THE REVEALING NOTEBOOKS

OF WALDORF STUDENTS

(CONTINUED)

Same lesson, higher stage: We see six gnomes walking among six-petaled flowers, under a flower-shaped sun and six clouds. — R.R.

6, aka VI. According to Waldorf belief, numbers have their real existence in the spiritual or Platonic realm. Waldorf math is mystic math. [See "Mystic Math".] — R.R.

In Anthroposophy, mental activity such as calculation is dependent on the activity of invisible elemental beings. The Waldorf class teacher therefore considers it a moral necessity to represent this “truth” to students who are learning mathematics, so that they my know what they owe to the invisible entities. But what is the effect of a systematic representation of elves in the imagination of young students? In stressing such ideas, we implant images deeply in their subconsciousness. These actually become a component of their psyche and even their emotional world. Later, this will make it easier for a conscious belief in elemental beings to arise in them, a belief cherished by Anthroposophists.

◊

Children are prepared to believe in elemental beings by the rituals performed at the "nature table." The children are put in a worshipful relationship to various natural objects (leaves, branches, moss, pine nuts, stones, and so forth) at a table having a candle at its center. Each morning, one child will ceremoniously light the candle. [An alternate name for elemental beings is nature spirits — they are the invisible beings that animate nature, according to Anthroposophical doctrine.]

This nature table has no candle, at least for the moment. But the veils create an otherworldly, spiritualistic impression. [For images of other Waldorf nature tables, see Oct. 20-31, 2010. For a brief description of a Waldorf nature table ceremony, see "Ex-Teacher 2": "After singing roll, I choose a child, perhaps this would be the child of the day (or my little helper) to come up and light the candle on the nature table. The candle is lit out of reverence, to set a mood, much like you would at church or at the dinner table. Then the child returns to his place and we say our morning verse [i.e., a prayer] which was written by Rudolf Steiner."] — R.R.

In Waldorf schools, the teachers may even give students esoteric meditation exercises written by Rudolf Steiner! For example, in a grammar notebook...we may find what appears to be a simple exercise related to grammatical tenses, such as the future tense. The text tells the student to put a seed in the ground so that it can germinate later. At first glance, nothing suspicious strikes the untrained eye. But close examination can reveal that the text is almost identical to an occult initiation meditation prescribed by Rudolf Steiner.

◊

Comparison of another text dictated to students for their notebooks shows that it reflects the mantra of the Anthroposophical Foundation Stone [i.e., a mantra written by Steiner for use when construction of the Anthroposophical headquarters began]. The class teacher has not only introduced the Anthroposophical conception of man as a tripartite being, but he has used the very words found in the Foundation Stone Meditation! ...

Parents who do not know this piece by Rudolf Steiner can nonetheless see that their children have been taught part of a doctrine coming from the founder of Anthroposophy. The children may quickly forget these words. Nonetheless, at this point in their education, certain concepts have been introduced into their activities, possibly embedding themselves in the students' subconsciousness. Then, one day, these Anthroposophical doctrines planted in the children's souls may be reactivated! 

In the same text, the teacher establishes another link, this time with Anthroposophical doctrines concerning human nature, by comparing the head and trunk to the Sun and Moon. This is another element of Anthroposophical belief.

Drawings created by Waldorf teachers and copied by Waldorf students sometimes reflect Rudolf Steiner's own drawings, as represented in Anthroposophical texts such as the following. — R.R.

[French edition: Rudolf Steiner, NATURE HUMANE (Ed., Triads), p. 179. English edition: Rudolf Steiner, FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 160.]

The globe of the human head has the form of the Sun, Steiner said. The concave human trunk (so he said) has the form of the Moon. — R.R.

◊

We can observe the same process of indoctrination at work in science classes. For example, during geology class in 5th grade, the teacher begins by introducing students to the various minerals and metals found within the Earth. Then he draws connections with the different planets, connecting the Sun with gold, Mars with iron, the Moon with silver, Saturn with lead, Jupiter with zinc [and so on]. Until now, you might think this is a traditional teaching, except that it reflects alchemy instead of chemistry. But the class teacher goes further, as revealed by the specifications page that we reproduce here. The teacher has the students draw a kind of multi-branched star whose points are associated with the planets and the center is supposed to be the Earth....

A mystic seven-pointed Waldorf star, with the Earth at the center. Earth is thus connected to seven other planets and their seven magic metals. The pertinent seven astrological signs are clearly marked. The lesson is that we cannot live without the seven holy planets and their magic metals. — R.R.

The children learn that all of these metals have entered the Earth very subtly [from the other planets] and they participate in our life processes. Plants, animals, and humans cannot live without the assistance of these special influences. 

Typically, a Waldorf class teacher is cautious and avoids making explicit notations for his students, so as to leave no obvious traces of Anthroposophical indoctrination. He almost never would hand out such materials in typed form, as one unwise teacher did. Or he would pick up the papers after the students used them, as should always be done. What we see here, however, is the systematic presentation of very specific ideas coming from Rudolf Steiner. Indeed, Steiner associated the Earth's metals with various cosmic forces. They were first introduced into terrestrial evolution in etheric form, he said, and then they became dense and made their definite appearance as the seven special metals. Steiner described how — In cosmic entities, in the heavenly bodies, and in the kingdoms of nature — gold, for instance, is born from the condensing of a divine substance that should have remained immaterial. Gold has followed man in the Fall from Grace [i.e., Adam and Eve's sin in Eden], undergoing the same corruption as man himself. [In Steiner's theology, everything that exists on the physical Earth has fallen from higher, better realms.]

When Waldorf teachers are so indiscreet as to hand out pages like this to their students, they really should gather the sheets up again at the end of class.

A rough translation follows (these are instructions for Waldorf students, telling then what to put in their notebooks).

ON A NEW PAGE IN THE BOOK OF GEOLOGY PLEASE COPY THE TEXT:

METALS OF THE EARTH

In the granite, we see a multitude of different colors, the sandstone are also brown, pink, yellow, red or purple. Everywhere we can say that it is the iron that creates the colors. Besides iron, there are many metals and just as in music there are seven sounds, so there are seven major metals related to the planets:

LEAD - SATURN

ZINC - JUPITER

IRON - MARS

GOLD - SUN

COPPER - VENUS

QUICKSILVER - MERCURY

SILVER - MOON

 All of these metals have entered the Earth so very subtly and they participate in the processes of life. The plant, animal, and man cannot live without these metals.

Steiner taught that seven is the number of perfection. He built an elaborate cosmology based on such ancient teachings: There are seven sacred planets, seven pure colors, seven true musical notes, seven magic metals, and so forth. Here, Perra gives us a glimpse of Steiner's theology being presented — sometimes obliquely, sometimes explicitly — in Waldorf classrooms. This, Perra argues, is Anthroposophical indoctrination in action. The children may not understand or consciously remember all the strange concepts they are exposed to, but many of these concepts will sink deeply into them. The children will thus be conditioned so that, later in their lives, they will be likely to incline toward Anthroposophy; their preferences and inclinations will have been guided by their manipulative Waldorf education. — R.R.

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The following is excerpted from

THE DELUSIONAL WORLD 

OF RUDOLF STEINER

by Ian Hayward Robinson

[http://www.rationalist.com.au/archive/78/p2-5_AR78.pdf].

...If some of [Steiner’s] ideas on education have worthwhile lessons for us – making the arts more central, dealing with the whole person, being concerned with initiation into the culture and not just training in skills – these good things are vitiated by the stubbornness with which Steiner schools and teachers try to shoehorn children into the pattern pre-determined for them by Steiner’s cogitations. While its propaganda claims a central concern for individual differences, in fact what Steiner education does is to try to slot all children into the developmental pigeon-hole designed for them by Rudolf Steiner, within which there is only a small amount of room to move. Human destiny is seen as moving along pre-ordained paths and the Steiner teacher's role is to keep children on the fairly straight and relatively narrow as defined by Steiner. 

Apart from the academic doubts, there are other concerns about having Steiner annexes as part of public schools. It effectively creates two schools with different philosophies and approaches under one administrative framework ... Because the Steiner parents form an organised and focused lobbying group, and often try to gain the collaboration of the school principal, there is an encroachment of Steiner’s anthroposophical ideas and methods into the mainstream state school system.

...There is clearly no evidential or experiential evidence for...[the] gratuitous absurdities that riddle Steiner education, so any resemblance between Steiner education and good educational practice is purely coincidental. That a number of children have survived it, and some even thrived, says more about the resilience of the human spirit than about the efficacy of this empirically groundless theory.

Whether parents have the right to impose such aberrations as Steiner education on their own children is a moot point, but it is absolutely certain that they have no right to exploit the state system so that other children are exposed to this nonsense.

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Waldorf schools typically claim that they do not teach Anthroposophy to the students. But the fact is that Waldorf schools immerse students in an Anthroposophical atmosphere, and they teach kids to see the world as Anthroposophists see it. Here is an overview provided by a mother, Sharon Lombard, who sent her daughter to a Waldorf school. Lombard presents drawings and paintings created by her daughter for Waldorf lesson books. No single image proves, perhaps, that Waldorf schools indoctrinate their students. But the cumulative effect of all the evidence presented is compelling. — R.R. 

SUBTLE IMPRINTING 

THROUGH ART

by Sharon Lombard

Children in Waldorf schools are subtly led toward internalizing Anthroposophical beliefs, even when these beliefs are not spelled out for them. We can see this, for instance, in the artwork Waldorf students create under the guidance of their teachers.

◊ Gnomes ◊

Steiner taught that gnomes actually exist as life forms and can be found in metal mines. The Waldorf pupil's lesson book below, showing gnomes mining sacks of gold in a mine, reflects Steiner's teachings: 

"I should like to relate quite simply and plainly how such beings show themselves to clairvoyant sight. There are beings that can be seen with clairvoyant vision at many spots in the depths of the earth, especially places little touched by living growths, places, for instance, in a mine which have always been of a mineral nature. If you dig into the metallic or stony ground you find beings which manifest at first in remarkable fashion — it is as if something were to scatter us. They seem able to crouch close together in vast numbers, and when the earth is laid open they appear to burst asunder. The important point is that they do not fly apart into a certain number but that in their own bodily nature they become larger. Even when they reach their greatest size, they are still always small creatures in comparison with human beings. The enlightened man knows nothing of them. People, however, who have preserved a certain nature-sense, i.e. the old clairvoyant forces which everyone once possessed and which had to be lost with the acquisition of objective consciousness, could tell you all sorts of things about such beings. Many names have been given to them, such as goblins, gnomes and so forth...Their nature prompts them to play all sorts of tricks on man, as every miner can tell you who has still preserved something of a healthy nature sense — not so much the miners in coal mines as those in metal mines". — Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS. Lectures from 1908-1924 (W. Ulrich Klunker, Comp. & Ed. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), p. 63.

◊ Life After Death - Reincarnation ◊

Even an innocuous picture of a butterfly has a deeper meaning when you come across Anthroposophy's explanation for this lesson, a child's first introduction to immortality (which in Anthroposophy means reincarnation).

"[T]he presentation of living pictures, or as we might say of symbols, to the mind, is important for the period between the change of teeth and puberty. It is important that the secrets of Nature, the laws of life, be taught to the boy or girl, not in dry intellectual concepts, but as far as possible in symbols. Parables of the spiritual connexions of things should be brought before the soul of the child in such a manner that behind the parables he divines and feels, rather than grasps intellectually, the underlying law in all existence ... An example may serve to make this clear. Let us imagine that we want to tell a child of the immortality of the soul, of the coming forth of the soul from the body. The way to do this is to use a comparison, such for example as the comparison of the butterfly coming forth from the chrysalis. As the butterfly soars up from the chrysalis, so after death the soul of man from the house of the body. No man will rightly grasp the fact in intellectual concepts, who has not first received it in such a picture. A child who has experienced this, will approach the subject with an altogether different mood of soul, when later it is taught him in the form of intellectual concepts. It is indeed a very serious matter for any man, if he was not first enabled to approach the problems of existence with his feeling. Thus it is essential that the educator have at his disposal parables for all the laws of Nature and secrets of the world". — M. C. Richards, TOWARD WHOLENESS: RUDOLF STEINER EDUCATION IN AMERICA (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1980), p. 55.

◊

"Reincarnation — Anthroposophy teaches that the 'I' [a person's divine self] experiences various lives on earth. The immortal 'I' alternately lives in the spiritual world and in the physical world. In both worlds human development continues. When someone is born again, he has a new opportunity to complete tasks left uncompleted in a previous life ... Rudolf Steiner saw it as his task to reintroduce the age-old concept of reincarnation and karma to the western world." — Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z. A Glossary of Terms Relating to Rudolf Steiner's Spiritual Philosophy (Rudolf Steiner Press, Sophia Books, 2011), p. 98.

"The body is the house of the spirit."

In the third grade, a block on "the house" included Anthroposophical-spiritual concepts such as the body is a house we enter and leave — we do not really belong in this house, and we do not really belong in nature. Our "true home" is the spirit realm. Waldorf teacher Roy Wilkinson has explained how these concepts are included in the Waldorf curriculum, and Rudolf Steiner, when giving advice to Waldorf teachers, explained the underlying dogma:

◊ "The subject of house building can open paths to many considerations. First there is the comparison of the house with our body. We live in a house as the spirit lives in our body. We even go in and out [e.g., through reincarnation]. Then there is the idea of shelter, of using what nature gives to construct a place to cut oneself off from her. The third is the question of materials. Who provides them? Earth? God?" — Roy Wilkinson, THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF STEINER EDUCATION. The Waldorf School Approach (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), p. 74.

◊ "[L]et’s say that I wish to teach a child about the continuation of the soul’s life after death. I would only deceive myself and never make it clear to the child if I taught only theories about it. There is no concept that can teach a child under fourteen about immortality. I could say, however, 'See this chrysalis; it is empty. Once there was a butterfly inside, but it crept away.' I could also demonstrate the process of how metamorphosis happens. It is good to show such things to children. Then I make a comparison: 'Imagine that it is you who are the chrysalis. Your soul is inside you, and later it will emerge just as a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis' ... You [the Waldorf teacher] can talk about this for a long time. However, if you yourself do not believe that the butterfly is an image of the human soul, you cannot accomplish much with children by using this analogy. You should not allow yourself the false notion that this whole idea is merely a contrived comparison, which it is not; it is a fact presented to us by the divine, cosmic order ... Our relationship to reality must be such that, out of our own comprehension, we bring to children’s souls more than an arbitrary picture of the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis, for example, and instead present something we ourselves understand and believe in as given by divine cosmic powers." — Rudolf Steiner, PRACTICAL ADVICE TO TEACHERS. Foundation of Waldorf Education II. (Great Barrington: Anthroposophic Press, 2000), p. 16.

◊ Heaven and the Stars ◊

Waldorf classes are full of religious lessons, usually pushing Anthroposophical ideas. So, we come to Earth from Heaven — which is the same as coming from "the stars." Birth on Earth is a descent from the starry realm, which is the home of the gods. Astrology lies behind so many Waldorf practices. 

"Out of heaven

into birth

from the stars

to the Earth

I have flown"

“No one can acquire Astrology through thought or empirical research, as it is called today. If those who were initiated into the ancient Mysteries had been asked whether by means of investigation and thought one can learn Astrology, they would have answered: You can no more learn Astrology through thinking or empirical research than you can learn the secrets of a man by those means if he does not reveal them to you ... [T]hese ancients knew that the Gods alone knew the secrets of the stellar world: the Gods, or as they were called later, the Cosmic Intelligences. The Cosmic Intelligences know the secret of the stellar world, and they alone can tell it. Therefore the student had to follow the path of cognition which leads to an understanding intercourse with the Cosmic Intelligences.

“The real true Astrology depended upon a man's attaining this possibility of understanding the Cosmic Intelligences.” — Rudolf Steiner, MYSTERY CENTRES (Blauvelt: Garber Communications, 1985), lecture 13, GA 232.

◊ Magic of Red and Blue ◊

Anthroposophic color exercises were imposed on my daughter at her Waldorf school without my family's understanding or sanction. I came to understand these exercises as religious practice after leaving the school and delving into occultism. In effect, my daughter and her classmates were led to practice "white magic" at school, which would be fine if Anthroposophy was my family's religious orientation and the school was open about its religious subtext, but the fact is we were not wanting to send our child to a parochial school.

Steiner taught that red and blue are spiritually opposite, bringing one another into manifestation. Red produces blue, a celestial, holy color. "Red arouses in the child's body the very colour that turns to what is holy [i.e., blue] ... Our inner being must become as ethereally pure as the cosmic ether that meets us in the blue above. This teaching is expressed in the red of our surroundings. When the red is around us outwardly, the counter-colour lives in our inner being. This explains why all places of initiation have red, while exoteric places, where symbols of the mystery teachings are spoken of, have blue colour." — Rudolf Steiner, quoted by John Fletcher in ART INSPIRED BY RUDOLF STEINER (Hertfordshire: Mercury Arts Publications, 1987), p. 8.

"Red, the luster of the living, must join with blue, the luster of the soul, if men are to pass through the gate of light ... Modern man must achieve spiritual activity in ever new beginnings, to widen his inner being. Red speaks of this....It says clearly: you are not standing at an end, take me as a frontier and you will find a living bridge to spiritual light. It will flow in as through a window and shed brightness into your soul-space."  — Rudolf Steiner, quoted by John Fletcher in ART INSPIRED BY RUDOLF STEINER, p. 12.

The expansion and contraction of blue is, in Anthroposophy, an emblem of reincarnation. This image is represented on an occult altar used in one of Rudolf Steiner's mystery plays. See John Fletcher's ART INSPIRED BY RUDOLF STEINER. p. 12. (This drawing is by one of my daughter's schoolmates, guided by a Waldorf teacher.)

Blue flows into red and red into blue — a mystic interaction having deep spiritual meaning, according to Waldorf belief. Passing between the two colors is like a form of spiritual respiration. 

"In RED, the human being experiences in apprehension and veneration the revelation of the divine at the threshold of consciousness between perception and supersensible perception ... BLUE, VIOLET and ROSE help him to approach nearer to the riddle of existence through the experience of SPACE and TIME and his own consciousness. So the red walls and the blue dome [of an Anthroposophical structure] produce a rhythmical expansion and contraction as the soul breathes in and out." — Anthroposophist Assia Turgenieff, quoted in ART INSPIRED BY RUDOLF STEINER, p. 42.

Meditating on a blue disc surrounded by red, alternating to a red disc surrounded by blue, frees the spirit from the body, according to Rudolf Steiner. Here is an occult meditation Steiner prescribed for his followers: 

"Concept of a blue circular disc with red surrounding. Then transformation into a red disc with blue surround. Reconversion to the original state. Do this seven consecutive times. Conceive through inner observation how thinking thereby becomes mobile and free in itself and ultimately is raised to the condition free from the body." — Rudolf Steiner, FROM THE HISTORY AND CONTENTS OF THE FIRST SECTION OF THE ESOTERIC SCHOOL 1904-1914 (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 71.

◊

You will find similar student art at many Waldorf schools.

This is a scene from the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City.

[See "Magical Arts".]

"[A] red disc approaches us, and...a blue disc, on the other hand, withdraws. These colours move in opposite directions ... [T]he red and the blue discs are revolving round each other, the one towards the spectator, the other away from him ... [T]he whirl of the cosmos, the whirl of spirituality passes through the form. If you colour a form you endow it with the soul element of the universe, with cosmic soul ... In colouring a form we should feel: ‘Now we are endowing form with soul.’ We breathe soul into dead form when, through colour, we make it living." — Rudolf Steiner, COLOUR (Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., 1935), Part 3, Lecture 1, GA 291.

Not the clearest disc in the world (it's hard to control watercolor paint applied to wet paper). But this red disc in blue is the reverse of the blues discs in red, shown above. Steiner's followers were to conceive the disc both as red with blue and then blue with red.

◊ Michael and the Dragon ◊

In Anthroposophy, the archangel Michael is a warrior god serving Christ, the Sun God. Michael fights the demon Ahriman, symbolized by the dragon. Steiner taught that Michael presides over human evolution in our time. Waldorf students are required to make drawings and paintings of Michael; here are two my daughter made:

Anthroposophists attach a lot of importance to Michael, reflected in the fact that my daughter was taught at least two separate lessons about Michael slaying the dragon. Besides those lessons, in September the children at our school acted out an annual slaying-of-the-dragon play. Waldorf leadership pretended that this was a “harvest festival,” but if you look more closely at Steiner’s doctrines you will understand that this is in fact a Michaelmas festival. 

Michael is a little hard to see in the drawings, being shown all yellow, but in each drawing he holds a sword which he uses to kill the dragon and save threatened humanity. In Waldorf belief, Michael is our hero.

◊

"Michael — the archangel who from 1879 acts as the spirit of the age, until the year 2300 ... St Michael and anthroposophy are connected in a special way. As the custodian of cosmic intelligence [i.e., the wisdom of the gods], and as spirit of the age, Michael inspires all human beings who wish to connect the human spirit with the spirit of the cosmos. Anthroposophy is also called the School of Michael. Rudolf Steiner sought to establish a new festival of Michaelmas, at the end of September...." — Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z (East Sussex: Sophia Books, 2011), p. 78.

"In September Michael is near,

He will help us overcome all fear."

In Anthroposophy, Michael is said to oversee the autumn. During the autumn months, he extends special protections to humanity. Here we see a clear example of Waldorf students being taught an Anthroposophical belief.

◊

After leaving Waldorf and the annual slaying of the dragon acted out by children, and noting lessons about angels and dragons in my child's books, I was quite taken aback to later learn that Steiner gave his adult followers pictures of Michael with a dragon and another of Raphael with a dragon to gaze at. He taught these pictures should be viewed sequentially for thought forms to be roused up from formations in the astral body. This spiritual exercise would bring down the healing power of Aesculapius, and the optical effect would enable the power of Michael to subdue the "certain astral form" / dragon. Steiner told his adult followers: "These two pictures will later be painted differently and they will then produce the full effect intended" — Rudolf Steiner, ART INSPIRED BY RUDOLF STEINER, John Fletcher,(Mercury Arts Publications, 1987), p. 97. After his schism from Theosophy to Anthroposophy, Steiner was to bring a new aesthetic to his work.

◊ The Sun ◊

Rudolf Steiner said that Christ is the Sun God. There are many indications of Sun worship in Waldorf schools. The children are taught to make paintings and drawings of the Sun and to praise the Sun. The center of the paintings and drawings is often red, to show the Sun's "heart." Anthroposophists believe that Christ came down from the Sun to incarnate on Earth and show human beings the right path to future evolution. Christ is our leader, our "prototype," or in this sense our "father."

Of course, all life on Earth depends on the Sun. But in Anthroposophy, the Sun has a special spiritual importance, and Waldorf students are led to revere the Sun, not just appreciate it.

"Until a certain moment, the Christ being was in the sphere of the Sun. His throne was there. Then he united with the earth. Since then we must experience the Christ impulse here on earth and carry it up into the spiritual world. If we arrive in the sphere of the Sun without the Christ impulse, we are faced with an unintelligible entry in the akasha chronicle [an invisible celestial encyclopedia]. Since Christ united with the earth, we must come to understand the Christ on earth. We have to take that understanding with us, otherwise we cannot find Christ after death. If we have gained an understanding for the Christ on earth, then as we approach the sphere of the Sun we understand the entry in the akasha chronicle, because it was Christ who left the akasha chronicle behind in the Sun. The important fact is that our understanding of Christ must be aroused on earth. It can then be preserved in higher worlds as well." — Rudolf Steiner, STAYING CONNECTED - How to Continue Your Relationships with Those Who Have Died (Great Barrington: Anthroposophic Press, 1999), p. 51.

"The Sun

"The Sun is in my heart.

He warms me with his power,

and wakins life and love

in bird and beast and flower..."

"Father Sun gleam and glow

Then the roots begin to grow."

"Sun — physical abode of the sun spirit, who has been given different names in various cultural epochs, such as Ahura Mazda, Amun Ra and Christ. These all refer to the same spirit who has always been connected with the earth, and who eventually incarnated in the body of Jesus." — Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z (East Sussex: Sophia Books, 2011), p. 116.

◊ Mandalas and Pentagrams ◊

A lot of Waldorf art consists of mystical mandalas and icons. 

See

http://waldorfcritics.org/artgallery.html

and

http://waldorfcritics.org/articles/lombardART.html.

These can be used in the ways mystics always use such images, as aids to meditation so that you can break through to the spirit realm. In addition, many of these images include pentagrams. According to Waldorf belief, this is the occult symbol of man (the head, two hands, and two feet form the five points of the pentagram).

Drawing by a schoolmate of my daughter.

Drawing by a schoolmate of my daughter.

Drawing by my daughter

(with assistance?)

Pentagrams are also mystic symbols for the etheric body, the invisible body that Waldorf teachers think children develop at about age 7. When used in this way, the points of the pentagram are connected to the astrological powers of the planets.

[Sketch by R. Rawlings, based on the image on p. 229 of 

ESOTERIC LESSONS 1904-1909 (SteinerBooks, 2007),

a collection of Rudolf Steiner's teachings.] 

ooo

The mandala forms and various star shapes, including the pentagram, show up in Waldorf math classes. Rudolf Steiner said that even math classes can be made religious, and he emphasized geometry because he said it leads to clairvoyance.

Children at Waldorf schools might not always be told the meaning of the things they are led to draw and paint, but in Waldorf belief this doesn't make much difference. Doing geometry, for example, should cause a child to become clairvoyant whether or not the child knows what is going on. This is what Rudolf Steiner's followers believe. "Basic geometric concepts awaken clairvoyant abilities." — Rudolf Steiner. [See "Mystic Math".]

◊ Man the Microcosm ◊

Putting the human body inside a pentagram, and showing the astrological connections of the pentagram, are related to the Waldorf belief that mankind stands at the center of the universe. The whole universe is made for us. We are tiny replicas of the whole universe (we are microcosms) and the universe is a huge version of us (it is the macrocosm).

Evidence from Waldorf lesson books shows that Waldorf students are taught these ideas.

"Head Trunk and Limbs"

"The human being is like a little universe

inside a big one. Sun, moon and stars find

their likeness in man's head, trunks and

limbs. Each part has its special work...."

Rudolf Steiner often spelled out his theories 

about mankind's connection to the great universe,

for instance in this book (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1985).

"Man is the measure

of all things."

◊

Steiner is reputed to have said that Elizabeth Vreede "understood his work more deeply than anyone else." Here is how Vreede summarizes the relationship of the microcosm to the macrocosm. "The plant world receives its forms from the starry heavens, and the animal world its form from the zodiac. Human beings receive their form from the whole sphere of the heavens, not from the single constellations, just as we also bear in our head an image of the entire stellar universe. Again we find the human being as the synthesis, the perfect embodiment of the entire cosmos." — Elizabeth Vreede, ANTHROPOSOPHY AND ASTROLOGY (Great Barrington: Anthroposophic Press, 2001), p. 287.

◊ Rainbows ◊

In the Waldorf view, rainbows are bridges to the spirit realm (which is color). Images created by Waldorf students are full of rainbows, some of which clearly look like entrances to distant realms.

◊ "The pupils [of the Mysteries]...sat together in the darkness. By the time midnight drew near, they had been sitting in the dark room for hours. Thoughts of eternity pervaded their souls. Then, toward midnight, mysterious tones arose, resounding through the room, rising and diminishing. The pupils who heard these tones knew that this was the music of the spheres. Then the room became dimly lit, the only light emanating from a dimly-lighted disc. Those who saw this knew that this disc represented the earth. The illumined disc became darker and darker, until finally it was quite black. Simultaneously, the surrounding space grew brighter. Those who saw this knew that the black sphere represented the earth. The sun, however, which ordinarily irradiates the earth, was concealed; the earth could no longer see the sun. Then around the earth-disc, at the outer edge, rainbow colors formed, ring upon ring. Those who saw it knew that this was the radiant Iris or Rainbow. At midnight a violet-reddish circle gradually arose in place of the black earth sphere. On it a Word was written. This Word varied according to the peoples whose members were permitted to experience this Mystery. In our language, the Word would be Christos." — Rudolf Steiner, SIGNS AND SYMBOLS OF THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL (New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1969), p. 52.

◊"Rainbow — according to the story in the Bible...God gave the rainbow after the Flood as a sign of his covenant with Noah ... The period before the Flood is dealt with extensively by Rudolf Steiner in his accounts of Atlantis ... After the Flood, humankind...thought of the rainbow as a bridge to the spiritual world." — Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z, p. 98.

◊"'What difference does it make,' asks Rudolf Steiner, 'whether the necessary apparatus [i.e., the organ of vision] is out there or in your frontal cavity [i.e., inside your head]? We are not outside the things when projecting the phenomena into space ... We with our being are in the things.' ... [Steiner's follower Daniel] van Bemmelen adds 'In the daylight the rainbow is brought forth magically by the sunlight. In the night world of the inner eye, this spectrum is called forth by an inner Sun.'" — John Fletcher, ART INSPIRED BY RUDOLF STEINER, p. 130. 

◊ Creation ◊

The Creation story in Anthroposophy is far different from the Bible's story given in Genesis. Instead of a single God, many gods were involved, gods who exist in a realm of colors and who consist, in a sense, of colors. The material world was created when the gods imparted, out of themselves, essences — warmth, light and shadow, and ultimately colors — that gave rise to their counterparts here below, which incarnated as physical reality. This is what Rudolf Steiner taught. Whether Waldorf schools teach this to their students depends on the individual school and teacher. Usually, the Biblical story is presented, at least as a covering for the Anthroposophical story (the true story, as far as Waldorf belief goes). The art produced in Waldorf classes suggests that the Anthroposophical story is not far below the surface.

"Genesis"

Steiner subscribed to a creation myth of Hermetic origin. His Genesis story includes a Hermetic color doctrine promulgated by the old Medieval alchemists.

Steiner taught that there are nine ranks of gods, and these exist in three "hierarchies." The lowest gods are members of the third hierarchy, the middle gods are in the second hierarchy, and the highest gods are in the first hierarchy. Gods from all three hierarchies cooperated to cause the creation of the universe. 

"The Angel-Being [i.e., gods of the third hierarchy] carried the light into the darkness, or an Angel-Being carried the darkness into the light. These Beings became the intermediaries, the messengers between light and darkness. The result was that what formerly shone only in light...now began to gleam in all colours ... It was the Third Hierarchy which conjured forth colour from out of light and darkness ... [The gods of] the First Hierarchy were responsible for warmth, the [gods of the] Second for light and its shadow...and the [gods of the] Third for the shining forth of colour...." — Rudolf Steiner, COLOUR (Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., 1935), part 3, lecture 4, "The Hierarchies and the Nature of the Rainbow", GA 291. 

[For more on the gods worshipped in Anthroposophy, see "Polytheism".]

The Anthroposophist creation myth posits that the world began with the Old Saturn stage, a dark blue and gloomy period where the existence of gods called Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones gave off warmth in the cold.

Steiner called the next phase of creation Old Sun existence, during which gods called Exusiai, Dynamis and Kyriotetes exerted their powers. These gods represented an inward illumination, an internal Sun. When these gods merged into the warmth given off by the Seraphim, Cherubum and Thrones, light was created.

Next came the Old Moon existence into which Archai, Archangels and Angels carried light into darkness and color was created. Water arose out of the color.

Then during the next period, Present Earth, man became alive in the colorful world. The material world was created out of these heavenly colors which gave rise to their counterparts on earth. 

The bound book of Genesis that my daughter produced in Waldorf is consistent with Steiner's colorful cosmology.

◊ Spirals ◊

Waldorf students are led to make many images of spirals. In Waldorf belief, spirals represent the path the soul takes in rising higher and higher into the spirit realm. The students are also expected to walk spiral paths having spiritual importance.

(This spiral was drawn by one of my daughter's schoolmates.

I'm unsure what the mystic writing — runes? — are meant to convey.)

◊"[M]an does not reach the spiritual realm spread around him simply by advancing from a centre outwards; he must expand in spiral form; he must advance, as it were, in seven spiral movements. Each time he completes one spiral turn he has passed through all the twelve signs [of the zodiac]; he has in this way to pass through seven times twelve points. Man gradually expands in spiral form through the cosmos...and in circling thus, on the seventh journey through the twelve signs, spirituality is reached." — Rudolf Steiner, THE GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW (London: Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., 1946), lecture 5, GA 123.

◊ "In [Waldorf] nursery schools, an Advent spiral of fir branches is laid out on the floor. Accompanied by lyre music, each child in turn walks through this spiral and lights a candle from the big candle at the centre of the spiral. The burning candles are placed in the spiral thus creating a beautiful, luminous candle on the floor." — Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z (Rudolf Steiner Press, Sophia Books, 2011), p. 3.

My daughter's drawing of an Advent spiral.

An Advent spiral at a Waldorf school.

[See "Soul School".]

◊ Blue and Yellow ◊

Rudolf Steiner's occult doctrines about colors were heavily influenced by the theories advanced by Goethe. The ideas of both men invade Waldorf classrooms, where children are encouraged to use colors in ways that should have deep spiritual effects, including bringing the reflections and impulses of the gods (such as Elohim) into the classroom.

"'If one has rightly understood the separation of blue and yellow', [Goethe] writes, 'and has sufficiently considered in particular the development towards red whereby the opposed sides incline towards one another and combine in a third being, then a certain secret significance will become apparent, to wit that a spiritual meaning can be read into these two separated and opposed beings [i.e., the spirits of blue and yellow], and one will scarcely refrain, when one sees them producing green below, and red above, from thinking in the former case of the earthly, and in the latter case of the heavenly creatures of the Elohim." — Ronald Douglas Gray. GOETHE THE ALCHEMIST - A Study of Alchemical Symbolism in Goethe's Literary and Scientific Works (Cambridge University Press, 1952), p. 122.

In having young students use particular colors, Waldorf teachers try not only to bring them into the influence of the gods, but they try to integrate each child's soul with the physical body, making the physical body a suitable container for the soul. The goal, in other words, is to help the children to incarnate properly.

"The colours which the child uses for the expression of the harmonious connection with his body before the change of teeth [i.e., before age 7] are blue and yellow; out of these colours the soul weaves its connection with the hereditary body [i.e., the physical body] and transforms it." — Anthroposophist Audrey E. McAllen, SLEEP- An Unobserved Element in Education (Stroud, U.K.: Hawthorn Press, 1985), p. 44.

◊ More Anthroposophy in the Classroom ◊

Waldorf students are often taught about invisible beings that, in Waldorf belief, are real: the nature spirits, including sylphs, fire spirits (or "salamanders"), gnomes, and undines.

"Geography"

"Geography is the language of earth writing.

The mountains, oceans, rivers, flowers,

and fields are the earths letters.

The Sylphs, Salamanders, Gnomes

and Undines are the earth's scribes."

Waldorf students are often taught that there are really just four elements: water, fire, air, and earth.

"God rules with a lawful might.

And out of this home, with heaven's help

From water, fire, air, and earth,

Is fashioned a house for each soul

To dwell in from the time of birth...."

Although Waldorf schools say that they are not religious institutions, their classes include many religious stories and teachings, including the lives of the saints.

"St. Christopher"

"I will search for the master of greatest might. I will 

search for the star of brightest light.

I will work to achieve the highest 

goal, Courageous and with a reverant 

soul. I will serve."

Rudolf Steiner taught that Atlantis really existed. He said that the great spiritual leader Manu led humanity from Atlantis to India. Waldorf students are sometimes taught this story as factual history.

"The Journey from Atlantis to India"

"Thousands of years ago there was a

vast continent named Atlantis. The

people used their magic for evil and greedy purposes.

On Atlantis there was a wise man called

Manu. Great love lived with Manu...."

Waldorf schools should be free to promote their religious beliefs. But they should be honest with parents about what they are doing. I did not realize that I was sending my daughter to a religious school. The school hid its purposes. We learned the truth only after we had made a great commitment to the school; leaving was extremely difficult, but it was necessary because the school turned out to be very different from what we wanted and had been promised.

The following links will take you to related pages

at Waldorf Watch:

"Magical Arts"

"Mystical Colors"

"Indoctrination"