What to Make of It: A Review
Here are a couple of inflammatory statements: ◊ By and large, Waldorf schools are immoral.
◊ The Anthroposophical mindset consists of ignorance and superstition.
These are, I know, statements that are bound to antagonize some readers, and I'm sorry for that. I’ll explain why I make them, but first please let me say that in denouncing Waldorf schools, I do not question the motives or intentions of individual Waldorf school teachers. I have often said that I think most Waldorf teachers have good intentions. I have also acknowledged that many Waldorf teachers are not deeply immersed in Anthroposophy. I’ve gone so far as to state that even the Waldorf teachers who are immersed in it — indeed, even the generality of Anthroposophists everywhere, whether or not they are associated with Waldorf schools — are almost surely good, compassionate people.
And yet I wind up by making inflammatory remarks. Why?
◊ I say that Waldorf schools are wicked not because they are staffed by evil people — the sorts who, according to Steiner, will eventually form the evil race and be consigned to the abyss. [1] No, the schools are wicked because, if they follow Steiner’s wishes, they attempt to lure students toward occultism, specifically Steiner’s concocted occultism, Anthroposophy. Because occultism is divorced from both reason and reality (I will return to these points), the goal of the schools is damaging to children and hence immoral. Moreover, very often the schools attempt to attain their occult ends without clearly informing the students’ parents and getting their explicit permission. This is extraordinarily immoral.
The true-believing Anthroposophists among Waldorf faculties, the ones who often rule the schools, believe that they are acting for the good, in compliance with the “gods’ divine cosmic plan.” [2] As individuals, they have good intentions, as I've said. But their messianic motive is no excuse. They strive to lure children — usually without the parents’ consent — into an occult faith that is baseless, irrational, ignorant, and superstitious (I repeat, I will return to these points). This undertaking may be well-intended, but it is deeply wrong. Anthroposophy is, at best, a fantasy. At worst, it is a delusion. In either case, it cannot serve as a guide to living — it cannot equip people for life in the real world — precisely because it is so disconnected from the real world. Luring kids away from reality and into a fog of fantasy and/or delusion is profoundly wrong.
But wait. What do I mean by reality? Am I a mere blinkered “materialistic thinker,” cut off from the sublime reality that Steiner revealed? Well, by “reality” I mean the universe we can apprehend with our rational minds and our rational tools of investigation such as science. This universe is physical, for sure — but it is also psychological, mental, and spiritual. All the spirit that truly exists, exists in the real universe. The spirit of love, the spirit of self-sacrifice, the spirit of truth — these exist in the real universe, or they don’t exist at all. I affirm that they do exist, and that reality encompasses them. But the “supersensible” reality of Anthroposophy does not exist, or at least we cannot know that it exists.
Steiner’s entire, elaborate cosmology hinges on clairvoyance, and we have no good reason — none, zip — to think that true clairvoyance is available to any human being. Researchers, including many who want clairvoyance to exist, have searched for it in vain. “Clairvoyants” turn out to get things right no more than about 50% of the time. Using their “powers,” they come up with correct answers no more often than they would if they were merely making random guesses or tossing a coin. Go to a psychic, if you like; or flip a coin. You’ll get equally valid information from these sources.
But, but!! How can I say these things?! Caramba! Poor, benighted materialist. Well, I can say these things because I can read and reason. For example, I can read standard psychology texts, which dismiss clairvoyance, ESP, and other forms of psychic powers as — to put this charitably — unproven. [3] And, having read, I can assess what the texts say by using my brain. But, caramba!, cry the Anthroposophists (the Spanish ones, anyway) — there is no real knowledge to be found in ordinary, conventional, “materialistic” publications. Aha, I rejoin, this brings me to my next points.
Ignorance and superstition. Let’s take these one at a time.
◊ Ignorance. Educated people, those who know something about how the world actually works, have recourse to a store of information that humanity has gradually, patiently acquired over the centuries. The storehouses of this knowledge are found in the hard sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and in painstakingly assembled compendia such as the Britannica. To reject the actual information that is found in physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, history, sociobiology, and so forth, is to opt for ignorance. And this is precisely what Steiner recommends. Repudiate “scientific trash.” [4] Reject the work of “historians, sociologists, economists” or, in general, “so-called educated people in the universities.” [5] Rely, instead, on Steiner’s own teachings, his “spiritual science.”
But real scientists, such as Nobel-Prize Winner Max von Laue, have testified that Steiner’s teachings amount to little more than “unconscious humor” — they are almost entirely devoid of real knowledge or information. [6] Science and Anthroposophy stand at odds with one another on almost all points. Steiner claimed this would change; he claimed that conventional science would eventually confirm his “spiritual scientific” findings. But this has not happened — if anything, in the 84+ years since his death, science has moved ever farther away from the concepts found in Steiner’s teachings. It’s odd that a clairvoyant who could foresee the future did not foresee this. [7]
Steiner was highly educated. He was not, in the normal sense, ignorant. But he elected to become ignorant by rejecting actual knowledge and substituting startling misinformation in its stead. He taught that the heart is not a pump, that the planets do not orbit the Sun, that there is no such force as gravity. [8] He chose what we might call volitional, functional ignorance, even while he laid claim to great insight. Thus, he didn’t hesitate to “correct” Einstein, or astrophysicists, or medical doctors. [9] But in virtually all cases, his “corrections” are incorrect — they are ignorant and wrong.
Steiner’s guidance to his followers boils down to an order to reject real knowledge. I hasten to add that I am not calling Anthroposophists, as individuals, ignoramuses. I’m talking about Steiner’s ideology, not the mental equipment of Anthroposophists. I’ve known Anthroposophists who were bright, articulate, and well-informed. But if anyone wants to fully obey Steiner, s/he needs to set aside much of what s/he knows and rely instead on the product of what Steiner called “exact clairvoyance”. Which leads us to:
◊ Superstition. Anthroposophy insists that the universe is a magical place chockablock with unseen presences, mystery wisdom, occult secrets hidden from all but the initiated. According to Steiner, cognition comes not from the brain but from radical, disciplined subjectivity yielding psychic powers. These powers are situated in incorporeal “organs,” particularly “organs of clairvoyance.” [10] Believing in such organs is an exercise in pure faith, since there is no evidence for their existence. Indeed, the lack of evidence (aside from clairvoyant visions, which are worthless) makes such belief indistinguishable from superstition.
And that ain’t the half of it. The universe as Steiner described it is a place where black magic is real; alchemy is real; astrological influences are real; the universe is a place where special prayers, when rewritten and/or recited backwards, confer special powers; where magic preparations, produced according to special instructions and applied under certain astrological conditions, make the earth yield most excellent foods; where murder can yield dark knowledge and powers; where seers (especially a certain Austro-German savant) can peer into the past and into the future and down to the core of the Earth and up to the heights of the heavens; where following certain specifications (provided by you-know-who) will enable humans to transform themselves into super-humans, über-humans, in coming evolutionary cycles; where magical medical practices (using certain colored crayons, consuming certain herbs, applying certain salves, speaking certain words) trump real medicine; where... [11]
I’ll pause while you catch your breath.
Shall we go one? According to Anthroposophy, goblins, giants, and other fantastical creatures really exist; Thor and Zeus and other pagan gods really exist; the characters in Shakespeare's play’s really exist, alive, in spirit land; ancestors of today's humans migrated to other planets and then returned; there is a secret, invisible, celestial script (you can read it if you follow Steiner’s instructions); you can converse with the dead (if you follow Steiner’s instructions); dragons once roamed the earth — you will know this if you gain clairvoyance; and in that case, you will also know that Buddha was crucified on Mars; and Christ is the Sun God; and Jehovah resides on the Moon; and Lucifer has his headquarters on Venus; and the Moon is, in effect, a celestial fortress, one of many colonies in outer space; and karma is for real; reincarnation is for real; elephants have graveyards inside caves; continents float in the sea; humans living on the Moon used to breathe air thicker than water; animals evolved from humans, not vice versa; bees have a higher consciousness than humans, and corals are even more advanced; and... [12]
I’ll pause again. But maybe you’ve had enough?
Ye gods and little fishes! All of Steiner's amazing statements would be wonderfully exciting, if there were any basis for believing even a small part of them. But they are all obvious fantasy, a farrago of fairy tales, phantasmagoric flapdoodle. They are superstition that ought to be beneath the dignity of any rational adult. Yet Steiner asks his followers to believe all of this, and much, much more. (If you would like further instances of Steinerian superstitions and nonsense, please consult “Steiner’s Blunders,” “Steiner’s Logic,” and “Steiner’s Bile”. You could also entertain yourself with “Steiner’s ‘Science’”, “Steiner’s Quackery”, and “Atlantis and the Aryans,” among other modest offerings.)
I’ll conclude by repeating myself, but in reverse order. Anthroposophy contains no real knowledge; it consists of superstitions and/or delusions. The reason for this is that Steiner disavowed real knowledge; he opted for a voluntary form of ignorance which he called occult wisdom. Waldorf schools are immoral if and when they attempt to lure students into this miasma of phantasms and ignorance. They are extraordinarily immoral if and when they do this behind the students’ parents’ backs.
I think it is quite clear that Rudolf Steiner was wrong about almost everything. But that isn't the most important point. What is truly important is that parents who are considering Waldorf schools for their children should know what Steiner taught. And then they should ask themselves whether they feel comfortable entrusting the education of their children to people who think Steiner was right.
For a quick review of spiritual beings that Steiner said really exist,
For a review of evil and sin, including the Ten Commandments, see "Sin"
Many of Steiner's doctrines contain elements that are little more than superstition. For an overview, see "Superstition"
To peer into the messianism if Anthroposophy, and the tendency to demonize opponents,
Afterword
My father fought, and nearly died, in World War II, in Europe, bombing Germany. If he had died in the war, I would not exist. So, the war has always been of interest to me. I've read a great deal about the war and the events leading up to it, largely in order to try to understand the appeal of Adolf Hitler. How could a sophisticated nation such a Germany deliver itself into the hands of a racist lunatic like Hitler? How, at an even deeper level, could Germany have acceded to Nazi insanity and evil so profoundly as to allow what is probably the greatest crime in all of human history, the Holocaust?
I think I understand the answers to these questions. I think I can imagine what it was like to live in defeated, ravaged, impoverished, humiliated, riven Germany — and to see possible salvation in a Leader who loudly proclaimed the divine superiority of our master race: Us, the best, the once and future winners. I think I understand.
And yet, at some level, Hitler and the Holocaust must always remain a mystery. We can understand what happened, yet we must always find what happened utterly unthinkable. The actions of the Nazis were completely beyond the bounds of what we think of as human nature. The death camps were Hellish; the things done there ought never to have been possible for any human beings to do. Our minds and hearts and souls recoil utterly, as they should. And so we must always be dumbfounded by what we understand and know to be true: Yes, we human beings did these things; yes, we are capable even of that. But no, no! Surely not! But yes...
(Aside: The sheer unthinkable nature of the Nazi crimes is one reason so many people — including some Anthroposophists — deny that the Holocaust happened. There are also other, less innocent reasons for Holocaust denial, but at the simple emotional level, we can all understand the urge to deny this hideous historical truth. O, God, if only it we could wash this indelible stain from our own hands...)
Compared to Hitler and Nazism, Steiner and Anthroposophy are far, far less terrible, and far, far less important.
But here is one similarity, at least for me. Although I have read almost everything I could find about Steiner and his doctrines and Waldorf schooling — and although I personally lived through deep exposure to these things, and for a long time felt in my heart a profound yearning for the benefits they claim to offer — there is a way in which belief in Steiner's teachings must always be mysterious, unthinkable, incomprehensible.
Some very smart, capable people have bought into Anthroposophy; some have devoted their lives to it. I understand. I've been there. I've been, in an unformed, youthful way, one of them. Yet what these people believe (and what I once believed) is such utter poppycock as to stagger the mind. Ye gods and little fishes! Are we all insane? How can we, with our marvelous big brains, accept such fantasies as Steiner peddled? Fairies, goblins, dragons, Old Saturn, Old Sun, Vulcan, floating islands and continents, planets that trail the Sun instead of orbiting it, magic, alchemy, astrology...
Are we all insane? Perhaps, in a way, we are. Most human beings, of course, have never heard of Steiner and in no way accept his teachings. But most of us believe similar stuff — most humans believe in invisible presences, and they have superstitions, and generally believe many things that they cannot prove or even explain, especially religious beliefs.
We have deep mystical yearnings. At one level, it is easy to understand this. We don't want to die. We don't want to believe that our loved ones can die — or, if they did die, we don't want to believe that they are truly gone, forever, extinguished, gone. A friend of mine died not long ago. I'm still going through the experience I've had before under similar circumstances: The utter absence of my friend feels so wrong, so unbelievable, that at an irrational level I still think of him as alive, somewhere, somehow. When we feel such things, the possibility of discarnated souls feels right to us, so we can imagine a realm of the discarnated, a spiritual realm, and we can easily begin spinning out ideas about this realm — and presto, we have a religion.
This is easy to understand. It is even easier to understand that our own impending deaths are even more unbelievable to us than the deaths of our loved ones. No! I cannot die! I refuse to believe that I will die. So I will use various prayers and practices to ensure my eternal survival...
This is easy to understand. And yet, this is — to the rational mind — unthinkable, absurd. Our belief in the invisible, in things none of us has ever seen or experienced, is preposterous. But there it is; that's how most of us think most of the time.
I don't mean to be challenging all religions and faiths, although my argument clearly runs in the direction. The issue, here, is Steiner's body of doctrines. Fairies, goblins, dragons, Old Saturn, Old Sun, Vulcan... Preposterous, mysterious, absurd. And yet Anthroposophy is accepted by some smart, articulate people.
One particular attraction of Steiner's teachings is that so much is included. Like Blavatsky and others, Steiner stitched together many, many disparate beliefs, apparently developing a coherent framework that incorporates and explains them all. This is what Anthroposophists sometimes refer to as the inner logic of Anthroposophy: Steiner took a huge number of jigsaw pieces and fitted them all neatly together.
This proposition helps to make the allure of Anthroposophy comprehensible. Fairies, goblins, dragons and the rest may make sense if we can accept a super-theory of spiritual reality that accounts for all of them. This is what Anthroposophy purports to be, the Theory (sorry, Truth) of Everything.
And yet, pause. Steiner said that all fairy tales, all myths and legends, all spiritualistic symbols are true: They represent clairvoyantly ascertained realities. The mind begins to boggle. All of these are true? And they are ascertained how? By the use of a faculty that does not exist?
Let's look at the bigger picture. Steiner (like Blavatsky, et al) tried to unify the world's religions. Thus, in Anthroposophy, we find elements of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so on. Great. We understand the appeal of this synthesis.
But does it make even a particle of sense? To make his system work, Steiner had to bend everything so badly that no orthodox Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist would recognize her/his faith in Steiner's doctrines. Jesus is the Sun God. Jesus will come again, but only in the etheric realm (the what?), and he will assist us in our evolution, not take us directly to Heaven. We will live many lives, which are informed by karma, in a universe of many gods — ideas a Hindu will accept, but that any Jew or Muslim or Christian who accepts the Bible must reject. So the Hindu feels comfortable with Anthroposophy — except that Anthroposophy centers on Christ, who is part of the Godhead, the ultimate one God — not Hindu concepts. (Yes, Anthroposophy is both polytheistic and, in its own way, monotheistic, a trick in itself.) And the Buddhist? Maybe s/he can accept the existence of multiple gods, but Buddha refused to talk about life after death and the existence of God and most of the other matters Steiner insisted upon; Buddha certainly did not say that the true path involves following a spiritual sage from Nazareth; and he did not anticipate his own transfer to Mars...
Steiner, in what can be seen, at best, as a sort of adolescent exuberance, tried to affirm almost every spiritual belief (I haven't mentioned Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, animism — and so much more — all of which Steiner also affirmed). But in the process of these affirmations, Steiner had to change most of these beliefs so completely that very few of them retained their original character.
Consider the sources Steiner drew upon. Accepting the tales and beliefs of the ancients (people who knew little about the real world), he repeatedly rejected the findings of modern scientists (people who know a great deal about the real world). Nothing rational or true could come from such an enterprise. If Steiner believed the things he professed, he was deceiving himself. Indeed, Anthroposophy is an enormous project in human self-deception.
All of this is a long way of saying that I understand the appeal of Anthroposophy, yet my mind also boggles. What? Anthroposophists believe what?
Ok. I understand. Any yet...
A modest suggestion: If we could all stop believing (deeply, passionately) things that defy rationality, we might be better off. The Nazis believed in the superiority of Aryans and the subhuman vileness of Jews and Gypsies and Slavs — they believed this trash so passionately that they could commit the horrific atrocities of the Holocaust.
Anthroposophists say they don't believe anything, they know. But this is what all mystics say. And Anthroposophists certainly do base their "knowledge" in belief — belief in their own powers of clairvoyance, if nothing else. But clairvoyance doesn't exist, which means that every spiritual "reality" ascertained by clairvoyance is a fantasy, unproven but accepted by an act of belief or self-deception.
I'd suggest we all give self-deception a rest. My father is dead. My friend is dead. I will die someday. So will you. We need to get over it.
— Roger Rawlings
The god Zeus (who really exists) disguised as a bull, carrying Europa (who really exists). Watercolor in a style Anthroposophists are likely to like. [Gustave Moreau]
Jupiter. The cosmos is aswarm with such gods, who really exist, Steiner taught. [http://ancienthistory.about.com/.]
Ignorance. Fairy tales are true, myths are true, science is wrong, don't think with your brain, the planets don't orbit the Sun, continents float in the sea... Ignorance.
"[A]round the South Pole in particular there are many volcanic mountains ... [T]he earth stands in the universe, curiously, as a rounded tetrahedron, as a kind of pyramid. That, gentlemen, is actually still the form of the earth!" [Rudolf Steiner, FROM SUNSPOTS TO STRAWBERRIES (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2002), p. 185.] Here we see one panel of the tetrahedron: It extends from a volcano in Mexico to the cluster of volcanos at the South Pole to the volcanic mountains in the Caucasus. There are a few problems, however. For one, the Earth is not a pyramid, rounded or otherwise. For two, there is no volcanic cluster around the South Pole. There are volcanos in Mexico and the Caucasus — but there are also volcanos just about everywhere else, including Africa, South America, New Zealand, Iceland, Japan... Steiner chose three arbitrary points and drew lines between them. And this proves what? In a word, nothing.
Steiner elected to know almost nothing true. He opted for ignorance. And he requires similar, elective ignorance of his followers.
"Not only do these human and cosmic rhythms coincide, but the physical structure of the human beings is, according to spiritual science, actually a mirror of the universe. Each region of the zodiac can be looked upon as the home of particular spiritual beings and a centre of forces. There are 12 signs of the zodiac and 12 corresponding parts of the human organism ... While the forces of the zodiac correspond to the human physical structure, the planets and their forces are mirrored in the internal organs ... Thus for example: Sun: Heart : Aurum (gold); Moon: Genitals: argenum (silver); Mercury: Lungs: Cinnabar (mercury)." [Roy Wilkinson, THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF STEINER EDUCATION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), pp. 46-47.] [R.R. sketch, 2009 - based on sketch on p. 48.]
Six of the 12 signs of the zodiac. To take Steiner seriously, you have to take astrological forces seriously.
ENDNOTES & QUOTES
[1] “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.]
[2] “Among the faculty, we must certainly carry within us the knowledge that we are not here for our own sakes, but to carry out the divine cosmic plan. We should always remember that when we do something, we are actually carrying out the intentions of the gods, that we are, in a certain sense, the means by which that streaming down from above will go out into the world.” [Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 55.] This is Steiner’s messianism, which he urged on Waldorf faculty members.
[3] On the nonexistence of clairvoyance, see, e.g., Kendrick Frazier, editor, SCIENCE CONFRONTS THE PARANORMAL (Prometheus, 1986); Kendrick Frazier, editor, THE HUNDREDTH MONKEY AND OTHER PARADIGMS OF THE PARANORMAL (Prometheus, 1991); Martin Gardner, HOW NOT TO TEST A PSYCHIC (Prometheus, 1989); and Carl Sagan, THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD (Random House, 1995). The Encyclopedia Britannica devotes all of 79 words to the topic of clairvoyance, ending with this: “Research in parapsychology — such as testing a subject’s ability to predict the order of cards in a shuffled deck — has yet to provide conclusive support for the existence of clairvoyance.” ["clairvoyance." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 16 May 2009] “According to the U.S. National Research Council, ‘the best evidence does not support the contention that these phenomena exist.’” [David G. Myers, PSYCHOLOGY (Worth Publishers, 2004), p. 260.] “After thousands of experiments, a reproducible ESP phenomenon has never been discovered, nor has any individual convincingly demonstrated a psychic ability [sic; emphasis by Myers].” [Ibid., p. 260.]
[4] Criticizing a rationalist, Steiner once said: “He did not want any fairy tales told to children, or to teach children anything other than scientific trash....” [Rudolf Steiner, THE RENEWAL OF EDUCATION (Anthroposophic Press, 2001), p. 94.] Steiner’s preference for fairy tales is, in itself, revealing. Steiner said that most of conventional science is wrong, but all fairy tales are spiritualistically true: “Fairy tales are ... the final remains of ancient clairvoyance, experienced in dreams by human beings who still had the power [i.e., ancient clairvoyance]. What was seen in a dream was told as a story — for instance, 'Puss in Boots' ... All the fairy tales in existence are thus the remnants of the original clairvoyance.” [Rudolf Steiner, ON THE MYSTERY DRAMAS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1983), p. 93.] Einstein is wrong, but ‘Puss in Boots’...
[5] SECRET BROTHERHOODS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004), pp. 92 and 97.
[6] Max von Laue, “Steiner and Natural Science” (Transition no. 61-62, Collingwood, Vic, Australia, 2000) {translated from “Steiner und die Naturwissenschaft,” Deutsche Revue, 47 (1922), available at http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/von_laue_critique_of_Steiner's_science.pdf
[7] Of course, I can’t know what the future may bring. Possibly Steiner will be borne out eventually. We have no reason to think so, however. For a fine analysis of Steiner’s relationship with science, see “Is Anthroposophy Science?” by Sven Ove Hansson, at http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/Hansson.html
Many of the semi-scientific concepts Steiner incorporated in Anthroposophy are, today, examples of discarded science — notions that seemed plausible in Steiner’s time but that we now know are wrong. Consider the “universal ether” of 19th century science, for instance. Modern science has tossed this concept aside, but Steiner fell for it: “[W]hat we subjectively describe as the quality of colour is the effect on us ... of an objective process that is taking place in the universal ether....” [Rudolf Steiner, SCIENCE: An Introductory Reader (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 80.] Likewise, Steiner accepted the existence of the planet Vulcan, which was once thought to orbit the Sun inside the orbit of Mercury. Steiner did not wholly embrace the existence of Vulcan as most Theosophists did, be he accepted it in some form: He forecast “the whole future evolution of our solar system through Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE SPIRITUAL HIERARCHIES AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 81.] He also spoke of life “on” Vulcan and he referred to Vulcan explicitly as a planet: “Not much can be publicly communicated about life on this planet....” [Rudolf Steiner, COSMIC MEMORY (SteinerBooks, 1987), p. 163.] Shucks. Note, by the way, that Steiner almost always omitted Uranus and Neptune from his descriptions of the solar system. Concerning the planets, Steiner blundered even in small ways, as in accepting the idea that there are long, straight lines on the surface of Mars, lines that some of Steiner’s contemporaries thought were canals. Steiner said the lines weren’t canals, but he mistakenly agreed that the lines exist: “Mars is primarily of a more or less fluid mass ... [As for the canals:] There is nothing to be seen except straight lines.” [Rudolf Steiner, FROM SUNSPOTS TO STRAWBERRIES (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2002), pp. 147-148.] In fact, Mars is quite dry, at least at the surface — and the surface displays no long, straight lines. If Steiner actually possessed the clairvoyant powers he claimed — if he had the power to penetrate to the truth, as he said he did — he should have avoided all such errors.
[8] Here are quotations in which Steiner pulled the boners I’ve listed:
◊ 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.] Note: Nothing could be more absurd.
◊ Answering a question about planetary movements, Steiner drew a “helical line.” Positioned at about the midpoint on the line was the Sun. Strung out on the line to the left were Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Toward the right side of the line were Mercury, Venus, and Earth. Steiner’s words: “Now you simply need to imagine how that [i.e., the line] continues in a helix. Everything else is only apparent movement. The helical line continues into cosmic space. Therefore, it is not that the planets move around the Sun, but these three, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth, follow the Sun, and these three, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, precede it.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 30-31.]
◊ Steiner said that gravity is a purely local phenomenon, experienced only on one type of planet. He denied that there is a universal force of gravity. “Gravity is ... perceived only by those beings that live on a solid planet ... Beings who could live on a fluid planet would know nothing of gravity ... And beings who live on a gaseous planet would regard as normal something that would be the opposite of gravity ... [B]eings dwelling on a gaseous planet instead of seeing bodies falling towards the planet would see them always flying off ... Gravity begins when we find ourselves on a solid planet.” [Rudolf Steiner, SCIENCE (Rudolf Steiner Press 2003), pp. 136-137.] In reality, gravity exists everywhere, including on gaseous/fluid planets such as the gas giant Jupiter — where gravity is far greater than on small, solid planets such as the Earth. Steiner's ignorance or his determined antiscientific bias tripped him up. “The best would be if you considered gravity only as a word.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 29.] “Over there is a bench and on it is, let us say, a ball ... [T]he ball falls to the ground ... Saying that the ball is subject to the force of gravity is really meaningless ....” [Rudolf Steiner, PRACTICAL ADVICE TO TEACHERS (Anthroposophical Press, 2000), pp. 116-117.]
[9] More boners:
◊ “Einstein's theory of relativity is clever and does hold true for some things in the world, but you cannot do anything with it when you look into reality. For the theory of relativity will never tell you why someone gets extremely tired going to [the city of] Basle, seeing[i.e., because] he is unable to say if he is going to Basle or if Basle is coming to meet him.” [Rudolf Steiner, FROM ELEPHANTS TO EINSTEIN (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 180.] This is amazingly ignorant. Einstein’s “theory of relativity” (actually, Einstein published two theories of relativity) does not say what Steiner claims. More to the point, Einstein’s work has stood the test of time, receiving repeated scientific confirmations. The same is not true for Steiner’s work.
◊ Dismissing their work as merely “ingenious” (i.e., clever but wrong), Steiner said “I have already spoken to you of the ingenious description of the sun given by astrophysicists.”[Rudolf Steiner, AGRICULTURE: An Introductory Reader (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004), p. 35.] But it is Steiner’s statements about the stars and planets that are merely ingenious, lacking any factual content.
◊ Steiner promulgated an entire corpus of medical misinformation. See my essay “Steiner’s Quackery”.
[10] “[T]he brain and nerve system have nothing at all to do with actual cognition....” [Rudolf Steiner, THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 60.] “You see, the organs of clairvoyance must be developed from within....” [Rudolf Steiner, INTRODUCING ANTHROPOSOPHICAL MEDICINE (Anthroposophic Press, 1999), p. 198.] “[J]ust as natural forces build out of living matter the eyes and ears of the physical body, so will organs of clairvoyance build themselves....” [Rudolf Steiner, KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT (Anthroposophic Press, 1944), p. 28.]
[11] More boners:
◊ “Black or grey magicians ... whose intentions toward humanity are not good” are busily at work “to present certain groups of people with the secret of how to dominate great masses....” [Rudolf Steiner SECRET BROTHERHOODS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004), p. 90.]
◊ “And what about true alchemy? That does not come from doing research in the manner of chemists today but from being able to perceive the nature spirits [immaterial beings that lack true spirit] within the processes of nature and coming to an understanding with them....” [Rudolf Steiner, ALCHEMY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001), p. 17.] “[T]his ability of the medieval alchemists to reach the nature spirits was really fraught with difficulty. On the one hand they approached the spirits of nature, the spirits of air and water; the approached gnomes, sylphs and undines in their living reality. On the other hand there were some among these beings who told them of things that overwhelmed them with despair....” [Ibid., p. 37.]
◊ “[T]he Sun-influence goes as far as the heart and stops short just before the heart. For the head and the blood-forming process, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are at work. Then, from the heart backward, the Moon influence is supported by the Mercury and Venus forces.” [Rudolf Steiner, AGRICULTURE COURSE (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004), p. 41.] “With the students, we should at least try to ... make it clear that, for instance, an island like Great Britain swims in the sea and is held fast by the forces of the stars.” [Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 607.]
◊ The Lord’s prayer, he said, has special efficacy: “As a daily prayer, the Lord’s prayer is the most suited to develop esoteric forces. It is the most effective of prayers ... Whenever one prays the Lord’s Prayer, the original primal human powers [mainly clairvoyance] underlie the prayer — even if one knows nothing of it ... [T]hose who use this prayer can have these powers live unconsciously within them.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 202.] Steiner taught that the archetype of the Lord’s Prayer begins thus: “Aum./Amen./Evils reign/Bearing witness to I-being....” [Rudolf Steiner, START NOW! (SteinerBooks, 2004), pp. 220-221.] You won’t find great stuff like this in the Holy Bible.
◊ Steiner instructed farmers and gardeners to spray a special potion on the soil. “Horn Manure is cow manure that has been fermented in the soil over winter inside a cow horn ... Before being applied very small amounts ... are dissolved in water and stirred rigorously for one whole hour. This is done by stirring (preferably by hand) in one direction in such a way that a deep crater is formed in the stirring vessel (bucket, barrel). Then the direction is changed, the water seethes and slowly a new crater is formed. Each time a well-formed crater is achieved the direction is changed until the full hour is completed. In this way the dynamic effects concentrated in the prepared manure ... are released into the rhythmically moved water and become effective for soil and plant.” [“Biodynamic Frequently Asked Questions,” www.biodynamic.org.uk ] “Everything that lives in the silicious [sic] nature contains forces which comes [sic] not from the Earth but from the so-called distant planets, the planets beyond the Sun — Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. That which proceeds from these distant planets influences the life of plants via [silicon and related substances]. On the other hand, from all that is represented in the planets near the Earth — Moon, Mercury and Venus — forces work through limestone and kindred substances.” [AGRICULTURE COURSE, p. 24.]
◊ Murder is often quite different from what we usually think. “Right up into the nineteenth century there existed in the East a remarkable order, the Thugs ... The members of this order were obliged to murder certain individuals indicated to them by [their] superiors....” [Rudolf Steiner SECRET BROTHERHOODS and the Mystery of the Human Double (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004), p. 88.] The motive behind such murders was to gain access to occult secrets. You see, “souls who have been violently propelled through the gate of death know something in the spiritual world after death which the other souls do not [i.e., should not] want to learn about from them at the wrong time.” [Ibid., p. 84.] The secret knowledge possessed by victims of violence could unhinge human evolution if regular dead souls learned it too soon. Murdered people “know certain things sooner than is actually beneficial in the overall process of human evolution.” [Ibid., p. 85.] But this knowledge is useful to members of the evil “secret brotherhoods” — which is why those S.O.B.s engineer murders.
◊ For our past and future, see Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT SCIENCE - An Outline (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1979) and Richard Seddon, THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY AND THE EARTH AS FORESEEN BY RUDOLF STEINER (Temple Lodge Publishing, 2002). For the interior of the Earth, see Rudolf Steiner, THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH: An Esoteric Study of the Subterranean Spheres (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007). For astronomy, see, e.g., “Star Wisdom, Moon and Sun Religions,” “Creating an Astronomy Based on the Science of the Spirit,” and “Comets and the Solar System, the Zodiac and the Rest of the Fixed Stars,” Rudolf Steiner, FROM BEETROOT TO BUDDHISM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999).
◊ For future human evolution, in addition to books mentioned immediately above, see Rudolf Steiner, THE BEING OF MAN AND HIS FUTURE EVOLUTION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1981). I go into Steiner’s predictions in the essay "Everything" and the essays that immediately follow it.
◊ Concerning Anthroposophical medicine, see, e.g., “Growing Up Being Made Sick by Anthroposophy”(http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/Smith-Hald.html) and “Our Brush with Rudolf Steiner” (http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/lombard.html). I look into this subject in “Steiner’s Quackery” here at Waldorf Watch.
[12] More boners:
◊ “There are beings that can be seen with clairvoyant vision at many spots in the depths of the earth ... Many names have been given to them, such as goblins, gnomes and so forth....” [Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS. Lectures from 1908-1924 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), pp. 62-3.] “Everything that refers to ‘giants’ in legends is absolutely based on a knowledge of the truth. If, therefore, a real memory of these times is preserved in the Germanic [i.e., Norse] myths, we feel it to be absolutely correct, from the spiritual scientific point of view, that the giants are stupid and the dwarfs very clever.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE BEING OF MAN AND HIS FUTURE EVOLUTION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1981), p117.]
◊ “Myths and sagas are not just ‘folk-tales’; they are the memories of the visions which people perceived in olden times ... Human beings were aware of the spiritual both by day and by night. At night they were really surrounded by that world of Nordic gods of which the legends tell. Odin, Freya, and all the other figures in Nordic mythology were not inventions; they were experienced in the spiritual world with as much reality as we experience our fellow human beings around us today.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE FESTIVALS AND THEIR MEANING (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 198.]
◊ “When you make Shakespearean characters living [i.e., “bring them to life” on stage] ... you can raise them into the supersensible world where they remain living. Of course, they do not do in the higher worlds what they do on the physical plane, but they remain alive, nevertheless, and they act there.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 336.]
◊ “[D]uring the Lemurian epoch of earth-evolution [i.e., long ago] only very few human beings had outlasted, on the earth itself, the happenings of this evolution ... the majority of souls withdrew from the earth to other planets, continuing their life on Mars, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, and so forth.” [Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982), p. 36.]
◊ The Initiate passes through a series of trials that lead to successive spiritual advancements. After the first trial, for instance, s/he can begin to read "a particular system of writing ... This occult script is inscribed forever in the occult world. Once the soul has attained spiritual perception, the script is revealed to it." [Rudolf Steiner, HOW TO KNOW HIGHER WORLDS (Anthroposophic Press, 1994), p. 72.]
◊ For instructions on how to converse with the dead, see Rudolf Steiner, STAYING CONNECTED: How to Continue Your Relations with Those Who Have Died (Anthroposophic Press, 1999).
◊ In re dragons, Steiner said they were fire-breathing dinosaurs: “Yes, those beasts did breathe fire ... What I am referring to are dinosaurs from the beginning of the Tertiary Period.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p.26.] Golly!
◊ “Buddha ... became for Mars what Christ has become for the earth.” [Rudolf Steiner, LIFE BETWEEN DEATH AND REBIRTH (SteinerBooks, 1985), p. 72.] “The Buddha wandered away from earthly affairs to the realm of Mars ... [T]he Buddha accomplished a Buddha crucifixion there.” [Ibid., p. 207.]
◊ “Had Christ not appeared on the earth, had He remained the Sun-God only, humanity on the earth would have fallen into decay.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE FESTIVALS AND THEIR MEANING (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), p. 271.]
◊ “You know that the Old Testament peoples honored Yahweh [i.e., Jehovah]. This devotion was aimed at a real being. And this being has a connection with what reveals itself in the physical world as the Moon. Of course it is only an imagistic way of talking, but it does have a reality too, if we say that Yahweh resides on the Moon.” [Rudolf Steiner, SLEEP AND DREAMS (SteinerBooks, 2003), p. 43.]
◊ “Lucifer himself takes part in Earth evolution with the perpetual longing within himself for his true home, for the star Venus ... [W]hat Lucifer casts off as a husk ... as the physical body is cast off by the human soul at death, shines down from heaven as Venus.”[Rudolf Steiner, WONDERS OF THE WORLD (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1983), p. 77.]
◊ “[T]he moon today is like a fortress in the universe, in which there lives a population that fulfilled its human destiny over 15,000 years ago, after which it withdrew to the moon together with the spiritual guides of humanity ... This is only one of the ‘cities’ in the universe, one colony, one settlement among many ... As far as what concerns ourselves, as humanity on earth, the other pole, the opposite extreme to the moon is the population of Saturn.” [Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 93.]
◊ “Following the question of destiny, you will need to discuss the differences between what we inherit from our parents and what we bring into out lives from previous earthly lives. In this second stage of religious instruction, we need to bring in previous earthly lives ... [P]eople live repeated earthly lives.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 46.] “Souls whose development has been delayed will have accumulated so much error, ugliness, and evil in their karma that they temporarily form a distinct union of evil and aberrant human beings who vehemently oppose the community of good human beings.” [Rudolf Steiner, AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 393.] Also see Rudolf Steiner, MANIFESTATIONS OF KARMA (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2000).
◊ “When death approaches — this is the peculiar thing with pachyderms — these animals feel this particularly strongly ... Their instinct then makes them go into caves. People tend not to look for them in those earth caves. If they were to look for them there they would find more dead elephants in the regions where elephants are. They are not found in the open.” [Rudolf Steiner, FROM ELEPHANTS TO EINSTEIN (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), pp. 4-5.] I promise you, I’m not making this stuff up.
◊ “[T]he continents swim ... All fixed land swims and the stars hold it in position.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 617.]
◊ “The animal man of the Moon [did] not yet have firm bones ... [T]he Moon of that time did not have a thin, airy atmosphere ... its envelope was considerably thicker, even denser than the water of today.” [Rudolf Steiner, COSMIC MEMORY (SteinerBooks, 1987), pp. 193-194.]
◊ We sloughed off the animals, dropping them out of our natures. “[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. If the evolution of the Earth did not include human beings, then most animals would not exist ... 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...." [Rudolf Steiner, THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), pp. 69-70.] Note how, once again, “the scientist” is wrong.
◊ “The group soul of a beehive is a very high level being, higher than that of ants. It is of such a high development that you might almost say it is cosmically precocious. It has attained a level of evolutionary development that human beings will later reach in the Venus cycle, which follows the completion of the present Earth cycle ... The group soul of corals, however, is on a still higher plane....” [Rudolf Steiner, BEES (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 176.]
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