 WAS HE CHRISTIAN? Steiner’s Gnostic Heresies I. When advocates of Waldorf education admit to the schools’ spiritualistic purpose (something they generally avoid), they attempt to portray Rudolf Steiner’s belief system as essentially Christian. But the religion underlying Waldorf schools, Anthroposophy, is deeply unorthodox. Consider the following statement by Steiner: “What, then, is this mysterious impulse making its victorious way through the world? ... It is the Christ himself. He goes from heart to heart, from soul to soul, living and working in the world regardless of whether he is understood as evolution progresses through the centuries.” [1] Steiner stresses Christ, but he does so within the context of evolution. In numerous other statements, Steiner states his belief in such doctrines as karma and reincarnation. These are not Biblical concepts. Anthroposophy can be best be described a gnostic offshoot of Christianity, with large admixtures of other faiths. [2] Let’s consider how closely Steiner’s teachings conform to those of Jesus. Here is a passage from the New Testament: 16 And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” 17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” 18 He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, 19 Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [3] Compare that with Steiner’s “Christian” attitude: “Quite a number of people have been born ... [who are] human forms filled with a sort of natural demon ... We cannot, however, create a school for demons .... Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings.” [4] Imagine, indeed. An extremely useful guide in considering the true import of Christ’s ministry is BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS: CHRIST’S TEACHINGS ABOUT LOVE, COMPASSION AND FORGIVENESS, gathered and introduced by Wendell Berry. [5] Berry begins the introduction to his book with these words: “Any observer would have to say that Christianity is fashionable at present in the United States. This might be a good thing, except that the observer, observing more closely, would have to conclude that, to the extent that Christianity is fashionable, it is loosely fashionable. It seems to have remarkably little to do with the things that Jesus Christ actually taught.” [6]  Berry concludes the introduction by saying: “Christ told us how to survive when He answered the question, Who is my neighbor? In the tenth chapter of Luke He tells the story of a Samaritan who cared for a Jew who had been badly wounded by thieves. As we know from the preceding chapter, in which the Disciples suggest in effect the firebombing of a Samaritan village, the Samaritans and the Jews were enemies. To modernize the story, then, and so to understand Christ’s answer, we may substitute any other pair of enemies: fundamentalist Christian and fundamentalist Muslim, Palestinian and Israeli, captor and prisoner. The answer: Your neighbor is any sufferer who needs your help.” [7] Christ’s message was one of radical love: love extended to everyone. He saw the humanity in everyone. He never conceived of “people who are not human beings”, people who stand outside the circle of humanity. Steiner often asserted the importance of love, yet his gnostic preachments take us away from, not toward, the core of Christ’s message — just as they take us away from truth, genuine education, and the values of the Enlightenment. [8] From a Christian perspective, gnosticism is a heresy. From a secularist’s point of view, gnosticism — like all forms of esoteric spiritualism — is nonsense. But a secularist, such as I, need not reject every form of religious teaching. Steiner’s doctrines are dross. By contrast, Jesus’s “eleventh commandment,” to love one’s neighbors, is a superb ideal, toward which we can all aspire. In “Unenlightened: The Inside Story of an Occult Education,” I argue that true reverence deserves great respect. [9] I repeat that assertion now. Humane secularists and humbly devout followers of religion should be able to coexist. We all love our children and wish the best for them. We all are — or should be — seekers of the truth. It is in this spirit that we should establish and operate our schools, whether public or private. As Gary Wills suggests, we should yearn back to the Enlightenment and honor the values of which our nation is a product: “critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences.” [10] That is the path toward truth. II. Steiner's heresies astonish. In discussing mankind's ultimate evolution, for instance, Steiner asserted “[W]e shall have gradually achieved the transformation of our own being into what is called in Christianity ‘the Father.’” [11] The notion that we might, in any sense, become God the Father must strike most Christians as sacrilege. Note how Steiner explicitly differentiated his teachings from those of Christianity (“what is called in Christianity...”). Only his own teachings, Steiner claimed, represent the truth about Christ and thus deserve to be considered true Christianity. Take this claim with salt. Steiner maintained that monotheism is an ideal toward which the universe is moving, not an accurate description for the universe as it is. The real universe, he said, is chockablock with gods. Let's consider a specific and vitally important heresy. Steiner recited the Lord’s Prayer each day, so loudly that passersby could hear him through his apartment’s walls. [12] However, the versions of the prayer he used are not those found in the Bible. (Matthew 6:9-13 gives the version usually recited in churches; Luke 11:2-4 is essentially the same, but shorter, omitting the final line “For Thine is...”.) Steiner used various non-Biblical versions of the prayer — he did not hesitate to rewrite Scripture. The version he generally used before 1913 does not begin “Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name”. Instead, Steiner recited “Father, you who were, are, and will be in our innermost being! May your being be glorified and praised in us in all things.” And instead of ending with the words recorded in Matthew, “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever”, Steiner recited “May your power and glory work with us in all the cycles of time.” [13] After 1913, Steiner often used the following words: “Father, you who were, are, and will be in our innermost being, your name in us is glorified and praised. May your kingdom increase in our deeds and our conduct. May we perform your will, as you, O Father, have laid it down in our innermost being ... May your power and glory work through us in all cycles of time.” [14] From an Anthroposophical perspective, these reworked versions of the Prayer are preferable both because they partially shift emphasis from God to us (“our innermost being,” “in us,” “with us,” “through us”) and because they allude to esoteric concepts (e.g., “cycles of time,” which is a shorthand for Steiner’s convoluted description of human evolution — see my essay "Everything" and the essays that follow it). An aside: We cannot know why Steiner recited the prayer so loudly, but — assuming that God hears even the most quiet prayers — it may be fair to speculate that he was praying more for the sake of his reputation than for the sake of his soul. Perhaps he was declaiming the prayer in the manner he thought proper — that is, the manner that would be most empowering. But there does seem to have been a theatrical element in his performance. Here’s the Lord’s prayer as Steiner apparently recited it at the end of his life: Father, you who were, are, and will be our inmost being, May your name be glorified and praised in us. May your kingdom grow in our deeds and inmost lives. May we perform your will as you, Father, lay it down in our inmost being. You give us spiritual nourishment, the bread of life, superabundantly in all the changing conditions of our lives. Let our mercy toward others make up for the sins done to our being. You do not allow the tempter to work in us beyond the capacity of our strength. For no temptation can live in your being, Father, and the tempter is only appearance and delusion, from which you lead us, Father, through the light of knowledge. May your power and glory work in us through all periods and ages of time. Amen. [15] Even more bizarre: Steiner said that the Lord's Prayer (or the "Our Father") is based on a "cosmic Our Father" that Jesus learned from pagans (who, according to Steiner, gave Jesus valuable spiritual truths). "What he heard was a kind of cosmic Our Father which says what the inner destiny of man must be ... It was later reversed to become the earthly Our Father." [16] Steiner gives the cosmic prayer thus: Amen. The evils hold sway. Witness of egoity freeing itself. Selfhood guilt through others incurred, experienced in the daily bread, wherein the will of the heavens does not rule, because man separated himself from your realm, and forgot your names, you Fathers in the heavens. [17] Note Steiner's polytheism. After quoting the prayer, Steiner says "Those were approximately the words Jesus of Nazareth heard in pagan lands — the secret of the earthly human being as it was presented in ancient sacred teachings. They hold deep secrets of human evolution." [18] Steiner not only rewrote Scripture — he mangled it. III. Steiner’s cosmology is odd, to say the least. The universe he describes bears little relationship to the universe of science or the universe of the Bible. The consequences for our understanding of Christ are profound. Steiner taught that the Sun is (or was) the physical representation of Christ’s physical presence: “It is ... important that the deeds of Christ Jesus are always seen in relation to the physical sun, which is the external expression of the spiritual world that is received at the point where Christ’s physical body is walking around. When Christ Jesus heals, for instance, it is the sun force that heals. However, the sun must be in the right place in the heavens: ‘That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.’ It is important to indicate that this healing power can flow down only when the external sun has set but still works spiritually.” [19] The Moon, according to Steiner, is the residence of Jehovah (otherwise known as Jahveh or Yahweh): “You know that the Old Testament peoples honored Yahweh. 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. Everything connected with Yahweh is connected to the Moon.” [20] To make sense of this, you need to understand that Steiner taught that Jehovah is the god of the Jews but not the one true God of all. Steiner taught that there are many gods. “Monotheism ... can only represent an ultimate ideal; it could never lead to a real understanding of the world.... ” [21] Jehovah, who is one of many gods, is connected not only with the Moon but, of course, with the Jews: “From the Moon, Jahveh reigned over the heart and soul of the Jewish people ... [O]nly when man views the universe in this way can he have any true conception of the function of the Moon.” [22]  Another significant fact about the solar system is that humans moved to various planets long ago: “[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.” [23] “Human” is a tricky term, as used by Steiner. As we have seen, Steiner taught that some people are not really human. Some people who seem to be human are actually demons in disguise (“[A] number of people are going around who ... have become something that is not human, but instead are demons in human form” [24]), while on the other hand some beings who were once human have moved on: “[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 ... This is only one of the 'cities' in the universe, one colony, one settlement among many....” [25] One “human” who moved from the Earth to another planet is Buddha: “But where is the actual Buddha, the one who lived as Gautama [Buddha's given name]? He became for Mars what Christ has become for the earth.” [26] “The Buddha wandered away from earthly affairs to the realm of Mars. Until then Mars had been the chosen center of forces designated by the Greeks as fearfully warlike ... The Buddha Mystery on Mars did not take the same course as the Christ Mystery on earth, but Buddha, the Prince of Peace, who, during his last earthly life had spread peace and love wherever he went, was transferred to the belligerent realm of Mars. The fact that a being who is fully permeated by forces of peace and love was transferred to a realm of strife and disharmony may in a sense be regarded as a crucifixion.” [27] This passage leads us to the core of Steiner’s heresies. He considered the “Christ-event” — that is, His incarnation — a hugely important occurrence in universal history. [28] Steiner taught that the Christ-event introduced the “Christ impulse” into human affairs. Through this impulse, we can emulate Christ and evolve toward spiritual perfection. Christ was preceded by other spiritual mentors, such as Buddha, and their work can be compared to His. But they represented prior evolutionary stages — He represents the ultimate stage, a stage that is still very far from completion. We will fulfill the Christ impulse only in the extremely distant future, when we ourselves become gods. [29] Note how little of this resembles true Christianity, which is based on belief in Christ as one of three Persons of God. [30] Steiner rejected Christian belief — he sought knowledge of the spiritual realm, secret knowledge, “mystery” knowledge, “gnosis.” It is in precisely this way that his religious teachings are gnostic, meaning that they aim at the acquisition of secret spiritual knowledge. [31] According to Steiner, acquiring such knowledge enables us to achieve salvation through our own efforts — a basic misconception according to orthodox Christianity, which teaches that salvation is provided by the Savior, doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. [32] Finally, as we saw previously, Steiner taught that at the end of our evolution we may become God the Father. A set of doctrines that entails people who are not human, spiritual evolution, reincarnation, a Buddha crucifixion on Mars, people becoming God the Father, and salvation through the acquisition of secret knowledge — this is not Christianity as most Christians, and most Christian churches, understand the term. It is a set of gnostic heresies. And here’s the clincher: According to Steiner, Christ was not in any straightforward sense the Son of God or even the Son of Man. Both these titles apply to Christ, but Christ’s real identity is something you won’t hear mentioned in many churches. Christ was one of the spirits who live on the Sun. “[A]t a certain point in the earth’s evolution, a sublime Sun being, the Christ, did not remain on the Sun but came down from the Sun to the Earth....” [33] According to Steiner, the difference between Christ and such “gods” as Zeus is that Christ, the Sun being, came down to the physical Earth, whereas they did not. “Now what is the most essential characteristic quality of the Christ so far as our cycle of evolution is concerned? To consider all those divine spiritual beings to which men of ancient times looked up to as the upper gods behind the tapestry of the sense world, as the rulers and lords of the spheres and functions of the universe, is to realise that their characteristic quality is that they do not descend so far as the physical plane; they only become visible to the consciousness of the seer [i.e., the clairvoyant], which transcends the physical plane and is able to see on the etheric [i.e., spiritual] plane. There Zeus, Apollo, Mars, Wotan, Odin, Thor, who are all real beings, became visible. It was characteristic of those beings not to descend so far as the physical plane ... In the divine spiritual worlds this ability was possessed by the Christ alone.” [34] Christ is no more real than Zeus or Thor, but he left the Sun to come to Earth. [35] IV. According to Steiner, Christ will not save us as Christians usually understand the concept of salvation. He is not the Redeemer, except in a special sense. Steiner's gnostic doctrines are largely consistent with ancient beliefs holding that God — the "Demiurgos" — created the physical universe, but Jehovah — an inferior, subordinate god — created physical humanity. You see, below the Demiurgos are there many, many gods of Steiner's polytheism. These gods are arranged in a hierarchy, and Jehovah came from one of the lower ranks. "The Demiurgos was a Being dwelling in spheres of lofty spirituality, in a world devoid of every element of that material existence with which in the Bible story the humanity created by Jehovah is naturally associated. We must therefore think of the Demiurgos as a sublime Being, as the Creator of the world who sends forth other Beings from Himself. The Beings sent forth by the Demiurgos were ranked in successive stages, each stage being lower than the last ... In Greece they were known as Aeons — of the first rank, the second rank and so on. The Aeons were Beings who had issued from the Demiurgos. Among these Aeons, Jahve or Jehovah was a Being of a relatively subordinate rank. And this brings us to a consideration of the teachings of the Gnostics, as they were called, in the early centuries of Christendom. It was said that Jehovah united with matter and that from this union man came into existence ... According to this Gnostic conception, therefore, Jehovah was a somewhat lower descendant of the more lofty Aeons who had proceeded from the Demiurgos, and as the outcome of Jehovah's union with matter, man was created ... The Gnostic teaching was that in the man Jesus there had dwelt a Being belonging to the ranks of the Aeons, a Being of a far more highly spiritual order than Jahve or Jehovah.” [36] The "Aeon" who manifested in Jesus was the Sun God, as we have seen. He came to Earth not to offer salvation, as Christians normally think of it, but to point out a new direction for our evolution. He gave us the "Christ impulse" which we can follow to become like Christ and thus to evolve higher and higher. The "redemption" Christ gave was a matter of offsetting the inferior impulses created by the inferior Aeon, Jehovah. But Christ's main role was to offer us an example of how we should live. He was not so much our Savior, according to Steiner, but just a very good role model: "Christ shows himself to him as the great human Prototype and Example, united with the Earth's true evolution." [37] Perhaps even more shocking to most Christians is this: Steiner said that by following our Prototype, we humans will eventually become God the Father. We will not go to heaven and sit at God's feet. We will not eternally worship and praise God. We will be God. “[W]e shall have gradually achieved the transformation of our own being into what is called in Christianity ‘the Father.’” [38] So, I’ll end by repeating my question. Was Steiner Christian? You now have the answer. The Sun, of course, is supremely important for life on Earth. Nothing could live here but for the Sun. Waldorf students are often led to create paintings of the Sun. Whether they are also led to associate the Sun with Christ, the Sun God, probably varies from school to school.   Waldorf artwork courtesy of PLANS ADDENDA I. The relationship between Steiner's new religion and established Christianity has not been happy. Christian clergy and theologians understand how severely Steiner diverges from Christian doctrines. The following odd excerpt from one of Steiner's lectures helps illustrate the tensions. Steiner presents his own, defensive response to criticisms leveled at him and at Anthroposophy: “More than once, I have pointed out how Catholic clerical factions, especially here in Switzerland, are now resorting to a web of lies in order to destroy spiritual science. Those of you who have been here have witnessed a number of examples of what the Catholic Jesuits come up with in the attempt to destroy anthroposophy. Consider the attacks made by Jesuit seminarists with weapons that are certainly not nice. I need not characterize this; those who have not informed themselves can easily do so. “For Switzerland and Central Europe, where these things happen, are all part of the world. So, too, is America. I recently received a magazine published in America in which anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is characterized, while, at the same time, the Jesuits in Europe denounced spiritual science as a threat to the Catholic Church and to Christianity. You know by now that Reverend Kully1 stated that there are three evils in the world. One is Judaism, the other Freemasonry, but the third — worse than all of them, even worse than Bolshevism — is what is taught here in Dornach2. This originates from the Catholic side, and is how anthroposophy is characterized. “What about America? I want to read you a small paragraph from an American publication written at the same time Catholic journals over here printed their view of anthroposophy: “’Just as the Catholic hierarchy has always insisted that the Roman church is the only one with any authority,’ [at this point Steiner interrupts to make a comment] “— Protestant sects do not come into consideration; according to the Roman church, these sects stand outside the gates; they are viewed merely as a great number of heretics —3 “’so it is self-evident that the church which Steiner's glib tongue alludes to can be none other than the Roman Catholic church. This assumption is reinforced and indeed any doubt about the matter ceases, when one reads Steiner's other occult books. They all point to the same thing, namely, his writings are purely misleading; the sheepskin of a superficial occultism covering the wolf of Jesuitism.’ “So you see that in America anthroposophy is taken for Jesuitism, while in Europe the Jesuits strongly oppose anthroposophy as the biggest enemy of the Catholic church.4 That is how the world thinks today! That, however, is also how people think in Europe where they are living side by side; they are just not aware of it. “The American article concludes with several more nice sentences: “’Steiner claims to be an initiate. That may be; but whether he is of the White Lodge or belongs to the Brothers of Shadow is something one can only decide when it is realized that he stood on the side of men of 'blood and iron' ... and that a number of his students here (in America) were interned as German spies.’5 “So you see, sometimes the wind blows from the Roman Catholic corner, sometimes from the American side! It just shows you how things are inside the heads of our contemporaries. Yet, from the thoughts hatched inside human heads, there developed what has led into the decline of the present, and the ascent must truly be sought in a different direction from the one where many seek it today.” [39] Fr. Kully was a problematic figure. His church was located near Steiner's headquarters, so he may have known Anthroposophy firsthand. However, he was reputedly a conspiracy theorist and an anti-Semite. [40] We don't need to place much importance on him individually, however, in order to see that the differences between Anthroposophy and Christianity run deep. “These defamations reached a certain peak in the statements of the Arlesheim priest, Max Kully, who apparently was excellently informed of the Dornach gossip and retold it exhaustively, especially in the second part of the brochure "Die Geheimnisse des Tempels von Dornach" [The secrets of the Temple in Dornach].” A later passage: “The familiar anthroposophy-enemy and priest from Arlesheim, Max Kully, had accused both Albert Steffen and Dr Grosheintz of defamation, and this over a passage in the work of Louis Werbeck, DIE CHRISTLICHE GEGNER RUDOLF STEINERS [Rudolf Steiner's Christian Enemies], which had been announced in the weekly magazine Das Goetheanum and was sold at the Goetheanum.” [41] The book, RUDOLF STEINER'S CHRISTIAN ENEMIES, defends Steiner. But the title may tell us all we really need to know. 1 Max Kully, a German Catholic minister whose article appeared on July 6, 1920. II. Christians believe that Christ will return. We shouldn't end or examination of Steiner's "Christian" teachings without considering what he said about the Second Coming. To do the topic justice, we need to briefly review some of what we have already seen. “True” Christianity, according to Steiner, is his own teachings. The Bible and the churches are wrong, but he can set us all straight. “True” Christianity is Anthroposophy, which Steiner claimed is a science, not a religion. By using what he called “exact” clairvoyance, Steiner could (or so he said) gather objective factual information about the spirit realm; thus he could know what Christ was and what Christ meant, in a way no one else can without using the same high form of clairvoyance. Thus, Steiner meant to “go beyond historical Christianity and its limitations.” [42] Steiner offered his new, improved Christianity in lectures such as the ones contained in THE FIFTH GOSPEL [43], his proposed addition to the Bible. “From his clairvoyant reading of the spiritual Akashic Record — the cosmic memory of all events, actions and thoughts — Rudolf Steiner was able to speak of aspects of the life of Jesus Christ which are not contained in the four biblical Gospels.” [44] The “second coming” of Christ, according to Steiner, is the renewed, revived knowledge of Christ that he himself provided. It is not the physical return of Christ to the Earth, but the emergence in the spiritual realm (“the etheric”) of the new Christ impulse that Steiner's doctrines enable. When we “see” Christ in the right way (i.e., Steiner’s way) we will experience Christ’s return: “The will of man must be fired by divine wisdom, and the most powerful impulse for this will be if the sublime ether-form of Christ Jesus becomes perceptible to those who have truly prepared themselves. To a person in whom natural clairvoyance has developed this will be like a Second Coming of Christ Jesus.” [45] Note the emphasis on knowledge. Steiner taught that we are not “saved” by faith or good works, but by knowledge. This is his gnosticism. The Second Coming, as redefined by Steiner, has already happened. “In the lectures of 1910 ... [Steiner] spoke to small groups of prepared listeners concerning the advent of the appearance of the Christ in the etheric life-element of the earth. To begin with, He would only be seen by a few, but as the century progressed He would be perceived by an ever greater number of human beings on earth, bestowing comfort and strength to people. Steiner pointed quite specifically to the period between 1930 and 1940 (he also mentioned 1950) in this respect. The years 1933 and 1935 are singled out in some lectures ... Steiner had warned, however, that opposing powers would conspire to darken the consciousness of humanity so that the second coming of the Christ, His appearance in the etheric, might go unnoticed. He further foretold that powerful attempts would be made on the part of certain groups to proclaim false messiahs to whom people would flock, convinced that the Christ could reappear in physical form in our time.” [46] Speaking before the years he specified, Steiner gave the following preview. By developing our "soul faculties" (clairvoyance) in the way he specified, we will "see" Christ, and this will be the Second Coming, as it were: “[T]ransformations will come about in human soul faculties, resulting in what may be described as etheric vision. And Who is bound up with this fact? That being Whom we call the Christ, Who appeared on earth in the flesh at the beginning of our era. He will never come again in a physical body; that event was unique. The Christ will return, however, in an etheric form ... We thus comprehend spiritual science in a completely different sense. We learn that it imposes a tremendous responsibility upon us, since it is a preparation for the concrete occurrence of the reappearance of Christ. Christ will reappear because human beings will be raising themselves toward Him in etheric vision. When we grasp this, spiritual science appears to us as the preparation of human beings for the return of Christ, so that they will not have the misfortune to overlook this great event but will be ripe to seize the great moment that we may describe as the second coming of Christ. Man will be capable of seeing etheric bodies, and among these etheric bodies he will also be able to see the etheric body of Christ” [47] Whether Christ will return in physical form is a topic of debate among Christians, but most fundamentalist Christians say that he will. [48] Steiner was no fundamentalist Christian. Anthroposophy is certainly a religion, but — despite superficial appearances — it is not a form of Christianity. The influences of Eastern religions are strong, as are those of paganism and occultism.  Drawing and painting by Waldorf students [courtesy of PLANS]. SUMMATION Steiner's views were complex, even confusing. Here is brief summary of Steiner's teachings on Christianity. I will not clutter it up with quotations and endnotes; you will find lost of documentation elsewhere in "Was He Christian?" and elsewhere on this Web site. Steiner claimed that he had found the true meaning of Christianity. This meaning is revealed in his worldview, Anthroposophy. Christianity is a religion, but Steiner said that Anthroposophy is a science, not a religion. By claiming that his “science” reveals the deeper truths of “Christianity,” Steiner appropriated the term “Christianity”, applying it in a novel way. Does this make him a Christian? Does calling yourself a Christian make you one? What if I truly think I am a Christian but my beliefs are actually incompatible with the tenets of Christianity as found in the Bible and all major Christian denominations? What, for instance, if my “Christianity” involves belief in many different gods, and reincarnation, and astrology, and Atlantis, and Zarathustra, and Buddha? This is exactly the case for Anthroposophists; the beliefs I have listed are all part of “Christian” Anthroposophy. Steiner’s followers may think their belief qualify as “Christian,” but they do not. Claiming to be a Christian is very different from being one. Likewise, placing emphasis on Christ does not necessarily make you a Christian. Muslims, for instance, believe in Christ. They assign great importance to Christ. But they are not Christians, obviously — their religion is Islam, not Christianity. The same holds for Anthroposophists. They consider Christ extremely important, but they are not really Christians. Like most words, “Christian” may mean many things. The normal definition contains these elements: Christianity is the religion centered on the divinity of Christ; a Christian accepts Christ as his Lord and Savior; a Christian worships Christ as God (or a Member of the Triune God); a Christian accepts the teachings of Christ as found in the Bible; a Christian is a member of a Christian church. There can be variations and disputes over all elements of this definition. But, by virtually all of the standards of the above definition, Anthroposophy is not Christian. It is a “science,” not a religion; it speaks of evolution, not salvation per se; by their own account, Anthroposophists do not worship Christ, since Anthroposophy is not a religion; Anthroposophy rejects the literal meaning of much if not all of the Bible (Steiner revealed the hidden “Mystery” meaning of Bible passages); Anthroposophy has no churches, per se (unless we count the Goetheanum, but Anthroposophists deny that it is a church or cathedral). Nutshell: Anthroposophists claim a) Anthroposophy is a science, not a religion, and b) it is a science in which Christ looms large. The truth is that a) Anthroposophy is a religion, but b) it is not Christian. [49] Here are central Anthroposophical concepts. Note that each one of them violates orthodox Christian faith. Polytheism Reincarnation Karma Evolution Astrology and horoscopes There are two devils (who aren’t all bad): Lucifer and Ahriman Christ is the Sun God Buddha performed as the Christ of Mars There were two Jesuses, one of whom was Zarathustra in a previous life We recently live on Atlantis and soon we will proceed to Vulcan Ultimately we will become God the Father Calling these tents “Christian” does not make them so. Virtually no Christian theologian or clergyman would accept them as Christian (except self-proclaimed Anthroposophical “Christians”). The Bible offers little or no evidence that Christ himself would have accepted them. So Anthroposophy is not Christian. But it is a religion, not a science. Here are some central reasons for calling Anthroposophy a religion rather than a science: It "explains" spiritual matters It describes the will and purpose of the gods It tells us how to live in accordance with the divine plan It depends on clairvoyance (which does not exist); hence, there is no “scientific” basis for any of its tenets Hence, it can be accepted only by an act of faith, belief Steiner stressed the need for belief He stressed the need for gurus He authored prayers and meditations for his followers to use People who do not live properly, according to the tenets of Anthroposophy, will be consigned to a form of perdition People who do live properly, according to the tenets of Anthroposophy, will be attain divinity None of this is characteristic of a science; but all of it is characteristic or indicative of religion. In sum, Anthroposophy is a religion, but it is not part of the Christian religion. The religion followed by Anthroposophists is Anthroposophy. — Roger Rawlings Christ, drawn from Steiner's sculpture, which is located in the Goetheanum. Steiner depicted Christ standing above Ahriman and below Lucifer. [R.R., 2009] Two gods whom Anthroposophists take as other forms of Christ:  Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda. [Ginolerhino 2002.]  Norse god Baldur. [Elmer Boyd Smith.] For information about pagans, pagan Christianity, King Arthur, the Grail, and Druids, use this link: "Pagan"
For Steiner's teachings about the Holy Grail and Lucifer, please see "Grail" For information about the overtly religious offshoot of Anthroposophy, the so-called Christian Community, please use this link: "Community" For information on good, moral, loving behavior — as prescribed by Steiner — please see "Morality" For information about the Antichrist and demonic Asuras, see "Evil Ones" To learn about damnation, Steiner-style, see "Hell" ◊◊◊◊ ENDNOTES [1] Rudolf Steiner, THE FIFTH GOSPEL: From the Akashic Record (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), pp. 11-12. Anthroposophy assigns great significance to Christ, but this does not necessarily make Anthroposophy Christian. Muslims also consider Christ very important, but clearly they are not Christians. "In Islam Muhammad is considered the last of a series of prophets (including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and others), and his message simultaneously consummates and completes the 'revelations' attributed to earlier prophets ... [According to Islam] Not only was Jesus born from the Virgin Mary, but God also saved him from crucifixion at the hands of the Jews. The conviction that God’s messengers are ultimately vindicated and saved is an integral part of the Quranic doctrine." ["Islam." ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. 2009. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 07 Oct. 2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/295507/Islam>.] Also: "We Muslims believe, that Jesus was one of the mightiest messengers of God that he was the Christ, that he was born miraculously without any male intervention (which many modern-day Christians do not believe today), that he gave life to the dead by God's permission and that he healed those born blind and the lepers by god's permission. In fact, no Muslim is a Muslim if he or she does not believe in Jesus!" [http://www.jamaat.net/cis/ChristInIslam.html] This second quote may not be authoritative, but it does seem to reflect Islamic teachings. Note that one can believe in Christ and yet not be a Christian. Anthroposophy is a religion, despite the denials made by Anthroposophists. (See "Is Anthroposophy a Religion?") But that religion is not Christianity; it is Anthroposophy. I will return to this point in the Summation, at the end of "Was He Christian?" [2] Gnosticism is the belief that salvation depends on the acquisition of secret spiritual knowledge. Steiner claimed that the gnosticism of the past led to truth whereas orthodoxy led to the spiritual blindness: “These two things, you see, were engaged in a struggle: the gnostic teaching, wishing to comprehend the Mystery of Golgotha through powerful spiritual thinking; and the other teaching, that reckoned with [i.e., used or accommodated] what was to come, when thought would no longer have power, when it would lack the penetration needed to understand the Mystery of Golgotha....” [Rudolf Steiner, HOW CAN MANKIND FIND THE CHRIST AGAIN? (Anthroposophic Press, 1984), p. 49.] Golgotha is Calvary. The Mystery of Golgotha is the esoteric significance of the Crucifixion. “[A] God descended in order to enter a human body and in this body suffer death and then unite with the forces of the earth ... Since the Mystery of Golgotha forces have been united with the earth and especially with human evolution on earth, Christ-forces which were not there prior to that event ... In the Resurrection he [Christ] emerged victorious as a living spirit being, and since then he has continued to live with and for humanity, who would have possessed only dead [materialistic, brain-centered] thinking if Christ had not done these things ... The death and resurrection of Christ has so enlivened the thinking of which these souls [real humans] are capable that human beings no longer have to die along with their bodies....” [Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), pp. 38-39.] According to Steiner, Christ-forces are now available inwardly to each real human being. Steiner claimed that the forms of thinking he advocated (see my essay “Thinking Cap”) make the New Testament unnecessary, since the initiated spiritualist could reconstruct the Gospels and fill in their errors and gaps, if need be: “[T]he initiate is no longer dependent on the Gospels ... he would be capable of writing the Gospels himself if they had not already been written.” [Ibid., p. 38.] Steiner wanted his followers to go well beyond the Gospels, observing such clairvoyant/Anthroposophic “truths” as reincarnation and polytheism. He taught that the Gospels are flawed: "The Gospels cannot lead to the real Christ unless they are illumined by spiritual science [i.e., Steiner's own teachings]. Failing this illumination, the Gospels as they stand give rise to what is no more than hallucination of Christ's appearance in world history." [Rudolf Steiner, THE INCARNATION OF AHRIMAN (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2006), p. 42.] For connections and distinctions Steiner drew between Anthroposophy and gnosticism, see ANTHROPOSOPHICAL LEADING THOUGHTS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), pp. 175-180. For more on initiation, see my essay "Inside Scoop". Steiner went further than simply saying that the New Testament will become unnecessary. Steiner taught that religion, as such, will become unnecessary. It will be replaced by his own teachings, spiritual science: Men will have esoteric knowledge and will no longer need faith. "Religion is the re-binding of the sensible with the supersensible. In an age of approaching materialism human beings needed religion. But the time will come when they will again be able to experience the supersensible world; then they will no longer need religion. The necessary antecedent of the new vision is that human beings shall be bearers of spiritual Christianity. This is the basis of the sentence of which I would ask you to realize the profound significance: Christianity began as a religion but is greater than all religions.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 283.] Note that "Christianity" is not greater than all other religions; it is greater than any and all religions. This strange remark reflects Steiner's claim that his teachings are not a religion. "True" Christianity, he taught, is Gnostic, it consists of secret knowledge. His teachings (Anthropo-sophy: human knowledge) embody the secrets. That is, he possessed true Christianity; churches do not possess it. "I also want you to understand what is really religious in the anthroposophical sense ... [R]eligion connected with a specific church is not actually religious.” [Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, Foundations of Waldorf Education (Anthroposophic Press, 1998) pp. 44-46.] In this sense, Anthroposophy is the one true religion, according to Steiner. [3] Matthew 19: See http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Matthew+19 To follow Steiner's teachings, we need to distinguish between Jesus, the man, and Christ, the god who manifested in the man. Actually, Steiner taught there there were two Jesuses. The Biblical accounts of Jesus’s youth do not mesh. One solution — adopted by Steiner and some others — is to claim that there were two separate Jesus children, two separate human beings who both contributed to the miracle of Christ's incarnation on the Earth. Steiner taught that the two Jesus children — the Solomon Jesus child and the Nathan Jesus child — eventually combined, in the sense that the second (Nathan) Jesus received the spiritual essence or Ego of the first (Solomon) Jesus. The second Jesus child went on to host the Sun God, Christ. The first Jesus child was the reincarnated being who had once been Zarathustra. The second Jesus child was the being described in the Koran. The combined Jesus was "the Solomonic Nathanic" Jesus. You can decide whether this “explanation” improves upon the Biblical accounts. “[T]he science of the spirit [i.e., Anthroposophy] brings together three things in order to understand the Mystery of Golgotha [i.e., the Crucifixion]. First Jesus as He is incarnated as Zarathustra in the Solomon Jesus Child and how he brings through this Solomon Jesus Child that which mankind has experienced through its historical development since he himself has passed from incarnation to incarnation. I have told you about the Nathan Jesus Child who has within him that which was actually predestined for the earth but never went through this earth evolution; it was held back. I have showed you how the Nathan Jesus Child was completely described in the Koran to the point where it says that the Nathan Jesus Child actually spoke when he was born. The Christ Being incarnates in the Nathan Jesus Child with the Solomon Jesus Child, the Christ Being Who comes from beyond the super-earthly, Who draws into the personality of this Solomonic Nathanic Jesus in the 30th year so that we can recognize in Christ a union of the spiritual worlds external to the earth with that which has occurred upon the earth. And I have brought to your attention the fact that it is necessary in our time to become able to understand the concept of the immensity of the greatness of the Jesus figure, and with that the greatness of the Mystery of Golgotha, since our time has certainly developed the intellect, the intellectual thinking in its 5th post-Atlantean period. However, the spiritual comprehension of the would has to be added to this intellectual thinking. Then it will be possible to understand the Mystery of Golgotha again as it was understood many, many years ago but understood now in a very advanced way.” [Rudolf Steiner, THINGS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT IN THE SPIRIT OF MAN, http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/ThingsPast/19160530p01.html.] ----- Steiner claimed that all religious traditions essentially say the same things, although earlier versions were less precise than later versions. His own version is the most precise yet. To make other religions and traditions more or less consist with his teachings, Steiner had to twist them and redefine them. Noticing the liberties he took and the violence entailed can reduce our admiration for his accomplishment. Anyway, here is how he said Zarathustra foresaw the coming of Christ: "This was the proclamation of the sublime Sun or Light Spirit — the Sun Aura, Ahura Mazdao, Ormuzd. This Spirit of Light reveals Himself to Zarathustra and his followers as the Spirit who turns His countenance from the spiritual world toward mankind and who prepares the future within mankind. It is the Spirit who points to the Christ before His advent on earth, whom Zarathustra proclaims as the Spirit of Light. On the other hand, Zarathustra represents in Ahriman — Angra Mainju — a power whose influence upon the life of the human soul causes the latter's deterioration when it surrenders itself one-sidedly to it. This power is none other than the one previously characterized who, since the betrayal of the Vulcan mysteries, had gained especial domination over the earth. Besides the evangel concerning the Spirit of Light, Zarathustra also proclaimed the doctrine of the spiritual beings who become manifest to the purified sense of the seer as the companions of the Spirit of Light and to whom a contrast was formed by the tempters who appeared to the unpurified remnants of clairvoyance that was retained from the Atlantean period. Zarathustra strove to make clear to the prehistoric Persian how the human soul, as far as it was engaged in the activities and strivings of the physical-sensory world, was the field of battle between the power of the Light God and His adversary and how the human being must conduct himself so as not to be led into the abyss by this adversary but whose influence might be turned to good by the power of the Light God." [Rudolf Steiner, AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1972), chapter "The Evolution of the Cosmos and of Man".] [4] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 649-650. [5] Wendell Berry, BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS: CHRIST’S TEACHINGS ABOUT LOVE, COMPASSION AND FORGIVENESS (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005). [6] Ibid., p. 3. [7] Ibid., p. 7. [8] In Steiner’s work, love tends to be either an abstraction or a distant goal. As leader of his own gnostic religion, Anthroposophy, Steiner endorsed love as virtually any religious leader would need to do. But many of his specific doctrines drain love of its essence. This certainly applies to his racist teachings (see “Rudolf Steiner’s Racism,” at this Web site). His solution to racism is not for us to love one another in all our varieties and individuality, but for “lower” racial strains to yield to “higher,” and for the survivors to blend into a single, universal race. Likewise, his vision of love entails an extremely long evolutionary process: “[I]n the future, Love will be revealed — Love as a new force of Nature....” [Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT SCIENCE - An Outline (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1979), p. 311.] Christ urges us to love one another, now, unreservedly. Steiner advocates love, but he sees its real enactment as a phenomenon of the distant future. Steiner embraces not Christ or Christ’s teachings, as such, but the “Christ-Event,” the “Mystery of Golgotha.” He means that Jesus introduced a new evolutionary impulse into human life, an impulse that must evolve over the millennia so that one day it may be fulfilled: “It is the sublime Sun Being, of whom we have had to tell when describing the evolution of the Christ-Event, who at His revelation stands forth as the all-embracing prototype of Love.” [Ibid., p. 311] Christians are fully justified in finding such thinking alien to their faith. [9] Click on the tag “Unenlightened” in the sidebar near the top of this page. [10] Garry Wills, “The Day the Enlightenment Went Out,” THE NEW YORK TIMES, Nov. 4, 2004, p. 25. [11] Rudolf Steiner, THE LORD’S PRAYER (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007), p. 17. [12] Rudolf Steiner, START NOW! A Book of Soul and Spiritual Exercises (SteinerBooks, 2004), p. 219. Steiner often said that prayers should not be requests for personal favors; they should not be “egoistical.” A good prayer bestows strengths, powers — like an incantation. 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 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.] By praying properly, one can hook into powers that the ancients had and we have lost. Primarily, this means clairvoyance. [13] Ibid., p. 217. [14] Ibid., p. 218. [15] Rudolf Steiner, THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), pp. 199-200. [16] THE FIFTH GOSPEL, p. 119. [17] Ibid., p. 120. [18] Ibid., p. 120. [19] Rudolf Steiner, THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN: The Evolution of Individuality, Lectures from 1909-1916 (Anthroposophic Press, 1990), pp. 65-66. The passage refers to Biblical times. [20] Rudolf Steiner, SLEEP AND DREAMS (SteinerBooks, 2003), p. 43. Steiner’s term “imagistic” is tangentially related to his doctrine that imagination, or pictorial thinking, yields spiritual truth. More pertinent, here: It also involves Steiner’s characteristic fudging. Thus, Steiner said that planets, the Moon, the Sun, etc., are physical spheres in the physical universe, but they are also stages of evolution. There is no rational way to reconcile these doctrines — you just have to believe (or not). Be cautious about Steiner's use of the present tense. Sometimes when he says that something is true now, he means that it was once true or may someday be true. In the case of Yahweh residing on the moon, it makes little difference whether Steiner mean now or formerly — the doctrines remains weird and unBiblical. [21] Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), p.115. [22] Rudolf Steiner, KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS: Esoteric Studies, Vol. 2 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1975), p. 203. [23] Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982), p. 36. Lemuria was a pre-Atlantis Atlantis, a lost habitation for humans on Earth. [24] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 650. [25] RUDOLF STEINER SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH, p. 93. [26] Rudolf Steiner, LIFE BETWEEN DEATH AND REBIRTH (SteinerBooks, 1985), p.72. [27] Ibid., p. 207. [28] “...the Christ event, the Mystery of Golgotha ... Rudolf Steiner’s entire effort can be understood within the context of that event. He sought, often in unspoken wats, always to work out of the forces that flowed into world evolution through the deeds of the Christ.” [Rudolf Steiner, HOW TO KNOW HIGHER WORLDS (Anthroposophic Press, 1994), p. 234, Afterword by Arthur G. Zajonc.] [29] “[H]uman beings can become a god [sic] only when they are ripe for that condition.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE SPIRITUAL HIERARCHIES (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 54.] [30] “Steiner himself had strong words about some aspects of Christianity ... [T]he aspect of Christianity that triggered his earlier remarks was its belief in a world beyond, a spiritual world unattainable through the intellect and from which were revealed the moral and ethical precepts that were to guide one’s life. Steiner rejected this view and ... dedicated his life to the opposite belief, that through rigorous and active thinking we can gain access to the spirit world ourselves.” [Gary Lachman, RUDOLF STEINER (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2007), pp. 128-132.] [31] Steiner associated Jesus with the Sun in part because “sunlight” (physical or spiritual) allows us to “see” (with our “outer eyes” or “inner eyes). Christ, thus, enables us to acquire hidden knowledge. E.g., discussing the confusion people may feel after sleep (a period when, he taught, our souls leave our bodies and enter the spirit realm), Steiner said, “Here Christ appears before us as a spiritual Sun and becomes our guide so that the confusion resolves into a kind of harmonious understanding.” [Rudolf Steiner, UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN BEING (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993), p. 39.] But Steiner also had a more literal association in mind. He literally meant that Christ was a Sun being, a spirit residing on the Sun. [32] See, e.g., the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA: “...salvation by divine aid, which has usually entailed the concept of a divine saviour who achieves what man cannot do for himself — as in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.” [“salvation.” ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 26 Nov. 2008.] Steiner gave at least three descriptions of how humans can slip down into what we might call perdition: ◊ Individual humans may descend to lower and lower stages in successive incarnations until they fall out of evolution. "Beings that stay behind at such stages appear in a later epoch as subordinate nature spirits." [Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), p.70.] ◊ The demon Ahriman presides over the material realm; humans who enter Ahriman's world lose their souls. "The human being is thus in danger of drifting into the Ahrimanic world, in which case the spirit-soul will evaporate into the cosmos. We live in a time when people face the danger of losing their souls to materialistic impulses." [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 115.] ◊ Evil humans will form an "evil race" that will be consigned to a hellish fate. "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.] ◊ When good humans are preparing to move on to Vulcan, evil humans will be sent to an "irreclaimable moon": “[A]t a certain stage, a separate celestial body becomes [i.e., will become] detached. This — as it were, an ‘irreclaimable moon’ — includes all the beings who have persisted in withstanding the true course of evolution. It enters now upon a line of development such as no words can portray....” [Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT SCIENCE - An Outline (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1979), pp. 309-310.] These are the dooms that the religion of Anthroposophy would save us from. The salvation offered by Anthroposophy is “correct” spiritual knowledge that permits us to move upward in an evolution leading to Vulcan and beyond. [33] KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, p. 13. There are other “Sun beings” besides Christ. All of them affect human beings, but only Christ connects with humans individually; the others affect our shared human attributes: “The other Sun beings who remained in the Sun sphere have no access to the single human individuality but only to what is common to all mankind.” [Ibid., p. 13] From our perspective, Christ is the most important Sun being, but viewed from another angle he is just one among many. He is not even distinguished from the others because he is “sublime.” Occasionally Steiner called the other Sun beings “sublime” as well (e.g., OCCULT SCIENCE, p. 181: a soul can “see the sublime Beings of the Sun” — the soul is “face to face [sic] with the sublime Sun Beings”). Christ was higher than the other Sun beings in one very special sense. He was the Sun God — that is, the prevailing god who lived on the Sun. “Christ, the Sun God, who was known by earlier peoples under such names as Ahura Mazda, Hu, or Balder, has now united himself with the earth...." [Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), pp. 4-5, Introduction by Margaret Jonas.] "The sun oracle of ancient Atlantis had already prophesied the coming of the Christ, of the Sun God." [Rudolf Steiner, ON THE MYSTERY DRAMAS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1983), p. 93.] “Christ ... the Sun God." [Rudolf Steiner, THE PRINCIPAL OF SPIRITUAL ECONOMY IN CONNECTION WITH QUESTIONS OF REINCARNATION (Anthroposophic Press, 1986), p. 5.] “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. 277.] “It was known to the initiated priests of these Mysteries that the sublime Sun-Spirit of whom they spoke to the worshippers is the same Being as He who would later be called the Christ.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE FESTIVALS AND THEIR MEANING (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), p. 271.] Steiner’s view of the other members of the Holy Trinity is as unorthodox as his view of Christ. God the Father, he said, is the ground of being that will be our own, perfected, future spiritual nature: “[W]e shall have gradually achieved the transformation of our own being into what is called in Christianity ‘the Father.’” [Rudolf Steiner, THE LORD’S PRAYER (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007), p. 17.] Note the quotation marks around the words 'the Father.' As for the Holy Spirit: “This outer world that we create is a vision of all our previous earthly incarnations spread out before us in a tableu. At the same time a glimmer, as it were, of light appears from the future, the same light that illumines our past. It is this, so to speak, beckoning [sic] light that Steiner speaks of as the Holy Spirit....” [Stewart C. Easton, MAN AND WORLD IN THE LIGHT OF ANTHROPOSOPHY (Anthroposophic Press, 1989), p. 163.] Steiner locates not only Christ on the Sun, but he finds the Antichrist there, also. The Antichrist is Sorat, the Sun Demon. “In speaking about the Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation of St. John, [Steiner] refers to one of the most powerful adversary forces, the anti-Christ, Sorat, the Sun Demon....” [Rudolf Steiner, THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007), p. 15, introduction by Margaret Jonas.] “Sorat has meant ‘Demon of the Sun’ since ancient times. Every star has its good spirit — its intelligence — and its evil spirit — its demon. The adversary of the good powers of the sun is called Sorat ... Sorat is, then, the adversary of Christ Jesus.” [Rudolf Steiner, READING THE PICTURES OF THE APOCALYPSE (Anthroposophic Press, 1993), p. 19.] Sorat may be manifested through the machinations of evil humans. Black magicians “do not remain stuck in animality; they develop spiritual abilities. In full consciousness they have turned away, and provide a bodily incarnation for Sorat. That will be the incarnation in flesh of the demon of the sun.” [Ibid., p. 127.] Opposing black magicians and Sorat are the good humans, among whom Steiner certainly includes himself. “Sorat continues to work on and on against the forces coming from the Genius of the Sun that are battling for a genuine Christianity.” [THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR, p. 111.] By “genuine Christianity,” Steiner means his own doctrines. But this is another of his extraordinary misrepresentations, possibly reflecting his sincere confusion. His doctrines are gnostic and heretical. Consider the very concept of Christ as a sublime Sun being, or Sun genius, or Sun god. This is a pagan, not a Christian, concept. Coming closer to Christian orthodoxy, Steiner says that people who follow Sorat will pay a heavy price: “[T]here is also an opposing principle to the Lamb, there is also a Sun-Demon, the so-called Demon of the Sun, that which works in the evil forces of man, thrusting back the force of the Lamb, and it works in such a way that a certain part of the human race is thrust out of the evolution which leads to the sun. These are the opposing forces of the sun, they are in opposition to the sun; at the same time they are the forces which have the tendency to be entirely thrown out of our evolution when the 666 conditions of development have passed away; they will then be finally cast into the abyss.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN (Anthroposophic Press, 1993), p. 198.] That the followers of the Antichrist will be severely punished is an orthodox proposition. But linking this to being “thrust out of the evolution which leads to the sun” is not. (Steiner taught that severely errant humans “fall out of evolution” and descend to the level of “subordinate nature spirits.” [Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), p. 69.] And, according to Steiner, the abyss is the destination not just of evil forces but of the final human evolutionary laggards, the “evil race.” [Rudolf Steiner, UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN BEING (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993), p. 103.]) Let’s return to the “666 conditions of development.” 666 is the number of the Beast, another name for Sorat. In Anthroposophy, 666 has several significances. It reflects the periods between Sorat’s appearances: “Sorat rises every 666 years to deceive humanity.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE BOOK OF REVELATION AND THE WORK OF THE PRIEST (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998) p. 8, introduction by René Querido.] 666 also will become the indicator of successful or thwarted human evolution. “What must the number 666 actually mean if it is to express what we have explained? It must mean the principle which leads man to complete hardening in external physical life, so that he thrusts from himself just what would enable him to strip off the lower principles and rise to the higher.” [THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN, p. 199.] For those who manage to keep evolving, 666 will mark their passage to that higher evolution. Note that conditions of life, races, and sub-races mark stages of evolution: “Just as we now have 344 as the number of evolution, in the future when 6 conditions of life, 6 fundamental races, and 6 sub-races have been gone through, the number 666 (six, six, six) [sic] will apply ... Thus a time will come when the number 666 is the number of evolution.” [THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN, p. 195.] Whether that last Steiner statement makes sense is debatable (the number six-hundred-and-sixty-six becomes three sixes, or eighteen), but what leaps out is the emphasis that Steiner puts on race. He did this repeatedly — racial differences are basic to his ideology. Good humans rise through the hierarchy of races, while bad humans fall — sometimes falling all the way out of evolution. As on so many other topics (e.g., Ahriman, magic, Jesus the Sun lord...), Steiner’s views on race and evolution diverge markedly from the tenets of genuine Christianity. [34] Rudolf Steiner, THE EAST IN THE LIGHT OF THE WEST (Kessinger, facsimile of 1942 edition), pp . 108-109. (Also published by Temple Lodge 1993.) Steiner taught that when Christ was crucified and his blood soaked into the earth, Christ merged with Earth and became it's spirit. Christ is not merely a "Sun being" — he is a sun god or, literally, the Sun God, indistinguishable from the divinity worshipped, under other names, in other religions, as the Sun God. Christ is of great importance to human beings on the Earth, Steiner said, because Christ chose to come to Earth to help us. But other “gods” have played a similarly important role elsewhere and would have the same importance there that Christ has here. “Buddha, the Prince of Peace, went to Mars — the planet of war and conflict — to execute his mission there. The souls on Mars were warlike, torn with strife. Thus Buddha performed a deed of sacrifice similar to the deed performed in the Mystery of Golgotha by the Bearer of the Essence of Divine Love. To dwell on Mars as Buddha was a deed of sacrifice offered to the Cosmos. He was as it were the lamb offered up in sacrifice on Mars and to accept this environment of strife was for him a kind of crucifixion.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUTZ (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1950), VII, “The Mission of Gautama Buddha on Mars”.] “The Buddha wandered away from earthly affairs to the realm of Mars. Until then Mars had been the chosen center of forces designated by the Greeks as fearfully warlike. The mission of Mars came to an end in the seventeenth century. Another impulse became necessary and the Buddha accomplished a Buddha crucifixion there.” [ Rudolf Steiner, LIFE BETWEEN DEATH AND REBIRTH (SteinerBooks, 1985), p. 207. ] [35] Steiner’s religion, Anthroposophy, is pagan, both because it stands outside the world’s major religions, and because it contains so many elements of pagan cosmologies, as in its celebration of Norse myths. Anthroposophists sometimes refer directly to the pagan impulse in their beliefs. “Steiner was excited to discover a ‘Christianity before Christ,’ a ‘pagan Christianity’ (not for him a contradiction in terms) ... The rituals through which one can contact gods and goddesses of old offer a deep sense of satisfaction. However, times have changed, spiritual being evolve also and are known by other names. Christ, the Sun God, who was known by earlier peoples under such names as Ahura Mazda, Hu, or Balder, has now united himself with the earth....” [RUDOLF STEINER SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH, pp. 4-5, Introduction by Margaret Jonas.] No orthodox Christian could subscribe to the idea that there are forms of Christianity centering on figures other than Jesus of Nazareth. The Sun God appears in many religions under such names as Helios, Ra, and Sol. Ahura Mazda is the chief god of Zoroastrianism; in ancient Egypt, Hu was the personification of authoritative utterance, and he helped row the boat carrying Ra; Balder (or Baldur) is a Norse god associated with the spring and purity (but also, sometimes, with lust). Steiner did indeed refer to pagan Christianity: “...the old, nature-inspired Christianity that had still been reflected in the teachings of Chartres where, as in Arthur’s Round Table, a pagan Christianity, a pre-Christian Christianity prevailed.” [KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, p. 42.] Chartres, site of a magnificent cathedral, was a gnostic educational center in the Middle Ages. Steiner did not advocate returning to old forms of pagan worship, but — as in his reference to the Round Table — he tried to marry Christianity with myth and legend. Besides drawing on myths from other cultures, he advocated various European, “Christian” legends as a way to reconcile ancient beliefs with newer forms. So, while quoting from the Bible and offering gnostic interpretations of Biblical texts, Steiner gave great weight to such legends as the Arthurian knights and their quest for the Holy Grail. “[N]owadays we can see all too clearly that Christianity needs for its future development to rediscover the ‘sacramental’ sense of nature. Many will otherwise find that they need to turn away from it back to ‘paganism’ or nature spirituality. That is not the way of the Grail, though. The Grail is the discovery of the inner way forward....” [Rudolf Steiner, THE HOLY GRAIL (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001), p. 7, Introduction by Andrew J. Welburn.] But the Grail is not a Biblical concept — indeed, in all likelihood, it is itself pagan. “Grail - object of legendary quest for the knights of Arthurian romance. The term evidently denoted a wide-mouthed or shallow vessel ... The legend of the Grail possibly was inspired by classical and Celtic mythologies....” ["Grail." ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. 2009. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 14 Feb. 2009.] Steiner took legend and myth for truth, setting them alongside the Bible and often giving them preference. [36] Rudolf Steiner, “Gnostic Doctrines and Supersensible Influences in Europe”, GA 225 http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GnoDoc_index.html [37] OCCULT SCIENCE - An Outline, p. 272. [38] Rudolf Steiner, THE LORD’S PRAYER (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007), p. 17. [39] Rudolf Steiner, SPIRITUAL SCIENCE AS A FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL FORMS (Anthroposophic Press, 1986), p. 20. [42] Rudolf Steiner, RELIGION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 164, commentary by Andrew Welburn. [43] Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995. [44] Ibid., publisher's description. [45] RELIGION, p. 186. [46] Rudolf Steiner, THE REAPPEARANCE OF CHRIST IN THE ETHERIC (Anthroposophic Press, 1983), introduction by René M. Querido. [47] Ibid., lecture 1, “The Event of the Appearance of Christ in the Etheric World”. http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/ReapChrist/19100125p01.html [48] Here is one Christian interpretation: "When Jesus rose from the dead, He rose not as a spirit, but as a person with a physical body which could be seen ... The Bible couldn’t be clearer about this topic. Jesus’ second coming is not some mystical event that will happen in the heart of a new believer. It will be a physical, observable event. Jesus will return with a physical body." ["Jesus' Second Coming", http://biblestudies.suite101.com/article.cfm/jesus_second_coming] [49] See "Is Anthroposophy a Religion?" It is a religion, but that religion is not Christianity; it is Anthroposophy. |
