Sketch of Steiner sketch for a portion of

a triptych at the Goetheanum.

"This window shows us the path of life to be relived again, from below upwards...the path of life, flowing backwards into the ethereal world ... This backward-moving experience is subjected to the world laws of morality. Under the eye of God are the tables of the law. 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth' is the law of this backward-moving experience. But since 'God's lamb carries the sin of the world', the forces of Christ are woven into the compensations of destiny [karma]." — Georg Hartmann, THE GOETHEANUM GLASS-WINDOWS (Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, 1972), p. 49.

[R.R. sketch, 2010.]

ooo

"Blood always means renewal. If we only had blood in us, therefore, we would be like creatures that grow all the time ... [But] if we were nothing but nerve, we would be all the time tired and worn; we would really be dying all the time. We therefore have two opposites principles in us — the nervous system that makes us get old all the time, actually handing us over to death all the time, and the blood system which is connected with the nutrition system and lets us grow young all the time, and so on." — Rudolf Steiner, FROM LIMESTONE TO LUCIFER (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), pp. 194-195.

[R.R. sketch, 2009, emulating a Steiner sketch in the style of illustration often used in Anthroposophical publications, suggesting translucency.]

ooo

R.R. sketch (2010) of Georg Hartmann's sketch

of a portion of a Steiner sketch

for a window at the Goetheanum,

the worldwide headquarters of Anthroposophy:

a lion, in the cavern-like, bottom-most corner.

See the triptych titled

"It Became, It Has Become, It Was".

"[A] preparing comprehension by sentiments for the fact of reincarnation was to be imparted. This was done by men possessing a higher knowledge (such have always existed), who spoke of reincarnations of important personalities: of the Emperor Charles in Untersberg near Salzburg, of Friedrich Barbarossa in Kyffhäuser. The ravens, as messengers from the spiritual world, announce when the time for new incarnation has arrived. What is experienced here as forces of preparation for the future, the imaginative consciousness can see under the image of the lion." — Georg Hartmann, THE GOETHEANUM GLASS-WINDOWS (Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, 1972), pp. 52-.53.

ooo

"[E]very person is actually two human beings in one —

one who looks out through the eyes

and one who looks inside through the liver."

— Rudolf Steiner,

FROM CRYSTALS TO CROCODILES

(Rudolf Steiner Press, 2002), pp. 143-144.

[R. R. sketch very loosely based on the

very sketchy Janus sketch in the book.]

Anyone who begins to study Steiner

must decide how hard to work at

trying to make sense of Steiner's statements.

If your primary interest is deciding whether

to send your children to a Waldorf school,

you probably should at least sample Steiner's work,

and then investigate how committed

the school is to Steiner.

ooo

Ahriman, as depicted in the design for a ceiling mural at the Goetheanum.

[See THE GOETHEANUM CUPOLA MOTIFS OF RUDOLF STEINER

(SteinerBooks, 2011), p. 127.

R.R. copy, 2014.]

ooo

Adaptation of a mystical Anthroposophical seal,

reflecting Steiner's interpretation of

the Book of Revelation.

"Men will extend their beings, as it were, in the course of times to come, identifying themselves more and more with the world; thus it will become possible to represent them in the form of the cosmos instead of the human form. This you can see in the fourth seal with its rock, sea and columns. What passes as clouds through the world today will offer its matter so that the body of a man may be formed from it, and the forces that today are with the Sun spirits will in future provide men with what will develop their spiritual forces in a much higher way. It is this sun force to which men are striving. Contrary to the plant that sends its head-like roots towards the earth's center, a man turns his head to the sun. He will ultimately unite his head with the sun and receive higher forces. This is to be seen in the fourth seal in the sun's face that rests on the body of clouds, on the rock and columns. In that future time, the human being will have become self-creative." — Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT SIGNS AND SYMBOLS (Anthroposophic Press, 1972), pp. 54-55.

[R.R. sketch, 2010,

based on the image in Steiner's

MYSTIC SEALS AND COLUMNS

(Health Research, 1969).]

ooo

Steiner designed mystic columns

for use in "spiritual science" buildings.

There are seven column designs,

representing the seven classical planets of astrology.

Here you see one version of the Sun column:

In addition to these columns,

Steiner specified seven mystic seals.

The columns and seals are meant to be arranged

in conjunction with each other:

"The seals are to be mounted on the wall so that the first is between the Saturn column and the Sun column, the second between the Sun column and the Moon column and so forth, up to the seventh, which should be mounted twice on the other side of the Venus column, to the right and left of center." — E. A. Karl Stockmeyer, in Rudolf Steiner's ROSICRUCIANISM RENEWED (SteinerBooks, 2007).

[R. R. sketch, 2010, based on one in Steiner's

MYSTIC SEALS AND COLUMNS

(Health Research, 1969).]

ooo

"The way in which healing processes are continuously working downwards in us calls forth a feeling of pleasure in the higher hierarchies [of spiritual beings]. It constitutes the joy of the higher hierarchies in the earthly world. They look down and continually feel illness arising out of what streams upward in man from the earthly, from what remains of the earthly attributes of the substances. And they see that the impulses of forces that work out of the earthly realm, forces that lie in the air that moves all around and so on, are continually active as processes of healing. This arouses satisfaction in the higher hierarchies." — Rudolf Steiner, HARMONY OF THE CREATIVE WORD (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001), p. 172.

[R.R. sketch, 2009.]

ooo

“The Buddha wandered away from

earthly affairs to the realm of Mars ...

[T]he Buddha accomplished

a Buddha crucifixion there.”

— Rudolf Steiner,

LIFE BETWEEN DEATH AND REBIRTH

(SteinerBooks, 1985), p. 207.

[R. R. sketch, interpretive.]

ooo

"[G]oblins or gnomes feel themselves to be of quite special importance, for they gather together the most varied experiences from the whole of earth existence, and they hold themselves in readiness, when all earthly substance will have been dispersed into the universe — after the transition to Jupiter evolution — to preserve what is good in the earth structure in order to incorporate this in Jupiter, as a kind of bony skeleton ... [W]hen one looks at this process from the aspect of the gnomes, one gains a first stimulus, a first capacity, to picture how our earth would appear if all the water were taken from it ... You would get something like the structure of the cross in the earth." — Rudolf Steiner, HARMONY OF THE CREATIVE WORD (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001), pp. 145-146.

[R. R. sketch, 2009.]

ooo

Whatever is right or wrong about Waldorf schools, the source lies in Rudolf Steiner's occultism. Steiner acknowledged that we live in the physical universe, and he admitted (sometimes) that science describes this universe with some precision. But he also claimed that we simultaneously live in other universes, which are more real. Here is a version of the etheric universe. Steiner attributed this description to the ancients, but it is close to his own view. In the center you see the Earth (green). Surrounding it is Hell or the Abyss (red), the barrier that divides us from the rest of the etheric universe. Outside the Abyss is the sphere of the Moon (gray). This sphere encloses the Earth: We live in the Earth sphere but also inside the Moon sphere, making us subject to Moon forces. Outside the Moon sphere are other, increasingly large spheres, each of which encloses all of the smaller spheres. We live within all of these spheres and are subject to their forces. In order, proceeding outward, the spheres are Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the crystal heaven or the realm of fixed stars. Essentially, this is the ancient astrological description of the heavens.

“[T]he idea was that the earth was inside the moon, and the bit we see of the moon is only a tiny, solid part of it ... [I]f the earth were not within the powers of the moon, human beings...would not be able to procreate ... If human beings did not have the powers of Mercury in them all the time they would not be able to digest ... Venus lives in our blood. Everything that has to do with blood in us comes from the powers of Venus ... [T]he powers of the sun are above all active in the human heart ... Mars...is connected with everything to do with speech and everything we have by way of breathing organs ... Jupiter...has to do with our brain, really our sense organs, our brain with the sense organs ... Saturn has to do with our organs of thinking ... Copernicus' image of the world [i.e., the physical, scientific image] has all been calculated. Those earlier people [the ancients] did not make calculations. But they knew something else, something modern people do not know. They knew that the powers were active everywhere in the world, wherever you look. But these powers, which are also in the human being, are not in the world we see with our eyes; they are in the invisible realm ... Dante [who presented the ancient view] was therefore speaking of a very different world, an etheric world ... [H]e wrote of the invisible realm, of the etheric world." — Rudolf Steiner, FROM LIMESTONE TO LUCIFER (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), pp. 41-45.

[R.R. sketch, 2009, based on illustration on p. 42.]

Note the distinction between the brain and our "organs of thinking." Steiner taught that no real thinking occurs in the brain. This is just one of the many peculiarities in the visions Steiner endorsed. Essentially, he accepted the ignorance of the ancient peoples, calling it wisdom; and he rejected the knowledge of modern science, calling it ignorance. People of faith today may agree that a spiritual realm exists, but in considering Waldorf schools they should ask themselves whether the true spiritual realm is the place Steiner described, a realm of celestial spheres, astrology, clairvoyance, and all the other occult elements of Steiner's doctrines.

ooo

[R.R. sketch, 2010.]

Fairy tales are true — although, of course, their truths are disguised and must be revealed by savants; by R. Steiner, indeed.

“You see, truths that are otherwise presented merely in the form of poetry — for instance, the relations between Faust and Mephistopheles — can become guiding principles for education as it should be in the future ... The secret of all legends and fairy-tales is that their content was originally actual experience, arising either from man's relation to the Sphinx or from his relation to Mephistopheles. In legends and fairy-tales we find, sometimes more and sometimes less deeply hidden, either the motif of the riddle, the motif of the Sphinx, where something has to be solved, some question answered; or else the motif of bewitchment, of being under a spell. This is the Ahriman motif ... Spiritual Science is thus a fundamental factor in the evolution of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch.” — Rudolf Steiner, THE BALANCE IN THE WORLD AND MAN, LUCIFER AND AHRIMAN (Steiner Book Centre, 1948), lecture 1, GA 158.

(Ahriman is an arch-demon; see "Ahriman". Spiritual Science is, essentially, Anthroposophy; see the entries for these terms in The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia. The Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch is our present cultural epoch, the fifth since the sinking of Atlantis; see the entries for these terms in the same encyclopedia.)

ooo

[R. R. sketch, a bit interpretive, 2010.]

How can anyone take Steiner’s teachings seriously? Remarkably, some people do — and some of them teach in Waldorf schools. Here's another sample. See how seriously you can take it.

“It was a collective world-womb in which the light-plant man lived at that time, feeling himself one with the light-mantle of the earth. In this refined vaporous plant-form, man hung as though on the umbilical cord of the earth-mother and he was cherished and nourished by the whole mother earth. As in a cruder sense the child of today is cherished and nourished in the maternal body, so the human germ was cherished and nourished at that time. Thus did man live in the primeval age of the earth ... We must not forget, however, that in what remained behind after the separation of the sun other forces, the Moon-forces, were present. The earth had to separate these forces from itself. Here we have a period during which only the sun was withdrawn, when the plant-man had to descend gradually into the water-earth. This stage, at which man had then arrived in his body, we see preserved today in a degenerated form in fishes. The fishes that we see in the water today are relics of those men, although naturally in a decadent form. We must think of a goldfish, for example, in a fantastic plant-form, agile, but with a feeling of sadness because the light had been withdrawn from the water. It was a very deep longing that arose. The light was no longer there, but the desire for the light called up this longing. There was a moment in the earth's evolution when the sun was not yet entirely outside the earth; there one can see that form still permeated with light — man with his upper part still at the sun-stage, while below he is already in the shape preserved in the fishes.” — Rudolf Steiner, EGYPTIAN MYTHS AND MYSTERIES (Anthroposophic Press, 1971), lecture 5, GA 106.

Lest there be any confusion: What Steiner says, here, is not to be found in Egyptian myths. It is Steiner's own version of the truth about human evolution. Some of what Steiner said may seem attractive, but it has no basis in reality. (Nor does it have much basis, forsooth, in the ancient myths Steiner reworked to suit his own purposes.)

ooo

Some people consider Steiner’s doctrines lovely. Others see a very different quality in them. If you are interested in Waldorf education, you owe it to yourself — and to your child — to evaluate the thinking that underlies it, the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. A sample:

“If with our coarse noses we were to sniff toward Saturn, we would smell nothing. But when the asafetida, which has a keen nose for Saturn, sniffs toward that planet, it smells what comes from it, adapts its gas content accordingly, and has a most foul odor. Suppose you are walking through an avenue of horse chestnuts — you know the scent of horse chestnut, or of linden blossoms? They both have such perfume because their flowers are sensitive noses for everything that streams into the universe from Venus. And so in very truth the fragrances of heaven come to us out of the plants.” — Rudolf Steiner, THE EVOLUTION OF THE EARTH AND MAN (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1987), lecture 9, GA 354.

[Interpretive R.R, sketch, 2010.]

ooo

Secrets are kept from us for good reasons and bad. Consider reincarnation, as per Steiner's occult doctrines. Below is an illustration of the reincarnation process, as per Steiner's occult doctrines. We are born (upward-pointing arrowheads) and lead an Earthly life; then we die (downward-pointing arrowheads); in-between, we lead a looping life in the spirit realm, under the influence of six gods (Spirits of Form). The process goes on and on, lifetime after lifetime. As Steiner points out, he has explained all this in his book OCCULT SCIENCE. Thus secrets can be revealed, although only by those wise enough to decide how, when, and where to reveal them. Steiner made small revelations here and there, in this book and that, in one lecture or another... He spoke, he wrote, he sketched — and he went mum, and deflected inquiry, and spun away on tangents... Finding the truth (or, at least, the intended meaning) is his works is not often easy. He was divided internally, impelled to tell and impelled not to tell. And his followers have often followed his two-pronged example.

Sometimes when Steiner told, it had the effect of not telling. The problem is considerably alleviated if you make the effort to master Anthroposophical jargon. But, bear in mind, secrecy is essential and, to a degree, it must be preserved. "If we think about man as he is between birth and death, we can envisage that in regard to his evolution he stands under the workings of the Spirits of Form. This too is set forth in OCCULT SCIENCE. But if we then think of his life from death until the next birth, an essential fact must be taken into consideration, namely, that the spheres of activity of these Spirits of Form fall as it were into seven categories, only one of which is allotted to Jehovah, namely, that concerned primarily with the life between birth and death. The six other categories of the Spirits of Form guide the life between death and a new birth.

"This can be discovered only if we investigate the life between death and a new birth. Just as Jehovah has to do with the Earth and actually made the sacrifice of going to the Moon in order from there to neutralise certain things in Earth-evolution, so have the other Spirits of Form to do with the other planets. But this fact must be cloaked, must be kept secret if it is desired that the conception of repeated Earth-lives shall be withheld from men; and moreover the concealment must be really effective, it must be brought about in such a way that men do not become alive to the secret of which I have just spoken. For if they are diverted from a true vista of the life between death and a new birth, their attention will be rivetted, without this secret, upon the life between birth and death and they will allow mediums to talk them into believing that the life after death is simply a continuation of the life on Earth." — Rudolf Steiner, THE OCCULT MOVEMENT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1973), pp. 71-72.

[R.R. sketch, 2010, based on the one on p. 71.]

ooo

[R.R. sketch, 2009, based on image in BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS 1919-1924.]

Virtually every statement Steiner ever made concerning nature — or, in a broader sense, reality — was either obviously wrong or, at a minimum, highly questionable. Consider what, if anything, we can learn from the following:

“What in the human being is cosmic respiration, what is implanted in the human being through fertilization, this is brought to the plant every year by the light, so that the plant grows up from gravity into light and thus towards fertilization. When the water rising up here in the form of mist reaches a certain place it is fertilized from out of the cosmos. And what happens? There is lightning!" — Rudolf Steiner, BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS 1919-1924 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 105.

Unless we redefine "fertilization" to mean something it does not mean, this statement is meaningless. On the other hand, the statement does contain a sort of acknowledgment that gravity exists — something Steiner often denied. As for Steiner's explanation of lightning...

ooo

[R.R. sketch, 2009, based on image

on p. 102 of FROM COMETS TO COCAINE.]

“[N]erve fibres in the brain go everywhere and eventually form onions within the skin ... [J]ust as real onions grow in the ground and form onion blossoms, so do these onions grow in the human body ... [I]n regard to his skin man is a kind of soil ... Below are the solid masses of the body, and above is the layer of 'humus' ... From it grow all these onions that have blossoms in the brain ... [W]e carry a whole plant kingdom around within us ... Ordinarily, it is assumed that the nerves do the thinking. We can employ the nerves for thinking only be stealing their light, so to speak. The human soul steals the light from the nerves, and it uses what is has taken away for thinking." — Rudolf Steiner, FROM COMETS TO COCAINE (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2000), pp. 101-103.

Random Ramble

The pictures presented on these Xpix pages represent some — but by no means all — of the images I have copied or emulated during the years I have been studying Anthroposophy (a study I have undertaken as, I might add, a non-Anthroposophist). They are presented here in no particular order. They are a miscellany, a grab bag, a ragbag. Roaming through these pages and reading the captions under the pictures, you may glean a sort of informal, generalized introduction to Anthroposophic beliefs. If you want to delve into any of these beliefs at greater depth or in a more organized manner — or if, for some odd reason, you'd like see other images I copied of emulated — then I'm afraid your best recourse will be to acquaint yourself with the contents of the wesbite Waldorf Watch and its ancillary sites. [See, e.g., "Waldorf Watch", "The Waldorf Watch Annex", "The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia", etc.

— Roger Rawlings