idea intensely. Therefore, I reject it. Such thinking may, indeed, lie at the heart of many belief systems. Averse to harsh possibilities, we turn to alternatives that we like better, possibilities that comfort us.

The flip side of Argument from Antipathy might be called Argument from Appeal — we embrace ideas that appeal to us. I want to live forever. Therefore, there must be an afterlife. This, too, is a very human response, and it is very irrational.

Steiner advocated Argument from Appeal, although he did so without appearing to understand what he was doing. He argued that we must cultivate our subjective, emotional responses, we must find our way to "truth" through the use of heartfelt imagination, and/or inspiration, and/or intuition. These are the forms of thought advocated in Waldorf schools. But the hazards should be plain. What we feel  to be true — what we imagine  or intuit  or are led to by inspiration  — may be utterly wrong. We may like it, but it may be poppycock. Indeed, if the main reason to accept an idea is that we find it congenial, then the idea should be extremely suspect.

This is how Steiner's followers, trying to heed his directions, often reason: To them, a statement is true because they find it congenial or appealing. It rings their bell. They feel  its truth and see no need to argue the matter out; or, if they engage in argument, they only offer statements that ring their bell and reject all statements that don't. Indeed, they may have come to Steiner in the first place because his statements rang their bell.

Sadly, finding truth may often be very different from finding what is appealing. The truth may not appeal to us — but if it is the truth, then we need to have to strength to accept it, no matter how much it may inspire antipathy in our soft, quailing hearts.

The difference between Steiner's admirers and his critics is not that we disagree about the kinds of ideas that are unpleasant, on the one hand, or appealing, on the other. Here's an idea that I find very unpleasant: When Roger Rawlings dies, he will be snuffed out, gone forever, kaput. No!  my heart cries. No! God wouldn't do that to ME! It makes no sense! And I'm inclined to agree.

And here's an idea that I find quite appealing: Roger Rawlings is immortal. When he dies, he will go to a higher realm, and thereafter he will rise higher and higher in glorious wisdom and bliss. Yes! my heart cries. Surely that is true! Surely, oh, surely!

And again, I'm inclined to agree.

But when I present these heartfelt truths to my rational mind, it most annoyingly asks for evidence. You don't want to die, it says. I understand. But so far you have given me no reason to believe in the eternal survival of said Roger Rawlings.

Drat.

◊◊◊◊

Rocky Mountains.

[R.R.]

◊◊◊◊

Sez He

At least in translation, Steiner sometimes uses the words “intellect” and “intellectual” in affirmative ways. “[T]here had been men who could see beyond concepts into the spiritual world, the world of thought which Aquinas himself speaks of as a real world, in which he perceives the immaterial, intellectual [sic] beings whom he calls angels.” [Rudolf Steiner, REDEMPTION OF THINKING (SteinerBooks, 1983), p. 72.]

But he conveyed his real view of intellect and logic repeatedly and insistently. Here are a few samples.

Referring to a period in the past, he said “Awareness of spiritual-reality ... faded in Europe, and philosophy dried up into logic.” [Ibid., p. 17.] For our purposes at present, the historical period is insignificant. The gist lies in those final words: “philosophy dried up into logic.” Dry, dull, deadly logic.

“It is not sufficient for us to express this in an abstract way, merely as a problem of reason and logic; it must be grasped with the whole heart....” [Ibid., p. 52.] Hearts lead us to wisdom; heads play at best a secondary role. Reason and logic — nicht so gut.

“These concepts, presented to us in Scholasticism in keen and precise logic, are derived from what had survived from the teaching of the past [when humans were naturally clairvoyant]. We cannot properly understand the working of the souls of the Scholastics unless we take into consideration this intermixture of age-old tradition.” [Ibid., p. 68.] Scholasticism was a logical approach to theology, which faltered, according to Steiner. To truly apprehend Truth, the Scholastics had to rely on ancient, mystical tradition (what we skeptics would call ancient ignorance).

“Logical and dialectical thought is the product of the common human nature of mankind, differentiated amongst individuals.” [Ibid., p. 69.] This is about as close as Steiner gets to affirming logic and intellect. Logic comes from within our natures, although it is not the same for everyone — different people have different logics (which is a fallacy, of course). Steiner taught that we are currently in an extremely material phase of existence in which mastering “materialistic” thought is necessary. But we must soon evolve away from it, leaving it behind.

“Up to a certain level we can reach everything by accurate logic and dialectic, but at that point we have to enter the region of faith. In this way Reason and Faith stand face to face without contradicting one another.” [Ibid,. p. 81.] But this can be so only if Reason bends to the dictates of Faith. If “logic” is pliable (which it is not, but Steiner said it should be), then this is possible. But if not, not.

“It is not by a mystic experience which divorces itself from reason and despises logic, that man will return to his spiritual heritage, but by the path of pure, concentrated thinking in which logic is never contradicted — although it is finally transcended....” [Ibid., p. 146.] You may spot some logical contradictions in Steiner’s own words, but this is a Scholastical sort of quibble. Steiner advocated higher consciousness which goes far beyond logic: exact clairvoyance, forsooth. Because:

Logic and intellect kill: “A man who would receive Anthroposophy with his intellect kills it in the very act.” [Rudolf Steiner,  LIFE, NATURE, AND CULTIVATION OF ANTHROPOSOPHY (Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain, 1963), p. 15.] Remember that “Anthroposophy” means human wisdom. Human wisdom is killed by the intellect.

“The intellect destroys or hinders.” [Rudolf Steiner, WALDORF EDUCATION AND ANTHROPOSOPHY, Vol. 1 (Anthroposophical Press, 1995), p. 233.]

“Intellect destroys instinctive capacity. Instinct must be spiritualized.” [Rudolf Steiner, DEATH AS METAMORPHOSIS OF LIFE (SteinerBooks, 2008), p. vi. introduction.] Instinctive capacity is what Steiner’s doctrines affirm: It is our goal, the higher consciousness we need. Intellect destroys it.

In sum, “[T]he brain and nerve system have nothing at all to do with actual cognition; they are only the expression of cognition in the physical organism.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 60.] Your brain “thinks,” in a manner of speaking. But true “cognition” doesn’t come from your brain with its dry, deadly intellect. True cognition is ... oh, you know.

I was a student at a Waldorf school for most of my childhood, grades 2-12. During those long-ago years (1950s-1960s), I had little idea what Rudolf Steiner’s doctrines were. Today, as I read Steiner, I’m haunted by a question. Did my teachers know that Steiner made such remarkably foolish statements as that the Earth does not orbit the Sun? The motions of the planets have been firmly understood since the work of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler — 400 years ago. Did my teachers reject such well-established findings of science?

Probably at least some of them did. I don’t know how many of Steiner’s books and lectures they had studied. However, English-language editions of Steiner titles have been available in the USA at least since 1908. [47] Various books and transcripts were available in Germany even earlier. Those of my teachers who could read German (several could) might easily have read Steiner in his original German, and they would quite possibly have passed the “wisdom” they gained to their colleagues. Booklet transcriptions of Waldorf faculty meetings run by Steiner were circulated in Germany in the 1930s. [48] There were other editions of such transcripts in 1946-1952 and again in 1962. Today, transcripts are available in English as FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER. A companion volume, DISCUSSIONS WITH TEACHERS, became available in Germany at least as early as 1961. [49] 

Perhaps the first English translation of a Steiner book dealing with Waldorf education was ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION, which includes passages such as this: “When we behold the earth wandering through cosmic space and taking up into herself elements flowing from the sun, moon, and other stars, we see her living in the cosmos.” [50] This is a profoundly antiscientific conception: The Earth wanders through space, she is alive, and she absorbs elements from such “stars” as the Moon. Astronomers, biologists, and geologists would beg to differ. But these are the sorts of propositions that Waldorf teachers have long received from Steiner.

So I wonder whether my teachers knew and believed what Steiner said about the planets. Or, knowing, did they selectively reject this particular set of teachings while accepting most others? Anthroposophists willingly accept all manner of bizarre Steiner statements. In recent years, I’ve had e-mail exchanges with Anthroposophists who were eager to affirm everything Steiner ever said, no matter how plainly wrong. The Anthroposophical editors of FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER apologized for Steiner’s racism in one especially glaring instance [51], but they offered no apology or explanation for Steiner’s stupid description of planetary motions. For Anthroposophists, stating that the Earth does not orbit the Sun is evidently neither embarrassing nor doubtful.

◊◊◊◊

[52] I said my piece on this here recently. Bits now reside at http://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/my-sad-sad-story

[53] Rudolf Steiner, MAN AS SYMPHONY OF THE CREATIVE WORD, Lecture I, 

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/ManSymphony/19231019p01.html

[54] Bits of my views on this reside at http://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/curriculum

[55] MAN AS SYMPHONY OF THE CREATIVE WORD, Lecture 1.

The story is, originally, an African fable. Steiner’s intentions are stated most clearly in the synopsis: “An African fable illuminates the poverty of logic”. Problem is, the fable does not illustrate this proposition. http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/ManSymphony/ManSym_synopses.html

[56] Rudolf Steiner, INNER IMPULSES OF EVOLUTION, “Atlantean Impulses in the Mexican Mysteries. The Problem of Natural Urges and Impulses, The Problem of Death”, http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/InnerImpul/19160924p01.html 

[57]  In addition to the illogical leap I discuss, Steiner violated rationality in another sense. He said  that Genghis Khan was a pupil of an Asian mystic, but he gave us no evidence and no logical reasoning. Likewise, he said  that the Mongol invasion of Europe had an occult purpose, but he gave us no evidence and no logical reasoning. All he was doing, in other words, was making unsubstantiated statements. His remarks are thus void; they have no real content; they are merely  unsubstantiated statements.

[58] Richard Dawkins, THE BLIND WATCHMAKER (w. W. Norton, 1996), pp. 54-55.]

[59]  "the Steppe." ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. 2009. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 27 Aug. 2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/565551/the-Steppe>.