Anthroposophists often assert that no outsider can understand Anthroposophy — criticizing it from a distance, with cold intellect, is destructive and blind. Only those who feel Anthroposophy "from the inside" can understand it. 

Here are messages I posted on this subject in November, 2009. I was writing in response to a discussion occurring at the Waldorf Critics discussion site. I have edited the messages slightly for use here. 

Some poets smile dismissively when their work is criticized. Some weep. And some are grateful — they appreciate learning things about their work that they did not know previously. See, for instance, THE CONTEMPORARY POET AS ARTIST AND CRITIC (Little, Brown & Co., 1964). On p. 107, the poet Robert Lowell says, "The author of a poem is not necessarily the ideal person to explain its meaning." Then, referring to a critic, he continues, "[H]is essay embodies and enhances my poem" [p. 110].

Creative artists work mainly from the right-hand brain lobe. Critics work mainly from the left-hand lobe. The right lobe is quite wonderful. It produces intuitions, imaginative leaps, new conceptions — seemingly out of thin air. Asked where they "get their ideas," many artists can't say. A sort of magic occurred — the novelist, for instance, suddenly dreamed up a plot, characters, images, that s/he had never thought about previously. Indeed, the creative process can almost seem like dreaming or hallucinating — you're in a sort of spell. At the end of the day, you stagger away from the keyboard, easel, or other tool of your craft, and you've created something, but you're not quite sure what it is, or how you did it, or whether it's any good... Maybe tomorrow, rested, you can come back, switch to left-brain thinking, and see what you've got.

Self-critical examination is an essential stage. The left lobe is not as magical as the right, but it has its vital functions. You stop being an artist for a while and become a critic. You evaluate your work, and decide what to do next. Maybe you'll see that you were onto something good, so you decide to stick with it, revising a little here or there... Or maybe you realize that the fine frenzy of creativity you were in yesterday didn't lead to anything worth saving, so you ditch it, and start again. 

Either way, when you try to resume your creative-artist efforts, you try once again to enter a right-brain period of inspiration, and (crossing your fingers, leaping into the dark) you eagerly wait to see where it will take you this time.

Right-brain thinking is wonderful — but it also has its limits (just as left-brain thinking does: we need both). The intuitions of Anthroposophists, for instance, come out of the right brain. (Steiner said that real cognition doesn't come from the brain at all, but from incorporeal organs of clairvoyance — but let's be realistic for a moment.) An Anthroposophist may be utterly sure that s/he knows the truth, from the inside. This is intuitively clear and unarguable. s/he feels. The problem, however, is that other people with other intuitions may be as fully convinced that they  know the truth, and what they know  may be utterly incompatible with Anthroposophy. Thus, Marxists, atheists, Seventh Day Adventists, flat-earthers, birthers, etc., may know  that they are right. Their level of conviction may be fully as deep and powerful as that of any Anthroposophist, but...

What I'm saying, in part, is that we can intuit anything; we can imagine anything;  we can be inspired to create or embrace ANYTHING. Our inner conviction tells us nothing. We feel  the truth of our inner conviction, but others who believe precisely the opposite may feel  the correctness of their views just as deeply.

What we need, always, is to step back and switch on the left brain. We need to be our own most demanding critics. I may believe in my secret heart of hearts that I am a 10,000-yr-old Jedi Master. I may be utterly sure of this. Great. OK. But — switching now to the left brain — I should ask myself what possible reason I have for such a belief. Am I onto a great Truth or am I leading myself down the dark path to delusion, perhaps even insanity?

The left brain is fully as necessary to us as the right brain. Using the left brain is not murder, it is not vivisection — it is fulfilling a part of our human nature, a part that we must develop as much as we can. "Criticism" doesn't mean destruction — it means using our little gray cells in order to see things clearly. It is, in this sense, fully as beneficial as right-brain work. And it's quite nice, really. The word "critic" comes from krinein (Greek), meaning to judge. Using judgment is invaluable. Truly, criticism is critical — i.e., essential — to our efforts to know and embrace the truth.

(I'm utterly convinced of this, from the inside. Really. I had a dream about it...)

— Roger Rawlings

Subsequent to my statement 

“what they know  may be utterly 

incompatible with Anthroposophy,” 

historian Peter Staudenmaier added 

“Or utterly compatible with it.” 

I replied:

Yes, I agree. What  believers believe is less important than that they do  believe. The nub is belief, which may be rooted in solid fact and careful thought, or not. Remember Frank Thomas Smith's description (very accurate, I'd say): "There are anthroposophists who have read everything and others who have read little or nothing, perhaps only heard a lecture or a phrase and thought: ah yes, that's it."

That, indeed, is it. "Ah yes..." Your bell gets rung, you like the tone, and you're sold.

We might do well to consider what it may mean that someone could hear a single phrase and on that single bell-strike, adopt a worldview. To true-believers, such a choice seems obviously correct: the Truth hits you and you know  it immediately, intuitively. To rationalists, such a choice seems obviously flawed, a sign of serious misapprehension. (By "true belief" I mean fervent belief, absolute belief, unshakable, unarguable. In my view, "true belief," in this sense, is often not at all true.)

I'll generalize, although of course there are exceptions. The beliefs of true believer — beliefs that are intuitive, subjective, "from within" — cannot be checked by others or even shared with others in any genuinely meaningful way. True belief is internal, heartfelt, ineffably beyond debate. Two true-believing Anthroposophists may think they agree completely, or they may think they disagree in important ways (as when each thinks the other has missed the true "essence" of Anthroposophy), but it all boils down to the same thing. Each has received an impulse and embraced it. This impulse comes, I suggest, from the right brain lobe and needs to be checked by the left brain lobe. But true believers tend to ascribe the impulse to some other agency, generally a transcendent force or being. (Anthroposophists think they receive the "Christ impulse." Steiner said people used to get the "Jehovah impulse," and someday we will get the "Father impulse" — from God the Father — but for now truth comes to us as the Christ impulse.)

Returning briefly to my analogy of the novelist who cannot say where his/her ideas come from: One way to express this is to say that an artist depends on the Muse(s). Taken as a metaphor, this is perfectly apt. Taken as a literal explanation, it is obviously faulty and it reveals one faulty source of religious belief: We do or experience or attain something we cannot explain, and we attribute it to a supernatural source, a muse, a god. But this supernatural being is quite probably our own invention, our own misunderstanding of the functioning of our own brains. (I'm not denying that God exists, here; I'm simply saying that the existence of any such being is not established by misinterpreting a mysterious, subjective, extremely common event. There may be good reasons to believe in God or the gods or the muses, but this isn’t one.) 

All of us who have known numerous Anthroposophists know that deep disagreements are common among them. They all embrace Anthroposophy, but it turns out that what each one means by this term is likely to be different from what many others mean. Steiner knew this would be the case (indeed, he was plagued by schisms within the Anthroposophical ranks during his lifetime). He even encouraged it, unintentionally, by urging his followers to conduct their own "spiritual research." Different "clairvoyants" may easily produce different descriptions of invisible realms. On the other hand, Steiner argued that any true spiritual insight must essentially confirm his own statements, since he employed "exact clairvoyance," which yields exact, true spiritual perceptions. But this defense doesn't work very well due to the inconvenient reality that clairvoyance is a fantasy; it does not exist. So, in practice, what Anthroposophists do is to fantasize, and different individuals may easily have different fantasies.

Rationalists, too, may deeply disagree with one another, of course. And, to turn matters around for a moment, I acknowledge that rationality may lead to such conclusions as that the universe is aswarm with gods and Steiner was right about their activities and purposes. I think there are usually flaws in the reasoning that leads to such conclusions, but at least the reasoning behind the conclusions is open to discussion, and it might actually lead to agreement. The left brain lobe clicks on, fantasy recedes, and a discussion of reality can begin. Some Anthroposophists think their own spiritual "knowledge" is rational, not at all a form of "true belief." Sometimes they attempt rational discussion of this "knowledge." But they often reach a limit, and sometimes they do this quite quickly. Steiner insisted that real cognition has nothing to do with the brain. Since rational discussion is certainly a brain-centered activity, rational discussion of Anthroposophy can quickly break down for Anthroposophists themselves (the very people who have the strongest need, one would think, to evaluate the validity of Anthro teachings).

"Ah yes, that's it!" is a powerful human response. We all have the desire for deep, heartfelt, affirmative experience. Most of us would like to find God and know what S/he has in mind. But wanting something and finding it are, sadly, not the same. There's often a wide chasm between us and the fulfillment of our desires — and when we think we have flown over the chasm, it can be useful to get out Occam's razor. For the sake of discussion, let's say there are two explanations for our magical, deep, transcendent experiences:

1) We possess brains that have two lobes, and one of these lobes produces intuitions that may or may not be true.

2) We have or may develop invisible organs of clairvoyance that allow us to read the Akashic Record in a higher world populated by vast throngs of gods. 

One of these explanations is straightforward and firmly based in fact; the other isn't. The razor helps us decide which explanation seems more likely.

Or try another pair of theories.

1) A human's subjective experiences arise from the natural workings of the brain (which sometimes gets things wrong), conditioned in part by personal experience.

2) We are microcosmic replicas of the universe; we contain within us all the primal truths of the universe; we can access these truths in part through the benevolence of unseen beings most of whom have a divine cosmic plan for our benefit but some of whom oppose our spiritual evolution; our subjective experiences also arise, in part, from karma, since we are immortal beings who reincarnate over and over, enacting the consequences of our choices in past lives.

Once again, I'd say the razor can be helpful, here.

These points might be worth discussing, anyway. But this requires a commitment to the forms of thought that allow real discussion. Discussion, I submit, means attending to the statements made by others and then offering reasoned replies. Too often, however, people think they are discussing something when they are merely stating subjective preferences or biases. "I'm right!" "The heck you are!" "Oh yes I am!" "Oh no you aren't!" Oh dear. The problem for many Anthroposophists is that the forms of thought they chiefly rely on — intuition, imagination, inspiration, clairvoyance — don't lend themselves to, or even allow, discussion. "Ah yes, that's it!" "Oh no it's not, this is it!" "Oh no it isn't!" "Oh yes it is!" Oh dear.

— Roger

 A day or so after writing the message above, 

I added the following. 

Hi Alicia, Diana, Peter, et al:

People are making very good points on the subject of Anthroposophical "essence." Thanks.

The chief relevance of this discussion to Waldorf schooling, IMO, is that Waldorf students are lured toward what we might call radical subjectivity — the belief that their inner, intuitive experiences are truer than rational thinking can ever be. Anthroposophists are not the only people who espouse this view, not by a long shot, but they are the ones who chiefly create the "let-us-now-celebrate-subjectivity" atmosphere inside Waldorf schools.

Steiner taught that our subjective states can be trusted — if certain conditions are met — because each of us possesses, deep within, instinctive wisdom that comes from the spirit realm. Humans used to have easy access to this wisdom, but things are tougher now. 

"[W]ithin the Earth-evolution itself there once existed a primordial wisdom. But this primordial wisdom did not, of course, consist of concepts which, as it were, floated around in the air; it proceeded from Beings who do not assume a physical body in the human sense, but who, as the result of the instinctive clairvoyant forces possessed by man at that time, did nevertheless live in man; it proceeded from the Beings who continued their existence on the Moon, after the Moon as an external cosmic body had separated from the Earth." — Rudolf Steiner, MAN IN THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1966), lecture 4, GA 228.

We come with wisdom prepackaged within us; our goal is to access it. To do this now, we must attain a new, higher, "exact" form of clairvoyance — which is the goal of Anthroposophy and, covertly, of Waldorf schooling. When we attain this, the gods will again live within us (or, more accurately, we will become aware that the gods do live within us). You see, before we are born, everything we really need to know was implanted in us. (Not long ago there was a best-selling book titled ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN. The appropriate title for Waldorf beliefs would be ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED BEFORE CONCEPTION.)

“The cosmic ether, which is common to all, carries within it the thoughts; there they are within it, those living thoughts of which I have repeatedly spoken in our anthroposophical lectures, telling you how the human being participates in them in pre-earthly life before he comes down to Earth. There, in the cosmic ether, are contained all the living thoughts there are; and never are they received from the cosmic ether during the life between birth and death [i.e., we don't get them during our real lives here on Earth]. No; the whole store of living thought that man holds within him, he receives at the moment when he comes down from the spiritual world — when, that is, he leaves his own living element, his own element of living thought, and descends and forms his ether body. Within this ether body, within that which is the building and organising force in man, are the living thoughts; there they are, there they still are.” — Rudolf Steiner, CURATIVE EDUCATION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972), lecture 2, GA 317.

"Living" thoughts are not ideas your brain thinks up — they are "truths" implanted in you by the creative powers of the universe. We don't need to think; even the gods don't need to, really. The living thoughts exist as independent beings, in the ether. The gods internalize them, and so do we — according to Anthroposophy.

Arguments over the essence of Anthroposophy, and who has it and who doesn't, boil down to arguments over the accuracy of subjective revelation. "I'm more in tune with the gods than you are; I have better access to 'living thoughts' than you do." And, importantly, thinking about these things is harmful, according to Anthroposophy. As Steiner wrote, 

“Let now these intimations come 

To claim their rightful place, 

Supplanting thinking’s power....” 

— Rudolf Steiner, THE ILLUSTRATED CALENDAR OF THE SOUL (Temple Lodge Publishing, 2004), meditation #7.

Being a contrarian, I'd suggest that this is precisely where we should do some hard thinking. In particular, parents may want to think hard before consigning their kids to an educational system that downplays thinking and emphasizes subjective contact with unseen beings. (Steiner's references to Moon residents, cosmic ether, ether bodies, etc., may also merit some thought.)

— Roger

Here is a message Peter Staudenmaier 

posted at waldorf-critics on Oct. 6, 2010.  

To set the scene: 

Frank, Dennis, and Ted are Anthroposophists 

or, at least, vigorous defenders of Anthroposophy. 

Cathy, Peter, and I have our doubts about Anthroposophy. 

Also: Peter is a historian who has traced 

ties between Anthroposophy and Nazism. 

Frank and Dennis said such ties are impossible, 

but Peter pointed out certain weaknesses in their arguments. 

While the world waits for Frank and Dennis to make up their minds about Nazism, I thought it might be worth reflecting on the frequent anthroposophist aversion to critique. As Tom has pointed out several times, there are anthroposophists in Europe who are much more familiar with and engaged with critical historical discussion than many English-speaking anthroposophists, particularly those who generally pop up on this list. The aversion to critique, though rooted firmly in Steiner's teachings, is not necessarily an inevitable aspect of anthroposophical culture. For most of the discussions here, however, it is a predominant factor. Very many anthroposophists, along with very many other esotericists, share Dennis's notion that critique is a sign of antipathy.

This belief has a lot to do with the marked anthroposophist reluctance to consult sources. When faced with a question like 'What did Steiner say about X?' many anthroposophists will simply respond spontaneously from their own experience or assumptions or beliefs about X, as if this were somehow the same thing as looking up what Steiner actually had to say on the specific topic. This dynamic is not peculiar to anthroposophists. Religious studies scholars have recognized for a long time that it is extremely common in virtually every spiritual tradition that believers grow increasingly distant from their central textual sources, such that what believers actually believe eventually diverges significantly from the stated beliefs of the tradition itself as codified in its original texts. In the case of esoteric forms of spirituality, this tendency is exacerbated by an emphasis on private experience and introspection as vehicles of ostensibly 'higher' kinds of knowledge.

These features of anthroposophical thought often play a central role in the disagreements on this list, and they help account for the conspicuous difficulty that esoterically inclined readers frequently have in comprehending what non-esotericists write. We can all readily agree that Frank and Dennis and Ted et al. have special inner knowledge that no other human being has, and that their personal experiences are theirs alone and perfectly unique. Alas, this tells us nothing about anthroposophy, since ‘anthroposophy’ is not a synonym for ‘Frank Smith’s internal mental universe’. What is even more likely to lead to sometimes comical misunderstandings is the widespread esoteric belief that subjective experiences somehow give believers an objective view of anthroposophy. That so many of Steiner's admirers cling to this fantastic notion is testimony to the extraordinarily insular world of anthroposophy.

All of this of course conflicts with fundamental anthroposophical beliefs. Frank thinks, for example, that anthroposophy is “an inner knowledge born of experience.” In the real world, anthroposophy is a spiritual movement, a worldview, a body of ideas, a historical phenomenon. Familiarity with anthroposophy as it exists in the real world is not gained through inner knowledge born of experience. It is gained through critical attention to sources. Esotericists, naturally, reject the very idea that external sources rather than internal beliefs and experiences provide knowledge about things like anthroposophy. They find this idea arrogant and presumptuous and prejudicial and so forth (sometimes compounded by the curious notion that it is discourteous to point out erroneous claims in other people’s statements).

Cathy described this reaction very perceptively last year: "But anthroposophists see this as so unfair; unfair that their beliefs are deconstructed and the magic wrenched from them; unfair that by spotlighting the offensive, it somehow negates all the lovely things Steiner said." This reaction makes meaningful discussion difficult. If more anthroposophists would overcome that reaction, they might discover that there is quite a lot of middle ground available between adherents and critics of anthroposophy. Remarkably few anthroposophists have so far taken advantage of this ample middle ground, despite constant invitations from critics of anthroposophy to meet at this middle ground. If anything, these consistently reiterated offers of discussion seem to enrage anthroposophists even more than the mere phenomenon of criticism itself.

Though the topic that most reliably enrages anthroposophists is race, the same reaction arises on almost any subject when a critical perspective is brought to bear -- it is perceived as insulting and offensive and scoffing and so forth. (On an important side note: Part of my job professionally is to read and listen to other people recounting their racial views, and then analyze those stated views in various ways. One way of analyzing some racial views includes observing that they are racist. Other views on race, meanwhile, are not racist. In such a context, those terms are descriptive categories, not insults. The same is true of phenomena such as anti-Semitism. This is, for better or worse, how scholars approach such topics.) That indignant reaction, common to so many otherwise different anthroposophists and esotericists, is an obstacle to argument.

For any esoteric readers interested in overcoming that obstacle, I'd like to recommend these words from Amartya Sen, describing what he calls “the argumentative tradition”:

“Discussions and arguments are critically important for democracy and public reasoning. They are central to the practice of secularism and for evenhanded treatment of adherents of different religious faiths (including those who have no religious beliefs). […] It is sometimes asserted that the use of dialectics is largely confined to the more affluent and more literate, and is thus of no value to the common people. The elitism that is rampant in such a belief is not only extraordinary, it is made more exasperating through the political cynicism and impassivity it tends to encourage. The critical voice is the traditional ally of the aggrieved, and participation in arguments is a general opportunity, not a particularly specialized skill, like composing sonnets or performing trapeze acts.”

(Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity, New York 2005, xiii)

I look forward to an opportunity for critical argument with anthroposophists some day. Greetings to all,

— Peter Staudenmaier

 And here is a reply I posted.

Thank you, Peter, for this excellent posting. You describe extremely well what I have sometimes discussed as "radical subjectivity." Anthroposophy depends on it,  in large measure, and Waldorf schools try to lure students into it. Steiner's key spiritual "insight" is that — for each person — I am I only to myself. In other words, only I can feel the inner reality of my being; and to me, my inner reality* is all that really counts. Whether or not this Anthroposophical conception is a valid insight — whether it contains any wisdom — is something that might be discussed. But for the reasons you have indicated, Anthroposophists usually decline to enter into any discussion except a sort of elevated version of a childish tiff: "I am right and you are wrong!"  "No, I am right and you are wrong!"  "No, I..."

I have attempted to have reasonable conversations with Anthroposophists all my life, and usually I have been disappointed. Sometimes, indeed, I nearly give up: It cannot be done, I feel. I hold to a position quite different from radical subjectivity (because that way lies madness, IMO): I hold to reason, the gathering and examination of evidence, the process of careful, logical thought. (I do not claim to always succeed in this effort, but it is the effort that, to my mind, makes sense.) Whether a real conversation can be had between radical subjectivists and (what shall I call us?) rationalists remains to be seen, I think. But I join you in extending the invitation. C'mon, everybody, let's give it a try. Or, as Rodney King famously said, Can't we all just get along?

P.S. By rationalists, I do not strictly mean believers in rationalism. I mean folks who think that reason is possible and, indeed, that reasoning is essential. Come, let us reason together.

— Roger

* The word "reality" is dicey in this context. An inner "reality" may in fact be nothing but a bundle of delusions, completely divorced from objective, external reality.

Here is part of an exchange at the Waldorf Critics 

list that occurred in February, 2013. 

The subject is the Anthroposophical pursuit of clairvoyant, 

esoteric knowledge about spiritual realities. 

Anthroposophists mistakenly think clairvoyance exists, 

and they think the results of “clairvoyant research” 

(which are really nothing but fantasies) 

are superior to ordinary knowledge 

attained by use of the rational mind. 

Critic #1:  “[The] allure toward superior knowledge cements many [Anthroposophists] to the [Anthroposophical] path for life and keeps them persisting to attain something special. Sadly, by the end of life, when they realize they haven't attained higher knowledge after years of practices, I imagine they'd humbly say that it's because they need to develop themselves further in future lifetimes. There's no way for them to verify their progress along the way other than what they think they determine to be true within their private experiences — which could be whatever wrong information they convince themselves to believe is right.”

Critic #2:  “A lot of anthroposophists think the process itself is what matters, and are often oblivious to the effect this has on their movement. It isn't some sort of accident that Holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists are drawn to anthroposophy; it gives them free rein for their musings, imbues their views with an aura of spiritual wisdom, and excludes critical examination of these views. Even comparatively lucid anthroposophists readily convince themselves that ‘The evidence of what Steiner says is all there and it is very clear,’ as one [Anthroposophist] put it.

“For countless anthroposophists, there is ‘clear evidence’ for the existence of the ‘Aryan root race’ and Atlantis, there is ‘clear evidence’ that some races are ‘degenerate’ while others are ‘progressing,’ there is ‘clear evidence’ that children must view their teachers as ‘unquestioned authorities,’ there is ‘clear evidence’ that ‘Jewry as such has long since outlived its time and has no more justification within the modern life of peoples,’ and the various other things Steiner taught. These same anthroposophists then express surprise that anybody might discern racist, antisemitic, and authoritarian strands in the worldview Steiner preached and the worldview his followers embrace.”

Critic #1:  “There are no...safeguards in Anthroposophy...to help one discriminate between a hallucination and a genuine spiritual experience (if such a thing exists). Instead, people trust their experiences, hunches, and beliefs, often without questioning them, stating something like ‘I just know deep inside that this is true’ when they in fact believe only by faith that it's true.”

Critic #2:  “The trust in personal experience is a central component of esoteric approaches in general. Not only does anthroposophy lack safeguards against this, it actively discourages critical examination. This is why anthroposophists feel attacked when their views are subjected to external inquiry; they think that critique and analysis are ‘invasive’ of their dearly held beliefs. To anthroposophists, ‘your own cherished and innate sensibilities’ are not to be questioned, examined, assessed, or challenged; they are simply to be cherished, and protected from external scrutiny. Little wonder so many anthroposophists cling to their beliefs about the ‘Aryan race’ and so forth.”

On Debates and Defenses

We all stand to benefit from rational, constructive discussions. The more we hold such discussions, the more we stand to benefit. But debates, pitting contenders against one another, are something different — they are generally pointless. Indeed, debates are often self-defeating. Humanity would be better off without them.

I'm talking about all forms of verbal fisticuffs in which disputants try to best one another. Very rarely will one side win; very, very rarely will either side admit defeat. Instead, as verbal darts fly back and forth, feelings get wounded, egos get rubbed raw, and the antagonists dig in their heels. They become more, not less, opposed to one another; they descend into their trenches and fire off bigger and bigger mortars.

I don't mean to overstate matters. A debate may be "won" in the sense that non-participants, members of the audience, may be persuaded to embrace the views of one disputant or the other. This may or may not be a good thing, depending on the validity of that disputant's statements. But bear in mind how, instead of listening with impartial reasonableness, audiences may be whipped up into paroxysms of opposition. As the disputants become more enflamed, so may their listeners. Differences of opinion may easily be aggravated, not rationally repaired. So, again, a debate may easily prove damaging to humanity's tenuous grip on sweet sanity.

None of this is to say that people should not express their views clearly and even forcibly. But the aim should not be to beat an opponent. The aim should be the exposition of truth. And the attempts to express truth should be directed to the members of the audience who genuinely seek truth — they should not be directed chiefly to one's own supporters, nor should they be framed as weapons meant to vanquish one's opponents.

At Waldorf Watch, I have attempted to state truths both clearly and forcefully. And I have employed various rhetorical strategies meant to drive points home — satire, for instance. (Most of Rudolf Steiner's teachings are absurd, and as such they deserve derision.) But mostly I have tried to be reasonable and clear. I have striven to discover and convey truth.

The results of my efforts — the contents of my interconnected websites — are for others to judge. Nothing is served if I now pound my chest and proclaim loudly to the world that my websites are wonderful. Indeed, rational appraisal of the matters discussed at my sites would only become less likely if I contributed to whipping up a debate about the sites and/or about their creator. Things would get still worse if I wasted time trying to clobber people who criticize me or my sites.

I am unimportant; my sites, indeed, are unimportant, at least as subjects of debate. The important questions before us are the nature of Waldorf education and the nature of the thinking that underlies Waldorf education (Anthroposophy). At my sites, I have attempted to give true answers to these questions. I leave it now to readers — especially those who truly, calmly, rationally seek truth — to reach their own conclusions about the matters examined at the sites. Anyone who reaches conclusions different from mine is perfectly free to publish their own essays or studies.

I have held back nothing. If you delve into Waldorf Watch, you will find everything I know about Waldorf and Anthroposophy, and you will find clear attributions to all the sources I have drawn upon. In the future, I may add more to the sites if I learn still more, and I will surely continue the process of editing/improving the sites. But everything will remain in the open, freely available to everyone — including, first and foremost, you, gentle reader.

— R.R., 

Jan. 20, 2022

[R.R.]