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reader comments: anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf Schools 

24 Oct 2008
Regarding the letter you recently posted from someone writing about anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner: whatever else Steiner may have done, he did not tell his students nor hint to them that they or anthroposophy should gain state power over others.

reply: I couldn't find anything in the letter you refer to that even hints of Steiner advocating that anthroposophy or any other idea shoud gain State power over others. There's only one letter on Steiner posted, so I assume this must be the one you are referring to.

Anyone who reads Steiner's social writings (his definitive statement is the book Toward Social Renewal, originally Die Kernepunkte der Sozialen Frage) and is not a moron or ill-willed, can see that Steiner was more libertarian than most people today, and argued for a rather minimalist state, which in his view was not to have any kind of religion or ideology or philosophy -- not even anthroposophy -- in control of the State. Anyone who says otherwise is either an ignoramus or a bald-faced liar.

The State, in Steiner's view, should not interfere with the press, speech, religion, or -- education. Steiner essentially argued for a separation of education and State, while urging that all families, not just the rich, should have freedom of choice as to schools for their children. Anthroposophists who pay attention to what Steiner said on this favor one or another system of school choice: tax credits, private or public voucher systems, etc.

Anything cultural, in short, was in Steiner's view to be matter for individuals and freedom. Where someone had not reached the age of 18 or majority, the choice was not to be in the hands of the State, but rather in the hands of the parents.

As for the economy, Steiner argued for uncoerced, non-Statist, cooperation in economic life. He said that the State and economy should be separate so they could check and correct each other, and that when allowed to amalgamate, they rot and corrupt each other.

None of this sounds remotely like any kind of theocracy or totalitarianism to me. The person who wrote the letter you posted, several times hinting that Steiner wants to set up some sort of anthroposophical state, is either ignorant, or a liar, or both. If you want to criticize Steiner, you should be able to do it without lying, or without posting the lies of others as if they were respectable statements. I value the service that the Skeptics provide, but I have also come to take what the Skeptics say with several grains of salt, partly because of slimy tactics like the ones you posted in the letter at your site.

reply: Maybe you read something somewhere else on the Internet and sent your e-mail to the wrong place because none of what you are criticizing sounds remotely like what the letter writer has said.

It's okay with me if you want to think that Steiner was some sort of sicko cultist master seeking to control others out of some sort of a depraved psychological complex. To me, that just means you are some kind of a half-wit, which is your perfect right. But while idiocy must be excused, there is no excuse for lies, like spreading the notion that Steiner and anthroposophists are totalitarians in waiting. That is solid bullshit.

Sincerely, Edward

reply: Well, Edward, perhaps you didn't learn to read while at the Waldorf school. Actually, it is obvious you didn't attend a Waldorf school. Whatever else you say about Waldorf students, they are taught to be polite and respectful.

I have no idea what you are ranting about. The letter writer says Waldorf schools indoctrinate children in the tenets of anthroposophy, not that Steiner or the schools aim at state control of anything.

One of the things I think I express clearly in my article on Steiner is that the Waldorf schools are attractive to some people precisely because their curriculum is not developed with an eye toward preparing students for a life of serving state goals.

Tell me, though, was it the word 'regime' that set you off? You don't take literally the claim about reincarnating and ruling over non-anthroposophists, or do you?

I've given you a forum for expressing your ideas. Does that mean I agree with them or, if they are repugnant to somebody else, that I should be subject to abusive language for allowing you to have your say?

26 Aug 2000 
I just read your article on Steiner, Waldorf, and Anthroposophy. Just wanted to quickly respond as it was very clear that you didn't really understand the esoteric Waldorf plan. The schools are an indoctrination into the cult of Anthroposophy. The curriculum is centered on the various occult initiates who Steiner absorbs into his pantheon. The children are given anthroposophical pictures and notions which will be of use in their next incarnation. The "individualism" that they advertise is a code word for the "Anthroposophical Being", a homogenous spirit made up of "Individual I's" that will dominate the world in Steiner's dreamed up future regime.

In Steiner's "Universal Human", p 16-17, he claims that the Initiate cannot have any personal ideas and views of his own, or he will never know objective truth. He states, "The person in whom anthroposophical wisdom appears must be completely unimportant compared to this wisdom; the person as such does not matter at all." He also says, "The anthroposophical view of the world develops in the most individual way, but at the same time it is the most unindividual thing you can imagine." On p 22-23 Steiner states that those that take in anthroposophical thoughts will have a spiritual substance that will help them penetrate the darkness when they die, they will then recognize the people that they worked with on earth. He discusses the deeper task of the anthroposophical movement which is to help those that developed their "individuality" to reincarnate and form core groups that will be scattered over the globe to rule those of us who are not anthroposophists. In his proposed Sixth Epoch he ominously asserts, "To put it bluntly, we can say that the earth and all it can yield will belong to those who now cultivate their individualities. Those, however, who do not develop their individual I will be dependent on joining a group that will instruct them in what they should think, feel, will, and do." [24] In the Seventh Epoch his cult will inhabit the earth in the form of the individual anthroposophical spirit, there will be no more sex, and "man will speak forth man."

Eurythmy is taken from the magical lodge tradition of gestures and signs. It has a secret language which Steiner lifted from the Cabbala, (via the Rosicrucians) and the children in Waldorf are made to communicate to the spirit world. Of course, some of the parents, (like myself at first) assume that it is a form of dance or movement. The Waldorf "art" is part of the system of rigid indoctrination, anthroposophical notions are copied off the board. There is no real free expression. The pictures in the early grade depict faceless people to help the children conform to the group. The water color exercises are occult moral exercises to heal the children and help their astral bodies mesh with their hereditary bodies, etc. If you examine the children's drawings, you will find all sorts of anthroposophical notions such as gnomes in mines. Anthroposophists believe that gnomes are real, and that you can find them in mines. (There is a book recording Steiner's lectures on this subject.)

Thought you might like to know who the anthroposophists say Steiner was in his previous lives: Enkidu, Kratylos, Aristotle, Schiontiolander, St. Thomas Aquinas, Rudolf Steiner, and he is expected to return at the end of the 20th C, in a rural, hilly place in the USA. Perhaps as a woman, most definitely as a Waldorf student!

The curriculum is all based on alchemy, magic, astrology, and all the bizarre and weird ideas of the occult. It is set up as a secret society, and most of the parents go along with the program without a clue. Luckily, our family figured out the Waldorf lies, and we removed our daughter from their absurd program. I have spent the last year reading Steiner and books about the occult worldview, the schools are not the progressive, liberal, artistic image that they are very good at portraying. The myths, religions and everything taught, are all anthroposophical selections and notions.

The experts of coded language, secrecy and hiding, are 'pulling the wool' over many eyes. With Waldorf, you must look deeper. As written in their magazine, "Anthroposophy Worldwide" 4/2000, p 12, " The press agent has to convey the outer appearance of things rather than the essential core. A deep esoteric background is necessary to make the essential core comprehensible." (Referring to their new press agent, Ursa Krattiger who has been hired to help them further deceive the public.)
Sincerely, Sharon Lombard. (A Freethinker out to expose wacky Waldorf.)

reply: You are not the only one who is out to expose Waldorf schools. Waldorf critics have their own website. Not all Waldorf schools are created equally, any more than all Catholic schools are created equally. Some may be more literal, dogmatic, and conservative than others.

anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf Schools 

 

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