 VIOLENCE Necessary Roughness?
“Consider that through evil separating from good, the good will be immeasurably strengthened ... The best of humanity must be chosen and prepare for survival beyond the time of the great War of All Against All, when people will oppose them who bear in their countenances the sign of evil.” Rudolf Steiner, EVIL (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1997), p. 194.] “The Lemurian race was destroyed by fire, the Atlantean by water; ours will be destroyed by the War of All Against All, [by] evil, by the struggle of men with one another. Humanity will destroy itself in mutual strife.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE TEMPLE LEGEND AND THE GOLDEN LEGEND (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1997), p. 115: The theme of this coming showdown runs through so many Steiner books, it is hard to keep track. Further down on this page, I’ve appended a list of additional titles you may want to examine. Some illustrations on each page are closely connected to the essay on that page; others are not — they provide general context.  Machines of War [public domain, 1783].  "We see in the Crusades the second fluctuation back and forth of a battle from East to West and from West to East, a battle that is a reflection of that other, spiritual battle between the retarded Spirits of Form and properly advancing Spirit of Personality." [Rudolf Steiner, BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS 1919-1924 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 89, R.R. sketch, 2011, based on the one in the book.] Steiner described battles and wars between spiritual powers, conflicts that found their counterparts on Earth. Spirits of Form are gods four levels above men; Spirits of Personality are gods three levels above men. "Retarded" beings are those who have not evolved at the proper rate. Thus, retarded Spirits of Form are scarcely more advanced than Spirits of Personality and may come into conflict with them. On other occasions, Steiner described wars between good and evil gods, and conflicts between the followers (human and superhuman) of such major gods as Michael and Ahriman. "Our gaze, which must of course be full of understanding for human karma, is now deflected from the destiny of men to the destiny of gods. For when we contemplate the horrors of war, the guilt and ugliness of war in their connection with death-dealing elemental catastrophes, we are watching the battle waged by the good gods against the evil gods — in two directions evil. We gaze beyond the life of men into the life of gods, beholding the life of gods as the background of human life. We watch this life of gods — not with dry, theoretical thoughts, but with our hearts, with deep, inner participation; we watch it in its connection with the individual karma of men on earth because we see human destiny inwoven with the destiny of gods." [Rudolf Steiner, KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, Vol. II (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1974), p. 251.] "[Y]ou must visualize a battle which continued for decades in the spiritual worlds, from the 1840s until the autumn of 1879. This may be called a battle which the spirits who are followers of the spirit belonging to the hierarchy of Archangels whom we may call Michael fought with certain ahrimanic powers [i.e., minions of Ahriman]. Please consider this battle to have been in the first place a battle in the spiritual world. Everything I am referring to at the moment relates to this battle fought by Michael and his followers against certain ahrimanic powers. A good way of strengthening this idea, especially if you want to make it fruitful for your life in the present time, is to have it in your mind's eye that the human souls who were born exactly in the fifth decade of the nineteenth century actually took part in this battle between Michael's followers and the ahrimanic powers when they were in the spiritual world. If you think on this, it will give you a great deal of understanding of the outer and inner destiny experienced by these individuals, and above all of their inner constitution. The battle thus took place in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s and came to a conclusion in the autumn of 1879, when Michael and his followers won a victory over certain ahrimanic powers." [Rudolf Steiner, THE FALL OF THE SPIRITS OF DARKNESS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2008), pp. 136-137.]  All vs. All [R.R., 2010]. Anthroposophy — the thinking behind Waldorf schools — contains descriptions and forecasts of many wars. Steiner said that the War of All Against All will come in about the year 9700 AD. Far off — but don’t breathe easy. It is not so far for you and me, since (according to Steiner) we reincarnate over and over. If we do this at the normal pace Steiner described, the War of All Against All will come just a few incarnations from now. Before we get caught up in that conflict, we have other wars to wage. The racial apocalypse will come (according to Steiner) around the year 3570 AD. This is quite soon, by Steiner’s standards — just one or two incarnations away. And before that, there are still more wars that require our attention. When addressing his followers early in the twentieth century, Steiner said there was a war raging at that time between the archangel Michael and his followers, on one side, and the demon Ahriman and his minions, on the other. And Steiner said that Anthroposophists needed to get involved in that struggle. Presumably he meant they should become spiritually involved, but by Steiner’s lights this would only increase the intensity of the combat. Steiner also said that the War of All Against All might be accelerated stupendously by human evil. In that case, it would break out around the year 1999 — that is, conceivably during the lifetime of some of the members of his audience, and certainly in your lifetime and mine. As far as I can tell, it didn’t start on this accelerated schedule — but who knows, the sword may be about to fall. The militancy in Steiner’s doctrines has many sources, but one in particular is noteworthy. Norse myths — which receive great emphasis in Waldorf schools — are drenched in blood. There are battles upon battles, all leading up to Ragnarök, the ultimate battle in which every last god, giant, dwarf, and human is killed. This is the prototype, certainly, of the War of All Against All. For more on the violence Steiner described, see "All v. All", "Millennium", and "War".  War, bloodshed, violence, catastrophe — for our own good, of course. Greet the bright new dawn [R.R. sketch, detail.] “In a February 1915 lecture, Steiner acknowledged that [World War I] had caused ‘enormous rivers of blood to flow,” but explained that these rivers of blood ‘must flow today because of the eternal necessities of earthly evolution.’” [Peter Staudenmaier, "Between Occultism and Fascism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race and Nation in Germany and Italy, 1900-1945", 2010, pp. 113-114.] For parents, the most distressing form of violence would be, of course, violence directed at their children. The Waldorf school I attended was generally a peaceable, pleasant place. I assume that most Waldorf schools are the same. But there have been exceptions. To read about this extremely troubling subject, consult my essay "Slaps". You may also want to look at the endnotes to my essay "The Good(?) Parts".  [R.R., 2010.]
Amazing as it may seem, Steiner was friends with — and vigorously defended — the head of the German military at the beginning of World War I — a man who arguably was a war criminal. (For similar reasons, Steiner violently deounced the American President — Woodrow Wilson — who sent American troops into battle against Germany. You will find some of Steiner's statements about Wilson in "Steiner Static".)  [Ragnarök: Friedrich Wilhelm Heine] The archetype for the War of All Against All is Ragnarök, the climactic, all-destroying war foretold in the extremely violent Norse myths, which are emphasized in Waldorf schools. See "The Gods". For a brief look at the complicated view of World War II (when Germany and America again fought) as seen from within an American Waldorf school, see "The Good Wars". Here are additional titles in which there are Steinerian references to the War of All Against All. Let the reader beware: Rudolf Steiner, THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY Rudolf Steiner, ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE MISSION OF CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUTZ ... Rudolf Steiner, GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN IN ITS RELATION OF THE OTHER THREE GOSPELS, PARTICULARLY ... Rudolf Steiner, HOW CAN MANKIND FIND THE CHRIST AGAIN? Rudolf Steiner, THE INFLUENCES OF LUCIFER AND AHRIMAN Rudolf Steiner, THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH Rudolf Steiner, ORIGINS OF NATURAL SCIENCE Rudolf Steiner, REVERSE RITUAL Rudolf Steiner, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE Rudolf Steiner, SPIRITUALISM, MADAME BLAVATSKY & THEOSOPHY Rudolf Steiner, THE TEMPLE LEGEND AND THE GOLDEN LEGEND Rudolf Steiner, UNIVERSE, EARTH AND MAN IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO EGYPTIAN MYTHS AND MODERN ...
 Painting by a Waldorf student. [Courtesy of PLANS.]
 [http://www.fromoldbooks.org/]  [R.R., ~ 1996] It may mean nothing, but perhaps I should mention that when I was a student at an American Waldorf school, I — along with all the boys in my class — was given instruction in fencing, archery, and wrestling. Looking back, I wonder. Such martial arts were not ordinarily taught to all the male students in American schools. Why, at a school that seemed so admirably nonviolent, were we boys required to develop skills in these martial arts? Could it be that our teachers were thinking of Steiner's statements indicating that we good people — and especially we good white people — would need to wage numerous wars in this and coming incarnations? Probably not. Or, maybe... (It seems implausible, granted. So don't pin much importance on it. But having learned to take nothing about Waldorf schools for granted, I do wonder.) — Roger Rawlings Further Reading Beyond the books I mentioned, above, the following also contain interesting indications of Steiner's take on violence:  |
