“Those who come to me wanting to hear the truths available through esotericism and nevertheless refuse to walk the path are like schoolchildren....” — Rudolf Steiner [1]  Rudolf Steiner. [Public domain photo.] WHAT A GUY Sanctifying Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner invented Waldorf education as well as the mystical system upon which it is built, Anthroposophy. He laid down the principles of Waldorf education, and he directed the implementation of those principles in the day-to-day operations of the first Waldorf school. Today, he remains the central figure in the Waldorf movement — he is the indispensable man, the founder, the guiding light. One way to comprehend Steiner's preeminent role in Waldorf education is to consult the works written about him by his admirers within the Waldorf movement. Consider, for instance, the booklet RUDOLF STEINER AS EDUCATOR. [2] It was written by Hermann von Baravalle, an Anthroposophist who was a close associate of Steiner's. Von Baravalle taught at the first Waldorf school, where he participated in faculty meetings run by Steiner. Later, he was instrumental in bringing Waldorf education to America. RUDOLF STEINER AS EDUCATOR goes well beyond hagiography; it describes Steiner as virtually a flawless paragon, nearly godlike in his perfection. This, indeed, is how Steiner is often portrayed by the advocates of Waldorf education. [3] In Waldorf schools, when teachers utter Steiner’s name, the tone is usually reverential. Discussions between Waldorf faculty members often center on the proper interpretation of statements made by Steiner. When a quotation from one of Steiner's books or lectures is produced, argument tends to end: The final word has been given, and that word is Steiner's.  In RUDOLF STEINER AS EDUCATOR, von Baravalle writes this:
Von Baravalle continues,
According to this account, Steiner was both a great listener and a highly empathetic man of the people — he was "our kind." Note, however, that his role was to provide answers — he was the font of wisdom. The people around him sought his insights (they made "frequent requests for advice"), and he — the focus of everyone's attention — dispensed sagacity, as if from on high. [7] It was proper for Steiner to position himself above others because he virtually transcended individual existence: “His personal concerns were submerged to the point of non-existence ... The facts spoke, not he.” His answers, in other words, were transparently, transcendently true. He was, in this sense, a spiritual exemplar. Who wouldn't want to receive guidance from such a selfless, far-seeing sage?  After discussing the stages of childhood development as posited by Steiner [8], von Baravalle returns to the subject at hand: Rudolf Steiner in his role as peerless educational authority. Von Baravalle pursues this aim primarily by giving quotations from Steiner. Some of them are, to non-Anthroposophists, shocking. Let's look at a few. 1.
Love of children is undeniably a virtue. But what about the rest of this statement? Stressing “what a teacher IS” surely means that the teacher must possess the proper values and wisdom — which to Anthroposophists can only mean that s/he must be an Anthroposophist or at least a fellow traveler. The rest of the statement bears this out. A Waldorf teacher need not possess “any technical ability...in an intellectual way” — that is, the teacher doesn't need to have mastered ordinary educational techniques or, perhaps, even the intellectual content of the material to be taught. But s/he must be wholly committed to the Waldorf approach (s/he must “love...the whole school procedure"). In other words, the Waldorf teacher must be wedded to the Waldorf system. S/he cannot explore non-Waldorf approaches or implement classroom strategies that diverge from Steiner's guidance. S/he must unwaveringly follow Steiner’s dictums. The important thing is not what s/he knows, but what s/he IS: i.e., s/he must be a follower of Rudolf Steiner. As Steiner once asserted, Waldorf teachers today still, by and large, accept this proposition. Thus, one has written,
2. The "improvement" Steiner means here is his own contribution. He "improved" modern education by essentially overturning it. Waldorf education is deeply anti-intellectual. Waldorf teachers need not possess "technical ability...acquired in an intellectual way," and in their classroom work they should downplay intellect among the students. Steiner frequently advised again "over-dominant" intellectuality or, more generally, brainwork. [13] Waldorf education has spiritual goals, not primarily educational or intellectual goals. [14] Children sent through Waldorf schools are not taught much about the real world, but they are nudged toward mystical imaginings and cloudy, dreamlike visions. [15] By all means, Waldorf teachers should minimize "the intellectual element." Waldorf schools are often, consequently, weak academically, while the arts are promoted for their supposed spiritual effects. [16] Steiner was an intellectual — he made his living by peddling the products of his busy brain. But the educational system he devised de-emphasizes the importance of the brain. He taught,
3.
Some of this is just Anthroposophical jargon. No one can know the inner reality of anyone else; there is no such thing as “direct inner contact between human beings.” But put that aside. Note the gist of the statement. As so often, Steiner declares his opposition to objective, scientific knowledge (“statistical methods in education”). Even more startlingly, he expresses opposition to “experimental...methods in education” (he "appreciates" such methods, but they are symptomatic of serious modern ills). We might observe that, in 1919, Waldorf education itself was an experiment. From an Anthroposophical perspective, however, Waldorf education is firmly rooted in the will of the gods — as relayed by Rudolf Steiner — and thus it is not at all uncertain or questionable. As Steiner once said,
Steiner claimed to understand "what is inwardly human" — that is, the human soul and spirit — and his new form of education was meant to address this inward human essence. If he was correct about mankind's inner essence, then perhaps Waldorf schooling may be spiritually beneficial. But if he was not correct (and we have many reasons for doubting his correctness), then Waldorf schooling may be purposeless, or worse. Waldorf representatives today still accept Steiner's view of the "inwardly human," for instance in statements such as this (identifying the basis of Waldorf education):
4. We should circle back, briefly, to the beginning. Von Baravalle's booklet proceeds from this premise: All of Steiner's perceptions and pronouncements are treated as being virtually unquestionable. Steiner was noble, his teachings are noble, and the results of his teachings — in particular, Waldorf education — are ennobling. Consider, for instance, what Steiner had to say about the arts.
This is the key to the arts-based Waldorf approach that, at least initially, can seem so attractive. [22] The arts at Waldorf schools are meant to raise children's souls into the divine sphere. As Steiner said,
But, again, note that the success of this enterprise in Waldorf schools depends on Steiner being correct about human spirituality and the divine. Waldorf schools are, in essence, churches. [24] The teachers consider themselves to be priests, and they seek to guide their students toward divinity as propounded by Rudolf Steiner. [25] The schools usually do not openly describe themselves in such terms; families who opt for Waldorf schooling are often surprised when, eventually, the spiritual beliefs and purposes of the Waldorf approach become apparent. Waldorf schools are well practiced in disguising themselves [26], but sooner or later the disguise may slip, and then the question for a family becomes whether to stay — whether the school you chose remains attractive to you after its real character is exposed. Your answer will largely depend on whether you can accept the occult beliefs on which the schools are based. [27] Von Baravalle tries to present Steiner — the man Anthroposophists revere — in the best possible light. For von Baravalle and his fellow Anthroposophists, Rudolf Steiner was virtually flawless: a saint, a great spiritual master, very nearly a god. If you enter a Waldorf community, you will be expected to adopt this attitude or, at the very least, to express no opposition to it.  Rudolf Steiner died in 1925, but his words live on. There are specialty publishing houses in Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere that are largely devoted to repackaging and reissuing Steiner's works. Some general-purpose publishing houses also offer a sampling of Steiner texts. There is considerable overlap among the many books published in Steiner's name. Still, his output was indeed enormous. He wrote numerous books and delivered literally thousands of lectures. For Anthroposophists — including many Waldorf teachers — these works are virtually holy texts.  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 2002.]  [Health Research, 1972.]  [Anthroposophic Press, 1987.]  [Kessinger, 1996.]x  [Anthroposophic Press, 1993.]  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982.]  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005.]xxx  [Anthroposophic Press, 1996.]  [SteinerBooks, 2007.]  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 1983.]  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995.]xxxx Steiner did not write most of the books attributed to him. Most of these books consist of transcripts of his lectures and other utterances painstakingly transcribed by his devout followers. Waldorf schools are well practiced in disguising themselves, but sooner or later the disguise may slip, and then the question becomes whether to stay — whether the school you chose remains attractive to you after its real character is exposed. Your answer will largely depend on whether you can accept the occult beliefs on which the schools are based. Here are some examples. Anthroposophists take statements like the following quite seriously. They believe these things. Can you?
— Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 93.
— Rudolf Steiner, LIFE BETWEEN DEATH AND REBIRTH (SteinerBooks, 1985), pp. 72 & 207.
— Rudolf Steiner, KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, Vol. 2 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1974), pp. 226-227.
— Rudolf Steiner, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1990), p. 126.
— Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), pp. 62-3.
— Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophical Press, 1998), p. 607.
— Rudolf Steiner, WONDERS OF THE WORLD, ORDEALS OF THE SOUL, REVELATIONS OF THE SPIRIT (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1983), p. 119.
I prefer to think that Steiner was sane. This keeps our attention on his statements, not on him as an individual. After all, we cannot really know him. He is gone, we cannot interview him, we cannot quiz him. But his doctrines are still with us. We can read his statements. We can form our opinions of those statements. Another view is certainly possible, however. Steiner may not have been sane; he may have been out of his mind. Certainly his doctrines describe a universe quite different from verifiable reality. Steiner said he had his first spiritualistic experience when he was a young child, between the ages of five and seven. He claimed that the soul of a dead relative visited him. Biographer Gary Lachman writes,
Seeing invisible beings and hearing inaudible voices are often judged, with good reason, to indicate mental imbalance of one sort or another. If Steiner truly believed he had seen a ghost or spirit — if he was prone to such delusions — then it is possible that he suffered from mental problems all his life. In that case, his decision as an adult to turn to occultism becomes comprehensible — esoteric theories may have enabled him to get a grip on the visions that haunted him. Some of his biographers acknowledge the possibility that he was a bit deranged. Describing the young Steiner’s obsessiveness, Gary Lachman writes,
Where does this get us? The two chief possibilities are that Steiner’s “clairvoyant” visions were intentional lies told by a sane charlatan, or they were the hallucinations suffered by an unfortunate psychotic.* The practical difference, for us, is slight. Steiner set forth an amazing array of bizarre propositions, insisting that they are the truth. They are anything but that. They are falsehoods that Steiner himself either did or did not know to be false. The only thing that really need concern us is that Steiner's occult visions form the basis of Waldorf education. Unless you find good, solid sense in Steiner's strange pronouncements, you will not ultimately find good solid sense in Waldorf schooling. [To review more of Steiner's pronouncements, see, e.g., "Say What?" and "Wise Words". To consider how such pronouncements underlie Waldorf pedagogy, see, e.g., "Oh Humanity". To see how Waldorf teachers slip many of Steiner's beliefs into the lessons they teach, see "Sneaking It In".] ◊ * The third major possibility is that that ghosts and spirits really exist, and Steiner really was able to perceive them. Many people believe in ghosts and spirits, after all, and the ability to perceive them — which Steiner identified as clairvoyance — cannot be wholly discounted. The problem here is that despite mankind's long, long fascination with these possibilities, no solid evidence for them has ever been produced. Go back to the list of Steiner's pronouncements, above. Steiner claimed to perceive a vast number of things for which there is simply no evidence. Indeed, in many cases, the evidence that we do possess tends to undercut Steiner: It demolishes his assertions. This is a large topic, of course, and I delve into it at length on other pages here are Waldorf Watch. For our purposes at this juncture, it is perhaps sufficient to repeat this point: Unless you find good, solid sense in Steiner's strange pronouncements, you will not ultimately find good solid sense in Waldorf schooling.  [Astronomy, ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, 1771.]
— Rudolf Steiner, ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE MISSION OF CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUTZ (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2000), p. 289. CHRONOLOGY Here is a brief summary of Rudolf Steiner’s life: [30]
For a somewhat speculative portrait of Rudolf Steiner, see the Afterword to "Steiner's Specific". To delve into the religion from which Steiner derived the core of his teachings — Theosophy — see "Basics".  Rudolf Steiner. [Public domain photo.] Here are two thumbnail biographies of Rudolf Steiner: First, from THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA: Rudolf Steiner, (born Feb. 27, 1861, Kraljevi?, Austria—died March 30, 1925, Dornach, Switz.), Austrian-born spiritualist, lecturer, and founder of anthroposophy, a movement based on the notion that there is a spiritual world comprehensible to pure thought but accessible only to the highest faculties of mental knowledge. Attracted in his youth to the works of Goethe, Steiner edited that poet’s scientific works and from 1889 to 1896 worked on the standard edition of his complete works at Weimar. During this period he wrote his Die Philosophie der Freiheit (1894; “The Philosophy of Freedom”), then moved to Berlin to edit the literary journal Magazin für Literatur and to lecture. Coming gradually to believe in spiritual perception independent of the senses, he called the result of his research “anthroposophy,” centring on “knowledge produced by the higher self in man.” In 1912 he founded the Anthroposophical Society. Steiner believed that man once participated more fully in spiritual processes of the world through a dreamlike consciousness but had since become restricted by his attachment to material things. The renewed perception of spiritual things required training the human consciousness to rise above attention to matter. The ability to achieve this goal by an exercise of the intellect is theoretically innate in everyone. In 1913 at Dornach, near Basel, Switz., Steiner built his first Goetheanum, which he characterized as a “school of spiritual science.” After a fire in 1922, it was replaced by another building. The Waldorf School movement, derived from his experiments with the Goetheanum, by 1969 had some 80 schools attended by more than 25,000 children in Europe and the United States. Other projects that have grown out of Steiner’s work include schools for defective children; a therapeutic clinical centre at Arlesheim, Switz.; scientific and mathematical research centres; and schools of drama, speech, painting, and sculpture. Among Steiner’s varied writings are The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (1894), Occult Science: An Outline (1913), and Story of My Life (1924). — "Rudolf Steiner." ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, Online, 21 Nov. 2012. Next, from THE SKEPTIC’S DICTIONARY: The Austrian-born Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was the head of the German Theosophical Society from 1902 until 1912, at which time he broke away and formed his Anthroposophical Society. He may have abandoned the divine wisdom for human wisdom, but one of his main motives for leaving the theosophists was that they did not treat Jesus or Christianity as special. Steiner had no problem, however, in accepting such Hindu notions as karma and reincarnation. By 1922 Steiner had established what he called the Christian Community, with its own liturgy and rituals for Anthroposophists. Both the Anthroposophical Society and the Christian Community still exist, though they are separate entities. It wasn't until Steiner was nearly forty and the 19th century was about to end that he became deeply interested in the occult. Steiner was a true polymath, with interests in agriculture, architecture, art, drama, literature, math, medicine, philosophy, science, and religion, among other subjects. His doctoral dissertation at the University of Rostock was on Fichte's theory of knowledge. He was the author of many books and lectures with titles like The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (1894), Occult Science: An Outline (1913), Investigations in Occultism (1920), How to Know Higher Worlds (1904), and "The Ahrimanic Deception" (1919). The latter lecture describes his "clairvoyant vision" of the infusion of various spirits into human history and reads like the memoir of Daniel Paul Schreber. He was also much attracted to Goethe's mystical ideas and worked as an editor of Goethe's works for several years. Much of what Steiner wrote seems like a rehash of Hegel. He thought science and religion were true but one-sided. Marx had it wrong; it really is the spiritual that drives history. Steiner even speaks of the tension between the search for community and the experience of individuality, which, he believed, are not really contradictions but represent polarities rooted in human nature. His interests were wide and many but by the turn of the century his main interests were esoteric, mystical, and occult. Steiner was especially attracted to two theosophical notions: (1) There is a special spiritual consciousness that provides direct access to higher spiritual truths; (2) Spiritual evolution is hindered by being mired in the material world. — Robert Todd Carroll, “Rudolf Steiner”, THE SKEPTIC DICTIONARY (Wiley, 2003), http://skepdic.com/steiner.html. It is, perhaps, worth noting that despite the enormous importance attached to Steiner by his followers, Steiner is largely unknown outside the small circle of Anthroposophy. The item I have quoted from THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA is that reference work’s entire entry on Steiner. We might also note that there are slight disagreements about the dates of various events in Steiner's life. Further research should resolve such issues, which do not, however, seem to affect the overall picture.  A German edition of Steiner's THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM (Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1973). When he set out on his public career, Rudolf Steiner was a secular intellectual who mocked occult movements such as Theosophy. In 1893, he published THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM — a straightforward philosophical treatise, not an occult text. Steiner thought the book would establish him as the next great German philosopher. This did not happen, and soon after his disappointment, Steiner astonished his family and friends by announcing that he was now an occultist. Thereafter, he revised THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM to make it consistent with his new, mystical beliefs. Waldorf schools still like to refer to Steiner as a philosopher (it sounds so much better than "occultist"), but Steiner wrote no further philosophical texts after switching to occultism. Today, labeling someone an occultist almost seems unfair, but Steiner embraced the term. He said such things as and and and so forth. [See "Occultism".] Steiner was an occultist, and Waldorf education is built on the foundation of his occult teachings. [See, e.g., "Soul School".] It is also important to realize that the version of PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM studied by Steiner's followers today is the heavily revised, occultist final version. Steiner's original devotion to freedom became more and more compromised as he sank further into occultism. Essentially, in the mystical teachings he eventually devised, there is little scope for true human freedom. You can freely choose the correct, upward path to spiritual improvement (Steiner's path), or you can freely choose the suicidal downward path to spiritual ruin (the path of Steiner's foes). This is the crimped view of "freedom" that ultimately underlies Waldorf schooling. [See "Freedom".]
Steiner occasionally revealed himself to be quite human — which shouldn't surprise us. Despite his pretensions, he was hardly a saint. Here are just a few indicators. Make of them what you will. ◊ Steiner was a German nationalist. He was closely associated with the leader of Germany's military at the beginning of World War I. [See "Steiner and the Warlord".] His fierce devotion to the German nation led him to make a series of remarkably nasty comments about President Woodrow Wilson, who brought the USA into the war on the side of Germany's enemies. [See "Woodrow".] ◊ Steiner's racial views were, by today's standards, appalling. [See "Steiner's Racism".] He deplored French policies that allowed blacks to settle in Europe, which led to this strange outburst:
◊ Steiner was concerned with how he appeared in the press, and he lashed back at his critics. [See the addendum to "Was He Christian?", in which we see Steiner expressing his annoyance at Christian and American criticism of himself and Anthroposophy.] More generally, Steiner seemed to feel besieged by critics, and he encouraged his followers to think they were surrounded by enemies. [See "Enemies".] ◊ Although he promoted the sanctity of marriage, he left his first wife. Although he warned against the use of alcohol, he drank. Although he warned of the demonic nature of modern technology, he enjoyed being driven about in automobiles. [For some of these matters, see The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia. Revealing portraits of Steiner can also be found in THE SUN AT MIDNIGHT (James Clarke & Co., 2009), FEET OF CLAY (Free Press Paperbacks, 1996), MADAME BLAVATSKY'S BABOON (Secker & Warburg, 1993), and THE SKEPTIC'S DICTIONARY (http://skepdic.com/steiner.html).] Sane or not, Steiner was just a guy, with a full set of human foibles and flaws. Which shouldn't surprise us.  Rudolf Steiner. [Public domain photo].  Steiner was a polymath who tried his hand at a great variety of projects. Above is the entrance to the first Goetheanum, designed by Steiner. Named for the German poet Goethe, the Goetheanum — a sort of cathedral — served as the Anthroposophical headquarters, [See "Is Anthroposophy a Religion?"] When the building, made of wood, was destroyed by fire, Steiner designed a replacement to be made of concrete. [R.R. sketch, 2009 — based on photo, p. 155, Rudolf Steiner, ARCHITECTURE (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003).]
Exterior detail of the second Goetheanum. The building was begun during Steiner's life and completed after his death. [R.R. sketch, 2009 — from the cover photograph, ARCHITECTURE.] The first Goetheanum was meant to embody global forms, the second was meant to evince crystal forms. Architecture may have been Steiner's greatest talent, although his influence on subsequent architects has been slight. Some of Steiner's rival leaders in the Theosophical movement proclaimed an Indian child, Jiddu Krishnamurti, the "World Teacher" and/or the reincarnated Christ. Steiner rejected this, and partly as a result (other factors were also involved) he broke from Theosophy to establish Anthroposophy as an alternative spiritual movement. [See "Krishnamurti".] Here is an item from the Waldorf Watch "news" page. I have edited slightly for use here:
• ◊ • Waldorf Watch Response: Rudolf Steiner was impressive. Ask him a question about almost anything — how people lived on the continent of Atlantis, how to know higher worlds, how to treat rickets — and he had an answer. And not just any answer, but a remarkable answer, a startling yet seemingly authoritative answer. He displayed surprisingly wide knowledge. He cited authorities, scholars, mystics, ancient savants. He poured out a torrential flood of verbiage that could sweep you far from the shores of your old reality.* He was impressive. Read his lectures and come away stunned. Here was a brilliant man. Just think what he might have contributed to humanity if he had used his brilliance constructively! But something went wrong. We can’t know what it was. Perhaps he was an intentional con man, a fully self-aware charlatan. Or perhaps he was insane — a sort of lunatic savant, if you will. In either case, the value of his teachings is essentially nil. (Also essentially nil is the likelihood that he was what he claimed to be, an occult initiate with clairvoyant access to virtually unlimited information about just about everything.) I’m not a betting man, but if forced to choose one of these possibilities, I’d choose Door Number One. Charlatan. I could be wrong, of course. I could be mistaken, for instance, in thinking that abstract thought is not a plausible treatment for rickets. But whether I am right or wrong is not very important. What is important is your own opinion. Are you a gambler? Are you prepared to put you money down — or, more to the point, put your children’s lives down — in the Great Steiner Gamble? If you send your children to a Waldorf school, you are gambling that your children will be best served by teachers who think that Steiner was almost always right about almost everything. To my mind, you would be taking a huge gamble for very high stakes. So I would suggest this: Pause. Let the flood of Steiner’s verbiage recede. And then, in the cool of the evening, think things over. Do you believe that goblins exist? Do you believe that the heart does not pump blood? Do you believe that there is an invisible celestial storehouse of wisdom hidden from you but accessible to clairvoyants? Do you believe that the continents float in the sea and are held in place by the stars? Do you believe that abstract thought is a plausible treatment for rickets? Rudolf Steiner affirmed all of these astounding propositions and a great many more. Anthroposophists believe him. Do you? For more of Steiner’s astounding propositions, see “Steiner’s Blunders”. But there I go again. I gave that essay its title. Perhaps a less pointed title would have been better. Perhaps when reading the Steiner quotations I present in that essay, you will conclude that they are pearls of great wisdom. I doubt it. Indeed, I think the essay presents example after example of things Steiner said that are clearly, factually, well-nigh indisputably wrong. Flat wrong. Astoundingly wrong. But read “Steiner’s Blunders” and/or any of the other essays here at Waldorf Watch — "Steiner’s ‘Science’”, "Steiner Static", and “Steiner’s Quackery” leap to mind — and draw your own conclusion. ◊
BIBLIOGRAPHY Here is a chronological list of the books authored by Rudolf Steiner. Other books attributed to him consist of documents such a letters and transcripts of lectures, lessons, discussions, and sundry remarks. They are extremely numerous (Steiner gave thousands and thousands of lectures), and they are important for anyone studying Anthroposophy, but Steiner did not review or correct most of them for publication. The following books, on the other hand, presumably represent Steiner's carefully considered, revised and proofread opinions: GOETHE THE SCIENTIST (1883) THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE IMPLICIT IN GOETHE’S WORLD CONCEPTION (1886) TRUTH AND KNOWLEDGE (1892) PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM (1893) FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, FIGHTER FOR FREEDOM (1895) GOETHE’S CONCEPTION OF THE WORLD (1897) MYSTICISM AT THE DAWN OF THE MODERN AGE (1901) CHRISTIANITY AS MYSTICAL FACT (1902) THEOSOPHY (1904) KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLD AND ITS ATTAINMENT (1904 - expanded as A ROAD TO SELF-KNOWLEDGE in 1912) ATLANTIS AND LEMURIA (1904 - later expanded as COSMIC MEMORY) THE STAGE OF HIGHER KNOWLEDGE (1905) EDUCATION OF THE CHILD (1909) OCCULT SCIENCE - AN OUTLINE (1909) PORTAL OF INITIATION (1910) SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE OF MAN AND HUMANITY (1911) CALENDAR OF THE SOUL (1912) THRESHOLD OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD (1913) FOUR MYSTERY DRAMAS (1913 - first installment in 1910) RIDDLES OF PHILOSOPHY PRESENTED IN AN OUTLINE OF ITS HISTORY (1914) GUIDANCE IN ESOTERIC TRAINING (1914 - first installment in 1904) THE CASE FOR ANTHROPOSOPHY (1917) GOETHE’S STANDARD OF THE SOUL (1918) TOWARD SOCIAL RENEWAL (1919) COSMOLOGY, RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY (1922) ANTHROPOSOPHICAL LEADING THOUGHTS (1924) FUNDAMENTALS OF THERAPY (1925 - published posthumously, and thus presumably not fully revised and proofread) STORY OF MY LIFE (1925 - published posthumously, and thus presumably not fully revised and proofread) Here are some books that report statements made by Steiner on educational matters (there are others, as well; and some overlap). Anyone who wants to understand Waldorf education should become acquainted with them: DISCUSSIONS WITH TEACHERS (Anthroposophic Press, 1997) EDUCATION AS A FORCE FOR SOCIAL CHANGE (Anthroposophic Press, 1997) EDUCATION FOR SPECIAL NEEDS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005) FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998) THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996) THE NEW ART OF EDUCATION (Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing Co., 1928) PRACTICAL ADVICE TO TEACHERS (Anthroposophic Press, 2000) SOUL ECONOMY AND WALDORF EDUCATION (Anthroposophic Press, 1986) THE SPIRITUAL GROUND OF EDUCATION (Anthroposophic Press, 2004) WALDORF EDUCATION AND ANTHROPOSOPHY, Vols. 1 & 2 (Anthroposophic Press, 1996)  Rudolf Steiner. [Public domain photo]. In the 1920s, in Germany, Steiner was immensely famous. Indeed, his admirers looked on him as a potential savior of the German nation. To understand this, it is necessary to remember how chaotic and downbeaten Germany was in those years. The loss of World War I was a calamity that spread its dire consequences throughout the land for many years. The Versailles Treaty had dismembered Germany and burdened its people with the obligation to pay ruinous reparations to the victorious Allies. Germany indeed needed salvation, and desperate citizens cast their eyes everywhere, looking for any sign of hope. Some turned to Steiner. Some turned to Hitler. Some turned elsewhere. This helps explain why Hitler once attacked Steiner in print. Hitler's anti-Semitism was so extreme, he may well have thought Steiner was a friend or dupe of the Jews. Actually, Steiner was himself an anti-Semite [see "RS on Jews"], but a somewhat muted one. Steiner associated with Jews and occasionally had good things to say about the Jewish people as a whole. Certainly Steiner never advocated the extermination of all the world's Jews — he never imagined the Holocaust. He taught that Jews should merge into other races and peoples, thereby peacefully ceasing to exist as a separate people. Hitler became notorious for turning on his friends, conniving and actively participating in their murder, as in the Night of the Long Knives. Steiner, as far as we know, was no friend of Hitler or National Socialism. But there were more affinities between Nazism and Anthroposophy than anyone on either side was entirely comfortable with. [See "Sympathizers?"] Of course, Hitler would have been incensed at any suggestion that Rudolf Steiner might be Germany's savior. Hitler had someone else in mind for that job. The American editors of an early English-language edition of Hitler's book, MEIN KAMPH, placed Steiner in an interesting context. Describing the hysteria and despair sweeping Germany after World War I, they wrote,
From a book (having an unfortunately sensationalistic title) put out by a prestigious academic publisher in the US: In its attempt to unite spirituality and science, anthroposophy made a nominally greater effort than theosophy to validate its doctrine empirically … [But Steiner’s] insistence on having ‘proven’ occult phenomena for which there was no empirical evidence prevented anthroposophy from being accepted within the scientific community. That only changed in the 1930s, when the Third Reich began officially sponsoring elements of Steiner’s doctrines, most notably ‘bio-dynamic’ agriculture. Anthroposophy was at least as much a religious faith as it was a scientific doctrine. Steiner’s teachings and articles, published in his occult journal, Lucifer-Gnosis, anticipated the Nazis’ own interest in Asian religion, Gnosticism, and Luciferianism … Steiner argued that ‘Asian religious evolution is the carrier of a Luciferian element’ that ‘mankind as a whole once possessed but was later forced to abandon’ … Two decades later, Nazi religious theorists would make nearly identical arguments. The affinities between anthroposophy and the völkisch right extended beyond epistemology and religion. Steiner was eager to assert the superiority of white Europeans, claiming ‘that in the grand cycle of spiritual evolution, the Germanic race had advanced the furthest’. Steiner’s belief in ‘cosmic eugenics’, to borrow from one of his followers, included a racial model of evolution in which ‘that might be destroyed which is not worthy to take part in the ascent of humanity’. ‘Humanity has risen by throwing out the lower forms in order to purify itself,’ Steiner argued, ‘and it will rise still higher by separating another kingdom of nature, the kingdom of the evil race. Thus mankind rises upward.’ Anthroposophists embraced eugenics not primarily because of their faith in modern science, then, but because they thought that spirituality and race were intrinsically linked. ‘Human souls develop different cultures on the basis of different racial and ethnic forces,’ Steiner contended, whereas ‘dark skin is due to demonic interference’. Marriage between Aryans and ‘coloured races’ or Jews, according to Steiner, was in conflict with Germany’s world mission to sponsor positive biological and spiritual evolution.
— Eric Kurlander, HITLER’S MONSTERS — A Supernatural History of the Third Reich (Yale University Press, 2017), pp. 18-19. The following appears in "Foundations". If you read it there, you may not need to read it here. Does Rudolf Steiner matter? Are Waldorf schools important? How about Anthroposophy — is there any point in spending time thinking about a minor, cultish religion that denies it is a religion, bearing in mind that almost no one has ever heard of it, and fewer still can even pronounce its name? What are we doing, talking about these things? Wasting what little life we are given? Digging into this stuff is a waste of time. Except... One could argue that Waldorf schools are important because they constitute a fast-growing “educational”/occult movement that sucks in ever-growing numbers of children, at least some of whom may be severely damaged. Absolutely, seen in this way, Waldorf schools are important. But there’s an even larger perspective in which, although they are minor, Waldorf schools are major: They are one manifestation of humanity’s predilection for self-deception; one instance of our willingness to buy snake oil. Not just willingness but, indeed, desperate enthusiasm. Deliver us. Show us the way! SAVE US! Save us from what, exactly? From the wonder and beauty of life? Quarks. Muons. Galaxies. The aurora. Cheetahs. Whales. Sunrises. Wildflowers. (Okay, Cheetahs can bite. Save us from them.) Is this what we are so desperate to transcend? Life is hard, life is short, our condition is difficult, we will die. But in the meantime, here we are, alive, in the cusp of magnificent creation — it is all around us, free for the taking. Yet we desperately want to escape, to believe lies, to embrace fantasy — even though our imaginings pale in the face of reality.
We humans are a dissatisfied bunch. That's why we clawed our way to the top of the heap. If at any stage of our long history we had been satisfied, we would have sat on the bank of the stream, watched the pretty fish swim by, and been happy. But that's not our way. Human history is a dreadful succession of struggles, conflicts, wars... Our hearts are seldom light. Our dissatisfaction has been built into us by evolution: The biggest and baddest guys too often have clubbed the rest into submission, gotten the most mates, and monopolized the pick of the foodstuff. The genes of these striving conquerors have been passed on to their numerous offspring, so that subsequent generations have continued their struggling, battling ways, seeking to scratch the unending itch. We are dissatisfied. So, among other consequences, we have repeatedly fallen for the offers of illusory satisfaction held out by a long, long line of false prophets. Of course, rather than bringing us to the light, these frauds have generally led us even farther into darkness. That is the very definition of false prophecy. Enter Steiner, his nutty religion, and his deeply flawed educational scheme. Steiner's inventions represent one particularly odd version of mankind’s rush into darkness. It’s a rush we must stop if we, and all the creatures of the Earth that are subject to our dispensation, are to survive. Steiner, and Anthroposophy, and Waldorf schools occupy one little corner of the loony bin we have built for ourselves. If we can disassemble this little corner, maybe we can move on to disassemble the rest, and maybe one day mankind can face the light unflinchingly, and the future will be bright. I hope so. I’m not confident that humankind will opt for sanity — our record so far doesn't inspire much confidence — but I do hope.  MYSTIC SEALS AND COLUMNS by Rudolf Steiner (Health Research, 1969). "All his adult life Steiner participated in various secret societies and magical orders, establishing some of his own. For example, he joined the Masonic rite led by Heinrich Klein and Franz Hartman, who initiated Steiner into the 'Brothers of Light and the Rosicrucian Illuminati' (King, 1970, p. 206). He also bought a membership in 'Memphis-Misraim' from Theodore Reuss in 1905 (Koenig, http://www.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/steiner.htm paragraph 8), and used that ritual as a basis for his 'Mizraim Aeterna,' which he hoped would restore the Eleusinian mysteries. Rituals of 'Mystica Aeterna' were celebrated only in the presence of Rudolf Steiner and by members of the Theosophical Society (Koenig, paragraph 17). The mystagogue [i.e., Steiner] created an 'Esoteric School' that held closed meetings and utilized some Masonic rituals. In 1921, the 'Esoteric School' was transformed into the 'Free University for Hermeticism' (Koenig, paragraph 39).* Steiner borrowed extensively from Blavatsky's doctrine and took from the French occultist Eliphas Levi's Dogma and Ritual of High Magic (Koenig, paragraph 45). Steiner's Apocalyptic Seals are almost identical to Levi's seals pictured in the book. Steiner inspired others, like Max Heindel, to found the Rosicrucian Fellowship in Oceanside, California (Jenkins, 2000, pp. 82-83), and L. Ron Hubbard of the Church of Scientology. "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.... "During his time as General Secretary of the Theosophical Society, Steiner built Rosicrucian Temples. One lay beneath the Stuttgart House, although many of his followers who met upstairs knew nothing of its existence. In 1912, after a doctrinal rift with [Theosophist] Annie Besant over her claim that Jiddu Krishnamurti was a reincarnation of Christ, the charismatic prophet [Steiner] instigated a schism in the Theosophical Society. Steiner took most of the German and Austrian believers with him to establish his own esoteric religion, Anthroposophy, in order to be free from Besant's theological restraints and impositions. Steiner and some followers moved to Dornach, Switzerland, to build their utopia which included an enormous mystical temple known as the Goetheanum. The original intricately carved and painted wooden building burned down during Steiner's day but was replaced by a subsequent temple designed by Steiner and constructed out of concrete. The second Goetheanum remains the world headquarters and spiritual center for Anthroposophy today." — Sharon Lombard, "Spotlight on Anthroposophy" http://waldorfcritics.org/articles/lombard_sharon_csr0202j.htm ◊ * Koenig, P. (n.d.). ANTHROPOSOPHY ORDO TEMPLI ORIENTIS: Theodor Reuss and Rudolf Steiner. Retrieved September, 9, 2001 from http://www.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/steiner.html. One of Steiner's basic premises is that the ancients were wise, because they had clairvoyant powers. [See "The Ancients".] Thus, the ancients' legends, myths, and "sciences" were right. Of course, the ancients stood at a lower level of evolution than we stand at today, Steiner said, so their teachings are no longer sufficient. We must move to higher, more acute spiritual wisdom. But our new spiritual discoveries will stem from the basic truths the ancients grasped (and that modern science entirely overlooks). This premise led Steiner to affirm amazing swaths of nonsense. Here's a small example: phlogiston. Before people learned better, they thought that things burn because of a substance called phlogiston. Steiner more or less conceded that there is no such material substance as phlogiston; he more or less agreed that, at one level, modern science is correct in speaking of oxygen, not phlogiston. However, Steiner said that the physical world where oxygen is found is merely an outward covering for the real universe, the etheric or spiritual realm, where phlogiston does indeed exist. 
But Steiner's statement is piffle. Neither phlogiston nor the universal ether exists — they are concepts rightfully discarded by science. Steiner affirmed these concepts because his method was to accept virtually all "clairvoyant" knowledge while rejecting virtually all real knowledge. He reinterpreted many of the concepts he accepted, hammering them into a unified esoteric system. But he wound up accepting enormous quantities of nonsense. Gnomes, sylphs, fire spirits, giants, Norse gods, specters, ghosts — they all exist, one way or another, he taught.  Here is an explanation Steiner offered for plant growth. It's good to see Steiner affirm the force of gravity, here. At other times, he said something quite different, denying that gravity is a universal force. (He said it exists on only some planets, not others.) His typical stance was to claim that modern science is either wrong or irrelevant — Truth comes not from science or the rational brain but from clairvoyance which is seated in nonphysical organs. Given the choice between modern knowledge and superstitious error, he almost always opted for the latter. On occasion, he claimed that his teachings are consistent with the findings of science, but this is obviously untrue and he often took the other tack, berating science. [See "Science".] Steiner admitted that oxygen and gravity can be spoken of in the material universe, just as we have physical bodies in the material universe. But our realer selves exist in the realer reality, in the ether and beyond the ether. We have four bodies, he taught, three of which are invisible. Two of these bodies rise up every night and fly to our true home, the spirit realm. 
The only flaw in Steiner's doctrines is that, by and large, nothing described in them actually exists. By and large, it's all fantasy. We don't have four bodies, we have one. We aren't two people; each of us is one person. There is no etheric universe. There is no ether. There is no phlogiston. IMO, anyway. What do you think? Steiner celebrated the human being, assuring his followers that to be human is to stand at the center of the universe.
This is a flattering idea (although some will consider it blasphemous). But before we base our lives on it, we might want to ask whether we have any evidence whatsoever to support it. The word "Anthroposophy" means human wisdom or knowledge of the human. "Theosophy" means knowledge of God or the gods. When Steiner broke with Theosophy to found Anthroposophy, he shifted the center of his central focus from the gods to man. [See "The Center".] A few more images of the human being as described by Rudolf Steiner:  “We must be really clear about this. It is sheer nonsense to regard the human form as physical; we must see it as a spiritual form. The physical in it is everywhere present as minute particles ... If someone were to take any of you by the forelock and extract your form, the physical and also the etheric [bodies] would collapse like a heap of sand ... Man, however, still possesses his form when he goes through the gate of death. One sees it shimmering, glittering, radiant with colours. But now he loses first the form of his head; then the rest of his form gradually melts away. Man becomes completely metamorphoses into an image of the cosmos. This occurs during the time between death and a new birth...." — Rudolf Steiner, HARMONY OF THE CREATIVE WORD (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001), pp. 208-209. [R.R. sketch, 2009, based on image on p. 208; arbitrary colors.] Steiner's weird doctrines flatter the human ego. For this reason, many people are drawn to such teachings. A respect for reason, reality, and truth may lead us in a different direction. People of faith who adhere to orthodox religions may agree with Steiner on some points, but they may also find that he strains credulity (or slides into heresy) on other points. Secularists will certainly consider Steiner's teachings bizarre and, in most cases, false. 
[RR sketch, 2009, based on the one on p. 23.] According to Steiner, we are microcosms — we contain within ourselves the distillation and potentiality of all the high universe. We're It, the center, the berries, the cat's pajamas, the Sun and the Moon. Some of this may be seem attractive, but some of it is quite clearly an occult fantasy. "Educating" children under the influence of occult fantasy may not be best for the children individually or for mankind as a whole. 
[R.R. sketch, 2009, based on sketch on p. 144.] 
[R.R. sketch, 2009, based on the one on p. 164.] Here is an image of the context of human life:  This is a sketch of a set of windows in the Goetheanum. The windows were designed by Steiner. We see multiple gods and demons, the abyss, animals, angelic assistance, astrological powers, mystic signs... We see Steiner's occult vision, which differs from the universe described in mainstream religions and from the universe revealed by modern science. This is the universe of Anthroposophy, the universe Waldorf schools would like to lure students toward. [R.R. sketch, 2014, based on photograph on p. 17 of THE GOETHEANUM: School of Spiritual Science (Philosophical-Anthroposophical Press, 1961.] All such images derive from the faculty Steiner claimed to possess: clairvoyance.  Clairvoyance, according to Steiner, is connected to feeling, subjective experience, imagination... These are states that science views askance, but Steiner affirmed them. This led him to make some remarkable statements.
[R.R. sketch, 2009, based on Steiner's on p. 191. The white area near the bottom is "solid" rock that one begins to penetrate, as shown in red. The red line crossing through the upper white areas is also penetration by human consciousness.] Steiner was highly educated and highly intelligent. Many people who met him found him a compelling figure. The uses he made of his gifts are questionable, however. In developing Anthroposophy, he created what is in effect an occult theory of everything. It is an impressive edifice, structured and orderly. But is it true — does it, in fact, provide an explanation of reality? Consider the numbers seven and twelve. Steiner insistently ranked phenomena in hierarchies, listings that range from low to high. He particularly liked to offer rankings consisting of seven or twelve stages. He taught that seven is the occult number of perfection; as the sum of three (divinity) and four (creation), it manifests in the seven "sacred planets," the number of notes in a musical scale, the number of colors in the rainbow, and other ordained phenomena. Twelve, Steiner taught, summarizes "all things that co-exist in space." As the factor of three (divinity) multiplied by four (creation), twelve is the number of "macrocosmic powers", the number of constellations in the zodiac, and the number of Christ's disciples, among other holy manifestations. The system Steiner concocted out of such precepts — Anthroposophy — impresses some people, including some very smart people. Steiner evidently penetrated to the divine order of things — he pulled everything together and "made sense" of everything by showing how it all fits together. The problem, however, is that so many of Steiner's categories are arbitrary; they are stretched or trimmed to suit his predetermined intention. He didn't discover real results, he simply imposed a plan of his own invention (borrowed in large part from others, but reworked to conform to his purposes). We can speculate about Steiner's motives and convictions. Did he believe what he taught? Did he convince himself (a frequent occurrence for intellectuals, who can be bowled over by their own cleverness)? It isn't important. He convinced others, who became his followers. But we need not be convinced today, so long as we are willing to keep our eyes open and to insist on real results rather than arbitrary designs created on the basis of occult fallacy. Here's a brief example of Steiner in action:
If we are prepared to accept the existence of Atlantis, and the truth of astrology, and the esoteric significance of Norse myths — then, perhaps, the remarkable recurrence of the number twelve may strike us as meaningful, and we may therefore accept the doctrine Steiner was determined to press, that human beings are microcosmic replicas of the divine macrocosm. It's a pretty conceit. But if we pause to reflect that Atlantis never existed, and astrology is bunk, and Norse myths are mere fantasies — and that there are far more than twelve "major nerves" proceeding from the head [35] and that the number of archangels is debatable [36] — then the significance of Steiner's teaching evaporates, the mist clears from our eyes, and we have the renewed opportunity to look upon reality realistically.  Steiner himself drew up the overall concept for the boiler house, and he was proud of his work. But there's a problem. The most eye-catching features of the boiler house, clearly, are the concrete leafs or buds decorating the chimney — an effort to make the structure seem organic and natural. The expedient fails, spectacularly — and indeed it betrays Anthroposophical falsehood. If Steiner had been true to his own teachings, there would be no mechanical contrivances such as boilers at the Goetheanum. Steiner taught that machines and technology introduce demons into human life. The boiler house, then, populates the Goetheanum campus with demons. Trying to make a chimney resemble a gargantuan vegetable does nothing to diminish this "truth." Here is Steiner on the question of machines such as steam engines:
A boiler is not a steam engine (although most steam engines are built around boilers), but Steiner's concerns about modern technology and the incarnation of demons extended far beyond specific types of machines. The boiler house at the Goetheanum produces heat and electricity for the campus, and — woe betide — this only makes things worse.
As to the possibility that the contours of the boiler house magically disarm the demons — this just gets sillier and sillier, doesn't it? But the boiler house is not simply silly. It is an emblem of Anthroposophical truthlessness. [R.R. sketch, 2010, based on a public domain photo.] Steiner's ambitions, justified or not, were enormous. And his followers strive devotedly to fulfill his vision. The statement below was made by Anthroposophist Ronald E. Koetzsch: "Human culture needs to be transformed according to a spiritual vision of the human being. Every domain of human thought and activity — education, medicine, agriculture, social, economic and political life, art, architecture, religious life, care for the elderly, and so on — must be renewed on the basis of a spiritual understanding of the human being [i.e., Steiner's Anthroposophy]. Only if we do this will the development of humanity and of the Earth continue in a positive way." — Dr. Ronald E. Koetzsch, "Anthroposophy 101" [http://waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/anthroposophy101.html]  Rudolf Steiner near the end of his life. [Public domain.] To see more images of Rudolf Steiner, click here: Rudolf Steiner. Although Anthroposophists and Waldorf teachers may often be evasive when speaking with outsiders, the titles given to books of Steiner's work are often quite informative. If you become interested in Waldorf education, you really should buy some of these books and study them carefully.  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005.]  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 1987.]  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993.] xxx  [Anthroposophic Press, 1972.]  [Kessinger, 2006.]  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 2006.]  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001.]xxxx  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 1968.]  [Rudolf Steiner Press, 1976.]  [Anthroposophic Press, 2001.]  [Anthroposophic Press, 1968.]xxx Worst Thing I posted the following message in September, 2011 [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/message/21014]. I began by briefly quoting a previous message from someone else: In waldorf-critics@yahoogroups.com, "petekaraiskos" <pkcompany@...> wrote: Discussions of insanity are always touchy, perhaps never more so than when they occur in the context of Anthroposophy. It would be difficult, for instance, to argue against the proposition that Rudolf Steiner was insane. But we cannot prove that he was insane, and in any case the question is irrelevant. What we can know with great clarity is that Steiner's teachings are insane, and this is really all that need concern us. This, and the knowledge that Waldorf education is built on the foundation of Steiner's insane teachings. Steiner's followers will assure you that everything Steiner said was true. Some of his statements can be made to seem loony, they argue, but only when these statements are taken out of context. So don't just read an excerpted sentence, read the entire lecture or book and you will see that what Steiner said was perfectly sensible. This is a standard Anthroposophical claim. Sadly, however, it is untrue. The context of Steiner's looniest statements is more of Steiner's loony statements. Not to put too fine a point on it, generally speaking each loony sentence of Steiner's comes out of a loony paragraph of Steiner's which in turn comes out of a loony lecture or chapter of Steiner's. Nonetheless, I agree that we should not be content reading a few excerpts from Steiner's works. As I have recommended for, lo, the past many years, I urge everyone to read some of Steiner's books and lectures in their entirety. Even books that merely record Steiner's more or less casual utterances are worth study. If you are considering sending a child to a Waldorf school, I absolutely recommend that you read FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER from cover to cover. Waldorf teacher-trainees often study this book in some detail, and they tend to treat it as a sort of Bible. So, if you want to know what Waldorf teachers think and believe, this is an invaluable source. The problem with tackling FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER is that it is extremely long — 811 pages spread over two volumes. Perhaps you would prefer to start with something less overwhelming. Okay, allow me to recommend THE OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD. This is a very manageable 44 pages. Warning: THE OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD is both loony and horrid. But then, so are many passages in FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER. Indeed, the Steiner statement that I have nominated as The Worst Thing Rudolf Steiner Ever Said comes out of FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER. Here it is, in toto. (Steiner was addressing Waldorf teachers. At one point one of the teachers is quoted. All the rest of the passage comes from Steiner's mouth.)
- Roger (Don't Blame the Messenger) Rawlings
 Steiner's death mask. This image appears at several places on the Web. I have reproduced it from http://www.waldorfcritics.org/active/links.html. Steiner's followers sometimes look upon him as virtually a second Christ. Thus, for instance, after his death, Steiner's wife Marie — a leader in the Anthroposophical movement — wrote this:
In the Bible, Jesus is depicted as wearing a crown of thorns and carrying his cross on the arduous path — afterwards called the Via Dolorosa — to Calvary, where he died for all of humanity. Anthroposophists may consider Steiner to be Christlike for a specific reason. Steiner taught that Christ was not so much our Savior as our role model. Steiner's followers believe that in progressing so very far along the spiritual path, Steiner fulfilled the Christ Impulse more than almost anyone else since Christ himself. Steiner's teachings are gnosis, the hidden meaning of the Scriptures. Steiner claimed to have discovered gnosis through his powers of clairvoyance, which enabled him to read the Akashic Record, a celestial storehouse of all knowledge.
Bear in mind that whenever Steiner praised Theosophy, he meant his own doctrines, which as early as 1902 he began calling Anthroposophy. The meaning of Theosophy/Anthroposophy/Gnosis is the hidden meaning of Logos, the Word of God, which Christ embodied.
This is what Steiner brought us, or so he and his followers have assured themselves. Steiner did not literally claim to be a god — he said that spiritually correct humans will become gods, but none of us is there yet. Accordingly, Steiner did not claim infallibility. Yet he presented himself as virtually omniscient — a pose that caused him problems, as he occasionally complained.
Despite the inconvenience he created for himself, Steiner persisted in his pose of near-omniscience. He claimed to be the bearer of truth concerning a nearly unlimited array of subjects, a claim he underscored by peppering his statements with such refrains as "I am right." He knew so very much about so very much because of his high spiritual consciousness, clairvoyance. So he was right about just about everything. Thus, for instance:
Especially in spiritual matters, Steiner claimed to be almost always correct. He claimed to use “exact” clairvoyance, thus obtaining exact results.
Steiner said that he gained increasing knowledge of spiritual matters as he progressed in clairvoyant insight. He said that his early books, such as THEOSOPHY, did not present a complete picture because his clairvoyant insights were not yet wide and deep enough. But, later, he was able to fill in the picture more and more. His original views had not been wrong — merely incomplete. Essentially, he had been right all along. The following are some of the last words Steiner wrote; they appear in the 1925 edition of his magnum opus, OCCULT SCIENCE - AN OUTLINE. The original edition of OCCULT SCIENCE had appeared fifteen years earlier. Steiner died not long after penning these words:
This was written on January 10, 1925. Steiner died on March 30, 1925. In the Postscript, below, I give a few more examples of Steiner's insistence that he knew best about just about everything. — Roger Rawlings You will find additional material further down on this page. To visit other pages in this section of Waldorf Watch, use the underlined links, below. ◊◊◊ 13. RUDOLF STEINER ◊◊◊
 This is a sketch of scenery used at the Goetheanum to stage one of Steiner's mystery plays. [R.R., 2009.] See "Plays". POSTSCRIPT The following doesn’t prove much. All writers present their thoughts in the belief that much, if not all, of what they say is true. You might infer, for example, that I believe that I am correct in my criticisms of Waldorf schools and Anthroposophy. Still, if you want to form of clear picture of Rudolf Steiner, you should note the extraordinary position he claimed for himself. He was the font of wisdom. What he said was true. There could be no argument. He had the answers. Accordingly, he continually told everyone what to think about almost everything. Here are some examples of Steiner claiming a remarkable purchase on the truth. Many more examples could readily be found. (For clarity and emphasis, I have set the key phrases in bold type.)
Perhaps that’s enough. You must understand that I have only scratched the surface. As I have told you, many more examples can be found. There can be no doubt about this. It is as I have shown.  [Pierre le Bourgeoys, ~1615.]  [Jacques Callot, ~1617.]  [Magazine decoration, ~ 1900.]  [Rudolf Steiner, ~1920 (R.R. copy).] Steiner's vision — which strikes many moderns as bizarre — is rooted in ancient, persistent mythologies and esoteric traditions. This doesn't make it, or them, true or false. But seeing Steiner in historical context can be helpful. Here is a tiny example — unimportant but perhaps suggestive: the strange winged head atop Steiner's sculpture, "The Representative of Humanity". It has many antecedents, in both recondite and popular sources. Steiner claimed that his spiritual "knowledge" came from his own "exact clairvoyance" — a claim that would be more credible if there were any real evidence that clairvoyance is possible. But there isn't. [See "Clairvoyance" and "Exactly".] In fact, Steiner was a busy scholar of the occult and also a cultural scavenger, reading and borrowing widely. His teachings incorporate borrowings from profound religious and philosophical works cheek-by-jowl with popular legends and superstitions. The fundamental project in Anthroposophy — tying together all religions in a single über-faith — comes out of Theosophy, which in turn was influenced by an early effort to summarize the world's religious practices: RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE WORLD, by Bernard Picart and Jean Frederic Bernard, published in folio volumes from 1723 through 1737. Much information and misinformation from this work found its way into the later efforts.  "Puzza, or the 'Chinese Cybele,' sitting on a lotus flower." [Bernard Picart; Getty Research Institute.] Mythic beings populate the Anthroposophical universe. Invisible beings are active all around us, Steiner insisted. They are real and important presences. The natural world itself, although in many ways divorced from the spirit realm, is alive with mythical presences that, Steiner insisted, are perfectly real. The four main types of elemental beings cooperate, for example, to promote the growth of plants.  [R.R., 2009.]
— Rudolf Steiner, MAN AS SYMPHONY OF THE CREATIVE WORD (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1970), lecture 7, GA 230. P.P.S. What did Steiner think he was doing? What was he up to? He aimed to make himself a big man at the center of the coming thing: scientific occultism, anti-Enlightenment enlightenment. That's where the action was, and he wanted to be in on it. He always wanted to be the center of attention. I have argued that Steiner was not insane. I have argued that, instead, he was a conscious fraud, advancing esoteric "truths" that he knew quite well were fabrications. This seems clear. But, of course, there are always shades of gray. To extend Steiner the benefit of the doubt, we might conclude that he was genuinely impressed by Theosophy and other occult cosmologies. He found them persuasive or at least alluring, and he cast his lot with their proponents, offering himself as a new and superior occult visionary. He read widely among mystical texts and began piecing together their teachings and doctrines, seeking to make them coherent and plausible. His lectures and books persuaded at least one segment of the yearning spiritualistic community. Did they persuade Steiner himself? Did he begin to believe his amalgamations and fabrications? Did he come to believe that he truly was what he pretended to be, a clairvoyant genius? Possibly so. But if so — if he genuinely, sincerely lost contact with reality to this extent — then I would be mistaken about Steiner's sanity. Losing contact with reality is a definition of insanity. Perhaps in a subtle, clever, intellectual way, Steiner made himself cleverly, shade-of-grayishly, insane. He was certainly a fraud, but whether he knew it (and thus remained arguably sane) may ultimately remain an historical unknown. Below is a piece that outlines the context in which Steiner worked. Making only tangential references to Steiner himself, it helps us understand the climate in which Steiner pieced Anthroposophy together. It was written by Peter Staudenmaier, an historian reviled by Anthroposophists. Staudenmaier's sin? He has done extensive research and found problems within and around Anthroposophy. You can draw your own conclusions about the value of his work. (I have omitted Staudenmaier's long and informative endnotes from the following. If you wish to consult them, you can do so at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/waldorf-critics/conversations/messages/25253.) — Roger Rawlings Esoteric Alternatives in Imperial Germany: Spiritual Seekers, Fluid Worldviews, and the Modern Occult Revival To many observers today, the world of occult and esoteric groups seems irreducibly alien and perhaps incomprehensible, a thoroughgoing rejection of the Enlightenment legacy. Yet for a broad cross-section of educated Germans in the Wilhelmine era, the occult and esoteric offered a powerfully appealing alternative form of Enlightenment: an approach that promised illuminating knowledge about both the farthest reaches of the cosmos and the innermost depths of the soul, providing access to hidden sources of spiritual wisdom and profound insight into the secrets of the universe. Re-working key themes of modernity, adherents and practitioners of various esoteric tendencies embraced occult worldviews as an antidote to materialism that could re-enchant a disenchanted world while extending the ideals of Bildung as a lifelong process of further developing human faculties. Examining well-known literary and artistic figures as well as obscure occult authors, this presentation surveys some of the factors that led a range of German thinkers to favor esoteric alternatives to established and academically sanctioned modes of knowledge. The prototype that emerges is not only spiritual seekers exploring unconventional realms, but practically oriented individuals responding to scientific discoveries and scholarly innovations, often in conjunction with a commitment to traditional values and beliefs. The historical record reveals a striking fluidity of esoteric traditions in Imperial Germany, with the same figures adopting a wide array of sometimes contradictory occult viewpoints, sequentially or simultaneously, while displaying multifarious connections to the Lebensreform milieu, völkisch circles, neo-pagan currents and minority strands of Christianity, among others. In different ways, these esoteric pioneers combined universal principles and a cosmopolitan outlook with a central emphasis on the unique German spiritual mission. I. Spiritual Seeking and Science in Transition, 1880-1920 In the decades surrounding 1900, significant sectors of the German Bildungsbürgertum were drawn to new approaches in science, philosophy, and scholarly inquiry stimulated in part through the publishing successes of efforts at science popularization as well as the rapid rate of innovations and discoveries in the various natural sciences. In a period which combined rising German economic confidence and transitional currents in the understanding of science and its relation to society, these new intellectual horizons seemed to offer grand vistas of unprecedented possibility: might we at last grasp the secrets of the cosmos and of the soul? At the same time, research in fields as diverse as biblical criticism, history, and physics unsettled traditional conceptions of knowledge. The modern German occult revival grew out of this ferment, offering a rich palette of solutions to the riddles of the era. With the rise of the modern theosophical current, which touted “a synthesis of science, religion, and philosophy” (in the words of the subtitle of Helena Blavatsky’s 1888 book The Secret Doctrine, a central theosophical text largely composed in Germany), occultist alternatives garnered an increasing body of adherents as well as curious onlookers. Esoteric approaches proffered unprecedented awareness through the development of higher faculties, various forms of meditation, a path of initiation, or other techniques. Practitioners and promoters held that occult methods could be used for personal enlightenment, spiritual enhancement, healing, attaining higher levels of consciousness, discerning the future or past, discovering or recovering secret knowledge of the inner workings of the world and the cultivation of unseen powers of the soul. To its enthusiasts, occultism offered to reveal the correspondences between macrocosm and microcosm and unite spirit and nature in a re-enchanted world. Esoteric advocates presented their approach as a “nascent science” with respectable forebears and illustrious prospects. These claims faced determined opposition at the time and remain controversial today. What are we to make of their historical significance? How do they figure within the colorful context of Imperial German culture? Why were they attractive to aristocrats and artists, to educated elites and unconventional bohemians, to those with academic training and those with creative aspirations, in Germany and beyond? I will argue that adequate answers to these questions require a shift in scholarly perspective toward a more critical and contextualized engagement with the occult in modern German history. II. The Fluidity of Esoteric Worldviews in Imperial Germany Many individuals drawn to esoteric worldviews in the Imperial era affiliated themselves not just with one perspective, organization, or tendency, but with multiple strands of occult thought and practice. Simultaneous or sequential involvement in a variety of different esoteric currents was typical rather than anomalous, and can be traced in part to two interrelated factors: the propensity of esoteric adherents to engage in ongoing spiritual seeking, experimentation, and comparison of contending alternatives; and the frequently fractious nature of the occult milieu as a whole. A further relevant factor involved the appropriation of ostensibly Eastern spiritual traditions within a Western framework. These cross-affiliations also highlighted the ability of esoteric viewpoints to transcend national borders, with several of the more prominent strands attracting substantial memberships in Austria and Switzerland in addition to Germany itself. A case study can help illuminate these dynamics: German-Swiss occultist Karl Heise (1872-1939) was born in Berlin and moved to Zurich around 1905, becoming active in theosophical circles by 1907. In short succession Heise joined a theosophical lodge, the ariosophist Guido von List Society, and the Mazdaznan movement, then joined the Anthroposophical Society in 1916. He lived for a time in a Mazdaznan commune named Aryana, and in the late 1920s he edited the journal Gral: Zeitschrift für Sucher eines esoterischen Christentums. Heise was a student of Rudolf Steiner and corresponded with other anthroposophists. His publications borrowed heavily from Blavatsky, List, Steiner, and other figures, and were published in a wide range of esoteric venues. For Heise, becoming a member of a new occult group did not mean abandoning the previous ones, and his work presented an amalgam of esoteric beliefs drawn from an eclectic spectrum of sources. The periodicals to which he contributed offer a similarly diverse profile. The subtitle of the journal Theosophische Kultur, for example, was “Monatsschrift zur Erweckung und Pflege der höheren Seelen- und Geisteskräfte und zur Verwirklichung der Idee einer allgemeinen Menschenverbrüderung auf der undogmatischen Grundlage der göttlichen Selbsterkenntnis.” It was the organ of the International Theosophical Brotherhood based in Leipzig. The same press also published the Astrologische Rundschau, edited by Rudolf von Sebottendorf. Such overlap was common in the Wilhelmine period and extended into the Weimar years. The journal Psyche: Monatlich erscheinende Zeitschrift für den gesamten Okkultismus und alle Geheimwissenschaften, für wissenschaftliche Erforschung der okkulten Phänomene des Seelenlebens, ferner für Indische Philosophie, Theosophie, Spiritualismus, wahre, ethische Kultur, naturgemäße Lebensweise und Sozialreform was edited by Karl Brandler-Pracht (1864-1939), a major figure in occultist and astrological circles, who also edited the Zentralblatt für Okkultismus (published by the Max Altmann Verlag, the premier theosophical publishing house). Psyche appeared with a Beiblatt, the Astrologische Blätter: Zentral-Organ für wissenschaftliche Astrologie. In addition to articles by Brandler-Pracht and regular contributions from Heise, Psyche featured pieces by Peryt Shou (pen name of Albert Schultz, 1873-1953), a supporter of theosophy and the Deutsche Neugeistbewegung; ariosophist and astrologer Ernst Ißberner-Haldane; and German-Russian author Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch, who was successively a theosophist, an anthroposophist, an ariosophist, an adherent of Artur Dinter’s völkisch religious movement, a self-described “Christian occultist,” and a vehement opponent of esoteric “false prophets.” Brandler-Pracht was also editor of Prana: Zentralorgan für praktischen Okkultismus, Monatsschrift zur Förderung der okkultistischen Bewegung, Organ für angewandte Geheimwissenschaften (published by the Theosophisches Verlagshaus in Leipzig) from its founding in 1909 through 1914; ariosophist Johannes Balzli took over as editor in 1915. Prana carried contributions from Balzli, Brandler-Pracht, Peryt Shou, C. W. Leadbeater, Rudolf Steiner, Franz Hartmann, Hugo Vollrath, Ernst Boldt, and many others. Further examples of the fluidity of the esoteric milieu include Harald Grävell and Max Seling, both of whom had extensive university educations before turning to occultism. Grävell (1856-1932) was a völkisch author who combined theosophical, anthroposophical, and ariosophical themes; his work appeared in many of the publications mentioned above, as well as in books such as Harald Grävell, Aryavarta (Leipzig: Akademischer Verlag, 1905), Grävell, Die arische Bewegung, eine ethische Bewegung (Leipzig: Theosophisches Verlagshaus, 1909), and Grävell, Zarathustra und Christus (Leipzig: Baumann, 1913). Born in Berlin, he lived at various times in Straßburg, Vienna, and Breslau, as well as Belgium and England. Like many other occultists, Grävell emphasized Lebensreform principles in an esoteric context. So did his Bavarian contemporary Seiling (1852-1928), a longtime theosophist, anthroposophist, and ariosophist who turned to Catholic mysticism late in life while retaining an esoteric outlook. Like Heise, he was a member of both the Guido von List Society and the Anthroposophical Society. Seiling was also a vegetarian and animal rights proponent, active in the anti-vivisection movement, and a sympathizer of Naturheilkunde. The convergence of disparate occult ideas in the lives and work of figures like these indicates that a significant re-assessment of the convoluted strands of the modern German occult revival is in order, fundamentally questioning any simple or straightforward division between ‘mainstream’ esoteric tendencies like theosophy or anthroposophy and ‘extreme’ variants like ariosophy. Moreover, the range of issues addressed in the writings and activities of Wilhelmine occultists went well beyond standard spiritual fare to encompass the outstanding concerns of the day, from controversial social questions to matters of personal morality and behavior to current affairs and urgent subjects of public interest, including Germany’s standing in the world and the causes and consequences of the First World War. Each of these themes was examined from an esoteric vantage point, with a view to its larger cultural implications. Even while distancing themselves from the purportedly sterile realm of academic knowledge and ‘materialist’ science and the severe limitations of merely this-worldly information and experience, occultists were often university trained men of the world, cosmopolitan and well traveled, and fully engaged with the breadth of German social life and public affairs. Claiming the mantle of science for their own worldviews, they moved readily between esoteric and exoteric spheres, between strikingly different modes of understanding, evaluation, and discourse. III. Occultism as Alternative Modernity In the new intellectual landscape of Imperial Germany, surrounded by technical progress, scientific achievement, and an increasingly prominent national role on the European and global stage, esoteric inclinations could seem not so much an aberration as an extension of the rapidly unfolding process of modernity. A recent influential interpretive framework maintains that since modern German occultism sought to transcend the divide between science and religion and reclaim and reconfigure scientific methods within an esoteric framework, occult worldviews and practices should be seen as a genuine form of scientific investigation which was “joined to the liberal vision of a society slowly evolving toward a more enlightened future.” There were undoubtedly many liberal, cosmopolitan, and progressive aspects to Wilhelmine and Weimar occultism, and esoteric practitioners did indeed view their activities as an innovative type of science. But this perspective neglects the equally important strains of occultism which displayed extensive overlap not with scientific and liberal endeavors but with Lebensreform and völkisch tendencies, an element reflecting the longstanding “linkage between theosophy and the volkish world view.” That linkage was paradigmatic of a larger Wilhelmine confluence of ideas, a decisive instance of “das tiefere Eindringen lebensreformerischer, theosophischer, astrologischer und völkischer Gedanken in breite bürgerliche Schichten des deutschen Volkes.” These Lebensreform and völkisch currents were furthermore just as much a part of emerging Imperial German modernity as industrialization, parliamentary improvements, or advances in physics, and partook of the same ambivalent modernizing dynamics and their equivocal social repercussions. The notion that the modern character of esoteric thought aligns occultism with liberal, rational, and scientific trends – the supposed pillars of a modern outlook – depends on too narrow a conception of modernity, and misses the crucial efforts occultists made to formulate an alternative model of modernity. One paradoxical factor which richly illustrates this condition is the role of racial thinking in modern esoteric movements. Though scholars who emphasize the liberal and rational facets of occultism tend to portray esoteric racial thought as a relatively insignificant throwback that was unfairly over-emphasized in earlier treatments of the subject, the racial component of esoteric worldviews represents one of their most eminently modern features. Race science was a prominent part of mainstream scientific research in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and racial assumptions suffused many liberal, evolutionary, and progressive models of society. In selectively appropriating scientific themes and liberal motifs, occultists absorbed a variety of ideas about race and imbued them with spiritual significance. Theosophical thinkers incorporated racial categories into an overarching evolutionary paradigm uniting the spiritual and physical realms, which they cast as an alternative to the allegedly materialist science of the day. This scheme of spiritual evolution, partly structured along racial lines, provided the scaffolding for multiple esoteric doctrines and anchored occult views on reincarnation, karma, the development of the soul, the evolution of humankind, and the unfolding of cosmic destiny. Race became a focal point for esoteric efforts to conjoin scientific and spiritual narratives of progress, and an emblem of the modern character of occult thought. For German esoteric thinkers, racial themes were routinely coupled with national ones, a development encouraged by esoteric interactions with the völkisch milieu; the nationalist proclivities of German occultism came to the fore with particular force at the climactic end of the Imperial era, with the outbreak of World War I. In this sense as in others, occultists were very much products of their time, even as they endeavored to transcend the limitations of their contemporaries. So it is with the impact of racial thought on esoteric representatives. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, racial theories which seem abstruse at best today were often a sign of erudition and cultural advancement. A historically empathetic approach to esoteric racial beliefs means trying to comprehend these beliefs within their context rather than viewing them from a post-1945 standpoint regarding what is and is not acceptable in polite society. It also means recognizing that many of these beliefs were plainly racist, regardless of the lofty ideals their proponents held. Though sympathetic observers of the occult scene are generally reluctant to acknowledge it, this is an aspect of esoteric thought which has not simply disappeared in the twenty-first century, in Germany or elsewhere. Challenges such as these have always made responsible scholarship on modern occultism a vexed undertaking. The nuances and complexities of the topic, and the contradictions built in to its history, can be difficult to elucidate adequately, all the more so when the subject continues to exert a special fascination on conspiracy theory enthusiasts and those who suspect that shadowy occult forces are surreptitiously shaping the course of history behind a veil which historians are powerless to penetrate. This situation warrants particular caution in dealing with “the grey area of publications half way between occultism and scholarly research.” It also suggests that a calm and historically informed response is in order when alarmed reports warn that occult pseudo-sciences are infiltrating the universities. And it can serve as a reminder that an appropriately empathetic approach to the subjects of our study means endeavoring to comprehend both occultists and their critics; early critiques of esoteric thought sometimes contained significant insights and merit further historical attention.
Was there an esoteric Enlightenment in fin de siècle Germany? Occult tendencies considered themselves alternatives to mainstream science, established religion, conventional forms of rationality, and the societal status quo; their esoteric aspirations expressed new aims and interests for members of a rising Bildungsbürgertum in a context of social uncertainty, political stagnation, and cultural volatility. They augured a new personal enlightenment, one partly in tension with and partly an expansion upon the principles of the Age of Enlightenment. That their efforts ended up entangled in racial and national myths was by no means exceptional in the context of the era, and attention to this entanglement is essential to making sense of the subsequent development of esoteric ideas and activities in the Weimar and Nazi periods. For German studies scholars, for cultural historians, for historians of religion and others, research on the conflicted record of occult ventures in Imperial Germany can be an opportunity for re-thinking some of the established assumptions about modernity and its others, about science and its others, and about seemingly quixotic attempts to transcend the seemingly restrictive boundaries of science, religion, and reason. — Peter Staudenmaier  Waldorf Watch includes numerous links to other sites. Many of these links may eventually become obsolete — sites change, pages are removed, etc. If you try a link and it fails, an ordinary Internet search by keyword may lead you to a destination similar to the one you wanted. The formatting at Waldorf Watch aims for visual variety, seeking to ease the process of reading lengthy texts on a computer screen. A note on sources: I have accessed Anthroposophical texts in various ways. 1) Chiefly, I have acquired books in the old-fashioned way, as physical objects. When I refer to a book I possess, I give the title, publisher, date of publication, and page number for each reference. 2) I have dipped into some books through Google Books [http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search]. I provide the same information for these volumes. 3) I have read various texts at the Rudolf Steiner Archive [http://www.rsarchive.org/Search.php]. Because the Archive does not provide page numbers, for these references I provide titles, names of publishers, dates of publication, and (where applicable) GA numbers. Be advised that Google Books sometimes gives inaccurate page numbers, and the Steiner Archive is full of typos. I have corrected these problems as well as I could, but I may have missed some instances. You may have difficulty finding a few of the sources I cite. Anthroposophists tend to conceal various sources, and sometimes — following criticism — they remove or alter sources that they had previously displayed online. — R. R. ENDNOTES [1] Rudolf Steiner, FIRST STEPS IN INNER DEVELOPMENT (Anthroposophic Press, 1999), p. 25. [2] Hermann von Baravalle, RUDOLF STEINER AS EDUCATOR (St. George Books, 1960 revised edition). Anthroposophists often claim that they do not slavishly follow Steiner. To some degree, this is true. Steiner advocated subjectivity — he urged his followers to trust their own intuitions, their own “clairvoyance,” their own heartfelt “spiritual insight.” This naturally leads to differences of opinion among Anthroposophists — what one person “intuits” may be quite different from the revelations produced by someone else’s “spiritual insight.” Anthroposophists may find that their inner guides actually lead them to differ from Steiner himself, occasionally. Yet there can be no question that a form of virtual Steiner-worship exists among Anthroposophists. The speculation about when he will next be reincarnated is one indicator. Others can be found in the tellingly titled book, A MAN BEFORE OTHERS: Rudolf Steiner Remembered (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993). This collection of reminiscences by Steiner’s acquaintances contains numerous gems such as the following. Merely looking upon Steiner walking across a stage filled his followers with reverence: What one person may deem a mincing gait may look to another like a spirit-infused glide. [3] Other books about Steiner written by Anthroposophists and Waldorf educators include RUDOLF STEINER: Herald of a New Dawn (Anthroposophic Press, 1980), by Stewart C. Easton; A LIFE FOR THE SPIRIT: Rudolf Steiner in the Crosscurrents of Our Time (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), by Henry Barnes; RUDOLF STEINER - An Introduction to his Spiritual World-view, Anthroposophy (Temple Lodge, 2005), by Roy Wilkinson; and A MAN BEFORE OTHERS: Rudolf Steiner Remembered (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993). [4] RUDOLF STEINER AS EDUCATOR, p. 5. [5] Ibid., p. 14. [6] Ibid., p. 17. [7] See, e.g., Rudolf Steiner, DISCUSSIONS WITH TEACHERS (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), and Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998). [8] RUDOLF STEINER AS EDUCATOR, pp. 22-30. For an overview of the stages of childhood as understood in Waldorf education, see "Most Significant" and "Incarnation". [9] RUDOLF STEINER AS EDUCATOR, p. 31; lecture delivered at Oxford in August, 1922. [10] Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 118. [11] Gilbert Childs, STEINER EDUCATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE (Floris Books, 1991), p. 166. [12] RUDOLF STEINER AS EDUCATOR, p. 33; lecture delivered in Stuttgart, April, 1924. [13] See, e.g., "Steiner's Specific". [14] See, e.g., "Spiritual Agenda". [15] See, e.g., "Thinking Cap". [16] See "Academic Standards at Waldorf" and "Magical Arts". [17] Rudolf Steiner, FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (SteinerBooks, 1996), p. 60. "Actual cognition," in Anthroposophy, is clairvoyance. [See "Clairvoyance", "The Waldorf Teacher's Consciousness", and "Thinking".] [18] RUDOLF STEINER AS EDUCATOR, pp. 34-35; opening address for the Waldorf School, September 1919. [19] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 55. Note that Anthroposophy is polytheistic. Waldorf teachers implement "the divine cosmic plan" created by "the gods." [See "Polytheism".] [20] Roberto Trostli, RHYTHMS OF LEARNING: What Waldorf Education Offers Children, Parents, and Teachers (SteinerBooks, 2017), p. 4. [21] RUDOLF STEINER AS EDUCATOR, p. 37. [22] See the entry for "arts-based Waldorf curriculum" in The Brief Waldorf / Steiner Encyclopedia. [23] Rudolf Steiner, quoted in THE GOETHEANUM: School of Spiritual Science (Philosophical-Anthroposophical Press, 1961), p. 25. [24] See "Schools as Churches". [25] See "Schools as Churches" and "Waldorf Priests". [26] See "Secrets" and "Clues". [27] See, e.g., "Foundations" and "Soul School". For more on the Waldorf approach to the arts, see "Magical Arts" and "Lesson Books". [28] Gary Lachman, RUDOLF STEINER (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2007), pp. 12-13 [29] Ibid., p. 15. Anthony Storr’s book, FEET OF CLAY (Free Press, 1997), deals with many self-proclaimed visionaries and leaders, including Steiner. [30] For Steiner on Steiner, see Rudolf Steiner, THE STORY OF MY LIFE (Kessinger Publishing, 2003; facsimile of 1928 edition) and Rudolf Steiner, AUTOBIOGRAPHY (Anthroposophical Press, 2006) — essentially the same book but, in the latter form, having a useful chronology added, pp. xvi-xxix. In addition to the Steiner biographies mentioned above, see Peter Washington, MADAME BLAVATSKY’S BABOON (Secker & Warburg, 1993). Additional sources: Rudolf Steiner, Portrait circa 1915 http://www.rsarchive.org/RSBio.php Rudolf Steiner Timeline http://oaks.nvg.org/wm6ra6.html#bio Waldorfcritics posting 10482 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/message/10482 Waldorfcritics archive http://www.waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/JanusFaceOfAnthroposophy.html Waldorfcritics posting 10511 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/message/10511 These and other sources do not always agree, so the chronology presented here is not gospel. [31] The original text had little or no occultist content; in 1918, Steiner released a significantly altered edition. Freedom was always one of Steiner's themes, and Waldorf schools flag their advocacy of freedom. It is important to understand, however, that the Steiner/Anthroposophical view of freedom is essentially Germanic and renunciant: "Freedom" is the overcoming of unworthy impulses, not the positive affirmation of liberty. Steiner's vision of freedom, in fact, grew less expansive after he became an occultist. In Anthroposophical doctrine, there is a white path and a black path, right and wrong, and one's only real freedom (if it can be called that) comes in choosing between them. [See "Freedom".] [32] Steiner was a secularist before his sudden conversion to Theosophy. Here, for instance, are comments he made about the occultist movement he himself later joined:
Note how Steiner's comments undercut his own later views, such as the emphasis he placed on inner experiences, and his opposition to what he called "natural" science — i.e., "Western ways of knowing" or "Western science." The following commentary is germaine:
[33] He may have first used the term even earlier — at least one source indicates 1900. Others indicate 1903. [34] Hitler's primary target was not Steiner but the German foreign minister, Walter Simons. Hitler tried to smear Simons by associating him with Steiner: See Peter Staudenmaier's "Between Occultism and Fascism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race and Nation in Germany and Italy, 1900-1945", 2010, p. 140. In reality, Steiner and Simons were not friends. [35] There are 31 pairs of spinal nerves and seven pairs of major peripheral nerves. See, e.g., "Spinal and Major Peripheral Nerves", http://innvista.com/health/anatomy/spinal.htm. Also see "human nervous system." ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, Online <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/409709/human-nervous-system>. [36] Christians generally accept the existence of four archangels, although the total number may be as high as fifteen. Jewish and Islamic traditions differ. See, e.g., http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/32645/archangel and http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Archangel. Here is one summary: "archangel, chief angel. They are four to seven in number. Sometimes specific functions are ascribed to them. The four best known in Christian tradition are Michael , Gabriel , Raphael , and Uriel ." — THE COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA, Sixth Edition, 2008. [37] Rudolf Steiner, THE STORY OF MY LIFE (Anthroposophic Press, 1928), p. 340, Conclusion by Marie Steiner. Of course, we must make allowances for the grief expressed by a widow. Nonetheless, the portrait Marie Steiner paints of her former husband has been widely embraced in Anthroposophical circles. [38] Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT SCIENCE - AN OUTLINE (Anthroposophic Press, 1969), p. 272. [39] Rudolf Steiner, ATLANTIS AND LEMURIA (Rajput Press, 1911), p. 4. [40] ANTHROPOSOPHICAL LEADING THOUGHTS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1973), “A Christmas Study: The Mystery of the Logos”.
[41] Rudolf Steiner, CHANCE, PROVIDENCE, AND NECESSITY (Anthroposophic Press, 1988), p. 74. [42] Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER IN THE WALDORF SCHOOL (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 45. [43] Rudolf Steiner, THE TEMPLE LEGEND AND THE GOLDEN LEGEND (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1997), p. 350. [44] Rudolf Steiner, POLARITIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF MANKIND (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1987), p. 124. [45] Rudolf Steiner, WALDORF EDUCATION AND ANTHROPOSOPHY, Vol. 1 (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 205. [46] Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT SCIENCE - AN OUTLINE (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1969), pp. 7 - 12; preface to the 1925 edition, written January 10, 1925. |
