In 2013, a period of poor health led me to temporarily suspend my work researching and writing about Waldorf education. At that time, I had a number of intriguing quotations on hand for possible use as Quotes of the Day on the Waldorf Watch "news" page.

So that they don't go wholly to waste, I will dump those quotations here. They are unsorted, highly various, and largely unexplained (i.e., I have added little commentary). Take them for what they're worth. These are the sorts of things we find when researching the Waldorf school movement and the thinking behind it.

(Despite the catchy title I've given this page, I have used versions of some of these quotations elsewhere. Just so you know.)

(P.S. I'm feeling much better now.)

— Roger Rawlings

April, 2014

“[Acquiring] spiritual perception, enhanced consciousness or knowledge of higher worlds [i.e., clairvoyance] is the...path that should be followed by every teacher who takes his vocation seriously.” — Waldorf teacher Roy Wilkinson, THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF STEINER EDUCATION, p. 115.

“From the beginning, Steiner saw his task as the rescue of humanity ... [S]omething new must be created. But such a new revelation can no longer be received passively from the Gods, as was the case in previous epochs. It must now be created by, in, and through human beings.” — Christopher Bamford, Introduction, ANTHROPOSOPHY IN EVERYDAY LIFE - Four Lectures by Rudolf Steiner (Anthroposophic Press, 1995), pp. x-xi. 

"The mythical and religious content of the earliest grades [in a Waldorf school] bring the child to the same wellsprings from which humanity began its great journey into awareness.” — Clifford Skoog, “Waldorf Education and Science”, in WALDORF EDUCATION -  A Family Guide (Michaelmas Press, 1992), edited by Pamela Johnson Fenner and Karen L. Rivers,  p. 79.

"[T]he purpose of education is to help the individual fulfill his karma. The teacher is an intermediary and his task is to guide the incarnating individualities into the physical world and equip them for earthly existence, bearing in mind what they bring with them from the past and what they are likely to take with them into the future.” — Waldorf teacher Roy Wilkinson, THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF STEINER EDUCATION - The Waldorf School Approach (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), p. 52.

“The equinox is for us a turning point, a change in the relation of light and darkness in the world around us. On September 29th the autumn festival traditionally known as Michaelmas is celebrated [in Waldorf schools]. This festival is named for the Archangel Michael, conqueror of the powers of darkness, the harvester of the deeds of human souls. It is at this time that the image of Michael with the dragon appears before us as a mighty imagination, challenging us to develop strong, brave, free wills, to overcome love of ease, anxiety and fear. This demands inner activity, a renewal of the soul which is brought to consciousness in the Michaelmas festival, the festival of the will.” — Karen Rivers, “Michaelmas”, in WALDORF EDUCATION: A Family Guide, p. 145.

“[T]his is how our free, nondenominational, religion lessons came about. These were given by our own teachers ... The teachers were recognized by us as religious teachers in the Waldorf curriculum. Thus, anthroposophic religious lessons were introduced in our school. “ — Rudolf Steiner, SOUL ECONOMY AND WALDORF EDUCATION (SteinerBooks, 2003), p. 125.

“That fairyland and its denizens should be as much a concern of scientists as they have long been of poets and painters and storytellers was one of Steiner’s deep convictions. For he was a close observer of their life and work, and it was clear to him that they were of profound importance to the earth.” — Waldorf educator Marjorie Spock, FAIRY WORLDS AND WORKERS: A Natural History of Fairyland (Anthroposophical Press, 1980), p. 8.

"In the truest sense, we each receive our allotted human task from our family, nation, or race soul. As long as our experience is limited to the sense-perceptible world, we are not initiated into the higher purpose of which this task is a part, but work unconsciously toward the goals of our group souls. But as soon as we encounter the guardian of the threshold, we not only know our own personal tasks but also have to work consciously to help accomplish those of our people and our race.” — Rudolf Steiner, HOW TO KNOW HIGHER WORLDS (SteinerBooks, 2003), p. 184.

“[T]he children march in complex patterns — forward, backward and in a circle, counting rhythmically in unison: ‘3, 6, 9, 12...’  all the way to 36. Martinez, like all Waldorf School teachers, regards the numbers 3 and 4 as archetypes that live in the unconsciousness, in music, poetry and children’s bodies. So the teacher explains the uncanny ability of his students: As long as they move and count in rhythm, unthinking, they can rattle off the numbers to the 12s table with ease. If they’re forced to sit and think about it, their natural cleverness comes to a quick halt. (‘The body thinks, the body counts,’ said Waldorf School founder Rudolf Steiner. ‘The head is only a spectator.’)” — Sara Solovitch, “Childhood in a Cocoon”, THE MERCURY NEWS, http://www.sarasolo.com/mn3.html.

“Whereas in the ancient Atlantean times these human beings descended to earth from Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and the other planets...now a time is beginning when beings who are not human are coming down to earth from cosmic regions beyond ... Just as the Vulcan men were the last to come down to earth [during Atlantean times], so Vulcan beings are now actually entering this earth existence ... And it is thanks to the fact that these beings from beyond the earth are bringing messages down into this earthly existence that it is possible at all to have a comprehensive spiritual science today.”* — Rudolf Steiner, MATERIALISM AND THE TASK OF ANTHROPOSOPHY (SteinerBooks, 1987), p. 261.

* That is, Steiner’s teachings — i.e., Anthroposophy, “spiritual science” — would not be possible otherwise.

“The names of the [nature] spirits are gnomes, undines, sylphs and salamanders respectively. To be aware of them, the special faculty of spiritual vision [i.e., clairvoyance] is necessary.” — Waldorf teacher Roy Wilkinson, THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF STEINER EDUCATION, p. 90.

“Religious experience, like artistic feeling, has a strengthening effect on the Etheric Body* ... Therefore, a religious mood should pervade the [Waldorf] teacher’s actions as well as the subjects of the curriculum.” — Richard Blunt, WALDORF EDUCATION: Theory and Practice (Novalis Press, 1995), p. 153.

* The first of the invisible, "higher" bodies that Waldorf teachers work to help their students incarnate.

“Human culture needs to be transformed according to a spiritual vision of the human being [i.e., Anthroposophy]. Every domain of human thought and activity — education, [etc.] — must be renewed on the basis of [the Anthroposophical] understanding of the human being.” — Anthroposophist Ronald Koetzsh, “Anthroposophy 101”, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/anthroposophy101.html

“[T]he task of the educator is to make oneself a kind of prophet of the child’s future.” — Christopher Clouder, head of the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, “Spiritual Dimension and Autonomy” (1998) http://www.ecswe.org/wren/documents/spiritual_journal.pdf.

“It is above all the moon forces that connect man’s astral and ego organization [i.e., his higher nonphysical bodies] with his physical and etheric organisms [i.e., his lower bodies] ... Every night, when out of the spiritual world the soul desires to re-enter its physical and etheric bodies, it must place itself within the stream of the moon forces. It is of no concern here — that will be obvious to you — whether it be a new or full moon. For even when, as new moon, the moon is not visible to the senses, those forces are nevertheless active throughout the cosmos that bring the soul back into the etheric and physical bodies from the spiritual worlds.” — Rudolf Steiner, PHILOSOPHY, COSMOLOGY, AND RELIGION (Anthroposophic Press, 1984), p. 83.

“[F]rom the heliocentric horoscope comparison, it is possible to see if recurring astrological rhythms that signal an indication of reincarnation patterns are evident.” — Steiner disciple Robert Powell, PROPHECY - PHENOMENA - HOPE (Lindisfarne Books, 2011), p. 13.

“[In college] I chose to study psychology and astrology ... [Later] I began to study Anthroposophy ... I went to work as a Waldorf teacher ... After two years, we left to start a Waldorf School in South Dakota ...  Financial hardships forced the teachers [there] to abandon Waldorf education ... I [left] to teach Special Education on the Pine Ridge [Amerindian] Reservation ... After two years I went to work in the public school system ... [Later] we found a Waldorf school where I could teach and our children attend ... [Then] I went to work as an insurance agent/financial planner ... I found a position [at a Waldorf school] in Kona, Hawaii ... I was forced out due to political differences ... My last teaching attempt was at a Waldorf school in Bellevue, Washington. To my dismay I found that the Waldorf school was not following Rudolf Steiner’s indications ... I retired and began to devote my time to astrology....” — Ron Odama, ASTROLOGY AND ANTHROPOSOPHY (Bennett & Hastings, 2009), pp. viii-xi.

"As a spiritual entity, like the Sphinx, advances through time, it sheds its detritus in the form of hideous astral phantoms; malevolent beings which hang around the fringes of human consciousness waiting to be unwittingly invited in." — Waldorf teacher-trainer Alan Whitehead, WORLD WITHIN, CHILD WITHOUT (Golden Beetle Books, 1993), p. 15.

“Rudolf Steiner...was in his own time a man of the future ... That [his work] has such a direct bearing on the UFO problem illustrates that Steiner’s work is practical in the fullest sense. Impractical people naturally cannot grasp Steiner, and clutching their eminent qualifications and degrees, remain bewildered and defeated by the UFO problem.” — Trevor James Constable, THE COSMIC PULSE OF LIFE - The Revolutionary Biological Power Behind UFOs (Borderland Sciences, 1990), p. 153.

“You must know that each limb of a human being is a complete human being, but with the head and chest stunted...and in the chest the head and limbs maintain balance.”  — Rudolf Steiner, THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 211.

“Lucifer, or the Devil - Lucifer would like humanity to remain in spirit as half-developed angels, i.e. to not develop any further ... Ahriman, or Satan — Ahriman would like humanity to remain on the earth and not to return to the spirit worlds for further guidance and development before reincarnating with new impulses ... Rudolf Steiner said of this: ‘As death is the karmic fulfillment of birth; so Ahriman is the karmic fulfilment of Lucifer.’" — Robin Bacchus, explaining Anthroposophical concepts to Waldorf teacher trainees, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/karmaandreincarnation.html?pid=28.

"Suppose there are two brothers — one of whom is handsome and intelligent, the other ugly and dull-witted. Both proceed from the same father. What should we think of a man who believed that the intelligent brother descends from the idiot? That is the kind of error made by Darwinism in regard to the races. Man and animal have a common origin; the animals represent a degeneration of the one common ancestor, whose higher development comes to expression in man. This should not give rise to pride, for it is only thanks to the lower kingdoms that the higher races have been able to develop.” — Rudolf Steiner, AN ESOTERIC COSMOLOGY, lecture 2, GA 94.

“One [Waldorf grad] told me that in her teens she was surprised to learn that the Greek gods were not historical figures, so thoroughly did the curriculum meld myth and history.” — A former Waldorf proctor, 2011. [See “Dorm Dad”.]

“[E]ducation must, among other things, concern itself less with actual learning than with developing a flexibility and adaptability of mind.”* — Waldorf educator Roy Wilkinson, COMMONSENSE SCHOOLING (Henry Goulden, 1975), p. 3.

* The chief flexibility aimed at is the ability to accept the bizarre doctrines of Anthroposophy — which Waldorf teachers consider "commonsense." For most people, however, the downplaying of "actual learning" must be considered a severe fault in Waldorf schooling.

“It is in our will that our karmic intentions are stored, intentions which have been prepared during the long period between lifetimes in the company of the spiritual beings of planetary spheres and beyond. But can these intentions be read in a horoscope? Whilst criticizing the superficial nature of much astrology, Steiner shows that we do indeed attempt to choose the appropriate birth time to match the destiny that we are to live out ... On occasion he himself made use of horoscopes as we can see in the case of the ‘special needs’ children.” — Anthroposophist Margaret Jonas, introduction to ASTRONOMY AND ASTROLOGY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2009), pp. 2-3.

"A step on the path to super-sensible perception [i.e., clairvoyance] is a heightened knowledge of, and sensitivity to, colour. In good esoteric schools, colour instruction has always been a high priority, due to informed clairvoyant (clear-viewing) perception being based on fine colour discrimination."* — Waldorf teacher-trainer Alan Whitehead CHOIRS OF COLOURS - Primary Painting, Sculpture, Drawing; A Rudolf Steiner Approach (Golden Beetle Books, 2004), p. 48.

* "Colour discrimination" is needed, for instance, to interpret auras correctly.

"Rudolf Steiner describes how, in our development after physical birth, we human beings go through further 'births': 'Just as we are enclosed within the physical sheath of our mother up to the time of birth, we are enclosed in an etheric sheath up till the change of teeth, that is, till about the seventh year.'" — Anthroposophist Michaela Strauss, UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN'S DRAWINGS: Tracing the Path of Incarnation (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007), p. 51.

"[S]cience, social studies, and history theoretically were all explored and integrated into the curriculum, but always on a 'Waldorf' timeline and scale, and never in-depth. Additionally, the information imparted was often not accurate. For example, the children were taught that there were 4 elements — Earth, wind, fire and air, and that the continents were islands floating on the ocean...." — A teacher who was initially drawn to the Waldorf system. [See "Ex-Teacher 5".]

"The Science of the Spirit [i.e., Anthroposophy] teaches us the art of forgetting ... All memorized matter should disappear from the mind to make room for an actively receptive spirit." — Rudolf Steiner quoted by Eugene Schwartz in EDUCATING THE MILLENNIAL CHILD (Anthroposophic Press, 1999), pp. 150-151.

“He [Rudolf Steiner] attacked the theory that fairy tales derived only from popular imagination, and described times, before the awakening of the intellect, in which man regularly found himself in a special [clairvoyant] condition between waking and sleeping. In this special state, visions arose in many forms ... [People said] ‘everything around us is bewitched spiritual truth.’” — Werner Glas, SPEECH EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY GRADES OF WALDORF SCHOOLS (Sunbridge College Press, 1974), pp. 47-48. 

“Much of what we today regard as faith content [i.e., matters of faith] was knowledge in earlier times. Some people sought this knowledge by developing ‘hidden powers of the soul,’ as Steiner calls them, and today we are not aware how much of what we today regard as knowledge has been discovered through older paths of knowledge [predominantly, clairvoyance].” — Agnes Nobel, EDUCATING THROUGH ART - The Steiner School Approach (Floris Books, 1991), p. 164.

“A true knowledge of the child will enable the teacher to understand how the correct education of Soul and Spirit brings health to the physical body, and how incorrect education sooner or later finds expression...in the form or discomfort or disease ... [O]verstimulation of the memory can cause the child to grow lank ... This is bound up with the interaction of the Etheric and Astral Bodies....” — Richard Blunt, WALDORF EDUCATION: Theory and Practice (Novalis Press, 1995), p. 110.

“The important educational factors in the first years of life are learning to eat, to take in substance and transform it — an action of the ego [1] — and learning to sleep, which is a breathing rhythm between the soul-spirit [2] and the earthly body [3]. Until the change of teeth [4], the child lives in an organism [5] in which there lives a replica of the spiritual world. [6] The archetype of the physical body as the Word of the Zodiac [7], the impress of the planets on the life organs — lungs, liver, heart, etc. — and the movements they made during the embryonic period [8], this is the content of the body of formative forces [9], which is imbued with life from the cosmic ether [10], which the soul-spirits of children draw to themselves in the moon-sphere [11] before their birth.” — Audrey E. McAllen, SLEEP - An Unobserved Element in Education (Rudolf Steiner College Press, 2004), p. 33.

[1] The “I” or ego body — the third of our invisible bodies to incarnate.

[2] The combined soul and spirit.

[3] The physical body.

[4] The loss of baby teeth, signifying the incarnation of the etheric body, the first of our invisible bodies.

[5] The physical body, perfected during the first seven years of life.

[6] Children come to Earth bearing the imprint of the spirit realm.

[7] Astrology. The physical body is the exhaled embodiment of stellar powers. The "Word of the Zodiac" is the expressed formative effect of the stars and their gods, the foremost of whom is the Sun God, the embodied Word of God.

[8] Astrological influences are especially great upon embryos.

[9] The etheric body.

[10] The universal etheric medium.

[11] The region bounded by the orbit (so-called) of the moon.

“[Anthroposophist René] Querido* warned in his talks that parents should be aware of one basic tenet of Waldorf: although not tied to one particular church, it is essentially spiritual. ‘Education itself is a religious experience in the deepest and broadest sense of the word. There is a connection with the divine creative forces.’” — Ida Oberman in THE WALDORF MOVEMENT IN EDUCATION (Edwin Mellen Press, 2008), p. 254.

* Querido was head of Waldorf teacher training at Rudolf Steiner College.

“[A]ll-important preparatory [spiritual] exercises can be found in KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND IT ATTAINMENT and in OCCULT SCIENCE.* The six basic exercises lead to the development of the twelve-petaled lotus flower...located in the region of the heart. A little reflection shows how important these attitudes of soul can be for the life of the Waldorf teacher.” — Waldorf teacher-trainer René M. Querido, THE ESOTERIC BACKGROUND OF WALDORF EDUCATION, p. 4

* Steiner 's two most important books.

“The beings I have spoken about will descend gradually to the earth. Vulcan beings, Vulcan supermen, Venus supermen, Mercury supermen, Sun supermen, and so on will unite themselves with earth existence. Yet, if human beings persist in their opposition to them, this earth existence will pass over into chaos in the course of the next few thousand years.”  — Rudolf Steiner, MATERIALISM AND THE TASK OF ANTHROPOSOPHY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1987), lecture 14, GA 204.

"The difference between soul and racial development can be seen if we look into the past. Souls were incarnated many times in the Atlantean race; all of you were Atlanteans at that time. The souls worked themselves out of that situation and the remaining human bodies belonged to the races that had become decadent and were falling into decline. The souls left the bodies of the races and rose up to higher races. Human bodies afflicted with fundamental evil will not have souls within them that are striving to rise above their present state to a higher one. “ — Rudolf Steiner, READING THE PICTURES OF THE APOCALYPSE, lecture four, GA 104a.

“The Steiner movement, in common with the Scientologists, offers a so-called scientific approach to the religious ... The Steiner-movement bases its experiment on Rudolf Steiner’s occult visions ... The Steiner-school presents its pedagogy as independent of their religious views. This is, in fact, contrary to the actual praxis and the teachings of Rudolf Steiner himself.” — Kristín A. Sandberg and Trond K.O. Kristoffersen, “Warm and Woolly?”, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/warmandwoolly.html.

“Anthroposophy — the word is not even in the dictionary, and my spell-checker is foxed by it - the pseudo religion/science which lies at the heart of Steiner education (and also biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophical medicine, and cosmetics - Weleda and Dr. Hauschka) is the guiding force within these classrooms, and yet in the schools the word is barely heard, let alone explained. Schools are cagey and evasive at the mere mention of the word, and swiftly move on. It is deliberately buried. This is a religion which recruits by intentionally not setting out its beliefs.”  — a contributor to Counterknowledge [http://counterknowledge.com/2009/01/].

“[A]nyone who concerns himself with Waldorf pedagogy cannot overlook its obscure foundation — the occult worldview of anthroposophy, concocted by the clairvoyant Steiner out of fragments of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and contemporary European evolutionary and racial teachings.” — Peter Bierl, “A Pedagog for Aryans [http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/BierlFinal.htm].

“Schools reflect the state of society. If society is materialistic, competitive, egoistic, technological, and without concern for human values and long-term thinking, our schools will tend to reflect those values. However, what if education were about something else? What if education were about the future? What if education were a about nurturing a new generation of human beings, integrated in body, soul, and spirit and able to think for themselves and have the capacity to love? Perhaps the world would change. The Waldorf school, initiated and guided in 1919 by Rudolf Steiner, was conceived with precisely such an end in view.” — SteinerBooks, promoting THE ESSENCE OF WALDORF EDUCATION by Peter Selg [http://www.steinerbooks.org/detail.html?session=654d378741daadd1f6bf20c55dbd3663&id=9780880106467]

This quotation begs a bundle of questions. It assumes that society today is entirely mean-spirited and vile, and the only acceptable alternative is provided by the occultist Rudolf Steiner. We can all agree, I think, that being “materialistic...egotistic...without concern for human values” would be bad. Can we also agree that being a gullible believer in weird occult fantasies is also bad? Could we — I’m just tossing this thought out there  — could we agree that something in-between (such as being rational and well-educated and compassionate) might be better?

“From his clairvoyant reading of the akashic record — the cosmic memory of all events, actions, and thoughts — Steiner was able to discuss aspects of the life of Jesus Christ that are not recorded in the four Gospels of the conventional Christian Bible. The results of such research has been called ‘The Fifth Gospel.’” — Promotional statement by SteinerBooks [http://www.steinerbooks.org/detail.html?id=9781855840393]

“Based on knowledge attained through his highly-trained clairvoyance, Rudolf Steiner confirms that folk tradition regarding nature spirits [i.e., gnomes, fairies, etc.] are base on spiritual reality.”  — promotional statement by SteinerBooks [http://books.google.com/books?id=5pwHeKf_8KMC&pg=PA133&dq=gnomes+inauthor:rudolf+inauthor:Steiner&hl=en&ei=gg3oTKSOM5OgsQOfl52xCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ#v=snippet&q=in%20ancient%20times&f=false].

“[P]rimal memory is experienced ... It enlivens many an early game or even transfigures it ... [T]he incarnation of the soul into the physical body, is the subject of countless games ... The children are playing at becoming incarnated.” — Heidi Britz-Crecelius, CHILDREN AT PLAY - Using Waldorf Principles to Foster Childhood Development (Park Street Press, 1996), p. 105.

“Children's first drawings follow a cosmic movement that knows neither the outside nor inside ... Soul processes find their expression in the realm of colour ... The drawings illustrate transitions and overlapping of the most varied realms of perception."  — Anthroposophist Michaela Strauss, UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN'S DRAWINGS: Tracing the Path of Incarnation (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007), p. 71.

"Before the moment of earthly conception, the yet-to-be-born soul approaches the Gate of Birth, and there views a tableau of the life to come. In previous times, souls would immediately descend after witnessing this picture of their karmically-determined future. In our time, in which the world has grown so materialistic and life has become so difficult, more and more souls hesitate for a moment, reluctant to face their destiny. When they do choose to incarnate, they are a little late, and cannot "mesh" their higher members with their lower bodies. So a moment of hesitation, a little lateness, leads to an incomplete intertwining of body and soul, and this in turn can be a prime factor in those learning difficulties and emotional problems that will appear in childhood." — Waldorf teacher Eugene Schwartz, THE WALDORF TEACHER’S SURVIVAL GUIDE (Rudolf Steiner College Press, 1992), p. 23.

“Souls do not by any means stay with the same race. Soul evolution is something quite different from racial evolution, which proceeds at its own pace. In ancient Europe, the situation was such that the souls who had fallen into temptation were incarnated in the European races because they could not enter into the Asiatic races; and these souls were obliged at that time to incarnate repeatedly in the European races. As they improved themselves, however, they gradually passed over into higher races.” — Rudolf Steiner, THE SPIRITUAL FOUNDATION OF MORALITY (SteinerBooks, 1995), p. 30.

"A growing question in Waldorf kindergartens and schools is to what extent is Waldorf education bound to the Christian religion and to what extent is it more universal. The answer points towards the modern mysteries, for Waldorf education is centered around the Christ as a Universal Being who has helped humans in their development from the beginning of time. Rudolf Steiner speaks of the Christ in the present time as dwelling in the etheric world surrounding the Earth through which each incarnating soul passes ... Waldorf education strives to create a place in which the highest beings, including the Christ, can find their home....” — Joan Almon, WHAT IS A WALDORF KINDERGARTEN (SteinerBooks, 2007), p. 53.

“In place of the head teacher Steiner, when establishing the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, replaced this function with the collective work of the teachers on deepening an understanding of the nature of the human being ... This daunting task requires the school to have an organizational structure that enables such research* to be practiced and supported. Hence the formation of what is known as the College of Teachers ... The role of the College of Teachers is to carry responsibility for the education in the school. This includes appointing and deploying staff, research and developing the curriculum....” — Christopher Clouder and Martyn Rawson, WALDORF EDUCATION - Rudolf Steiner’s Ideas in Practice (Floris Books, 1998), pp. 109-110.

* The “research” performed by Anthroposophists is the use of clairvoyance to study the spirit realm. The "nature of the human being" is the spiritual nature revealed by clairvoyance. A central task of the college of teachers is to undertake clairvoyant research into human nature in order to develop the school's curriculum properly.

"If you now look at what we should teach children, you will feel the question of how we are to bring the religious element into all this so that the child gains a fully rounded picture of the world as well as a sense of the supersensible. People today are in a very difficult position in that regard. In the Waldorf School, pure externalities have kept us from following the proper pedagogical perspective in this area. Today we are unable to use all of what spiritual science can provide for education in our teaching other than to apply the consequences of it in how we teach. One of the important aspects of spiritual science is that it contains certain artistic impulses that are absorbed by human beings so that they not only simply know things, but they can do things. To put it in a more extreme way, people therefore become more adept; they can better take up life and thus can also exercise the art of education in a better way." — Rudolf Steiner, THE RENEWAL OF EDUCATION, p. 196. 

"By educating intellectually, we loosen the soul from the body, and one goes through life feeling that the body is merely 'of the earth,' so that it has no value and must be overcome." — Rudolf Steiner, A MODERN ART OF EDUCATION,  p. 109.

“It should be understood by any school or institution seeking affiliation with AWSNA [the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America] that Waldorf Education is based on Anthroposophy, the philosophy initiated by Rudolf Steiner. Waldorf is a trademark name in the United States and is reserved for independent schools which meet the membership standards established by AWSNA ... Only schools which have been accepted as Sponsored or Full Members of AWSNA may represent themselves as Waldorf schools or use the words ‘Waldorf’ or ‘Rudolf Steiner’ in their names or subtitles.” — Why Waldorf Works, 11-22-2011 http://www.whywaldorfworks.org/02_W_Education/faq_starting.asp.

“The first mathematicians were priests. Mathematics was not a mere physical science, but a revelation of divinity ... [Math has] an ethical quality ... It manifests order in the world ... One could go even further and say that this is a divine wisdom manifesting itself, and in this sense, mathematics becomes a religious study. In thinking mathematically one is tracing the divine pattern.” — Waldorf teacher Roy Wilkinson, TEACHING MATHEMATICS (Rudolf Steiner College Press, 1994), pp. 2-3.

“Rudolf Steiner’s gift of anthroposophy, the result of his own spiritual synthesis [1], recovered a host of lost truths of destiny [2] buried beneath the sediments of scientific determinism. [3] His spiritual perception [4] uncovered a wealth of soul-strengthening nutriments [5] available to all who delve beneath the surface of biography. [6] Those who examine biographical time will begin to detect the presence of lawfulness. [7]” — William A. Bryant, JOURNEY THOUGH TIME (Rudolf Steiner College Press, 2006), p. 2.

[1] Anthroposophy is, at root, an amalgam of previous religions, especially Theosophy (itself an amalgam) and gnostic Christianity. 

[2] Karma. Steiner taught that peoples of the past generally understood spiritual truths better than modern humans do. 

[3] Anthroposophy fundamentally opposes modern science and the determinism of natural scientific laws. 

[4] Clairvoyance. 

[5] Anthroposophy is meant to nourish the soul. 

[6] Apparent facts accessible by the brain and senses overly deeper spiritual causes. 

[7] One’s life is actually ruled by spiritual laws, such as the law of karma.

“When first we fall asleep, we recapitulate briefly the pictures of our earlier incarnations; this happens, Rudolf Steiner affirms, even when we take a nap ... It is through these pictures that our individuality, our eternal ego, works across time into space. Our karma of the present life is imbedded in our muscles, which are, spiritually speaking, ‘condensed organs of the musical forces of Inspiration.’”*  — Audrey E. McAllen, SLEEP - An Unobserved Element in Education (Rudolf Steiner College Press, 2004), p. 41.

* The internal quotation is from Steiner, naturally: THE WORLD OF THE SENSES AND THE WORLD OF THE SPIRIT.

“Both nature and man first appeared in their present forms only in this earth incarnation — and only into hard, mineral form in Atlantis. Nature preceded man in its descent into matter; at first in a manner of unspeakable brutality — the Age of the Dinosaurs being only one example. For about the first half of this earth’s life — the ‘Mars Earth’ — wilderness held sway ... The earth was a tooth-and-claw expression of...wanton Mars forces.” — Waldorf teacher-trainer Alan Whitehead, WORLD WITHIN, CHILD WITHOUT (Golden Beetle Books, 1993), p. 67.

“These bodily successors of the leading population multiplied, and as these souls increased in number in this direction, they became more numerous than they originally were. After having progressed and improved, they incarnated in the leading population of Europe, and the development then took place in such a way that, on the whole, as a physical race, the bodily forms in which the most ancient European population had originally incarnated died out; the souls forsook the bodies which were formed in a certain way, and which then died out. The offspring of the lower races decreased in number while the higher increased until gradually the lowest classes of the European population completely die out. This is a definite process, which we must grasp. The souls develop further, the bodies die out. For this reason we must be careful to distinguish between soul development and race development. The souls reappear in the bodies belonging to higher races. the lower race bodies die out. A process such as this does not take place without effect. When over large areas something disappears as it were, it does not disappear into nothing, but it dissolves and then exists in a different form. When in ancient times the worst part of the population of which I have just now spoken, died out, the whole region became gradually inhabited by demons, representing the products of dissolution, the products of the putrefaction of that which had died out.” — Rudolf Steiner,THE SPIRITUAL FOUNDATION OF MORALITY, lecture 2, GA 155. 

“I am sick to death of hearing about what personalities we Steiner children are, how creative and full of self-confidence. There are borstals where the same claim could be made. The 'personalities' have a gallows humour, the creativity is that of the criminal, that of a surveyor, and the self-confidence is 'bravado'. There are so may of those, whom I went to school with who are totally broken people. Wandering the streets or countryside babbling at the sky, one is in a permanent mental institution, another two committed suicide. Another pregnant at 16 to escape another teacher who had been having sex with her since she was 14 is now working in the local food market, barely surviving after her ‘Caring and expensive education. Giving her such a rounded education.’" — “Rosie,” a former Waldorf student  [http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/RosieTestimonial.html].

“[Dan] Dugan sent a survey to all 270 parents in [a Waldorf] school, asking their positions on a selection of religious, new-age, scientific, and Steiner beliefs. Thirty-two responded. Most of these parents agreed with New Age beliefs like reincarnation that Steiner followers also hold, but almost none knew about or agreed with the pseudoscientific statements taken from Steiner literature. It appears that their children were being indoctrinated in weird science without their knowledge.” — Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 16 (Fall 1991), p. 23 [http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/Weird_Science.html].

“Only when the descendant diverges from the ancestral type through special influences, does a new animal soul become incarnated. In this sense, conformably with occult science, we may speak of a species or race-soul, or group-soul, in animals.” — Rudolf Steiner, OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE (Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 234.

“One day at a railway station, he had a paranormal experience, an early manifestation of his psychic abilities. [He saw a ghost] ...This early experience marks for Steiner the beginning of a life-long involvement with the dead. Much of his later esoteric teaching involves accounts of the soul's experience in the afterlife and of the machinery of karma and reincarnation...” — Gary Lachman, “Rudolf Steiner”, FORTEAN TIMES (January, 2006) - http://www.forteantimes.com/features/profiles/109/rudolf_steiner.html.

“The School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum, near Basel, Switzerland, is often referred to by members as the ‘First Class.’ It is the center of organized Anthroposophical identity and has spiritual authority over the various national Schools ... Admission to the School is possible only after two years’ membership in the General Anthroposophical Society ... But the ‘Readers,’ the leaders who conduct the ‘classes,’ by no means open the door to all who knock....” — Geoffrey Ahern, “Five Karmas”, http://www.dci.dk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=420:five-karmas-or-anthroposophy-in-great-britain&catid=150&Itemid=36.

“It is often said by Waldorf teachers that there should be no textbooks in a Waldorf school. In various instances in the faculty meetings Steiner recommends a particular textbook, states that most textbooks are inferior, questions whether the teachers couldn’t write their own, and suggests that the class needs a textbook to unite all the students. 'I have nothing against using a textbook, but all of them are bad ... Look for a textbook, and show it to me when I come back' (September 11, 1921).”  — Betty Staley, introduction to FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. xxxii.

* Instead of using textbooks, Waldorf schools often have the students create "class books," which they write and illustrate under the guidance of their teachers. This greatly limits students' exposure to non-Waldorf ideas and greatly increases the authority of the teachers.

“[I]t is through the children that the school exists at all and it is they who have really made the decision to be there.”*  — Christopher Clouder and Martyn Rawson, WALDORF EDUCATION - Rudolf Steiner’s Ideas in Practice (Floris Books, 1998), p. 108.

* In Waldorf belief, children choose their parents, teachers, and classmates before incarnation on Earth. They do this in accordance with their karma. Thus, they attend a Waldorf school because, before birth, they decided to attend that school.

“Homer and the men of his day were not speaking of something which existed in them as individuals, but of something that spoke through them as universal humanity — the race-soul, the undivided psyche. When Homer bids the Muse sing in place of himself, it is not just a conventional expression. Later, the feeling of individuality awoke in mankind....” — Rudolf Steiner, THE REDEMPTION OF THINKING (SteinerBooks, 1983), p. 48.

“Steiner characterized the task of the modern age in terms of two principles...which he named Lucifer and Ahriman ... Man contained the potentialities of both principles within his soul, and he had to learn to develop them in harmony with one another ... This could be achieved through Art.” — Richard Blunt, WALDORF EDUCATION: Theory and Practice (Novalis Press, 1995), p. 12.

“There are two psychological demons at work. The one goads man on with extravagant visions of ever vaster accomplishments until he begins to see himself as a kind of god — that is the tempter called, of old, Lucifer. The other entangles man more and more in matter, convincing him that, in fact, he is no more than the dust he is made of — that is the ancient deceiver, the father of lies, Mephistopheles, or Ahriman.” — Waldorf educator Francis Edmunds, AN INTRODUCTION TO STEINER EDUCATION (Sophia Books, 2004), p. 5.

“Young children are not yet un-linked from their spiritual connection [to the higher worlds where they lived before earthly birth] ... [I]nnate spiritual awareness shines in little children ... For their continued spiritual development, children need only a little outward instruction. According to Rudolf Steiner, they simply need to be taught in a balanced three-dimensional way, one that develops the head, heart, and hands to preserve their innate religious awareness.”* — Jack Petrash, UNDERSTANDING WALDORF EDUCATION (Nova Institute, 2002), pp. 134-135.

* Guiding the "spiritual development" of children — a task usually reserved for parents and religious leaders — is the self-appointed religious goal of Waldorf education. As Steiner said, "The position of teacher becomes a kind of priestly office." [THE ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 23.]

“The proximity to the teachings of reincarnation results in a notion of education as an aid in incarnation and spiritual development. The [Waldorf] educator becomes the child's priest and spiritual leader.” — Heiner Ullrich, RUDOLF STEINER (Continuum Library of Educational Thought, 2008), p. 81.

“Watching a eurythmy performance is mesmerizing. It’s as if a delicate golden thread were winding its bright way through the performers as they inscribe a beautiful, harmonious movement in the ‘soul space’ of the stage. The thread is alive and on fire, and the eurythmists move in reverence to it, always aware of the subtle creative force beyond their individual selves. The weaving hands, borealic veils, and solemn gestures...carry me into a contemplative space. I imagine this must be how we ‘spoke’ before incarnation, when with bodies of light we expressed ourselves with our whole being in movement.”* — Richard Leviton, quoted in WALDORF EDUCATION -  A Family Guide (Michaelmas Press, 1992), edited by Pamela Johnson Fenner and Karen L. Rivers,  p. 70.

* Eurythmy is, in effect, Anthroposophy in action, a type of worship. As Steiner said, "In having people do eurythmy, we link them directly to the supersensible world." [ART AS SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), pp. 246-247.] The period "before incarnation" is the life we lived in the spirit realm before being born. Leviton is imagining that eurythmists communicate, through their actions, as spirits did in the incorporeal realm on high.

“The phrase ‘change of teeth’ is consistently used by Steiner to refer to the time when the primary teeth are lost and the permanent teeth emerge. This stage of development lasts for approximately the first seven years ... [During that period] the Etheric and Astral Bodies are not yet born and are held in Etheric and Astral ‘envelopes’ which surround the physical body.” — Richard Blunt, WALDORF EDUCATION: Theory and Practice (Novalis Press, 1995), p. 67.

“In early civilizations the mass of people lived in a child-like state and were guided and directed by personalities who in some respects were more mature, i.e., the priests and kings. These in turn were guided by spiritual beings — gods — and were what is known as ‘initiates,’ by which is meant that they had direct experience of a supersensible world.” — Waldorf educator Roy Wilkinson, TEACHING HISTORY, Vol. 1. (Rudolf Steiner College Press, 2000), p. 4. 

"Another level of consciousness is represented by what one usually calls the folk- or racial spirit ... [A] consciousness...exists...in the communal life of the members of a people or of a race. Through occult research, one finds this consciousness to be in another world ... In these 'folk and racial spirits' one is therefore confronted with kinds of entities quite different from those in man or in the beehive ... [T]he development of man himself can only be understood when one considers that he develops together with beings whose consciousness exists in other worlds than his own.” — Rudolf Steiner, COSMIC MEMORY (Harper & Row, 1981) , chapter 11, GA. 11.

“The issue is, Will thinking fall prey to the mechanism of the brain? Will ‘the brain thinks’ become reality? ... When the cerebral apparatus dominates thinking, it makes no difference what we think ... Anthroposophy, for its part, presupposes that thinking does not remain bound to the brain ... It recognizes that when thinking is determined by the brain its loses its autonomy and can no longer act freely....” — Georg Kühlewind, WORKING WITH ANTHROPOSOPHY (Anthroposophic Press, 1992), p. 11.

"Rudolf Steiner...shows the stages of humanity in the course of the history of civilizations, passing from 'dream-like clairvoyant' visions to a conscious perception of the surrounding world ... Are not children's drawings also impressions, 'footprints' on the path to human maturity?" [ — Anthroposophist Michaela Strauss, UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN'S DRAWINGS: Tracing the Path of Incarnation (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007), p. 18. 

“Rudolf Steiner gave us the methods in the field of spiritual science, or anthroposophy, and some of their results.* He inaugurated heart-warming, practical adventures in many areas of culture — for example, education....” — Waldorf educator John F. Gardner, YOUTH LONGS TO KNOW (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 210.

* Anthroposophical "research" is the use of clairvoyance.

“To secure consistent quality of content, Rudolf Steiner College became organized around the worldview underlying Waldorf education [i.e., Anthroposophy] ... [T]he chief objective of the college program was training [Waldorf] teachers ...  [A]ny such training had to begin with a year spent on the world-view underpinnings [sic] of the method: ‘It mattered enormously whether [the students] could connect with Anthroposophy.’”*  — Ida Oberman, THE WALDORF MOVEMENT IN EDUCATION (Edwin Mellen Press, 2008), p. 252.

* Waldorf teacher training varies from program to program, but usually it is rooted in — and devoted to — Rudolf Steiner’s occult teachings: Anthroposophy.

“When authority breaks down in class, the teacher must realize that many of the orthodox methods of dealing with it are ineffective ... Caning is best banished...but at the same time the teacher must not forget that greater physical and moral harm can be done through wrong teaching. The teacher must take into account the soul-nature of the child, and it is not so much what he does that matters  (“One slap more or less is not of much consequence”),* as much as how he does it.” — Richard Blunt, WALDORF EDUCATION: Theory and Practice (Novalis Press, 1995), p. 120.

* Blunt attributes these views to Rudolf Steiner [THE ROOTS OF EDUCATION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1924), p. 88.] Waldorf teachers generally consider Steiner's view not dated but timeless. Steiner said that teachers may slap students, although it is better to do it spiritually than physically.

“Anthroposophy is mainly based on theosophy and goes back to gnosticism and eastern ‘wisdom’. The connection with gnosticism makes it hostile to earthy pleasures. The human being consists of three entities: The body, the soul and the spirit. If the soul is too closely bound to earthy pleasures it will be reincarnated in a new body and will not be able to reach the higher worlds where it will eventually be aligned with the spirit. Hence it is important for an Anthroposophist not to be too engaged in pleasures such as rock music, parties, etc., but instead to live an ascetical spiritual life.” — Fredrik Bendz, http://www.update.uu.se/%7efbendz/pseudo/anthropos.html.

“According to Steiner's predictions about the relationship between anthroposophy and natural science, we should expect relativity theory to have a weaker position in natural science than it had in 1917. This, however, is not the case ... It is clear from a reading of Steiner's writings that he was wrong in his prediction that natural science was developing in the direction of confirming more and more of his own teachings.” — Sven Ove Hansson, “Is Anthroposophy Science?”, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/Hansson.html.

“The Steiner beachhead has succeeded due to the partisan lobbying by groups of acolytes who seek to provide a spiritually-based education for their children at the secular system’s expense. Most of them seem to know little about Rudolf Steiner or his crazy theories on just about everything, but are sucked in by the superficially attractive rhetoric and egged on by the hard-core disciples of this weird early twentieth century German guru.” — Ian Haywood Robinson, “The Delusional World of Rudolf Steiner”, http://www.rationalist.com.au/archive/78/p2-5_AR78.pdf.

"Within our earth's evolution the Archangels’ task is to bring into certain harmonious relationship each single soul with the national or race-soul. For those who penetrate into spiritual knowledge, the souls of races are something quite different from what they are for the lovers of the abstract in the science of to-day ... For one who truly sees into the inner working of spiritual life, that which is called the nation's soul or spirit, is a reality. In the soul of a nation there lives and weaves what we call a fire-spirit or an Archangel; he regulates, so to speak, the relation between separate men and the nation or races as a whole." — Rudolf Steiner, THE SPIRITUAL HIERARCHIES (Anthroposophical Publishing Co, 1928), lecture 6, GA 110.

"If Anthroposophy is hard to say, it is even harder to swallow. Followers of Steiner often get outsiders interested by expounding on some of the more acceptable aspects of Steiner's beliefs. But if anyone takes the trouble to read Steiner's books they must reach the conclusion that he was a crank." — Ian Robinson, The Australian Rationalist, No 30, March 1992, pp 5-11.

“[D]uring his time as a leading figure in the Theosophical Society, Steiner was also heavily involved in both Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, all of which should give you the idea that there’s rather more to Steiner schools than their heavily sanitised public relations screed might seem to suggest. The Anthroposophical Society, which sits behind the Steiner schools network provides it with its ‘philosophical’ foundations is a full-blown occult sect.” — “Fairies at the Bottom of the Schoolyard”, MINISTRY OF TRUTH, http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2009/07/10/fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-schoolyard/.

“I grew up in two [Anthroposophical] communities ... I spent half of my childhood sick in bed ... Anthroposophy is a religion, and Camphill is a sect, a cult of fanatics ... They believe that sickness is the soul incarnating ... They don’t believe in inoculations, so I had all the child diseases going around, some twice ... [T]hey had the anthroposophical doctors in all the time, in between punishing me for being sick.” — Robert Smith-Hald, “Growing Up Being Made Sick by Anthroposophy”, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/Smith-Hald.html.

"Steiner's movement grew out of the spiritualist craze that swept Europe and the United States in the late 19th century. Steiner, an Austrian scholar who had edited the works of German dramatist/poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe, developed an interest in mystic philosophy that over the years acquired a Christian veneer.” — Rob Boston, “Anthroposophy: Rudolf Steiner’s ‘Spiritual Science’”, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/Anthroposophy_AU.html.

"In the etheric body, where the permanent tendencies are rooted, the driving force of the female element is at work. The principle of generality, of the generic., is anchored in the etheric body. In the etheric body of the woman there is still present today the counterpart of what exists outwardly as the folk soul, the race spirit. Folk soul and race spirit are identical." — Rudolf Steiner, ROSICRUCIAN ESOTERICISM (Anthroposophical Press, 1978), lecture 5, GA 109.

“Veneration and reverence are forces whereby the etheric body grows in the right way. If it were not possible during [childhood] to look up to another person with unbounded reverence, one would have to suffer for this loss throughout all of later life. Where reverence is lacking, the living forces of the etheric body are stunted in their growth.” — Rudolf Steiner, THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILD, p. 24.

"Awe and reverence are awakened in children that forbid them to harbor any critical thoughts or opposition against the venerated person. The children live in solemn expectation of the moment they will be permitted to meet this person. Finally the day arrives and the children stand before the door filled with awe and veneration; they turn the handle and enter the room that, for them, is a holy place. Such moments of veneration become forces of strength in later life. It is immensely important that the educator, the teacher, is at this time a respected authority for the child. A child’s faith and confidence must be awakened — not through axioms, but through human beings" — Rudolf Steiner, THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILD, p. 58.

“[I]t has a salutary effect if one seats choleric children together in one corner of the classroom, giving a certain relief in this way to the rest of the class, because the teacher is freed from having to constantly discipline them. Choleric children can’t help pushing and hitting each other. If they now find themselves suddenly at the receiving end, this in itself produces a thoroughly pedagogical effect, because the ones who do the pushing and shoving, goading others into retaliating, are being ‘shaped up’ in a very direct way.” — Rudolf Steiner, THE CHILD’S CHANGING CONSCIOUSNESS p. 177.

“Each of us [Waldorf teachers] is centrally involved in the Michaelic battle* against the forces of darkness for the sake of the children and youngsters in our care.”  — Waldorf teacher-trainer René M. Querido, THE ESOTERIC BACKGROUND OF WALDORF EDUCATION, p. 13

* The battle between the archangel Michael and the arch-demon Ahriman.

"Atlantis [was] a submerged continent, located where we now find the Atlantis Ocean ... Rudolf Steiner describes the Atlantean culture in many texts and lectures ... Rudolf Steiner's information about Atlantis puts the various developmental stages of humanity into an entirely new perspective." —  Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z (Sophia Books, 2011), p. 11. 

"In education parent and teacher are encouraged to make themselves sensitive to karmic differences and to karmic needs. Thereby, we open the way for the young child to become fully capable within the limits of her or his karma, and we endeavor to educate human beings who are capable of fulfilling the plan of creator beings, capable of answering the expectations of Michael."* — Waldorf teacher Margaret Myerkort, "Working with the Karma of the Young Child", WORKING WITH THE ANGELS (Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America, 2004), p. 35.  

* The "creator beings" are beneficent gods. Michael is the warrior archangel fighting for us against evil gods during the present epoch, according to Anthroposophical belief.

“If approximately between the ages of seven and fourteen the child is not introduced in a living way to the Christ along the lines of the Waldorf curriculum, in later life the youngster is more likely to either deny Christ or to hold onto a traditional faith.” — Waldorf teacher-trainer René M. Querido, THE ESOTERIC BACKGROUND OF WALDORF EDUCATION, p. 36. 

“The human spirit, making its way into the alien element of earth, cannot at once lay hold upon the body provided by heredity. For years it must labor to remodel the inherited form into a shape more suited to its individual needs and character. With the cutting of the second teeth at six or seven this task is brought to completion ... With the coming of the second teeth significant changes may be noted in the child’s whole being ... If, before the change of teeth, the child has developed wholesomely among adults whose character has provided him with impressions of moral strength; if, between the second dentition and puberty, his teacher has been an artist able to satisfy his need of beauty, the child enters adolescence with a thought capacity powered by a healthy will, armed and enriched by feeling ... A true art of education...founds its practices upon an insight into the changing interplay or body, soul and spirit in the different periods of the child’s development. It sees in the child from birth to the change of teeth a being of wholly different needs than those of the second period, which terminates in puberty....” — Waldorf educator Marjorie Spock, TEACHING AS A LIVELY ART (Anthroposophic Press, 1985), pp. 9-13.

“[M]uch depends on the inner attitude of the teacher ... [It] can grow out of a regular meditative practice...five minutes in the morning and perhaps ten minutes in the evening. Rudolf Steiner gave three words...to characterize the attitude of the teacher: Devotion, Protective Feeling, and Enthusiasm. Each of these is accompanied by a eurythmic* gesture. Devotion — arms folded over the chest in reverence; Protective Feeling — half a ‘B’ gesture with the right arm; Enthusiasm — the right arm stretched upwards — the ‘E’ gesture.” — Waldorf teacher-trainer René M. Querido, THE ESOTERIC BACKGROUND OF WALDORF EDUCATION, p. 102. 

* Eurythmy is a form of spiritual dance; it is often required of all students in a Waldorf school.

“Fairies — Evidence for the existence of the little folk, comes mainly from photographs.” — George Riland, THE STEINERBOOKS DICTIONARY OF THE PSYCHIC, MYSTIC, OCCULT (Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1973), p. 82.

“The ‘exploration into God’ for Waldorf teachers is to familiarize ourselves more and more with ‘unborn-ness,’ a supersensible phase through which souls travel before incarnation.” — Waldorf teacher-trainer René M. Querido, THE ESOTERIC BACKGROUND OF WALDORF EDUCATION, p. 17.

“For the individual human being in the second stage in the evolution of his lives between death and a new birth the whole Hierarchy of Archangeloi was working. Afterwards the guidance of nations and tribes becomes the task of this Hierarchy, and there is then one Archangelos as the Folk-Spirit for one nation. In the races the Primal Forces or Archai remain at work. Here again, for one race, one Being of the Hierarchy of the Primal Forces works as the Race-Spirit.” — Rudolf Steiner, ANTHROPOSOPHICAL LEADING THOUGHTS (Rudolf Steiner Publishing, 1973), part 18, GA 26.

"As imitation and example were, as it were, the magic words for education in the first years of childhood, for the years of this second period, the magic words are discipleship and authority ... Veneration and reverence are forces whereby the etheric body grows in the right way. If it were not possible during these years to look up to another person with unbounded reverence, one would have to suffer for this loss throughout all of later life. Where reverence is lacking, the living forces of the etheric body are stunted in their growth." — Rudolf Steiner, THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILD, p. 24. 

"[T]he teacher must guard against placing too much emphasis on developing the child’s reason and intellect. Between the seventh and twelfth years, it is primarily a question of authority, confidence, trust, and reverence. Character and habit are special qualities of the ether body and must be fostered; but it is harmful to exert any influence on the reasoning faculty before puberty." — Rudolf Steiner, THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILD, p. 58. 

"Eurythmy makes soul and spirit directly visible, ensouls and spiritualizes everything that moves in us. It makes use of everything human beings have developed for themselves during their evolution." — Rudolf Steiner, EDUCATION FOR ADOLESCENTS (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 43.

"The teacher’s authority must be self-evident for the children, just as what was taught by the great teachers was self-evident to the human soul. It is bad, it does great harm if the child doubts the teacher. The child’s respect and reverence must be without reservation, so that the teacher’s kindness and good will, which must be present naturally, seem to the child like a blessing." — Rudolf Steiner,  THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILD, p. 67.

“At the age of 11 children begin to develop a sense for what is historical, and this is then the right time to present pictures of the civilizations...which stretch from Atlantis to the present.” — Waldorf teacher Roy Wilkinson, THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF STEINER EDUCATION, p. 63.

“In contrast to the usual concept of the heart, anthroposophy tells us that it beats because blood flows through the body. The heart is thus not an organ that pumps the blood...but instead [it] responds to the living circulation of the blood.” — Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2011), p. 55. 

"Ether — in general, shapeless and invisible life force, also all the fifth essence or 'quintessence' in addition to the four elements of earth, water, air and fire." — Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2011), p. 37.

"Etheric aura — every living being, a plant, an animal or human being, has an ether body which can be seen as a luminous configuration around the physical body by people who have developed the necessary perception [i.e., clairvoyance]." — Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z (Sophia Books, 2011), p. 39.

"Brain — The brain acts as a mirroring ground ... [I]t mediates between the spiritual and the physical world just as a radio mediates between the broadcaster and the listener ... The brain does not produce thoughts." — Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2011), p. 16.

“Astrological chart — A map of the soul’s revelation as it unfolds consciousness through the element of time. Higher spiritual beings reveal their influence, in ebb and flow, through the movement of the planets with stars and constellations as backdrop.” — Waldorf educator Ron Odama, ASTROLOGY AND ANTHROPOSOPHY (Bennett & Hastings Publishing, 2009), p. 12.

“[Waldorf] education is essentially grounded on the recognition of the child as a spiritual being, with a varying number of incarnations behind him ... [I]t is [the faculty's] task to help the child to make use of his body, to help his soul-spiritual forces to find expression through it, rather than regarding it as their duty to cram him with information.”  — Anthroposophist Stewart C. Easton, MAN AND WORLD IN THE LIGHT OF ANTHROPOSOPHY (Anthroposophic Press, 1989), pp. 388-389.

“[A]nthroposophic medicine [AM] is even more out of touch with modern, science-based medicine than homeopathy ... AM is certainly in harmony with Steiner's basic approach to reality, which was to think he had special powers to see directly into occult realities without the bother of tests in experience or replication by others ... Steiner approached medicine the same way he approached everything else from astrology to Atlantis to education to farming to metaphysics ... Why anyone considers him a scientist is a great mystery. His notion of science as involving the explanation of how immaterial entities affect material entities is the very opposite of science.” — Robert T. Carroll, “Anthroposophic Medicine”, THE SKEPTIC’S DICTIONARY, http://www.skepdic.com/anthroposophicmedicine.html.

“The most enigmatic figure to emerge from the 'occult revival' of the early 20th century was also the most successful: the Austrian 'spiritual scientist' Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). Although many of his contemporaries and near-contemporaries were outwardly more eccentric — think of Madame Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy, or of the inimitable GI Gurdjieff, or the scandalous 'magician' Aleister Crowley — it's precisely Steiner's sobriety that is so striking, even making him seem out of place in the often flamboyant world of the esoteric.” — Gary Lachman, “Rudolf Steiner”, FORTEAN TIMES (January, 2006) - http://www.forteantimes.com/features/profiles/109/rudolf_steiner.html.

“To some, beliefs about alternative therapies may seem harmless, but there was a recent case in Germany in which two homeopathic doctors who opposed the MMR [measles, mumps, rubella] vaccine were reportedly responsible for a measles epidemic involving over 700 children, thirty of whom were hospitalized ... A story in the London Times (March 6, 2002) by Alan Hall traces these practices to the Waldorf School, ‘which actively encourages people not to have their children vaccinated. Now we have an epidemic.’ ... In the United States, a Waldorf School is among those schools in Boulder, Colorado where children are not receiving their pertussis and other immunization — with fatal consequences both for those children and their younger siblings who have not yet been vaccinated. " — Thomas R. DeGregori, “The Deadly Perils of Rejected Knowledge”, American Council on Science and Health, http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.412/healthissue_detail.asp.

“ANTHROPOSOPHY. An international religious sect following the teachings of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). Also called Spiritual Science. Activities include Waldorf Education, Anthroposophical medicine, pharmaceuticals, Camphill communities for the developmentally disabled, biodynamic agriculture, Eurythmy (a spiritual dance), art schools, psychotherapy, elder care, the Christian Community (a formal church), financial institutions, publishing, and politics (Steiner’s “Threefold Social Order”). The world headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society is the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.” — Dan Dugan in THE NEW ENCYCLOPEDIA OF UNBELIEF (Prometheus Books, 2007), p. 74.

“I worked at [a Waldorf] school for seven years over the course of 1989 - 1997. Despite being chosen Employee of the Month and receiving several national awards and grants, including Teacher of the Year (Continental Cablevision - 1991), I was subjected to ongoing harassment and character assassination after I began to question the legality of Anthroposophical religious indoctrination in staff training sessions led by uneducated, unaccredited Anthroposophists brought over from Europe. Both staff and students were subjected to nonacademic, occultist activities through the Waldorf training and pedagogy adopted from the Rudolf Steiner College, a nonaccredited Anthroposophical religious institution located in Fair Oaks, California. I quit in frustration....” — Kathleen Sutphen, letter to THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

“Steiner wanted people to develop new forms of clairvoyance and realized that the peoples of Britain...particularly offered a rich and fertile potential.” — Margaret Jonas, in the introduction to RUDOLF STEINER SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 6.

“[T]he Phantom is related, on the one hand, to present-day Saturn, the outermost planet of our solar system and, on the other, to the whole starry cosmos.” — Anthroposophist Sergei O. Prokoffief, THE CYCLE OF THE YEAR AS A PATH OF INITIATION (Temple Lodge Publishing, 1995), p. 264.

“[A]dversarial powers and this ‘prince of darkness’ (Ahriman) do not just hold sway in the darkness of the Abyss, but also in the wider atmosphere ... [C]ertain Rosicrucian masters such as Georg von Welling, describe these supersensible facts in more detail, referring to the ghost spheres of the atmosphere ... [T]he counter-earth forces are also definitely active above ground.” — Anthroposophist Sigismund von Gleich, THE TRANSFORMATION OF EVIL And the Subterranean Spheres of the Earth (Temple Lodge Publishing, 2005), p. 30.

“The exploitation of electric forces — for example in information and computing technologies — spreads evil over the Earth in an immense spider's web. And fallen spirits of darkness belonging to the hierarchy of Angels are active in this web.” — Anthroposophist Richard Seddon, THE END OF THE MILLENNIUM AND BEYOND (Temple Lodge Publishing, 1996), p. 24.

“Goethe’s pupil Carl Gustav Carus believed that the earth was not a sphere of solid mass but a hollow sphere ... This view of the earth-shell is confirmed by spiritual research ... Physical observations tell us only about the very outermost, relatively thin and also delicate shell of the earth.” — Anthroposophist Sigismund von Gleich, THE TRANSFORMATION OF EVIL And the Subterranean Spheres of the Earth (Temple Lodge Publishing, 2005), pp. 32-33.

“The earth breathes, [it] takes one breath every twenty-four hours, breathing in during the afternoon, and breathing out in the morning ... The earth obeys also another annual rhythm, breathing out in the spring and breathing in again in the autumn ... [T]hese supersensibe facts are of the greatest importance in anthroposophical (biodynamic) agriculture inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner.” — Anthroposophist Stewart C. Easton, MAN AND WORLD IN THE LIGHT OF ANTHROPOSOPHY (Anthroposophic Press, 1989), p. 287.

“The physical body of the woman has proceeded from the lion nature, whereas the physical bull-body is the ancestor of the male body ... The woman can develop inner courage ,... [T]he man, as he is usually organized, has more of the activity based on physical creation. Occultly regarded, these things reveal themselves precisely thus, even if it sounds extraordinary ... Now it will no longer appear so strange to you that once a race of people existed who had a lion-like body. These took up the ego nature, and through this the lion nature was changed more and more into the female body. Those who received nothing of this spiritual element changed in quite another way; i.e., into the modern lion.” — Rudolf Steiner, “The Four Human Group Souls (Lion, Bull, Eagle, Man)”, a lecture, GA 107.

“[G]ames devised for the purpose of teaching have no place in schools. [The idea] that learning is play, declared Steiner, is the very best educational principle for ensuring that nothing at all is learnt ... Similarly so-called ‘visual aids’ [such as movies and videos]...should be avoided.”  — Waldorf teacher Gilbert Childs, STEINER EDUCATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE, p. 102.

“The choleric teacher or parent who is given to sudden, violent bursts of fury causes his children to live in a perpetual state of subconscious terror ... The phlegmatic teacher has an equally drastic though more subtle effect on his pupils. Their lively spontaneity is suppressed in his presence ... The melancholic teacher who is absorbed in his brooding fails to set up a reciprocal relationship with his pupils ... The excessively sanguine teacher continually overstimulates his pupils. They are exhausted by his restlessness” — Waldorf educator Marjorie Spock, TEACHING AS A LIVELY ART (Anthroposophic Press, 1985), pp. 123-124.

"[T]he girls should know about spinning and weaving, and the methods used in the production of clothing ,,, [T]he boys should be taught woodworking and perhaps metalwork ... The boys should be taught the elements of surveying and planning ... [T]he girls should learn the elements of hygiene, simple bandaging, and suchlike.” — Waldorf teacher Gilbert Childs, STEINER EDUCATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE, p. 162.

“If [a person] learns systematically to apply his will to his own thinking...it becomes God-thinking, a creative force itself ... Rudolf Steiner’s method of work calls upon man, in the highest degree, to face and outgrow himself.” — Anthroposophist Francis Edmunds, AN INTRODUCTION TO STEINER EDUCATION (Sophia Books, 2004), p. 7.

"Modern exact clairvoyance, as developed by him [i.e., Rudolf Steiner], reveals spiritual facts to spiritual vision as clearly as men's ordinary senses reveal to the intellect the facts of the physical world.” — Floyd McKnight, RUDOLF STEINER AND ANTHROPOSOPHY (Anthroposophical Society in America, 1977), p. 4.

“Not only does [a] purifying and ennobling process continue throughout a single lifetime, but through many, as the ego evolves to higher and higher stages of development through successive lives or re-embodiments ... [T]he twin concepts of reincarnation and karma or destiny are central to [Steiner’s] spiritual-scientific system.” — Gilbert Childs, STEINER EDUCATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE (Floris Books, 1991), p. 28. 

“Aware as they [1] became through his [2] lectures...of how spiritual beings, [3] especially Michael, [4] stood behind their work, [5] they could not help but feel that they must devote all that they had in them to the furtherance of this work.” — Stewart C. Easton, RUDOLF STEINER: Herald of a New Dawn (Anthroposophic Press, 1980), p. 347.

[1] Anthroposophists.

[2] Rudolf Steiner's.

[3] Gods.

[4] The Archangel of the Sun.

[5] Work as “spiritual scientists,” Waldorf teachers, etc.

“Classes 1 to 4 (Ages 7 to 10)  This first stage should be devoted to aspects of nature-religion, whereby the child should be brought to feel that wisdom is expressed through the workings of the divine in nature.” — Waldorf teacher Gilbert Childs, STEINER EDUCATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE, p. 176.

“A youth whose childhood has been touched by the blight of 'critical thinking' will come to the moment of independent insight badly crippled ... Because skepticism has long since robbed him of part of his heart, he will now feel unable to embrace enthusiastically what he has come to understand." — American Anthroposophist John F. Gardner, THE EXPERIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE (Waldorf Press, 1975), pp. 127-128.

“Sleep is by no means merely the annulment of the day. In earlier epochs people knew this very well ... [F]or them it was the portal of entry to those higher spheres from which they felt they derived their being ... The hygiene of sleep needs to become a direct concern of education ... What is absorbed through observation and thought by day sinks into deeper strata at night ... Rudolf Steiner attached particular importance to this. Thus the [properly designed school] lesson, in its organic structure, attends to head and heart and limb, and includes the fact of sleep brining order into the life of soul.”  — Waldorf educator Francis Edmunds, AN INTRODUCTION TO STEINER EDUCATION - The Waldorf School (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004), p. 94. 

“Steiner had exceptional powers, he saw the future, he knew the truth.  If you truly need to learn, you need to study and follow Steiner. Steiner is all anyone ever needs to know.” — a Waldorf school teacher, quoted by a former colleague [http://www.montessorianswers.com/my-experiences-with-waldorf.html]

"Group Soul — plants and animals have a group soul that does not manifest in the physical world. The initiate with specially trained perception [i.e., clairvoyance] can observe these group souls."* — Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z (Sophia Books, 2011), p. 52.

* According to Anthroposophical doctrine, beings lower than humans do not have individual souls; they share "group souls." Humans also have group souls, but each individual human possesses, in addition, an individual soul.

“[P]lanetary life phases* ... Moon phase, from birth to age seven:...gradual transformation of the physical body ... Mercury phase, ages seven to fourteen: golden years of childhood ... sanguine  Venus phase, ages fourteen to twenty-one: emerging sense of self, tremendous physical changes ... Sun phase, ages twenty-one to forty-two: independence of self, individuality begins to shine ... Mars phase, ages forty-two to forty nine: strong individualization, further definition or redefinition of career ... Jupiter phase: ages forty-nine to fifty-six: growing wisdom and breath of overview ... Saturn phase, ages fifty-six to sixty-three: more bound by hard realities...yet at the same time willing to serve selflessly....” — Waldorf teacher Torin M. Finser, INITIATIVE - A Rosicrucian Path of Leadership (SteinerBooks, 2011), pp. 102-103.

* Rudolf Steiner taught that life unfolds in seven-year-long stages. [See “Most Significant”.] Here Finser expounds the planetary/astrological powers prevailing in these stages. Note that the Sun phase, overseen by the Sun God, is triply long.

“The reason why many Anthroposophical schools exist is because of the Anthroposophy, period. It's not because of the children ... In Anthroposophical Waldorf schools, absolutely everything centers around the task of implementing Steiner's spiritual scientific theories ... Each individual child's education takes a back seat to the spiritual scientific and cosmic Christian tasks and ideals of the Anthroposophical initiative.” — A former Waldorf teacher [http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/baandje.html]

“Over and above the physical body, spiritual science [i.e., Anthroposophy] recognizes a second essential principle in Man: it is that which Steiner usually refers to as the ‘etheric body,’ though he sometimes refers to it as the ‘life-body’ or ‘formative-forces-body’ ... [T]he etheric body is accessible to investigation only to [i.e., by] those who have developed the necessary higher organs of perception [i.e., clairvoyance].” — Gilbert Childs, STEINER EDUCATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE (Floris Books, 1991), p. 26

“A third member of the human being [above the physical and etheric bodies] is the so-called ‘astral body’ or ‘sentient body’ ... [C]reatures which possess a nervous system also possess an astral body, and this includes not only Man but the whole of the animal kingdom.” — Gilbert Childs, STEINER EDUCATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE (Floris Books, 1991), p. 27.

“The growth to independence of the astral body starts about the age of seven. At that age the child is touched by astral forces for the first time. In the curriculum of the Waldorf schools — in the second class — we find that fables and stories of saints are told to children of that age to accompany this process.” — Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY (Temple Lodge Publishing, 2008), p. 21.

“[T]he occasion was an opportunity to showcase...his anthroposophical ‘spiritual science,’ of which the practice of Waldorf education was an important, even primary, application.”  — Anthroposophist Christopher Bamford, introduction to THE SPIRITUAL GROUND OF EDUCATION, The Foundations of Waldorf Education (Anthroposophic Press, 2004), p. vii. 

“[W]e are interested in what shaped Rudolf Steiner as an educator. Certainly, his native clairvoyant capacities played a role, as did his scientific training. Nor should mention be omitted of the crucial human and spiritual encounters [with individuals who gave him occult initiation]: Felix Kogutsky...with whom he could speak about the spiritual world as with someone of experience; [and] the otherwise unnamed Master.”  — Christopher Bamford, introduction to THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILD, Foundations of Waldorf Education (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. viii.

“[The] special contribution, the unique substance, mission, and intention of the independent Waldorf School, is the spiritual-scientific view of human nature [i.e., Anthroposophy] ... It certainly is possible that the Waldorf schools will, gradually or suddenly, distance themselves from this substance, because they increasingly fail to understand it, and because they are influenced by the criticism imposed from outside ... [T]he weakening and fading away of the innovative, independent Waldorf schools would be disastrous....” — Peter Selg, THE ESSENCE OF WALDORF EDUCATION (SteinerBooks, 2010)‚ p. 4.

“Clairvoyance, present in all human beings [in ancient times], started gradually to diminish ... This decrease of clairvoyance was due to a change in the four members of the people; the ether both, the astral body and the young ego were pulled gradually into the physical body. They experienced more and more the influence of earthly gravity.”  — Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY (Temple Lodge Publishing, 2008), p. 62.

“[W]e should consider what we do in education as a continuation of the work of the Hierarchies [i.e., the gods].” — Waldorf teacher-trainer René M. Querido, THE ESOTERIC BACKGROUND OF WALDORF EDUCATION, p. 85.

"The first 666 period [i.e., years 1 to 666 CE] saw the birth of Islam, bitter rival of Christianity ... Add 666 to 666 and we arrive at the year 1332. Around this period, Christian Europe was in the grip of an Inquisitorial Dark Age — its very own Ahriman inspiriation! [sic] ... 1332 plus 666 is...1998!! [sic] ... [I]t's not as if we weren't warned. Steiner must have been turning in his [grave] at the environmental folly that has brought the world to its knees in this century; one which achieved the critical mass of wholesale destruction in 1998 ... [W]ill there be an earth worth inhabiting in the 3rd Millennium? Steiner says there will, and he's been right so far." — Waldorf teacher-trainer Alan Whitehead, ARCHIOS (Golden Beetle Books, 1993), pp. 1-2.

“It has been twenty-one years since I took the Waldorf school teacher training, and in those past twenty-one years, I have not heard much about the double* among teachers in conversation or at conferences ... [A] presentation on this topic is long overdue ... Rudolf Steiner himself in a series of lectures...strongly urged teachers to take into account in their process of educating children the workings of the double ... There must be a new awareness of this second being within us.” — Waldorf teacher Richard Schmitt, “The Double - A summary of a lecture given at the Teachers’ Conference of the Sacramento Waldorf School in February 1981” (Rudolf Steiner College Press, date uncertain)

* The doppelgänger, the evil twin that we carry within us. According to Waldorf belief, the double is not a part of our own psyche, but literally a second being who rides within our body to the Earth when we incarnate. [See "Double Trouble".]

“Educational aids of various kinds...detract from the personality of the teacher and from his or her natural authority.” — Waldorf teacher Gilbert Childs, STEINER EDUCATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE, pp 140-1.

“In constructing steam engines an opportunity is...provided for the incarnation of demons ... In steam engines, Ahrimanic demons are brought right down to the point of physical incorporation ... [W]hat has been said here about the steam engine applies in a much greater degree to the technology of our time ... [T]elevision, for example. The result is that the demon magic spoken of by Rudolf Steiner is spreading more and more intensively on all sides ... It is very necessary that anyone who aspires towards the spiritual should realise clearly how the most varied opportunities for a virtual incarnation of elemental beings and demons are constantly on the increase."  — Anthroposophist Georg Unger, “On ‘Mechanical Occultism’” (Mitteilungen aus der Anthroposophischen Arbeit in Deutschland nos. 68–69, 1964).

“Even when speaking to a public audience, Steiner did not hesitate to point to the inextricable ties between Waldorf education and Anthroposophy.”  — Eugene Schwartz, introduction to THE RENEWAL OF EDUCATION (Anthroposophic Press, 2001), p. 15.

"Steiner's original contribution to human knowledge was based on his ability to conduct 'spiritual research', the investigation of metaphysical dimensions of existence ... A natural seer from childhood, he cultivated his spiritual vision [i.e., clairvoyance] to a high degree, enabling him to speak with authority on previously veiled mysteries of life." — Publisher's note, RUDOLF STEINER EDUCATION - An Introductory Reader (Sophia Books, 2003).

“When a school is based on a spiritual conception of the human being, a more diverse set of values become important ... Sometimes the important spiritual lessons at a school are not actually spoken; they simply are lived ... And yet, there are times when spiritual matters need to be addressed more specifically.” — Waldorf teacher Jack Petrash, UNDERSTANDING WALDORF EDUCATION (Nova Institute, 2002), pp. 138-142.

"This is an essential 'technique' of Waldorf education; at every seven-year developmental phase the teacher works intensively with one of the child's higher bodies,* slowly weaving its activities together with the member [i.e., higher body] worked on in a previous stage of growth. What is distinctive about the Waldorf method is that it perceives the validity of each approach in the course of time, as a particular 'higher member' is dominant in effecting growth and maturation." — Waldorf educator Eugene Schwartz, WALDORF EDUCATION: Schools for the Twenty-First Century, p. 35.

* According to Waldorf belief, the “etheric body” incarnates around age seven, the “astral boy” at about age 14, and the “ego body” around age 21.

"Many people, and also giants, now lived on the earth but humanity had become wicked ... The story [of Noah and the Flood] refers to the sinking of the continent of Atlantis ... Noah, or Manu, as he is known elsewhere [i.e., in other religions and/or mythologies], was the leader of the sun-oracle of Atlantis [i.e., a center of occult knowledge on Atlantis] ... He was the most advanced leader and he was obviously still in touch with the creators of the Earth, the Elohim or Spirits of Form ... Noah gathered together people sufficiently mature and, knowing that the catastrophe was coming, emigrated to the center of Asia ... Here he set up a cultural or mystery center from which the early Post-Atlantis civilizations were inspired." — Roy Wilkinson, COMMENTARY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT STORIES (Rudolf Steiner College Press, 2001), pp. 24-25.

“Temperament — the four temperaments are: choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, melancholic. Each of the four temperaments is determined more by one of the four human members, the physical body, ether body, astral body of ‘I’ ... Knowledge of the temperaments can be very helpful in education ... Each temperament...responds best to particular approaches and forms of teaching.” — Waldorf teacher Henk van Oort, ANTHROPOSOPHY A-Z, p. 119.

One would have thought that Steiner propagandists would have been keen to establish the credentials of their system by a series of well-designed and executed research studies, but this is not the case. There is virtually no hard information about what goes on in Steiner classrooms or on the effects of it on children’s learning. — Ian Haywood Robinson, “The Delusional World of Rudolf Steiner”, http://www.rationalist.com.au/archive/78/p2-5_AR78.pdf.

“Anthroposophists  must see it as a task beyond all other, to fulfill the goal set by their guru. These people are not bad, they see what they are doing as giving the children a step  onto an elite spiritual path, and by setting this in motion, they deceive, mislead and indoctrinate. Some go to great lengths to propagate their ossified ideas, or to muddy the waters by creating websites which purport to answer questions about Steiner and anthroposophy but in fact deflect from the core doctrines. They even spend inordinate energy trying to discredit eminent historians who study their beliefs. Personally, I have been stalked on the internet by anthroposophists so keen to gag free speech that they threaten discussion boards with law suits and  try to have all critical discussion deleted.” — “Northernrefugee,” “A Very Alternative Education”, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/a_very_alternative_educat.htm.

“I have to admit that I did not know anything about Anthroposophy. I was amazed at first, and later increasingly appalled, by how much this ideology dominates the day-to-day dealings in Waldorf schools. Aside from its content, about which people may agree or disagree depending on their personal beliefs, I already perceived that the general setup for teaching was far from being progressive....” — Claudia Pangh, discussing her experiences as a teaching intern in a Waldorf school, “The Phlegmatic Sits by the Window... Experiences with Actual Waldorf Teaching”, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/the_phlegmatic_sits_by_the.html.

"According to page 1 of my [Waldorf] exercise book, all races originate from a kind of primeval man, who lived ten thousand years ago in the central continent of Atlantis ... 'The races became stuck at different stages in their development from childhood to old age.' ... According to the exercise book, each race corresponds to a part of the human body. Senses and brains are linked to whites, metabolism to blacks. And only the white person has a straight face. E.g., the yellow race has 'slanted eyes, a hollow face, flat nose, and coarse black hair.' ... At a certain point, my defense of the school changes into pure anger. How dare they indoctrinate me with this?" — Edwin Kreulen, “My Education Towards Racism”, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/EducationRacism.html.

“I agree with the Waldorf approach to education, but disagree with much of what I have heard that children are taught. Specific teachings that are contrary to current scientific knowledge or belief include ... • The elements are earth, water, fire and air • The heart not a pump... • Planets influence growth of plants • Plants are like a man upside down • Goethean vs Newtonian color theory • The body is made up of the nerve sense system, the metabolic muscular system, and the rhythmic system • There are 12 senses, corresponding to signs of the zodiac  ... • The "ancients" had powers and knowledge lost to us, such as alchemy... • Religious mythology is taught as ancient history... • Astrology is taught in the higher grades.

“Also, I have heard of disturbing events at other schools, including: • Parents being asked to leave the school when they questioned or objected to aspects of Waldorf education or anthroposophy • Kids being inadequately supervised on the playground to prevent bullying and accidents, on the theory that angels will watch out for them • Dunce caps being used.” — Steve Premo, “A Parent’s List of Questions and Concerns”, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/StevePremoConcerns.html.

“In my view, the Waldorf approach is...a ‘partial vision’ because it is based religiously on the teachings of one man — Rudolf Steiner — who, despite being a gifted mystic and a brilliant thinker,* was clearly influenced and limited by his cultural and historical context — as he himself seemed to recognize at times. In its pervasive emphasis on Spirit and Beauty and Form and similar archetypes, Waldorf education faithfully expresses the worldview of nineteenth century German idealism and neglects other energies of the psyche that find more room for expression in other worldviews.” — Ron Miller, "’Partial Vision’ in Alternative Education”, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/partial_vision_in_altern.htm.

* Is there such a thing as a "gifted mystic"? And might such a person be a "brilliant thinker"? Certainly Steiner's "brilliance" is open to question.

“Anthroposophy is a religion invented by Rudolf Steiner about 1912 in Germany. It can be regarded as an offshoot of Theosophy, as Steiner was national secretary to the Theosophical Society before he separated the German branch. It is based on occult insight and philosophy. Its tenets include the existence of a large number of spiritual beings, of which a most important one is Christ. Anthroposophy and Steiner have a number of theories and practices on health, education, art, architecture, and ‘bio-dynamic’ agriculture unknown outside the faith.” — Cincinnati Skeptics, http://www.cincinnatiskeptics.org/blurbs/anthroposophy.html.

“In Steiner's doctrine, Christ is a sun god come to earth, not to redeem humanity from sin, but to help the human race balance between the influences of the Zoroastrian gods of light and darkness, Lucifer and Ahriman. Steiner's revelations typically blur religious, scientific, and historical topics. His version of history includes epochs on the lost continents of Lemuria and Atlantis, which he claimed to have read with ‘clairvoyant vision’ out of the mythical ‘akashic record.’" — Dan Dugan and Judy Daar, “Are Rudolf Steiner’s Waldorf Schools ‘Non-Sectarian’?” [http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/Free_Inquiry.html]

“When Ted and Joan Shores began researching schools near their Seattle home for their 4-year-old daughter, Clair, they settled fairly easily on the local Waldorf school ... But the seemingly idyllic mix of a holistic education for their daughter and a supportive community for their family quickly soured: Clair began to be bullied by an older, bigger boy at school, and none of the staff seemed to notice.* Though Clair was coming home in tears and no longer wanted to attend school, teachers dismissed Joan's concerns ... [T]he teacher suggested to a frustrated Ted that he ‘read his Steiner.’" — Meagan Francis, “What’s Waldorf”, SALON [http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2004/05/26/waldorf/index.html]

Bullying is a problem at many Waldorf schools. The teachers see it as a matter of karma: The children are working out their fates, and no one should interfere. [See, e.g., “Slaps”.]

“Although not officially part of the Waldorf curriculum, Anthroposophy is pushed in brochures, newsletters and pamphlets that are scattered throughout the schools. Waldorf teachers are trained and well versed in Anthroposophy, and local Anthroposophy study groups are established at the schools. Waldorf classrooms include prayer tables, where the children recite daily incantations about spirits and rhythms in nature.” — Carol Milstone, “Gnomes and Critics at Waldorf Schools”, NATIONAL POST, http://www.religionnewsblog.com/1213/gnomes-and-critics-at-waldorf-schools.

“Steiner told followers of his clairvoyant abilities and other psychic powers, claiming to read the Akashic record to obtain information and channel Zarathustra. The Akashic Record is believed to be an invisible chronicle that records every word spoken and deed performed by mankind since the beginning of time. Occult believers say this record can be found in the ether and read by clairvoyants. Steiner taught believers how to read to the dead and to meditate on the deceased's handwriting in order to communicate with those that have died. He lectured profusely on topics such as reincarnation, hypnotism, occult science, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, mystery centers of the middle ages, astral bodies, gnomes as life forms, angels, karma, Christian mysticism, how to see spiritual beings, modern initiation, Atlantis, Lemuria, etc. Steiner's sermons, setting out his occult teachings, were recorded by his disciples and published in more than 350 volumes.” — Sharon Lombard, “Spotlight on Anthroposophy”, CULTIC STUDIES REVIEW, http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/lombard_sharon_csr0202j.htm. 

"Many people when they first hear about Steiner 'Education' are very impressed, as I was myself. The rhetoric is quite compelling and the ideas superficially attractive. However as soon as one delves behind the rhetoric into the practice, and into the mishmash of ratbag ideas that give rise to the practice, one realises that Rudolf Steiner is really bad news for most kids, and that Steiner 'Education' must be rejected if we care about children." — Ian Robinson, The Australian Rationalist, No 30, March 1992, pp 5-11.

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