Steiner's Specific (Waldorf Watch)

“Master of the bright thunderbolt,

Save men from painful ignorance.”

— Greek poet Cleanthes,

addressing Zeus

STEINER’S SPECIFIC

Thinking Without Our Brains

Rudolf Steiner deemed life in the ordinary, real world to be a hollow sham. The physical universe is harsh and cold. The daily grind is oppressive. Life is bleak. Quoting Goethe, he said “[Y]ou are only a dreary guest on the dark earth.” [1]

Humanity is in pain, Steiner said. He described “the longing human soul in its yearning, tormented emptiness” [2] and he offered his own teachings as the antidote: “[W]e may point to spiritual science as a bearer of the redemption of human longing ... spiritual science now provides what tempestuous but also woeful human beings have sought for a long time.” [3]

Things are worse than ever in the modern age, he suggested, and he knew the reason: Our thinking is badly fouled up. Our values are wrong. And much of this is the result of modern science. Consider how crazy the scientific point of view really is:

“The physicist imagines that each body consists of an infinite number of immeasurable small parts, like atoms. They are not in contact with each other, but they are separated by small interstices. They, in the turn, unite to larger forms, the molecules, which still cannot be discerned by the eye. Only when an infinite number of molecules unite, we get what our senses perceived as bodies ...

“Therefore, the modern physicist says: in reality, nothing exists except swinging, moving atoms; everything else is merely a creation of my brain, formed by it when it is touched by the movement in the outer world.

“I do not have to paint how dismal such a view of the world is.” [4]

In offering us a cure for our spiritual sufferings, Steiner was by no means alone. Many other clerics, theologians, mystics, and gurus have had the same aim, and many of them have attracted far larger followings than Steiner has attracted. But for anyone interested in Waldorf schools, examining Steiner’s teachings is essential.

We all would like to live in a world where we feel comfortably at home, warmly loved, and purposeful. Science describes a rather different reality: We live on a small planet orbiting a nondescript little star, far from the center of our galaxy; and our galaxy is but one of innumerable galaxies; we may be alone in a vast, dark universe; and we descended from apes; and nature is indifferent to us, even at times hostile; and, and... It is safe to say that most people find these ideas disagreeable. Some — undoubtedly a small minority — do not. Some are exhilarated by learning about our intricate, glorious, immense universe — the splendors captured, for instance, in photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. But it is undeniable that as science progresses, humanity's claim that it occupies a central place in the cosmos becomes less and less plausible. [5] In this sense, the need many feel for an alternative, more spiritual vision grows ever greater. Steiner’s solution was to serve up a dizzyingly intricate description of a universe teeming with spiritual powers and beings, a universe profoundly attentive to humanity, a universe in which dull, daily reality fades away, a mere wisp of illusion, nothing compared to the transcendent realms of the spirit.

Steiner said that we are led astray by both modern science and, more generally, materialism. By the latter term, he did not mean lust for material possessions or wealth. He meant the belief that the material or physical universe is all that exists — the belief, in other words, that the laws that science has discovered for physical reality extend everywhere, throughout the universe. Steiner argued that science does a reasonably good job of describing conditions in the immediate here-and-now, but he denied that the same conditions exist elsewhere. He said that the findings of science do not apply to the distant past, or the distant future, or the many levels of nonphysical reality. The material realm, he argued, is a brief, unusual condition, something that evolved out of spiritual reality and that will soon be replaced by a new, higher spiritual reality. Moreover, we are unable to correctly perceive the physical here-and-now if we rely on our senses and brains — "natural" science is, in this sense, useless.

Our life on Earth is generally ruled by illusion. Steiner borrowed the Oriental term “maya” for this condition [6] and he specifically attributed it to Ahriman, who is one of the two chief demons in his theology:

“Ahriman infused into human observation something like a dark smoke cloud that prevents penetration to the spiritual. Through Ahriman's agency man is enmeshed in lies, in maya, in illusion.“ [7]

Steiner differentiated between the Eastern and Western understanding of maya:

“Buddhism emphasises again and again that the outer world is Maya, illusion. Christianity, on the contrary, says: Man may indeed believe that what he sees of the outer world is an illusion, but that is because his organs are so constituted that he cannot see through the external veil to the spiritual world. The outer world is not an illusion; the illusion has its source in the limitations of human seeing ... [H]uman development through a series of incarnations must be seen as a means whereby man can regain, in a Christian sense, his spirit-eyes and spirit-ears in order to see the external world as it really is. Repeated earth-lives are therefore not meaningless: they are the path which will enable man to look at the outer world — from which Buddhism wishes to liberate him — and to see it irradiated by the spirit. To overcome the physical appearance of the world by acquiring the spiritual vision that man does not yet possess, and to dispel the human error whereby the outer world can seem to be only Maya — that is the innermost impulse of Christianity.” [8] In this statement, as in many others, what Steiner means by “Christianity” is actually his own body of doctrines, Anthroposophy — which most Christians would find quite alien to their faith. [9]

Steiner claimed to perceive the outlines of human evolution. He said that we have progressed from primitive types of mysticism to ever higher and more accurate forms, culminating for now in Anthroposophy. He argued that science, too, has evolved. By the 19th century, it had reached a high plateau, and it had some value during that period, but its time is now past. In the modern world, he said, spiritual truth is flowing once again and science must be overcome to enable us to apprehend spiritual truth. Science and the material world are slated for retirement.

“[T]he task of the previous epoch was to find natural science. At that time the laws of nature were good if they were rightly used by man to build up external world conceptions. But there is nothing absolutely good or bad in this external world of Maya [i.e., it is too neutral, lacking comprehension of the absolute]. In our time the laws of Nature would be bad and evil, were they still to be used to build up a world conception at a time when spiritual life is flowing into the sense world. These words are not to be taken as directed against what past ages have done; they are directed against what wants to remain as it was in earlier ages and will not put itself at the service of the new revelation.” [10] The “new revelation” can be found in Anthroposophy, which Steiner called “spiritual science” but actually is — as his words suggest — a religion. [11]

II.

The corrupting influence of scientific, materialistic thinking spreads outward from science into all spheres of human life, including philosophy:

“Nietzsche was impelled to bring up in purely spiritual fashion everything which he thought or experienced in the depth of his soul. To create a world-concept from the spiritual events in which the soul itself participates – this was the tendency of his thought. But the positivistic world conception of his age, the age of natural science, swept in upon him. In this conception there was nothing but the purely materialistic world, void of spirit.” [12]

The blight of scientific, materialistic thinking extends even further, all the way into mainstream religion. (In the following quotation, “Christian” clearly does not refer to Anthroposophy but to orthodox Christian denominations.)

“The brain is an instrument for purely intellectual apprehension. Intellectualism and materialistic thinking are one and the same, for all the thinking that goes on in science, in theology, in the sphere of modern Christian consciousness — all of it is the product of the human brain alone, is materialistic. This manifests itself, on the one hand, in the empty formalism of belief; on the other, in Bolshevism [sic: emphasis by Steiner] ... [T]he materialistic brain represents a process of decay: materialistic thinking unfolds only through processes of destruction, death-processes, which are taking place in the brain.” [13]

Materialistic thinking will doom humanity, creating wholly materialistic human beings, unless we find a spiritualistic remedy. Lacking spiritual truth — that is, lacking Anthroposophy — humanity may cut itself off completely from the spirit. This would be lead to our utter destruction.

“The materialists of to-day would surely protest, if they were to be looked upon as prophets. Nevertheless they are prophets ... If no preventive measures are taken, then the conditions which the materialists describe will really arise; these will then be reality ... [I]f their materialistic world-conception were to triumph, the conditions which I have described to you would have to arise. The materialistic world-conception MUST NOT [sic] triumph! “ [14]

Steiner considered this matter so serious that, in discussing it, he employed a term he usually avoided: sin. Materialistic thinking — which as we have seen is associated with maya caused by Ahriman — is sinful.

“The essential point is to change our ways of thinking and of feeling — otherwise we cannot reach a really spiritual way of looking at things. This gives us an outlook, a perspective, that will help us to achieve the rise from sin as opposed to the fall into sin.” [15] Materialistic thinking, science, is thus evil. It is sinful. And it will lead to our ruination.

The essence of this sin is to rely on the brain. Steiner taught that the brain, being a merely physical organ, is incapable for real cognition. It can learn nothing of ultimate importance. The nerves and brain are merely a physical expression of real cognition, which occurs elsewhere. In this sense, “materialistic thinking” is not so much the content of sinful thoughts as the use of the wrong organ in our efforts to think. The use of the mere, material organ known as the brain leads us into error.

“The beautiful structure of the outer cortex is, in a sense, a degeneration. It represents more of a digestive system in the outer portions of the brain. People need not be particularly proud of the mantle of the brain; it is more like a degeneration ... We have the mantle of the brain so that the nerves having to do with cognition can be properly nourished ... [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 system.” [16]

Actual cognition, according to Steiner, is clairvoyance, and it does not occur in the brain. Here is Steiner discussing the preparation for occult initiation:

“Preparation consists in a strict and definite cultivation of the life of thought and feeling, through which the psycho-spiritual body becomes equipped with higher senses and organs of activity in the same way that natural forces have fitted the physical body with organs built out of indeterminate living matter ... Thoughts and feelings of a new kind and unknown before will be noticed uprising in the soul ... And just as the eyes and ears of the physical body are built by natural forces out of living matter, so will the organs of clairvoyance build themselves out of the feelings and thoughts thus evoked.” [17]

III.

Steiner pinned his teachings on the rejection of science, the brain, and intellect — that is, real knowledge of the real world. Instead, he advocated clairvoyance (which does not exist [18]), operating through imaginary “organs of clairvoyance.” This is moonshine, hogwash, madness. Yet it is the essence of Steiner’s teachings.

Any worldview that warns us away from the use of our brains must be suspect. It deserves our deepest skepticism or, indeed, it deserves utter rejection. Anthroposophy encourages us to turn our backs on truth and the hard-won fruits of human philosophical, scientific, and, yes, theological progress. It encourages us to reject real knowledge and replace it with fantasy, delusion, and ignorance. The only sane response to this advice is a firm No thanks.

Science is mankind’s highest attainment. Raising ourselves laboriously from millennia of ignorance and superstition, we have begun to gain genuine information about our surroundings and ourselves. This is not something we should lightly toss away. It is our finest legacy and our greatest hope. And yet Steiner would junk it in favor of mystical claptrap.

We all yearn for the transcendent. We all chafe at the limitations of our lives and conditions, our unfulfilled desires, our mortality. We all wish for something more — we want to rise from dreariness to joyous fulfillment. But it should be perfectly clear that we will solve none of our problems by rejecting real knowledge and turning to fanciful illusions. We must stand firmly on the truth, whether or not we find the truth disagreeable. We must have the courage to face reality and make the best of it. Running away into fantasy solves nothing.

If we are to improve our lot, we will do it by turning to precisely the things Steiner wanted us to discount: our brains, rationality, science, and our expanding store of real information: real knowledge. This is the true path, the upward ascent from blindness to sight, from falsehood to truth. We have been led upward by the great scientists, philosophers, scholars, and theologians of the past, incandescent minds who fought the darkness. We should build on their gifts to us, not squander them. We have it in our power to improve ourselves, if only we will have the courage and intellectual honesty to do so.

AFTERWORD

Why did Rudolf Steiner try to foist his cockeyed, occult fantasies on us? We cannot know. Perhaps he was telling the absolute truth, as he understood it. Perhaps he felt the pain of which he spoke; perhaps ordinary existence was a grievous burden to him, and he turned to occultism out of genuine need and conviction. Perhaps. But other possibilities come to mind. Here's one. I offer it not to assail Steiner the man, but in an effort to place an historical figure in context for whatever light this may provide. Evaluating Steiner's teachings is far more important than attempting to understand Steiner as an individual. Nonetheless, trying to bring historical figures into focus can be informative, making them live in our comprehension and thus helping us to understand their work, at least tangentially.

Bear in mind that flawed individuals can make wise statements, and wonderful individuals can speak foolishly. Thus, Steiner's personal weaknesses and strengths have no necessary bearing on the validity of his teachings. Still, holding that proviso in mind, consider the following. It is possible that Steiner became an occultist because he suffered from thwarted ambition. Failing to receive recognition as a great philosopher, he turned to fraudulent spiritualism for the recognition he coveted.

Perhaps I am right about this, perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps this shines light, perhaps it doesn't. You decide.

Steiner claimed that he had spiritualistic experiences and knowledge beginning in his early youth, and some of his earliest publications bear at least a suggestion of this claim. [19] After graduation from college, he edited the scientific works of Goethe, which express Goethe’s own esotericism. But most of Steiner’s early, original writing was rational and conventional, not esoteric. Considering himself a man of letters, Steiner became editor of Deutsche Wochenschrift (German Weekly. “1887: At the beginning of this year, Rudolf Steiner is very sick. As ... his health improves, he becomes increasingly a ‘man of letters,’ lecturing, writing essays ... 1888: January-July: Rudolf Steiner assumes editorship of the ‘German Weekly.’” [20]

Steiner’s first book, A THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE IMPLICIT IN GOETHE'S WORLD CONCEPTION, appeared in 1886. It was followed by TRUTH AND SCIENCE (1892) and THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM (1893). Anthroposophists today try to make these books appear consistent with their spiritualistic beliefs, but it is a struggle. “Although practically all [Anthroposophical] commentators on Steiner's work agree that THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM ... contains within it all of the essentials of anthroposophy, the book itself makes no mention of a spiritual world ... [N]or does any other standard anthroposophical theme, like karma, the afterlife, or reincarnation make an appearance.” [21]

Steiner hoped that THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM would establish his reputation as a leading thinker, but it did not. [22] Still, he continued to work in ordinary channels. In 1895, he published NIETZCHE, A FIGHTER AGAINST HIS TIME, followed by other more or less conventional works. In 1897, he became editor of Magazin für Literatur (“Magazine for Literature”). His writings in this period were indifferent or even hostile to spiritualism, especially Theosophy.

Despite his efforts, Steiner was not hailed as the next great German philosopher, and in fact he fell into poverty. “[I]n Wiemar, he was to lodge with Frau Anna Eunicke, a widow ... After this, he lived in Berlin, for a short while in utter misery in lodgings, and then moved in under Anna Eunicke’s roof [1897] and married her [1899]. It seems likely that she moved first to Berlin and he followed her.” [23]

During these years, Steiner was “very active in the political, artistic, and theatrical life in Berlin.” [24] He made his way in important circles, but uneasily. “Though he later had a number of aristocratic patrons and followers, he was not at home in the drawing room ... Spending his early maturity among the intelligentsia of Vienna, Weimar, and Berlin, where he frequented salons and cafes for a while, he nevertheless cultivated his distance from them....” [25]

After several years working as a literary man, Steiner rather suddenly became a Theosophist and started lecturing about occult “truths.” “In 1898, after going through a mental and spiritual crisis, he began to turn away from cultural education ... The jump from tacit socialism to explicit Theosophy was not easy to explain.” [26] Steiner’s friends and students were startled and largely uncomprehending. “[H]e began to break his silence [about spiritual matters]. This proved to be a very challenging issue. Probably the secularized sophisticates found him comical and the aesthetes felt him to be a puzzle. Steiner perceived that the metropolitan literary minds he encountered were unaware that their destines and his were karmically linked.” [27]

Steiner left much of his previous life and many of his previous associates — including his wife — behind. “Rudolf Steiner had been connected with hundreds of people during the early years of his life, but not one of these accompanied him into his public activity when he began to speak from his own spiritual-scientific research and experience [i.e., his professed clairvoyant visions].” [28] Steiner left his wife in 1903.

Steiner soon became head of the German Theosophical Society, and in 1904 he published one of his seminal occultist works, KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT. He began devoting virtually all of his considerable energies to occultism. “1905: This year, Steiner ends his non-theosophical lecturing activity. Supported by Marie von Sivers his Theosophical lecturing ... increases significantly.” [29]

Marie von Sievers was an aristocrat. "She came from a noble German-Baltic background ... She owned the Theosophical headquarters in Berlin, and at some point she and Steiner lived together in her apartment in this house ... From the end of 1903 Steiner and von Sievers were inseparably together ... and in 1914, three years after the death of Anna Eunicke, Steiner and von Sievers would marry." [30]

Steiner released his magnum opus, OCCULT SCIENCE - AN OUTLINE, in 1910, and three years later he broke with Theosophy in order to establish his own occult movement, Anthroposophy. [31] He developed what, by his own estimate, was a large following: “The Anthroposophical movement has become a large one.” [32] The movement was sufficiently well financed to build a large headquarters in Switzerland — and when this was destroyed by fire, to erect an equally large replacement. [33]

In 1919, a lionized spiritual leader, Steiner oversaw the creation of the first Waldorf school. [34] The rest is history.

II.

Curiosity about historical figures is natural and, to some extent, it can be productive. But we need to keep things in perspective. Our main focus should be on ideas, not on the people who express those ideas. Steiner may or may not have been a great guy; it doesn't make much difference. What we need to know is whether or not his ideas are true, and we can make this judgment only by focusing on his ideas and thinking about them carefully.

I think Steiner was a fraud. If I'm right, this is a marginally useful insight. However, it doesn't tell us anything conclusive about the quality of Steiner's ideas. A fraud may speak the truth, even if s/he does so unintentionally or unknowingly. A fraud may tell what s/he thinks are lies, but these statements may actually be pearls of great wisdom — the fraud just doesn't know it. The only way for us to know is to forget the speaker and attend to the speech, the words, the meaning.

Anthroposophists sometimes think that the way to settle an issue is to find out what Steiner said on the subject. He said thus-and-so, which means that thus-and-so is the right answer. This is clearly the wrong approach. Maybe 99.9% of everything Steiner ever said was right, but if we happen to be arguing about the one matter where he was wrong, then taking his word on that subject would be a mistake.

The same goes in reverse, of course. Even if 99.9% of Steiner's statements were garbage, we must remain open to the possibility that the next statement of his we consider will turn out to be, miraculously, right. The only way to evaluate ideas is to focus on the ideas.

Curiosity about historical figures is natural and, to some extent, it can be productive. But the extent is distinctly limited. So let's return our focus to Waldorf education:

III.

Perhaps the most fundamental problem with Waldorf schools, IMO, is that the Waldorf conception of thinking and knowledge — epistemology, if you will — is so deeply irrational. Think of the implications for institutions that are meant to foster thinking and convey knowledge: the schools we send our kids to.

Waldorf schools often say that they encourage imagination — which is true, and it may seem swell. But in Steiner's doctrines, imagination is the first of three stages on the path to clairvoyance, and clairvoyance is the goal. Waldorf schools often conceal this (along with a great deal more) but this is central to their mission. The mission of any real Waldorf school — by which I mean any school that is faithful to the teachings of Rudolf Steiner — is to assist students along the path to clairvoyance. Accordingly, the schools try to prepare students for future human evolution, as described by Steiner. The next stage of our evolution will occur on or during Jupiter, followed by Venus and Vulcan. As we undergo this evolution — following the "divine cosmic plan" created by the "gods" — we will attain higher and higher states of consciousness until we ourselves become gods. And the payoff? “[W]e shall have gradually achieved the transformation of our own being into what is called in Christianity ‘the Father.’” [35]

I have just given you an extremely concise outline of the Anthroposophical view. To most people, the Anthroposophical view is nuts. (And to mainstream Christians, it is sacrilegious.) Unless a parent feels otherwise and sees good solid sense in Anthroposophy, s/he should almost certainly not send a child to a real Waldorf school. Waldorfs do not turn all their students into junior Anthroposophists, of course, but the schools try to at least nudge students in the direction of Steinerish occultism. Remember Steiner's avowal: "Anthroposophy will be in the school." [36]

The concept of thinking and knowledge underlying Waldorf schools comes mainly from Rudolf Steiner himself. We can see Steiner's epistemology, in its earliest and purest form, in his book THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM (1893). The book does not contain Anthroposophical doctrines, as such, but Anthroposophists today generally try to make the contents of the book seem fully consistent with Steiner's later, occult teachings. Steiner himself encouraged this — once he became an avowed occultist, he tried to reinterpret his prior work to suit his new role as a spiritual guru. (Steiner was almost incapable of admitting that he had made mistakes or changed his mind.)

Here's another very concise summary: In the fewest possible words, I’ll try to describe spiritual epistemology as Steiner and his followers came to understand it. At the core of oneself is a pure, authentic Self, an "I". When the "I" thinks about its own thoughts in a disciplined manner, the difference between subject and object vanishes and a higher, transcendent consciousness becomes possible. This consciousness produces, or even consists of, inherently authentic Truth. The labors of "materialistic" thinking (rational argumentation, etc.) become unnecessary because direct access to Truth has been attained.

Certain problems obviously arise from this set of ideas. Consciousness focusing upon itself may not be a transcendence of subjectivity but the intensification of subjectivity. According to Steiner, truly knowing and truly feeling are the same: We must develop "the power of spiritual cognition, spiritual perception, spiritual feeling." [37] This is the heartfelt "thinking" Waldorf schools try to promote; it is more akin to emotion that to rational cogitation. You know that something is true because it feels so true, deep inside. It rings your spiritual bell.

Let’s dwell on that last point for a moment. How can one be sure that the Truth that feels so right, inwardly — the Truth provided by intuition — is not simply a subjective wish? Steiner saw the problem, and his answer was that "living thoughts" are implanted in us before we are born. “The cosmic ether, which is common to all, carries within it the thoughts; there they are within it, those living thoughts of which I have repeatedly spoken in our anthroposophical lectures, telling you how the human being participates in them in pre-earthly life before he comes down to Earth. There, in the cosmic ether, are contained all the living thoughts there are; and never are they received from the cosmic ether during the life between birth and death. No; the whole store of living thought that man holds within him, he receives at the moment when he comes down from the spiritual world — when, that is, he leaves his own living element, his own element of living thought, and descends and forms his ether body. Within this ether body, within that which is the building and organising force in man, are the living thoughts; there they are, there they still are.” [38]

Thus, correct intuition is the apprehension of divinity and its gifts, living within us. We don't really need to think: All we have to do is commune with ourselves, finding the prepackaged "living thoughts" that we carry inside.

Notice how Steiner's seemingly straightforward philosophical argument about the sources of knowledge ballooned into an occult theology. In order for the thesis of PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM to be correct in the way Anthroposophy needs it to be correct, a vast body of occult belief became necessary, and Steiner provided it in his approximately umpteen-quadzillion occult lectures. Of course, Steiner asserted that his doctrines are not beliefs but living thoughts, Truths. But they are "true" only because he defined them as true; they emerge from a form of consciousness that depends on them for its existence. It’s a closed loop, one that cannot be examined by any outside observer. A living thought is any idea that is correctly revealed by intuition, and intuition is defined as the power to reveal living thoughts, which by definition are true. How do we test this? We know we are correctly using our intuition when the ideas it yields ring our bell — we get a “spiritual feeling” that is the same as “spiritual perception.”

No one else can hear the bell, unfortunately, but that's how it goes. In other words, a clairvoyant may absolutely know in his/her heart that s/he is correct about something, but no one else can know — there is no way for an outsider observer to test a clairvoyant’s inwardly revealed “living thought.” And that’s okay, Steiner said. Testing and proving things, he explained, is beside the point. "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'...." [39] The process of opening oneself to “living thoughts” is beyond testing because it is beyond “materialistic” or brain-centered thinking. By definition, intuition is living-thinking is clairvoyance is truth, and all’s well.

Steiner did add one clarification. True intuition or living-thinking should not be confused with any old form of clairvoyance; there are higher and lower forms of clairvoyance. The real kind, the kind that yields the truest truths, is "exact" clairvoyance. “The philosophical standpoint from which I speak definitely starts from a healthy psyche and attempts on this basis to develop powers dormant in the soul, cognitive powers, which then become clairvoyant powers ... exact clairvoyance.” [40] Steiner had to specify what sort of clairvoyance is correct, since other "clairvoyants" said they "saw" things quite unlike what he "saw." So he laid down this stipulation. And what does it ultimately mean? “Exact clairvoyance" is clairvoyance that agrees with Steiner’s doctrines. By definition, all other forms of clairvoyance are, to one degree or another, incorrect.

You may bridle at this, but hold your indignation. There is a deeper problem than trying to decide what form of clairvoyance is best. The problem is this: Does clairvoyance exist at all, in any form, at any level of exactitude? As far as we know, the answer is no. There is simply no evidence that any form of clairvoyance exists. (See “Clairvoyance”.)

And this leads to a crucial point. No outside observer can confirm anything that a "clairvoyant" feels to be true — and neither can the "clairvoyant." S/he may firmly feel that the idea is right, but there is no way s/he can know for sure. A deeply believed fantasy may feel just as right; a pleasant hallucination may, as well. In fact, if someone yearns for spiritual truth, the "intuitive" fulfillment of that yearning may quite easily be nothing but the unconscious affirmation of the desire. You go in search of the vision your guru has primed you for, and you have it, and... And, what? If you have the vision you've been primed for, and if it "feels" the way you've been told to expect, then you may easily be doing nothing but deluding yourself, feeding yourself the fantasy you so keenly want. Steiner stressed the need for a guru. A seeker “would find himself plunged into the stormy sea of astral [i.e., soul] experiences if he were left to fend for himself. For this reason he needs a guide who can tell him from the start how these things are related and how to find his bearings in the astral world. Hence the need to find a Guru on whom he can strictly rely.“ [41] Notice that wording: "strictly rely." Absolute reliance. Obedience. Faith.

So in this sense, too, the form of thought advocated by Steiner is not real thinking at all. You don't develop "living thoughts" out of your own brain. These "thoughts" are either prerecorded ideas that have been implanted in you before birth (if you can buy this explanation), or they are notions your guru has implanted in you — or they are both. They are not, in any event, your own thoughts. They are not, really, thoughts at all. They are marching orders, or fantasies — or both.

Well, then, where does this all leave us? What can we make of the epistemology underlying Waldorf schools — and what are the implications for Waldorf education? a) The epistemology is bogus. No one following Steiner's prescriptions can attain any verifiable knowledge — verifiable by others or even by oneself. b) Waldorf education is built on, and largely consists of, pipe dreams. It stresses a form of "thought" that is not thinking at all, but feeling, "intuiting," perhaps fantasizing. It, too, is bogus.

— Roger Rawlings

Rudolf Steiner [public domain,

cover art: Richard Seddon. RUDOLF STEINER

(North Atlantic Books, 2004)].

The clairvoyant, who does not rely on the brain, sees the whole picture (left).

The rationalist, using the brain alone, sees only the skeletons of ideas (right).

[R.R., 2009, based on sketch by Steiner.]

"Repeated earth-lives are therefore not meaningless:

they are the path which will enable man to look at the outer world

— from which Buddhism wishes to liberate him —

and to see it irradiated by the spirit.

To overcome the physical appearance of the world

by acquiring the spiritual vision that man does not yet possess,

and to dispel the human error whereby the outer world can seem to be only Maya

— that is the innermost impulse of Christianity.”

[R.R. sketch, 2009.]

Painting by a Waldorf student.

Rudolf Steiner

[Rudolf Steiner, THE STORY OF MY LIFE

(Kessinger Publishing, facsimile of 1928 edition,

Anthroposophical Publishing Co.), facing p. 320.]

Waldorf schools cannot entirely dispense with intellectual pursuits.

Academic subjects must be covered.

Among them, geometry is held in special esteem:

Steiner said this subject helped him apprehend

transcendent reality.

Painting by a Waldorf student.

For more on science as conceived by Steiner,

see "Steiner's 'Science'" and "Science".

For more on materialistic thinking,

see "Materialism U".

◊◊◊◊

ENDNOTES

[1] Rudolf Steiner, MYSTICISM AT THE DAWN OF THE MODERN AGE (Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1980) - introduction by Steiner. http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA007/English/GA007_Intro.html

[2] Rudolf Steiner, THE SPIRITUAL HIERARCHIES AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 224.

[3] Ibid., p. 231.

[4] Rudolf Steiner, “Atomism and its Refutation” (The Mercury Press, 1975).

[5] Steiner called Anthroposophy “spiritual science.” He argued that forms of spiritual science have existed throughout human history, with Anthroposophy being the latest, highest form. Of course, he did not include spiritual science in the category of sciences that he deplored.

[6] Maya is originally a Hindu concept, but it can also be found in Buddhism and other Eastern faiths.

[7] Rudolf Steiner, THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN, XII http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GospJohn2/19090705p02.html.

[8] Rudolf Steiner, METAMORPHOSES OF THE SOUL, Vol. 1, lecture 8 http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Metamorph1/19091202p02.html

[9] See “Was He Christian?”

[10] Rudolf Steiner, THE FESTIVALS AND THEIR MEANING (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), p. 368.

[11] See "Is Anthroposophy a Religion?”

[12] Rudolf Steiner, THE STORY OF MY LIFE (Kessinger Publishing, 2003), p. 183.

[13] THE FESTIVALS AND THEIR MEANING, pp. 147-148.

[14] Anthroposophic News Sheet 22nd of January 1940 No. 3-4 (Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, 1940) http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/OutFut_index.html: “this seems to be a condensed version of the three lectures comprising the series, ‘Significant Facts Pertaining to the Spiritual Life of the Middle of the XIXth Century.’”

[15] Rudolf Steiner, “Realism and Nominalism”, January 27, 1923 (Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, 1934), http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/ReaNom_index.html.

[16] Rudolf Steiner, FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (SteinerBooks, 1996), p. 60. Perhaps people in Steiner’s day had some excuse for accepting his utterly bizarre statements about human organs, such as the brain and heart. Today, there is no excuse. (Science “sees the heart as a pump that pumps blood through the body. Now there is nothing more absurd than believing this, for the heart has nothing to do with pumping the blood.” [Rudolf Steiner, FREUD, JUNG, AND SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY (SteinerBooks, 2001), pp. 124-125. ])

[17] Rudolf Steiner, KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT (Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., 1944), pp. 27-28.

[19] Goethe’s spirtualistic interests appealed to Steiner and were reflected in his own writings. Steiner agreed with Goethe that the inwardness of phenomena is at least as important as any outwardly verifiable qualities. What some would call mere subjectivity was, for Steiner, a portal into truth. During his time editing Magazin für Literatur, he wrote an essay on Goethe’s fairy tale, “The Beautiful Lady and the Green Snake”. “Since the 1880s I had been occupied with imaginations [i.e., visions produced through imagination] that, for me, became connected with this fairy tale. Goethe’s way of moving from the observations of nature into the innermost recesses of the human soul ... I found expressed in the fairy tale. Concepts seemed to Goethe too poor, too dead, to represent the living, working forces of the soul.” [Rudolf Steiner, quoted by Henry Barnes in A LIFE FOR THE SPIRIT, pp. 75-76. Barnes notes, “It was clear to Steiner that with this fairy tale, one ‘had entered the outer courtyard of the esoteric.’”]

For Steiner on Steiner, see Rudolf Steiner, THE STORY OF MY LIFE (Kessigner Publishing, 2003; facsimile of 1928 edition) and Rudolf Steiner, AUTOBIOGRAPHY (Anthroposophical Press, 2006) — essentially the same book but with a useful chronology, pp. xvi-xxix, and index, pp. 351-366.

For sympathetic or at least even-handed accounts of Steiner’s life, see Geoffrey Ahern, SUN AT MIDNIGHT (James Clarke & Co., 2009), Henry Barnes, A LIFE FOR THE SPIRIT (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), Gary Lachman, RUDOLF STEINER (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2007), and Peter Washington, MADAME BLAVATSKY’S BABOON (Secker & Warburg, 1993). The last-named is by far the most skeptical.

[20] Rudolf Steiner, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, pp. xvii-xviii.

By Steiner’s own account, generally accepted by Anthroposophists, he became an occult initiate while still a boy. “1881-1882: Felix Koguzki, the herb gardener, reveals himself to be the envoy of another, higher initiatory personality, who instructs Rudolf Steiner....” [Ibid., p. xviii.] Steiner claimed to have received a sort of double initiation. “Rudolf Steiner himself speaks of two initiatory encounters ... The first is with the herb gatherer Felix Koguzki and the other with the Master ‘M.,’ traditionally taken to be Christian Rosenkreutz.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE SECRET STREAM: Christian Rosenkreutz and Rosicrucianism (SteinerBooks, 2000), p. 248 - afterword by Christopher Bamford.]

Steiner generally kept his occult wisdom under wraps for many years after his "initiation." One interpretation is that his lips were sealed by the rules of the occult order he entered. Other interpretations are possible, of course.

[21] Lachman, RUDOLF STEINER, p. 92.

[22] Largely ignored, the book became scarce not long after its release and remained so for many years. It was re-released in 1918 by an Anthroposophical press. In his preface to that revised edition, Steiner wrote "This book has now been out of print for many years. I feel that the same things need to be said today as twenty-five years ago...." The book has subsequently been published by Anthroposophical presses under varying titles, including INTUITIVE THINKING AS A SPIRITUAL PATH (Anthroposophic Press, 1995). As the publisher of that edition reports, "Of all of his works, INTUITIVE THINKING AS A SPIRITUAL PATH is the one that Rudolf Steiner himself believed would have the longest life." [Ibid.]

[23] Ahern, SUN AT MIDNIGHT, p. 31. Dates taken from Rudolf Steiner, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, p. xx.

According to Henry Barnes, “Another circumstance of his life in Weimar ... occurred after nearly two years of unsatisfactory bachelor life ... Frau Eunicke offered Rudolf Steiner an apartment in here house with the understanding that he would help with her children’s education ... This provided Steiner with the living situation he needed....” [Barnes, A LIFE FOR THE SPIRIT, p. 55.]

[24] AUTOBIOGRAPHY, p. xx.

[25] Peter Washington, MADAME BLAVATSKY’S BABOON, pp. 151-152.

[26] Ibid., p. 152.

Steiner’s relationships with other Theosophists were strained. Annie Besant, a leading Theosophist, had misgivings. “Over the next ten years had Steiner had a difficult relationship with Mrs Besant ... [S]he mistrutsed his ambitions within the Society.” [Washington, p. 153.]

[27] Ahern, p. 35.

[28] Barnes, A LIFE FOR THE SPIRIT, p. 80.

Steiner was a secularist before his sudden conversion to Theosophy. Here, for instance, are comments he made about the occultism movement he himself would soon join:

"...I advise anyone who meets with a Theosophist to stand fast, look him in the eye and with total sincerity, genuinely endeavor to glean something from the revelations of such a consummate 'enlightened one' who radiates Eastern wisdom from 'his inner being.' You will of course hear absolutely nothing, nothing but hollow phrases lifted from the Eastern scriptures, without even a hint of content.

"These 'inner experiences' are nothing short of hypocrisy. After all, it's not much of a trick to pull phrases out of a profound literature and then use them to declare that the sum and substance of Western expertise is totally worthless. Yet, [in reality], how much depth, how much inwardness actually lies behind the supposedly superficial intellect, behind the external concepts of Western science, of which the Theosophists haven't the slightest idea!

"But ... the mystical way in which they assert incomprehensible foreign wisdom actually seduces a fair number of their contemporaries.

"It also proves advantageous to the Theosophists that they are able to stay on good terms with the Spiritualists and other off-beat, like-minded seekers of the spirit. Oh, sure, they [the Theosophists] contend that these Spiritualists treat the phenomena of the spirit world as external; whereas, they themselves [the Theosophists] seek to experience such phenomena as strictly within as well as totally spiritual. But they are not above walking hand in hand with the Spiritualists when they deem such an alliance to help them wage war on the unfettered science, the straightforward science of the modern era, which is solely supported by reason and observation." [Rudolf Steiner's, "Theosophists" ("MAGAZINE FOR LITERATURE" Nr. 34.,1897),translated by Tom Mellett. The essay is reprinted in the collected edition "STEINER, COLLECTED ESSAYS IN LITERATURE", pp. 194-96 . GA 32.]

Note how Steiner's comments undercut his own later views, such as the emphasis he placed on inner experiences, and his opposition to what he called "natural" science — i.e., " what he here calls "Western science."

[29] AUTOBIOGRAPHY, p. xxii.

“In 1903 he moved out of Anna Eunicke’s house and into the Berlin Theosophical headquarters, where Fraulein von Sievers also lived.” [Washington, p. 153.]

Marie’s family name is given variously as Sivers and Sievers.

[30] Ahern, p. 36.

[31] AUTOBIOGRAPHY, pp. xxiii-xxv.

[32] Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER IN THE WALDORF SCHOOL (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p.156.

[33] “1913: Expulsion of the German section from the Theosophical Society [which Steiner headed]. February 2-3: Foundation meeting of the Anthroposophical Society ... Laying of the foundation stone for the Johannes Bau (Goetheanum)....” AUTOBIOGRAPHY, p. xxv.

The first Goetheanum burned at the end of 1922. Work on the new building began soon, but it was not completed until after Steiner’s death in 1925.

[34] Ibid., p. xxvi.

[35] Rudolf Steiner, THE LORD’S PRAYER (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007), p. 17.

[36] Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 495.

[37] Rudolf Steiner, THE FESTIVALS AND THEIR MEANING (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), pp. 248.

[38] Rudolf Steiner, CURATIVE EDUCATION, lecture 2, 26th June, 1924.

[39] Rudolf Steiner, DEEPER INSIGHTS INTO EDUCATION (Anthroposophic Press, 1983), p. 29.

[40] Rudolf Steiner, THE TENSION BETWEEN EAST AND WEST (Anthroposophic Press, 1983), p. 40.

[41] Rudolf Steiner, AT THE GATES OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1986), p. 156.