WEIRD WALDORF
Marching Orders
I.
Rudolf Steiner held meetings with the teachers at the first Waldorf school. He used these meetings to set out the direction and purpose of Waldorf education. You can find most of the following statements in the two-volume set FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER. [1]
Steiner told the teachers that they must serve the "the divine cosmic plan. We should always remember that when we do something, we are actually carrying out the intentions of the gods." He informed the teachers that they were on a messianic mission to save the world: They would be “the means by which that streaming down from above [i.e., the gods' beneficence] will go out into the world.”
Steiner presumably knew what the divine plan is, at least in his own opinion; and he spoke of many gods, not one. It would be almost impossible to believe that Steiner made such grandiose and heretical remarks, except that he did. This conception of Waldorf schooling is so essential, let's look at Steiner's his words again, more fully: “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.” [2] Note, please, that Steiner included himself: He didn't say to the teachers "you" will do so-and-so, he said "we." The core of the divine cosmic plan, and hence of Waldorf's purpose, entails the future evolution of humankind. (I outline Steiner's fantastic visions of the future in “Everything” and the essays that follow it.)
In fulfilling the holy plan of the "gods," Waldorf teachers are directed by religious doctrines. But the religion involved is not orthodox Christianity or any other large, recognizable faith. It is Anthroposophy, the weird faith Steiner himself whipped up (mainly by cribbing from Theosophy [3]). If they are faithful to Steiner, Waldorf teachers work to fulfill Anthroposophy as a faith.
Steiner conducted himself as a religious leader, for example by writing prayers for Waldorf teachers and students to recite, in unison, in school. [4] He presented himself as a master of virtually all knowledge, a savant, a clairvoyant guide to the mysteries of the universe. [5] Messianic self-promoters are always extremely dangerous. Old Texas proverb: If you meet someone who has all the answers, run for your life!
Steiner sometimes seemed to lack the courage of his convictions (for the sake of argument, let's stipulate that Steiner believed what he said — this raises the question of his sanity, but let's not trouble ourselves over that just now). Steiner worried about opposition to his weird, occult tenets, so he instructed Waldorf teachers to keep the school's occult purposes secret. They were not to use the word "prayer," for instance. “Never call a verse a prayer, call it an opening verse before school. Avoid allowing anyone to hear you, as a faculty member, using the word ‘prayer.’” [6] Similarly, Steiner told the teachers not to reveal the tenet that some people are "not really human." Some “children are born with a human form, but are not really human beings ... Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings ... [W]e do not want to shout that to the world.” [7]
Steiner worried about a lot of things, such as the poor academic standards at Waldorf. So he told the teachers to hush this up also. He said the school would not prepare students for final examinations, but he didn't "dare" to reveal this. “It is a question of whether we dare tell those who come to us that we will not prepare them for the final examination at all, that it is a private decision of the student whether to take the final examination or not.” [8]. His overall directive to Waldorf teachers was, understandably, quite broad: “We should not speak to people outside the school....” [9]
On specific subjects, especially sciences, Steiner gave his teachers truly bizarre guidance. He explained to them that the earth doesn't orbit the sun. Rather, the sun is flying through space, with three planets ahead of it and three trailing behind. [10] As for the earth itself, Steiner taught that islands such as Great Britain are not attached to the ocean floor. Instead, they float, and are held in position by the stars. [11]
Basic to Steiner's religion are the borrowed concepts of karma and reincarnation. [12] Steiner said that upper school students might be given instruction about reincarnation, but only in the most cautious manner. [13] (Steiner’s explanation for why some people are “not really human” is that “they are not reincarnated, but are human forms filled with a sort of natural demon.” [14])
Critically important: Steiner affirmed that "Anthroposophy will be in the school." [15] So, it is clear that children attending a Waldorf school receive their educations within a miasma of mystic nonsense. The harm inflicted can last a lifetime.
I describe my own experiences as a Waldorf school student in the essays "Unenlightened" and/or "I Went to Waldorf". In another essay ("My Sad, Sad Story" — I can laugh at myself, too) I pick up the story following my graduation from a Waldorf school. I should stress that I write about my own experiences only because I have a right to tell about them. Other Waldorf graduates and their parents have more powerful stories, but it is up to them to decide whether to tell those stories. I will not invade their privacy.
In other essays here at Waldorf Watch, I return to many of the themes I have sketched here, examining them at greater length.
II.
Waldorf schools generally teach Anthroposophy to the students, but typically they do this covertly, without telling the students or the parents what is going on. There are several reasons for this approach. Anthroposophy is occult — many of its doctrines consist of "mystery knowledge" that only insiders, "initiates," are supposed to know. The inner circle of a Waldorf school may possess this knowledge, but people in outer circles know less — the farther anyone is from the center, the less s/he is told. Students are near the periphery, so they are kept largely in the dark. Still, they may internalize many Anthroposophical beliefs and attitudes. After spending eleven years at a Waldorf school, I knew a lot of Anthroposophy, although I didn't quite know that I knew it, if you follow me. I didn't consciously know that my beliefs and attitudes came, to a very large extent, out of Steiner's occult doctrines.
In addition to being occult, Anthroposophy is gnostic, meaning it is heretical. For this reason, Waldorf insiders often feel an increased need to protect their secrets. Revealing Steiner's doctrines too openly would distress and offend many "outsiders" such as parents. So it is best for Waldorfers to keep mum and go about their business quietly.
Financial considerations also give the schools a reason to be secretive. Many Waldorf schools depend primarily or completely on the tuition paid by students' families. Scaring away families would be bad for business.
Finally, in countries where a clear line is supposed to exists between secular schools and religious schools, Waldorf schools would cut their own throats if they revealed that they are, indeed, religious.
So Waldorf schools teach Anthroposophy in roundabout ways, subtle but very effective. Here is a question posted in June, 2009, at the waldorf-critics discussion list. The writer is the mother of a Waldorf school student. My reply deals with some subjects covered, and some quotations cited, elsewhere here at Waldorf Watch. If you come upon material you've already seen, please just skip ahead:
Maura Kwaten wrote:
"In our school brochure ... it says, 'This philosophy (Anthroposophy ) can be applied to all walks of life and it is out of this that the teachers work. THE PHILOSOPHY ITSELF HOWEVER IS NOT TAUGHT TO THE CHILDREN.' They use really bold letters to drive the point home!
"Why isn't it taught?"
I posted the following answer, which I am editing slightly for inclusion here:
Perhaps Anthroposophy isn't taught at some Waldorf schools. But it certainly is taught at many of the schools, as Steiner intended. The process is often deceptive, often covert, but it is real. In fact, it is the main purpose of the schools, as conceived by Steiner.
In public, Steiner denied that Anthroposophy would be taught at the Waldorf School; but in faculty meetings and elsewhere, generally in private, he admitted that it would be taught: "The older students often mentioned that we emphasize that the Waldorf School is not to be an anthroposophical school. That is one of the questions we need to handle very seriously. You need to make the children aware that they are receiving the objective truth, and if this occasionally appears anthroposophical, it is not anthroposophy that is at fault. Things are that way because anthroposophy has something to say about objective truth. It is the material that causes what is said to be anthroposophical. We certainly may not go to the other extreme, where people say that anthroposophy may not be brought into the school. Anthroposophy will be in the school when it is objectively justified, that is, when it is called for by the material itself.” [16]
Notice what Steiner is saying. The older students have heard the denials that the school would teach Anthroposophy, yet they feel that Anthroposophy is actually present, and they are asking what's going on. Steiner's reply to the teachers, in private, is that Anthroposophy will in fact be in the school, in virtually every subject, since Anthroposophy is the truth. When will it be in the school? When will its presence be justified? Almost always.
Let's take some examples of ways in which Anthroposophy is in the schools. I'll start with indirect ways that Steiner's views are conveyed to students; later I'll get to more direct ways.
Kids at Waldorfs are taught wet-on-wet water painting. Why? Because this technique creates images that resemble the spirit realm as Steiner described it. These paintings, in other words, accustom the kids to a vision compatible with Steiner's. “You see, when the soul arrives on earth in order to enter its body, it has come down from spirit-soul worlds in which there are no spatial forms ... [The spirit realm] has no spatial forms or lines, [but] it does have color intensities, color qualities. Which is to say that the world man inhabits between death and a new birth ... is a soul-permeated, spirit-permeated world of light, of color, of tone; a world of qualities not quantities....” [17] In the phrase “between death and a new birth,” Steiner is referring to spiritual life between earthly incarnations, or in other words his concept of reincarnation.
Steiner also said that spirit beings enter the physical realm through colors. For instance, “If the person devoting himself to the color which covers these physically dense walls were one who had made certain occult progress ... the walls would disappear from his clairvoyant vision ... the walls become like glass, but in the sphere which opens up there is a world of purely spiritual phenomena; spiritual facts and spiritual figures become visible.... many different kinds of elementary beings are around us ... But they cannot all be seen in the same way; according to the capacity of clairvoyant vision, there may be visible and invisible beings in the same space. What spiritual beings become visible in any particular instance depends on the colour to which we devote ourselves. In a red room, other beings become visible than in a blue room.... ” [18] Thus, the use of color — and the environment created by variously colored rooms — in a Waldorf school is meant to have spiritual meaning. It is an embodiment of Anthroposophical doctrine.
The study of all arts at Waldorf schools is drenched with mystical Anthroposophical thinking. Arts are not studied or performed for aesthetic or cultural reasons, primarily, but for spiritual reasons. “This is what gives art its essential lustre: it transplants us here and now into the spiritual world.” [19] Steiner meant this quite literally. Through art, students are supposed to become connected with the spirit realm. This is clearest in eurythmy. Eurythmy is not dance, per se. It is a literal enactment of Anthroposophical doctrine — it is an Anthroposophical religious exercise, and it is generally required of all students. Why? “In having people do eurythmy, we link them directly to the supersensible world.” [20] Note the wording. Waldorf teachers don't invite or encourage students to do eurythmy: They have (i.e., require) them to do it, because it connects them to the supersensible (i.e., spiritual) realm. This is Steiner's religion in practice. Eurythmy is Anthroposophy in motion — kids doing eurythmy are being taught Anthroposophy in the form of spirit-connecting physical motion.
Or consider the gnome dolls in Waldorf classrooms. Why are they there? Because they represent beings that Steiner said actually exist: “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.” [21] The gnome dolls are present almost in the same way that statues of saints and angels can be found in churches: They represent the spiritual beliefs fostered in those buildings. Of course, one often sees images of angels in Waldorf schools, too. It is all the same: It is surrounding the kids with Anthroposophy.
Or consider Norse myths. These are given great emphasis in Waldorf schools. Why? Because they can be made to apparently embody Anthroposophical beliefs. “No other mythology gives a clearer picture of evolution than Northern mythology. Germanic mythology in its pictures is close to anthroposophical conception of future evolution.” [22] Kids who are taught Norse myths in Waldorf schools are being taught a soft form of Anthroposophy. The Norse gods, you see, are real gods for Steiner and his followers. “Myths and sagas are not just 'folk-tales'; they are the memories of the visions people perceived in olden times ... At night they were really surrounded by the world of the Nordic gods of which the legends tell. Odin, Freya, and all the other figures [i.e., Norse gods] 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.” [23]
The religious/Anthroposophical nature of Waldorf schooling shines out starkly in the morning prayers the students recite, in unison. The schools call these prayers "morning verses," but they are prayers, written by Steiner. The include such words as "I reverence, O God,/The strength of humankind ... From Thee come light and strength,/To Thee rise love and thanks.” [24] The children saying these words are addressing and thanking God. They are praying. And, crucially, they are being taught Anthroposophical forms of prayer. They are being instructed in Anthroposophy.
If the examples I've given so far seem in any way nebulous, we should recognize that various Anthroposophical concepts are also brought into classes throughout all grade levels in more explicit ways. At many (perhaps most or even all) Waldorf schools, direct and indirect intellectual reference is made to many Anthroposophical tenets. These include the following. (Some of these ideas can also be found outside Waldorf schools, of course. And some of them may be true. But the combination found inside Waldorfs is probably unique. Steiner said that "the Waldorf teacher’s consciousness" is "hardly present anywhere else in the world." [25] The same can probably said of the Waldorf student's consciousness.)
Anthroposophical tenets and attitudes conveyed to Waldorf students:
• karma
• reincarnation
• spiritual evolution
• rejection of Darwinism but belief in purposeful, progressive earthly evolution
• the utter difference between humans and animals
• polytheism
• the reliability and power of imagination and intuition and inspiration and
feeling (subjectivity) as opposed to rationality; hence, preference for
hazy pastel mystical thinking as opposed to rigid deadly logic
• the efficacy of elevated (in a sense, transcendent) consciousness:
clairvoyance or ESP and other psychic powers
• maya (the deceptive nature of physical reality)
• the problematic nature of nature
(the natural world embodies wonderful forces
but ultimately it beneath us, a set of snares)
• the shallowness and unreliability of science
• the wickedness of technology
• the wickedness of the modern world generally
• the importance of Christ
• the importance (but obsolescence) of the Old Testament
• the existence of invisible beings above humanity
and also below humanity
• the existence of other worlds and realms
(including invisible ones)
• the transcendent power of art
• the superiority of ancient "wisdom"
(myths, visions, intuitions, folk tales, fairy tales)
as opposed to modern materialistic illusory "knowledge"
• the unreliability of the brain
• the unreliability of the senses
• the unreliability and corrupting power of the body
• the cultural superiority of Europe (especially north/central Europe,
in particular Germany and the Nordic countries
occupied by highly civilized white people)
• the reality of magic in various guises (e.g., biodynamic gardening)
• suspicion of modern medicine and preference for "natural" or herbal healing
• the possible if not certain spiritualistic (astrological)
significance of heavenly bodies
• the solemn mystic primacy of the Sun
• the cyclical nature of history
• the possibility of hidden groups or forces controlling history for good or ill
• the ultimate, constant warfare between forces of good and evil
(or between light and dark, which may find expression in skin coloring)
• the real existence of angels including guardian angels
• the belief that the general run of people are foolishly materialistic and unawake
(Steiner called non-Anthroposophists robots, blind moles, etc.)
• the belief that the general run of worldly knowledge
(as found in encyclopedias, in regular schools, in colleges) is wrong
• the belief that truth is known only among superior sorts such as ourselves
• the possible real and continuing existence of specters, ghosts, the dead
• the possibility of communication with them...
and so on.
In the discussions at waldorf-critics, the participants have described many examples of such tenets and attitudes being conveyed inside Waldorf schools,. Not all Waldorf schools manage to implant all of these concepts in all of their students, but most try, and some succeed.
One specific example: reincarnation. Belief in this may not always be openly espoused in Waldorf schools today, but Steiner said it probably should be: “For the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade independent religious instruction we could move into a freer form and give a theoretical explanation about such things as life before birth and after death. We could give them examples. We could show them how to look at the major cultural connections and about the mission of the human being on Earth. You need only look at Goethe and Jean Paul [i.e., Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, a German author] to see it. You can show everywhere that their capacities come from a life before birth.” [26] When a Waldorf school shies away from espousing reincarnation outright, it will probably push the concept indirectly.
When a child spends many years at a Waldorf school, s/he will almost inevitably emerge having learned a great many Anthroposophical tenets without necessarily having been told that they are Steiner's doctrines. S/he may hold these tenets in the conscious mind or s/he may hold them mainly at a subconscious level, as inclinations or unspoken preferences. Either way, a Waldorf student who is susceptible — who does not rebel or tune the teachers out — will likely emerge having been brainwashed in Anthroposophy.
Is Anthroposophy taught in the schools? Absolutely.
— Roger Rawlings
Here is an excerpt from a recent book:
Controversy regarding the Steiner educational system surfaced in Australia in July 2007 when a number of parents contacted the media with concerns over whether the Steiner education system was based on a holistic or spiritual model. One parent, Ray Pereira, reported that he could not believe what he was hearing from the school faculty. His son's teacher had informed him that his child had to repeat prep because the boy's soul had not fully incarnated. She said "his soul was hovering above the earth," Perieira said. "And she then produced a couple of my son's drawings as evidence that his depiction of the world was from a perspective looking down on the earth from above. I just looked at my wife and we both thought, 'we are out of here'."
[Aron Raphael, CULTS, TERRROR AND MIND CONTROL (Bay Tree Publishing, 2009), p. 114.]
◊◊◊◊
You may find Steiner's ideas odd.
But at Waldorf schools they tend to be treated as gospel,
whether or not they actually seem to mean anything rational.
“Here on earth we have solid things that can be weighed, and attached to
these objects that can be weighed are the colours, the red, the yellow,
whatever our senses perceive as being attached to the objects. When we
sleep, yellow is a freely floating being, not attached to anything, but weight-
less, freely weaving and floating.”
[Rudolf Steiner, BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS 1919-1924 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 108.
My sketch of Steiner's sketch, 2009.]
Here is the physical body (blue) within the etheric body (red/purple)
but — due to demons — not penetrated
by the astral (yellow).
[Rudolf Steiner, EVIL (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1997), p. 117.
My version of Steiner's sketch, 2009.]
Waldorf students will be sensitized to spiritualistic forms of thought.
You may find this appealing. But be sure that
you understand what Waldorf spiritualism really entails.
Believing that the soul exists separate from the body
is one thing; most people of faith believe this.
But believing Steiner's odd, irrational, and heretical doctrines is a different proposition.
[Drawing by a Waldorf student.]
◊◊◊◊
FROM THE NET
Here is a fascinating message posted on the Internet
in September, 2009 by an advocate of Waldorf education;
following it are two messages I wrote in reply.
I have edited the messages slightly for inclusion here.
I cannot wholly vouch for any messages except those I wrote myself,
but I think you'll find the following worth reading.
