◊ “[I]f we give these Negro novels to pregnant [white] women to read, then it won’t even be necessary for Negroes to come to Europe in order for mulattos to appear. Simply through the spiritual effects of reading Negro novels, a multitude of children will be born in Europe that are completely gray, that have mulatto hair, that look like mulattos!” [21] 

◊ “[T]he remaining human bodies belonged to the races that had become decadent and were falling into decline. The souls left the bodies of [these] races and rose up to higher races.” [22] Note the concept: Higher races, lower races.

◊ “This was the reason that the lower races had fewer and fewer descendants, while the higher races had more and more.” [23] One of Steiner’s adherents has added that Steiner foresaw the necessary “actual division between good and evil races.” [24]

Let’s hope that Anthroposophists do, indeed, learn to reject Steiner’s racial doctrines. Here’s one more sample: “[W]e must distinguish between soul-evolution and race-evolution. A soul may be incarnated in a race that is declining; but if that soul does not make itself evil, it will not be reincarnated in a race that is falling back, but in one that is on the up-grade [sic]. Enough souls are pouring in from other quarters for incarnation in races that are on the down-grade (i.e. bad souls) [sic].” [25] What does Steiner mean by these humane words? A good soul who has the misfortune of being a member or a backward, retrograde race can free itself of its unfortunate situation. It will be reincarnated in a better race next time around. But don’t worry: Inferior races will remain well stocked, because so many bad souls are available to fill their ranks.

III.

The essential error committed by racists is to treat people not as individuals but, primarily or wholly, as representatives of a group — a nation or a race. This error is built into Steiner's doctrines. He taught that group souls are real beings, having their own existence; and he said that individuals can be considered mere extensions or tools of those beings:

"The person belongs to a family, a nation, a race; his activity in this world depends upon his belonging to some such community ... Besides the separate individuals, a very real family and national Group Soul and racial Spirit is at work in the life of a family, a people, or a race. Indeed, in a certain sense, the separate individuals are merely [sic] the executive organs of these family Group Souls, racial Spirits and so on. It is nothing but the truth to say, for instance, that a national Group Soul makes use of each individual man belonging to that nation for the execution of some work. The national Group Soul does not descend into physical reality, but dwells in the higher worlds, and in order to work in the physical world, makes use of the physical organs of each individual ... In the truest sense [sic], every individual receives his allotted task from his family, national or racial Group Soul." [26]

This is such a stunning concept, I'm almost tempted to let it stand on its own, as if it needs no commentary. But I won't resist the urge to express my outrage, at least a little. Steiner does not deny that individuals have their own, individual souls, but he characterizes all individuals as being, to a significant extent, merely the tools used by familial, national, or racial souls. This doctrine is appalling on almost every level. It is both racist and crazily occultist. It is excrement.

Some other time, I'll tell you what I really think. But in the meanwhile, let's not drop the subject out of sheer revulsion.

Compounding the astonishingly unpleasant nature of his doctrines, Steiner associates angels with racial identity, thereby defiling them as well as himself. Specifically, Steiner says that archangels “bring the life of the individual and the life of broader groups of humanity — that is, peoples, races, and so on — into harmonious order ... For [or to] anyone who can penetrate spiritual knowledge, folk-souls and race-souls are quite different from what is generally understood by these terms today, especially by the abstract, modern scientist ... [A]bstract thinkers merely conceive of the folk-spirit or folk-soul as the abstract sum total of so many people. For them, only the individual human being is real ... [But] a folk-soul or folk-spirit is a reality. A Fire Spirit or Archangel manifests in a folk-soul, governing the relationship between individual human beings and the whole of a people or race.” [27]

This is spiritualism, Steiner-style. Manifestly, Steiner did not understand how his words make the attitude of the "abstract, modern scientist" look good by comparison. If scientists assert that individuals are paramount — that individuals are the only beings that actually, verifiably exist — then so much the better for them. Bear in mind, Steiner taught that spirits are entities — they are gods, angels, and so forth. He did not use the word "spirit" as a modern, abstract think might: A "spirit" is not just a quality or a attitude, it is an identifiable creature having a mind and powers. When Steiner said a folk-soul "is a reality," he meant such a being really exists. 

The only consideration that might exonerate Steiner, slightly, is that his racial theories — like nearly all of his theories — are insane.

“On the Moon it would have occurred to you even less to deny this group-soul, for at that time it had a still more real existence. [Translation: When we lived "on" the "Moon," we would not have questioned the existence of group souls, because such souls were even more real then than they are now. [28]] It was the folk-soul, the race-soul, which guided the bloodstream down into the bodies, into those beings which circled round the Moon. It is the destiny of our age to deny the existence of such beings ... We are at the very height of this materialistic development which prefers to deny such beings as folk-souls and race-souls.” [29]

Amen to that.

IV.

Steiner's defenders sometimes argue that the racial divisions of mankind were important in the past, but the categories called "races" lost their meaning a long time ago. In other words, Steiner's doctrines provide an objective description of past conditions, and they place no importance on race in our present, more advanced age.

But this is not true. Steiner said that humanity will remain divided by race for many centuries yet. Describing our evolution through a series of "epochs," Steiner said:

“[A]s we evolve from the fifth into the sixth and then into the seventh epoch, the ancient connections of race and blood will be increasingly lost. [We are presently in the fifth such epoch.] Humanity will become freer of physical ties in order to form groups from the aspect of the spirit [i.e., groupings based on spiritual, not racial, affinities]. It was a bad habit in theosophy to speak of races as if they would always remain. The concept of race will lose it meaning in the near future, which means over the next few thousand years.” [30] 

So in Anthroposophy race remains important today, and it will remain so for thousands of years to come. In human terms, a "near future" lasting a "few thousand years" would be a virtual eternity, especially if it entailed a continuation of racism. Moreover, a footnote to the foregoing quotation suggests that Steiner forecast racial divisions continuing not for thousands but for millions of years to come. [31] This seems excessive; Steiner often contradicted himself, but in general the shorter forecast is more consistent with his teachings. But whether we calculate in terms of a few dozen centuries or hundreds of centuries, the effect is much the same. For a vast stretch of time ahead of us, we will continue to be wracked by racial divisions, according to Steiner, and these divisions will reflect important evolutionary differences among higher and lower human beings.

This is vile, but it is what Steiner taught. The unpleasant upshot is that if you want to follow Steiner, you must accept a racist description of reality. On the other hand, if you want to reject racism, you have little choice but to reject doctrines such as those advanced by Rudolf Steiner.

— Roger Rawlings

◊◊◊◊

◊◊◊◊

Steiner's 1923 lecture “Color and the Races of Humankind” can be found in VOM LEBEN DES MENSCHEN UND DER ERDE (Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1993); it was excised from the English translation of the book. Steiner begins the lecture by reaffirming the central importance of race to a proper understanding of spiritual reality:

“One can only understand history and all of social life, including today's social life, if one pays attention to people's racial characteristics. And one can only understand all that is spiritual in the correct sense if one first examines how this spiritual element operates within people precisely through the color of their skin.” (p. 52)

He then provides an overview of the various racial groups on the earth, offering definite instruction about which races belong where:

“When we ask which race belongs to which part of the earth, we must say: the yellow race, the Mongols, the Mongolian race belongs to Asia, the white race or the Caucasian race belongs to Europe, and the black race or the Negro race belongs to Africa. The Negro race does not belong to Europe, and the fact that this race is now playing such a large role in Europe is of course nothing but a nuisance.” (pp. 52-53)

Steiner then embarks on an extended disquisition on the distinctive features of each race, complete with drawings to illustrate their physiological and mental differences. He reports that black people are distinguished by their “rear-brain,” yellow and brown people by their “mid-brain,” and white people by their “fore-brain,” adding that black people are marked by a powerful “instinctual life,” yellow and brown people by a potent “emotional life,” and white people by a highly developed “intellectual life.” (p. 58) Steiner goes into considerable detail about black people in particular:

“Let us look first at the blacks in Africa. These blacks in Africa have the peculiar characteristic that they absorb all light and all warmth from space. They take it in. And this light and warmth cannot penetrate through the whole body, because after all a person is always a person, even if he is black. It does not penetrate through the whole body, but lingers on the surface of the skin, and the skin itself thus turns black. So a black in Africa is therefore a person who absorbs as much warmth and light as possible from space and assimilates it within himself. In this way the energies of the cosmos affect the whole person. Everywhere he takes in light and warmth, everywhere. He assimilates it inside of himself. There must be something there that helps him in this assimilation. Now you see, what helps him in this assimilation is his rear-brain. In the Negro the rear-brain is especially developed. It goes through his spinal cord. And this is able to assimilate all the light and warmth that are inside a person. Therefore everything connected to the body and the metabolism is strongly developed in the Negro. He has, as they say, powerful physical drives. The Negro has a powerful instinctual life. And because he actually has the sun, light, and warmth on his body surface, in his skin, his whole metabolism operates as if he were being cooked inside by the sun. That is where his instinctual life comes from. The Negro is constantly cooking inside, and what feeds this fire is his rear-brain.” (p. 55)

Steiner continues his series of racial contrasts by examining the ostensible differences between Asians and Europeans, claiming unconditionally that “Europe has always been the starting point for everything that develops humanity in relation to the external world”; Steiner goes on to say that Asians are incapable of making technological discoveries on their own or using European inventions properly. He then asserts without qualification: “Very few inventions have been made in Asia. They can assemble things, but as for inventions themselves, that is, that which arises from experience with the external world, the Asians cannot do this.” After offering what he takes to be a humorous anecdote about Asian technological ignorance, Steiner summarizes:

“This sort of independent thinking which Europeans develop in dealing with their surroundings, the Asians do not have this. The Japanese will therefore follow all the European inventions, but they will never think up something on their own.” (p. 59)

Steiner then states categorically that genuine creativity comes from the capacity of “the white race” to explore and inhabit all parts of the globe; indeed for Steiner, “The whites are the ones who actually develop humanity in themselves.” (p. 62)

Steiner presents these claims about racial difference as a set of objective spiritual facts, meant to impress upon his audience the need for mutual understanding and interracial cooperation, based on recognition of the “natural dispositions” that mark each racial group. At the conclusion of the lecture, Steiner offers a synopsis of his racial teachings:

“On the one hand there is the black race, which is the most earthly. When this race goes toward the West, it dies out. Then there is the yellow race, in the middle between the earth and the cosmos. When this race goes toward the East, it turns brown, it attaches itself too much to the cosmos and dies out. The white race is the race of the future, the spiritually creative race.” (p. 67)

This closing passage sums up the lecture and provides a précis of Anthroposophical thinking on race: the black, brown, red, and yellow races all have their special character and their special role to play, but at this stage of cosmic development they are dying out, whereas the white race continues to move forward into the racial future.

These are the sorts of doctrines that Waldorf spokespeople continue to defend today.

I'm a Mum who recently pulled her daughter out of a Steiner School in the UK precisely because of the racism in Steiner’s work and racism at the school. My daughter's teacher told my mixed-race daughter that “nigger” is not a racist word, she punished my daughter for complaining, she [the teacher] was not suspended, and she received no written warning. A boy who used the word was not punished either, and another boy who screamed it in the playground was not punished. Unusual, as kids get lines, etc.,  for minor misdemeanors.

We were told the school was broadly Christian.  If we had known the beliefs in reincarnation we would have not put our daughter in the school. Anthroposophy is not broadly Christian.

We were told the school was not religious, too. I saw it as a kind of paganish, not properly religious — maypole dancing, a harmless arty place. It wasn't.

You say Steiner made some positive statements about Jews. I don't give a toss. He made many more vile racist statements about Blacks,  Jews, and anyone nonwhite. That’s all I need to know. And its not a few dodgy statements, it’s a belief that humanity progresses through the races from black to white, a belief system which is CENTRAL to Anthroposophy. He didn't make a couple of slip-ups. Plus, how can he slip up — he is supposedly clairvoyant. Is the spirit world racist?

This isn't about decades ago, this is about now. Our daughter has suffered racism for the first time at a school. One of the Trustees at the school does workshops on a book printed in 2008 (Steiner’s HOW TO KNOW HIGHER WORLDS) which talks about evolution through the races. The Education Coordinator wouldn't answer me when I asked him if he believed in that theory, he point-blank refused!

Me, I believe that the theory is racist. That there are people in the school who don't is appalling, it makes me feel sick. My husband is black, he lives with racism daily, London taxis don't stop for him that often (maybe a third of the time). Imagine having your child in a school that won't answer your questions on racism in Steiner, imagine realising that you had made a huge mistake by putting your child in the school.

Everyone we talk to about this is so shocked. Only Steiner teachers and Anthroposophists are not. I feel they are not in the real world, they have lost all sense of reality and I honestly think most of them really don't believe the theory is racist as I think they look at my husband and daughter and think, "Don't worry you'll get there in time."

It’s a very horrible turn-of-the-century racism , but then I suppose it would be as that’s when it was written...

We [participants at waldorf-critics] are not full of hatred at all. Everyone here has experiences of Steiner schools or theories which are negative. I and all of us will go on blogs, etc., until the schools are transparent. It’s a pain having to do it as it takes time and I have kids and foster kids to look after and play with, which believe me I'd far rather be doing. But if one person reads this and does their research on Steiner education before enrolling their kids, then it’s worth it for me.  Peace and best wishes,

— Maura Kwaten

Steiner often contradicted himself. What he said in public was often inconsistent with what he told his followers in less-public circumstances. And what he said in public one day was often different from what he said publicly on other days. Understanding this is crucial to evaluating his statements. Anthroposophists can easily find Steiner statements that seem to be full of light and love — and they seem to think that these remarks render Steiner's other, nastier comments null and void. But let's do a thought experiment. We meet someone who says, a hundred times, that he is free of racial prejudice. But then we overhear him buying into the stereotype that blacks are primitive, filled with hot sexual urges; and endorsing the stereotype that Jews are purely materialistic; and asserting that skin color reflects deep inner qualities. He says these appalling things only occasionally, while continuing to announce his racial broadmindedness on other, more numerous occasions. We would, I think, have reason to doubt his claims that he is free of prejudice. Indeed, the only way a secret bigot could clear himself would be to say clearly that he has made many racially bigoted statements in the past, and he realizes now that he was wrong to make them, and he now utterly repudiates them. Until/unless he makes such a confession — and makes no further racially slanderous statements thereafter — his attitudes on race would remain, at best, suspect.

So what did Steiner sometimes say, amidst his protestations of virtue? A few example we have seen here before:

"[T]he aspects which pertain to the body and the metabolism are strongly developed in a Negro. He has a strong sexual urge — as people call it — strong instincts. And as, with him, all that comes from the sun — light and heat — really is at the skin's surface, all of his metabolism works as if the sun itself is boiling in his inside. This causes his passions. Within a Negro, cooking is going on all the time; and the cerebellum kindles the fire...." [Rudolf Steiner, quoted by Thomas Höfer, editor, "Flensburger Hefte" #41.]

"The Jews have a great gift for materialism, but little for recognition of the spiritual world." [Rudolf Steiner, FROM BEETROOT TO BUDDHISM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), p. 59.]

"One can only understand history and all of social life, including today's social life, if one pays attention to people's racial characteristics. And one can only understand all that is spiritual in the correct sense if one first examines how this spiritual element operates within people precisely through the color of their skin." [Rudolf Steiner, VOM LEBEN DES MENSCHEN UND DER ERDE (Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1993) p. 52.]

One other point, which also has been made here before: Saying that the differences between races must be eliminated is very different from saying that all races are equal. Steiner thought that racial differences were so important and disturbing that the only way for humans to unite would be for such differences to be eliminated. This is utterly different from accepting all races as equally worthy of respect and honor. The person who made the remarks I quoted, above, did not believe in human equality in the present or past — he only, as you say, held out a hope that we might unite in the future, when our differences are behind us. He did not, however, teach that all humans will be able to move up to that imagined evolutionary stage. He taught that numerous people will fall out of evolution long before the good humans move along. Steiner said that some people are not really human at all: "Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings." [Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 650.] He also said that some people who are human will degenerate to a lower condition: "Beings that stay behind at such stages appear in a later epoch as subordinate nature spirits." [Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), p.70.] Even near the end of our future history, there will still be some people incapable of moving up to the ultimate stages of our perfection. "The evil race, with its savage impulses, will dwell in animal form in the abyss." [Rudolf Steiner, UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN BEING (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993), p. 103.]

The overall pattern of human evolution, as Steiner described it, consists of some people moving ahead to higher and higher stages of consciousness, while others (quite often members of nonwhite races, the descendants of abnormal humans) prove themselves incapable of further evolution. "[I]t was the normal human beings that were ... the most capable of evolving. [Abnormal] peoples whose ego impulse was developed too strongly gradually wandered to the West [from Atlantis] and became ... the Red Indians of America. [Likewise, the abnormal] people whose ego-feeling was too little developed migrated to the East, and became the subsequent Negro population of Africa ... [T]hey deposited too many carbonic constituents in their skin and became black. This is why the Negroes are black. Thus both east of Atlantis in the black population and west of Atlantis in the red population we find survivors of the kind of people who had not developed their ego-feeling in a normal way. The human beings who had developed normally lent themselves best to progress." [Rudolf Steiner, THE BEING OF MAN AND HIS FUTURE EVOLUTION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1981), pp. 118-119.] The ones who proved capable of evolution are, according to Steiner, white: "On one side we find the black race, which is earthly at most. If it moves to the West, it becomes extinct. We also have the yellow race, which is in the middle between earth and the cosmos. If it moves to the East, it becomes brown, attaches itself too much to the cosmos, and becomes extinct. The white race is the future, the race that is creating spirit." [Rudolf Steiner, VOM LEBEN DES MENSCHEN UND DER ERDE (Verlag Der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, 1961), p. 62.]

[3] The warning was consistent with Steiner's teachings. "[T]his question of race is one that we can never understand until we understand the mysteries of the blood and of the results accruing from the mingling of the blood of different races." [Rudolf Steiner, THE OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD (Health Research Books, 1972), p. 13.] Steiner asked "How can a negro [sic] or an utterly barbaric savage become civilized?" [Ibid., p. 13.] He said the answer depends on blood and whether a race "be on the up- or down-grade of its evolution...." [Ibid., p. 13.] Steiner taught that whites are evolving upwardly while most other races, having risen as high as they can, degenerate. "The white race is the future, the race that is creating spirit." [Rudolf Steiner, VOM LEBEN DES MENSCHEN UND DER ERDE (Verlag Der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, 1961), p. 62.] In general, Steiner said nonwhite races are stagnant or deteriorating; some may be moving upward, but only the white race is leading human evolution. According to Steiner, whites can advance to higher spiritual levels because they are capable of high clairvoyant abilities. But mingling whites' blood with blood from other races would cut off this possibility. "The physical organism of man survives when strange blood comes in contact with strange blood, but clairvoyant power perishes under the influence of this mixing of blood, or exogamy." [THE OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD, p. 42.] Exogamy is sexual pairing outside one's own ethnic group, tribe, or race. It is equivalent to miscegenation, one of the prime bugaboos of racists.

Here is Steiner's basic defense, in Steiner's own words. It hinges on the doctrine or reincarnation: “As all persons in their different incarnations pass through the various races, therefore, although it may be argued that the European has the advantage over the black and the yellow races, we should not be prejudiced thereby." [Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS (Anthroposophical Publishing Company, 1929), lecture 4.]

What does this amount to? All humans are basically alike, since we all incarnate in the various races — we all move through all of the lower and higher racial forms. So we are all alike, basically. Hence, Steiner's teachings are free of prejudice: Steiner was simply pointing out an objective fact, which is that all good humans move upward, from membership in low races to membership in high races. 

To give a modest example, I am white. Thus, I am almost certainly good. For sure, I am highly evolved. And also for sure, in my previous earthly lives I incarnated in low races, gradually working my way upward in succeeding incarnations until I arrived at my present wonderful whiteness.

No prejudice in any of this, wouldn't you agree?

But I have left out one component in Steiner's racial schema. Good humans evolve upwards. But evil humans move in the opposite direction.

I invite everyone to try a thought experiment: A white is standing next to a black. You've never met either of them, never talked to them, have no information about them except that one is white and one is black. What can you conclude?

According to Steiner, you can know that the white is more highly evolved — spiritually and probably ethically — than the black. People evolve to higher racial forms because they are good. Thus, the white person you see before you is either morally superior to the black or s/he has been morally superior. Perhaps s/he is making moral errors in this life and therefore s/he will slip down a rung or two in the next life — s/he may incarnate in a lower race next time around. Still, even if s/he is morally wobbly just now, s/he is currently superior to any black person in an important sense: S/he occupies a higher level; S/he is a member of a higher race.

Let's take this further. What can you conclude about the black person standing beside the white? Well, s/he is a member of a low race, which means s/he is evil or at least spiritually retarded. According to Steiner, evil people move downward through the races until, in the end, they cease to be human at all. So any black person you see is quite likely an evil soul headed to deeper and deeper levels of depravity OR s/he is a soul that is becoming good but for some reason is far behind in humanity's upward evolutionary march. Perhaps s/he started out in a low race, as we all do; s/he later evolved to higher racial forms; but then s/he became evil and sank to blackness before turning around again and starting to evolve upward again. That's one possibility. Another is that s/he is abnormal in some sense — s/he is spiritually an infant who didn't start evolving until very recently, so she is far behind all the good, mature whites who inhabit the Earth today.

No matter how we cut it, according to Steiner the black is currently lower than the white in an important sense: S/he occupies a lower level; S/he is a member of a lower race.

In sum, you know a lot about the two strangers you see standing side by side. The white is more highly evolved than the black; the black is either evil or s/he spiritually retarded.

Now, ending the thought experiment, ask yourself whether Steiner's views on race are helpful in the real world. What if reincarnation is a crock? What if we are all now living our one and only earthly lives? Then any future epoch of racial harmony is just pie in the sky by and by — it ain't gonna happen. In the real world, here and now, labeling anyone inferior due to race is a permanent judgment: The white is higher, the black is lower, and that's it. Period.

In the real world, in other words, Steiner's views are invidious, discriminatory, prejudicial — they are racist. Presumably Steiner didn't mean to be a racist. Presumably he didn't understand the implications of his own teachings. But that is no excuse. His teachings reek of racism. Period.