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readings for seminar presentation (I)
By pstaud hotmail.com
readings for seminar presentation (II)
By pstaud hotmail.com
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Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 17:13:30 -0500
From: "Peter Staudenmaier" (pstaud hotmail.com)
Subject: readings for seminar presentation (I)
Hello critics,
Yesterday I gave a guest presentation about Steiner to a graduate seminar on
German-Jewish history at the University of Wisconsin. The title of my
presentation was "Antinomies of Assimilation: Philosemitism and Antisemitism
in Rudolf Steinerís Works". I was asked to provide readings beforehand, and
I came up with the following selection of excerpts. Quite a bit of this
material will already be familiar to a number of you, but since I typed it
all up I figured I'd post it here as well. The full document is long, so
I've broken it up into two chunks. If I get a chance this weekend, I'll also
post a synopsis of what I actually said in the seminar. Happy May Day to
all,
Peter S.
Readings for Peter Staudenmaierís seminar presentation on April 30
Antinomies of Assimilation: Philosemitism and Antisemitism in Rudolf
Steinerís Works
Although Steiner wrote and lectured extensively on the topic of Jews and
Judaism, most of his central texts on this theme have yet to be translated
into English. In place of substantial readings by Steiner (1861-1925), I am
providing a brief selection of relevant passages from his various writings,
along with a recent essay on related themes by a follower of Steiner. At the
end are several suggestions for further reading, from defenders to critics
of Steiner, as well as a few citations for German texts.
I. Steinerís racial hierarchy
Steinerís mature system, which he called Anthroposophy, involves a complex
scheme of racial evolution borrowed from Blavatskyís Theosophy. According to
this scheme, the currently predominant ìroot raceî is the Aryan race, and
within the Aryan race the currently predominant ethnic group is the
Nordic-Germanic sub-race.
ìThe ancestors of the Atlanteans lived in a region which has disappeared,
the main part of which lay south of contemporary Asia. In theosophical
writings they are called the Lemurians. After they had passed through
various stages of development the greatest part of them declined. These
became stunted men, whose descendants still inhabit certain parts of the
earth today as so-called savage tribes. Only a small part of Lemurian
humanity was capable of further development. From this part the Atlanteans
were formed.
Later, something similar again took place. The greatest part of the
Atlantean population declined, and from a small portion are descended the
so-called Aryans who comprise present-day civilized humanity. According to
the nomenclature of the science of the spirit, the Lemurians, Atlanteans and
Aryans are root races of mankind. If one imagines that two such root races
preceded the Lemurians and that two will succeed the Aryans in the future,
one obtains a total of seven. One always arises from another in the manner
just indicated with respect to the Lemurians, Atlanteans, and Aryans. Each
root race has physical and mental characteristics which are quite different
from those of the preceding one. While, for example, the Atlanteans
especially developed memory and everything connected with it, at the present
time it is the task of the Aryans to develop the faculty of thought and all
that belongs to it.
In each root race various stages must also be gone through. There are always
seven of these. In the beginning of a period identified with a root race,
its principal characteristics are in a youthful condition; slowly they
attain maturity and finally enter a decline. The population of a root race
is thereby divided into seven sub-races. But one must not imagine that one
subrace immediately disappears when a new one develops. Each one may
maintain itself for a long time while others are developing beside it. Thus
there are always populations which show different stages of development
living beside each other on earth.î (Steiner 1909: Cosmic Memory pp. 32-33)
ìWe are within the great Root Race of humanity that has peopled the earth
since the land on which we now live rose up out of the inundations of the
ocean. Ever since the Atlantean Race began slowly to disappear, the great
Aryan Race has been the dominant one on earth. If we contemplate ourselves,
we here in Europe are thus the fifth Sub-Race of the great Aryan Root Race.î
(Steiner 1905: The Temple Legend p. 201)
ìThe person belongs to a family, a nation, a race; his activity in this
world depends upon his belonging to some such community. His individual
character is also connected with it. The conscious activity of individual
persons by no means exhausts everything to be reckoned with in a family, a
nation, or a race. Besides their character, families, nations, and races
have also their destiny. For persons restricted to their senses these things
remain mere general ideas; and the materialistic thinker, in his prejudice,
will look down with contempt on the spiritual scientist when he hears that
for him, family and national character, lineal or racial destiny, are vested
in beings just as real as the personality in which the character and destiny
of the individual man are vested. The spiritual scientist becomes acquainted
with higher worlds of which the separate personalities are members, just as
arms and legs are members of the human being. Besides the separate
individuals, a very real family and national group soul and racial spirit is
at work in the life of a family, a people, or a race. Indeed, in a certain
sense the separate individuals are merely the executive organs of these
family group souls, racial spirits, and so on. It is nothing but the truth
to say, for instance, that a national group soul makes use of each
individual man belonging to that nation for the execution of some work. The
group soul of a people does not descend into physical reality but dwells in
the higher worlds and, in order to work in the physical world, makes use of
the physical organs of each individual human being. In a higher sense, it is
like an architect making use of workmen for executing the details of a
building. In the truest sense, everyone receives his allotted task from his
family, national, or racial group soul. Now, the ordinary person is by no
means initiated into the higher design of his work. He joins unconsciously
in the tasks of his people and of his race. From the moment the student
meets the Guardian, he must not only know his own tasks, but must knowingly
collaborate in those of his folk, his race. Every extension of his horizon
necessarily enlarges the scope of his duties. What actually happens is that
the student adds a new body to his finer soul-body. He puts on a second
garment. Hitherto he found his way through the world with the coverings
enveloping his personality; and what he had to accomplish for his community,
his nation, his race, was directed by higher spirits who made use of his
personality.î (Steiner 1905: Knowledge of Higher Worlds pp. 197-199)
ìFor peoples and races are but steps leading to pure humanity. A race or a
nation stands so much the higher, the more perfectly its members express the
pure, ideal human type, the further they have worked their way from the
physical and perishable to the supersensible and imperishable. The evolution
of man through the incarnations in ever higher national and racial forms is
thus a process of liberation. Man must finally appear in harmonious
perfection.î (ibid. p. 207)
ìWhen one who with spiritual vision can review the course of time has passed
back through the ages we have considered, the Graeco-Roman, the
Babylonian-Egyptian, the ancient Persian and the ancient Indian and beyond
the time of the great flood, he comes into the Atlantean epoch. We need not
now consider it in detail but we must at least understand how this Atlantean
civilization passed over into our own. There, too, the greater part of the
Atlantean population was not sufficiently mature to develop further, it was
incapable of coming over into our epoch. A smaller part, living in a region
near to our present Ireland, developed to the highest flower of the
civilization of Atlantis and then journeyed towards the East. We must
clearly understand that this was only the principal stream. There were
always peoples who emigrated from the West to the East, and all the later
peoples of Europe, of northern and central Europe, proceeded from the stream
which then went from the West to the East. Now that most advanced part of
the Atlantean population was under the guidance of a great leader of
humanity and eventually settled down as a very small tribe of chosen
individuals in Central Asia. From this point the colonists migrated to the
various regions of civilization mentioned, to ancient India, to Persia,
Egypt, Greece, etc.
You might now be inclined to say: Is it not an extremely bitter thought that
whole bodies of peoples remain immature and do not develop their capacities;
that only a small group becomes capable of providing the germ for the next
civilization? This thought will no longer disquiet you if you distinguish
between race-development and individual soul-development, for no soul is
condemned to remain in one particular race. The race may fall behind; the
community of people may remain backward, but the souls progress beyond the
several races. If we wish to form a true conception of this we must say that
all the souls now living in bodies in civilized countries were formerly
incarnated in Atlantean bodies. A few developed there in the requisite
manner, and did not remain in Atlantean bodies. As they had developed
further they could become the souls of the bodies which had also progressed
further. Only the souls which as souls had remained backward had to take
bodies which as bodies had remained at a lower stage. If all the souls had
progressed, the backward races would either have decreased very much in
population, or the bodies would be occupied by newly incoming souls at a low
stage of development. For there are always souls which can inhabit backward
bodies. No soul is bound to a backward body if it does not bind itself to
it.
The relation between soul-development and race-development is preserved to
us in a wonderful myth. Let us imagine race following race, civilization
following civilization. The soul going through its earth mission in the
right way is incarnated in a certain race; it strives upward in this race,
and acquires the capacities of this race in order next time to be incarnated
in a higher one. Only the souls which sink in the race and do not work out
of the physical materiality, are held back in the race by their own weight,
as one might say. They appear a second time in the same race and eventually
a third time in bodies in similarly formed races. Such souls hold back the
bodies of the race. This has been wonderfully described in a legend. We
know, indeed, that man progresses further in the fulfillment of the mission
of the earth by following the great Leaders of humanity who point out the
goals to be attained; if he rejects them, if he does not follow them, he
must remain behind with his race, for he cannot then get beyond it. Let us
think of a personality who has the good fortune to meet a great Leader of
humanity, let us suppose such a personality confronting Christ Jesus
himself, for example; he sees how all his deeds are evidence for leading
humanity forward, but he will have nothing to do with this progress, he
rejects the Leader of humanity. Such a personality, such a soul would be
condemned to remain in the race. If we follow this thought to its conclusion
such a soul would have to appear again and again in the same race, and we
have the legend of Ahasuerus who had to appear in the same race again and
again because he rejected Christ Jesus. Great truths concerning the
evolution of humanity are placed before us in such a legend as this."
(Steiner 1908: The Apocalypse of St. John pp. 79-81)
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Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 17:18:54 -0500
From: "Peter Staudenmaier" (pstaud hotmail.com)
Subject: readings for seminar presentation (II)
(Here's the second part. - Peter)
II. Jews and Judaism
As the above revival of the antisemitic myth of Ahasver indicates, Steiner
did not shy away from writing Jews into his arcane theory of racial progress
and decline. The precise place of Jews within the root race theory, however,
remains obscure. Indeed Steinerís views on Jews and Jewishness shifted
significantly over time. At the risk of simplification, I have categorized
these shifts into three periods:
1. Pan-German antisemitism, 1880ís ñ 1890ís
2. Philosemitism and opposition to Zionism, 1897-1901
3. Anthroposophical antisemitism, 1902-1925
The one constant throughout these contrary phases was Steinerís commitment
to a radical version of assimilation; his hope was ìthat Jewry as a people
would simply cease to exist.î (For background on the differences between
gentile and Jewish understandings of assimilation in Steinerís day, see the
suggestions for further reading below.)
1. Pan-German antisemitism
The young Steiner was an active member of the pan-German (deutschnational)
movement in Austria-Hungary. During this time he edited a pan-German
newspaper in Vienna, the Deutsche Wochenschrift, and in 1888 published in
its pages his defense of the antisemitic satire Homunkulus by Austro-German
nationalist author Robert Hamerling. There Steiner wrote:
"It certainly cannot be denied that Jewry today still behaves as a closed
totality, and as such it has frequently intervened in the development of our
current state of affairs in a way that is anything but favorable to European
ideas of culture. But Jewry itself has long since outlived its time; it has
no more justification within the modern life of peoples, and the fact that
it continues to exist is a mistake of world history whose consequences are
unavoidable. We do not mean the forms of the Jewish religion alone, but
above all the spirit of Jewry, the Jewish way of thinking." (Steiner 1888:
Gesammelte Aufs”tze zur Literatur p. 152)
Decades later, near the end of his life, Steiner (who never considered
himself an antisemite) recalled this essay and its effect on a Jewish family
whose son he tutored:
ìThe family was Jewish. In their views they were quite free from any
sectarian or racial narrowness, but the head of the family, to whom I was
deeply attached, felt a certain sensitiveness to any expression by a Gentile
in regard to the Jews. The flame of anti-Semitism which had sprung up at
that time had caused this feeling. Now, I took an active part in the
struggle which the Germans in Austria were then carrying on in behalf of
their national existence. I was also led to occupy myself with the
historical and the social position of the Jews. Especially earnest did this
activity of mine become after the appearance of Hamerling's Homunculus. This
eminent German poet was considered by a great part of the journalists as an
anti-Semite on account of this work; indeed, he was claimed by the German
national anti-Semites as one of their own. This disturbed me very little;
but I wrote a paper on the Homunculus in which, as I thought, I expressed
myself quite objectively in regard to the Jews. The man in whose home I
lived, and who was my friend, took this to be a special form of
anti-Semitism. Not in the least did his friendly feeling for me suffer on
that account, but he was affected with a profound distress. When he had read
the paper, he faced me, his heart torn by innermost sorrow, and said to me:
ìWhat you wrote in this in regard to the Jews cannot be explained in a
friendly sense; but this is not what hurts me, but the fact that you could
have had the experiences in regard to us which induced you to write thus
only through your close relationship with us and our friends.î He was
mistaken: for I had formed my opinions altogether from a spiritual and
historic survey; nothing personal had entered into my judgment. He could not
see the thing in this way. His reply to my explanations was: ìNo, the man
who teaches my children is, after this paper, no ëfriend of the Jews.íî He
could not be induced to change. Not for a moment did he think that my
relationship to the family ought to be altered. This he looked upon as
something necessary. Still less could I make this matter the occasion for a
change; for I looked upon the teaching of his sons as a task which destiny
had brought to me. But neither of us could do otherwise than think that a
tragic thread had been woven into this relationship. To all this was added
the fact that many of my friends had taken on from their national struggle a
tinge of anti-Semitism in their view of the Jews. They did not view
sympathetically my holding a post in a Jewish family; and the head of this
family saw in my friendly mingling with such persons only a confirmation of
the impression which he had received from my paper.î (Steiner 1925: The
Course of My Life pp. 142-143)
2. Philosemitism and critique of Zionism
By the late 1890ís, when he moved to Berlin, Steinerís worldview had taken
on a peculiar mix of Idealist, Romantic, individualist, and anti-clerical
tones, under the influence of Fichte, Nietzsche, Stirner, and Haeckel. It is
from this transitional period that his denunciations of political
antisemitism stem: he took the right side in the Dreyfus affair (albeit
largely out of hostility to the French republic), and for a brief time in
1901 wrote a number of articles for the newsletter of the Verein zur Abwehr
des Antisemitismus (Association Against Antisemitism). At the same time,
however, Steiner was an early and energetic critic of the Zionist movement
in Central Europe, and in the course of his polemics against Zionism he
frequently downplayed the threat of organized antisemitism. Here are several
passages from this conflicted period:
ìActual antisemitism is not the cause of this Jewish hypersensitivity, but
rather the false image of the anti-Jewish movement invented by overwrought
imaginations. Anyone who has dealt with Jews knows how deep runs the
tendency to create such an image, even among the best members of their
nation. Mistrust toward non-Jews has completely taken over their souls. [. .
.] I consider the antisemites to be harmless people. The best of them are
like children. They want something to blame for their woes. [. . .] Much
worse than the antisemites are the heartless leaders of the Jews who are
tired of Europe, Herzl and Nordau. They exaggerate an unpleasant
childishness into a world-historical trend; they pretend that a harmless
squabble is a terrible roar of cannons. They are seducers and tempters of
their people.î (Steiner 1897: Gesammelte Aufs”tze zur Kultur- und
Zeitgeschichte pp. 198-200)
ìFor me there has never been a Jewish question. My course of development was
such that when part of the nationalist student movement in Austria became
antisemitic, this seemed to me a mockery of all the educational achievements
of modern times. I have never been able to judge people by anything other
than their individual, personal character traits. Whether someone was a Jew
or not was always a matter of complete indifference to me. I can say that
this remains my opinion today. And I have never been able to see anything in
antisemitism other than intellectual inferiority, poor ethical judgement,
and lack of taste.î (Steiner 1900: ibid. pp. 378-379)
ìAntisemitism makes a mockery of all faith in ideas. Above all it flies in
the face of the idea that humanity stands higher than any single form
(people, race, nation) in which humankind appears. [. . .] Antisemitism is a
danger not only for the Jews, it is a danger for non-Jews as well. It
results from a mindset which does not take sound and honest judgement
seriously. It promotes this sort of mindset. And those who think
philosophically should not quietly stand by in the face of this. Faith in
ideas will only be restored if we combat the opposing lack of such faith in
all areas as energetically as possible.î (Steiner 1901: ibid. pp. 412- 413)
3. Anthroposophical antisemitism
Steinerís philosemitic phase soon reached an abrupt end. In 1902 Steiner
rather suddenly embraced Theosophy, the syncretistic occult doctrine, and
almost immediately became General Secretary of the German branch of the
Theosophical Society. He held this position for a decade, splitting off from
the Theosophical Society in 1913 to found his own brand of ìspiritual
scienceî, Anthroposophy. Classical Theosophy contained a virulent
antisemitic and racist strand, and Steiner adopted much of this strand into
Anthroposophy. For the mature Steiner, Jews were an atavistic leftover, an
evolutionary anachronism, marked by materialism, an abstract spirit, and
ethnic exclusiveness; they were the primary example of ìgroup-soulnessî or
lack of individuality in the modern world.
"People who listen to the great leaders of humankind, and preserve their
soul with its eternal essence, reincarnate in an advanced race; in the same
way he who ignores the great teacher, who rejects the great leader of
humankind, will always reincarnate in the same race, because he was only
able to develop the one form. This is the deeper meaning of Ahasver, who
must always reappear in the same form because he rejected the hand of the
greatest leader, Christ. Thus each person has the opportunity to become
caught up in the essence of one incarnation, to push away the leader of
humankind, or instead to undergo the transformation into higher races,
toward ever higher perfection. Races would never become decadent, never
decline, if there weren't souls that are unable to move up and unwilling to
move up to a higher racial form. Look at the races that have survived from
earlier eras: they only exist because some souls could not climb higher."
(Steiner 1908: Das Hereinwirken geistiger Wesenheiten in den Menschen p.
174)
ìNow, the conceptions that were dominant in the Old Testament, that must be
designated primarily as conceptions of Old Testament Judaism, and that took
their worldly form in Romanism, which is in the worldly sphere the same
thing as Judaism was in the spiritual sphere even though it is in opposition
to Judaism, have come over into our own epoch by way of Romanism; they haunt
our age in spectral forms. This Old Testament thinking, unpermeated by the
Christ, must be found in its true origin within the human being. We must ask
ourselves the question, ëUpon what forces does such thinking as that of the
Old Testament depend?í
This thinking depends upon what can be inherited with the blood from
generation to generation. The capacity to think in the manner characteristic
of the Old Testament is inherited with the blood in the succession of human
beings. What we inherit as capacities from our fathers through the simple
fact that we are born as human beings, that we were embryonic human beings
before our birth ñ what we inherit as the power of thinking, what lives in
our blood, is Old Testament thinking. Our thinking is made up of two
members, two parts. One part of our thinking consists in what we possess by
reason of our development up to our birth, what we inherit from our
forefathers or from our maternal ancestors. We are able to think in the Old
Testament way because we have been embryos. This was the essential
characteristic also of the ancient Jewish people that, in the world in which
we live between birth and death, they did not wish to learn anything in
addition to what the human being brings with him as a capacity because of
the fact that he was an embryo up to the time of his birth. The only way
that you can conceive of Old Testament thinking with real understanding is
to say to yourself, ëThis is the kind of thinking that we possess by reason
of the fact that we have been embryos.í
The kind of thinking that has been added to this is what we have to acquire
for ourselves in the course of our development beyond the embryonic period.
For the purposes of certain external needs man acquires a variety of
experiences, but he does not carry this process all the way to the
transformation of his thinking. Thus, even today Old Testament thinking
continues to exert its influence far more than is generally supposed.î
(Steiner 1918: The Challenge of the Times pp. 27-28)
"The instinct leading toward a mere Jehovah wisdom still extends into our
age as a remnant, tending toward the wisdom that depended upon what was
acquired during the embryonic life and is modified only by the unconscious
breathing process. The Jehovah wisdom requires a revelation in order to
enter our consciousness. This sufficed up to the time when the consciousness
soul had not yet evolved to a certain degree. Now, since the consciousness
soul has evolved to this degree, humanity cannot get along further with
Jehovah wisdom that is adapted to the breathing, but it is invariably true
that an effort is made to continue to get along with something that has
become insufficient according to inner necessities. Since, for the life
between birth and death, what is connected with the breathing remains
unconscious, the Jewish culture was a folk culture, not an individualized
culture of humanity. It was a folk culture in which everything is related to
the descent from a common tribal father. Jewish revelation is, in its
essential nature, a revelation adapted to the Jewish people, because it
takes account of what is acquired during the embryonic life and is modified
only through an unconscious element, the breathing process.
What is the result of this fact in our critical times? The result is that
those who will not become adherents of the Christ wisdom that brings into
the human being the other element, acquired during the life between birth
and death apart from the breathing process, wish to continue in their
relationship to the Jehovah wisdom and to have humanity established only on
the basis of folk cultures. The present clamor in favor of an organization
consisting of individuals from mere peoples is a retarded ahrimanic demand
for the establishment of such a culture, in which all the peoples represent
only folk cultures, that is, Old Testament cultures. The peoples in all
parts of the world are to become like the Jewish Old Testament people. This
is the demand of Woodrow Wilson.
We are here touching upon a most profound mystery, which will be unveiled in
the greatest variety of forms. A social element that is antisocial as
regards the whole of humanity and undertakes to base the social life upon
individual peoples alone is striving to come to manifestation as an
ahrimanic element. The cultural impulse of the Old Testament is to be
maintained in an ahrimanic form." (ibid. pp. 165-167)
Steinerís final statement on Jews and Judaism brings us full circle to his
early denial of the Jewsí right to exist. In a 1924 lecture titled ìVom
Wesen des Judentumsî (On the Essence of Jewry), one of Steinerís followers
asks him: ìHas the Jewish people fulfilled its mission within human
evolution?î Steiner answers that it has, and elaborates on this theme:
ìThus the greatest tragedy of this 20th century [World War I] has come from
what the Jews are also striving for. And one can say that since everything
the Jews have done can now be done consciously by all people, the best thing
that the Jews could do would be to disappear into the rest of humankind, to
blend in with the rest of humankind, so that Jewry as a people would simply
cease to exist. That is what would be ideal. This ideal is still opposed,
even today, by many Jewish habits ñ and above all by the hatred of other
people. That is what must be overcome.î (Steiner 1924: Die Geschichte der
Menschheit und die Weltanschauungen der Kulturv–lker p. 189)
ìToday all aspects of the Jews are dominated by racial qualities. Above all
they marry among themselves. They see the racial qualities, not the
spiritual. And this is what must be said in reply to the question: has the
Jewish people fulfilled its mission within the evolution of human knowledge?
It has fulfilled it; for in earlier times one single people was needed to
bring about a certain monotheism. But today spiritual insight itself is
necessary. Therefore this mission has been fulfilled. And therefore this
Jewish mission as such, as a Jewish mission, is no longer necessary in
evolution; instead the only proper thing would be for the Jews to blend in
with the other peoples and disappear into the other peoples.î (ibid. p. 190)
III. Further reading suggestions (all of these recommended texts can be
found either online or in the Memorial library.)
On Steiner and Anthroposophy: Many of Steinerís writings can be accessed in
English translation at the online Rudolf Steiner Archive:
www.elib.com/Steiner/
For an overview of Steinerís racial theories in his own words, see Rudolf
Steiner, The Mission of the Individual Folk Souls in Relation to Teutonic
Mythology
Anthroposophist accounts: For an English translation of a (very long) recent
article by three German anthroposophists addressing the question "Was Rudolf
Steiner an Antisemite?î see www.waldorfschule.info/aktuell/anti.pdf
(An unabashed apologia, similar to the piece by Nesfield-Cookson.)
A much shorter English summary of this article can be found here:
www.waldorfschule.info/aktuell/raveng.htm
Gerard Kerkvliet, ìRudolf Steiner recognized as opponent of anti-Semitism
and nationalismî (summary of an exculpatory report by Dutch
anthroposophists) available here:
www.info3.de/English/e-0400report.html
For background on the role of Blavatskyís Theosophy in German-speaking
Europe, see: George Mosse, ìThe Occult Origins of National Socialismî in
Mosse, The Fascist Revolution; Jeffrey Goldstein, ìOn Racism and
Anti-Semitism in Occultism and Nazismî Yad Vashem Studies 13 (1979);
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism; on Steinerís
relationship to the v–lkisch movement, see James Webb, The Occult
Establishment
For those who read German: Julia Iwersen, ìRudolf Steiner: Anthroposophie
und Antisemitismus. Zu einer wenig bekannten Spielart des christlichen
Antisemitismusî Babylon 16/17 (1996); Ludwig Thieben, Das R”tsel des
Judentums (1931 book on ìthe mystery of Jewryî by a student of Steinerís;
Thieben was sort of an anthroposophical Otto Weininger); Puschner, Schmitz,
and Ulbricht, Handbuch zur ëV–lkischen Bewegungí (see index for references
to Steiner, and see Helmut Zanderís essay in particular).
For background on the complex and contested meanings of assimilation in the
context of Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany, see any of the following: Jacob
Katz, Emancipation and Assimilation; Uriel Tal, Christians and Jews in
Germany; Donald Niewyk, The Jews in Weimar Germany; Ismar Schorsch, Jewish
Reactions to German Antisemitism; Hans-Joachim Salecker, Der Liberalismus
und die Erfahrung der Differenz: Ðber die Bedingungen der Integration der
Juden in Deutschland; Michael Brenner, ìZur Ambivalenz des Philosemitismus
im Kaiserreichî Jahrbuch f¸r Antisemitismusforschung 2 (1993); Christian
Wiese, Wissenschaft des Judentums und protestantische Theologie im
wilhelminischen Deutschland
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End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1034
-- Topica Digest --
Re: readings for seminar presentation (II)
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Re: Steiner on racial progress
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Re: readings for seminar presentation (II)
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Re: Steiner on racial progress
By pstaud hotmail.com
Re: readings for seminar presentation (II)
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By Willow.Firesong creative-interweb.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 07:59:02 -0400
From: mysplum (mysplum earthlink.net)
Subject: Re: readings for seminar presentation (II)
on 5/1/03 6:18 PM, Peter Staudenmaier at pstaud hotmail.com wrote:
) (Here's the second part. - Peter)
Sharon: That's a heck of a lot of work Peter-- years of study congealed!
Valuable. Thanks!
Steiner: Especially earnest did this
activity of mine become after the appearance of Hamerling's Homunculus. This
eminent German poet was considered by a great part of the journalists as an
anti-Semite on account of this work; indeed, he was claimed by the German
national anti-Semites as one of their own. This disturbed me very little;
but I wrote a paper on the Homunculus in which, as I thought, I expressed
myself quite objectively in regard to the Jews. The man in whose home I
lived, and who was my friend, took this to be a special form of
anti-Semitism. Not in the least did his friendly feeling for me suffer on
that account, but he was affected with a profound distress. When he had read
the paper, he faced me, his heart torn by innermost sorrow, and said to me:
ìWhat you wrote in this in regard to the Jews cannot be explained in a
friendly sense; but this is not what hurts me, but the fact that you could
have had the experiences in regard to us which induced you to write thus
only through your close relationship with us and our friends.î He was
mistaken: for I had formed my opinions altogether from a spiritual and
historic survey; nothing personal had entered into my judgment. He could not
see the thing in this way. His reply to my explanations was: ìNo, the man
who teaches my children is, after this paper, no ëfriend of the Jews.íî He
could not be induced to change. Not for a moment did he think that my
relationship to the family ought to be altered. This he looked upon as
something necessary.
Sharon: Whew, this passage always gets to me, it hits close to home. When I
left Waldorf, and started reading Steiner...then started speaking out about
his racism/anti-Semitism and Anthroposophist's denial of history, an old
Anthroposophist at our ex-school, sent me through the mail, a letter and her
old Waldorf graduation book full of photos of the graduates. Her point was
proof that Jews attended her school. I was supposed to look through and find
the Jewish names. Her letter to me used the example above as proof that
Steiner was embracing of Jews! It's interesting to see the three stages of
Steiner's beliefs about Jews that you have pinpointed, and to note that in
1924, a year before he died, Steiner was a full blown anti-Semite.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 08:33:10 -0400
From: mysplum (mysplum earthlink.net)
Subject: Re: Steiner on racial progress
on 4/26/03 6:16 PM, Peter Staudenmaier at pstaud hotmail.com wrote:
) Hi Sharon,
)
)
)) Sharon: Peter do you know when, where and why the Ahasver myth first
)) appeared? I'm still trying to find the Theosophist's source for this
)) nonsense.
)
)
) I don't know when it first appeared, but it had become a common element in
) European folk legends by the 17th century, and was especially popular in
) France and German-speaking central Europe in the 19th century. Already by
) the mid-1800's bibliographies were published listing the various
) permutations of the myth. Goethe drew upon the legend, and it may be that
) Steiner's immediate source was Goethe, but it seems more likely to me that
) Steiner picked it up from the general cultural currency the legend enjoyed
) in Germany at the time. As for the "why", the myth of Ahasver (sometimes
) rendered Ahasuerus in English) probably served an important function in
) bridging older christian anti-judaism with the emerging racial thinking. In
) the version that Steiner repeatedly invoked, the myth combines longstanding
) religiously based prejudices against Jews with more modern notions of racial
) identity, rootlessness, and evolutionary progress. There are a number of
) studies of the topic available, and when I get a chance next week I'll try
) to look through some of them and see what I can find in the way of
) background material.
)
) Peter S.
Sharon: Thanks Peter. Last night I watched the history channel which was
airing a documentary on Hitler. I learned that Rudolph Hess, (the chief
protector of Anthroposophy until 1941 in Nazi Germany) actually transcribed
Mein Kampf for Hitler while they were in prison together. I also learned
about a monk--his name began with Lieber..., unfortunately I didn't catch it
fast enough and will have to go to the library to find out--who Hitler would
visit in Central Europe before he rose to power. The papers the monk wrote
extolled the virtues of blondes and blue eyed people. The reason I'm
interested in this monk is because Steiner often waxes on about "lonely
mystery schools" in "Central Europe", and since Steiner preached the same
sort of doctrine as the monk did, I'm wondering if he also visited this
monk? Have you ever found any evidence that shows where Steiner might have
picked up his blond/blue-eyed doctrine? (I realize that these ideas were
pervasive in Germany at the time, but was intrigued to learn that this stuff
can be traced to this particular monk). Unfortunately, I don't know
Steiner's mystery school contacts because he doesn't divulge names in the
sources I have, in fact he says he visited one mystery school while on a
journey in the spiritual world (G) so I don't have anything concrete. I'm
just wondering if this monk was indeed the original source for these
particular ideas and if there is any evidence that suggests Steiner was
personally in contact with such a source, it would be an interesting thing
to trace.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 08:58:20 -0400
From: mysplum (mysplum earthlink.net)
Subject: Re: readings for seminar presentation (II)
Sharon: Peter have you see the latest spread on Steiner in Utne Reader? I'm
still trying to find a copy but I hear the Anthros have paid for a huge
spread (no doubt pro-SWA advertising). I'm itching to see it.
I also heard that Mother Jones was advertising $30 million in grants for
people wanting to start Anthro. initiatives, though I haven't verified this
yet.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 12:26:22 -0500
From: "Peter Staudenmaier" (pstaud hotmail.com)
Subject: Re: Steiner on racial progress
Hi Sharon,
I'm in a bit of a rush today so I can't go into detail yet, but it sounds
like the monk mentioned in the documentary was Joerg Lanz von Liebenfels,
one of the two leading Ariosophists in Steiner's day (at least that's my
best guess). If so, I would be cautious about the claim that Hitler had
direct personal contact with him, although there is very compelling evidence
that the young Hitler read Liebenfels's ariosophical pamphlets and was
acquainted with his theories. This is one of those topics that sometimes
attracts more attention than it deserves, and a number of widely held
beliefs about it are at best unsubstantiated, in my view; but it is a very
important link between theosophical versions of racial thinking and Nazism.
I've got a couple of busy days coming up, but I will try to pull together
some of the more responsible scholarship on this connection and post about
it soon. Probably the best single source is Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's book
The Occult Roots of Nazism. As for Steiner's connection to the Ariosophists:
the two offshoots of Theosophy viewed one another as competitors, and
Steiner had little good to say about Lanz von Liebenfels, and vice-versa. My
view is that neither of them directly influenced the other to any important
extent, but that their respective doctrines had substantial similarities
because both grew straight out of theosophical teachings. There was also a
certain overlap in their followers. I'll also try to post more on that
complicated relationship soon.
Peter S.
)Sharon: Thanks Peter. Last night I watched the history channel which was
)airing a documentary on Hitler. I learned that Rudolph Hess, (the chief
)protector of Anthroposophy until 1941 in Nazi Germany) actually transcribed
)Mein Kampf for Hitler while they were in prison together. I also learned
)about a monk--his name began with Lieber..., unfortunately I didn't catch
)it
)fast enough and will have to go to the library to find out--who Hitler
)would
)visit in Central Europe before he rose to power. The papers the monk wrote
)extolled the virtues of blondes and blue eyed people. The reason I'm
)interested in this monk is because Steiner often waxes on about "lonely
)mystery schools" in "Central Europe", and since Steiner preached the same
)sort of doctrine as the monk did, I'm wondering if he also visited this
)monk? Have you ever found any evidence that shows where Steiner might have
)picked up his blond/blue-eyed doctrine? (I realize that these ideas were
)pervasive in Germany at the time, but was intrigued to learn that this
)stuff
)can be traced to this particular monk). Unfortunately, I don't know
)Steiner's mystery school contacts because he doesn't divulge names in the
)sources I have, in fact he says he visited one mystery school while on a
)journey in the spiritual world (G) so I don't have anything concrete. I'm
)just wondering if this monk was indeed the original source for these
)particular ideas and if there is any evidence that suggests Steiner was
)personally in contact with such a source, it would be an interesting thing
)to trace.
)
_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 14:31:19 -0700
From: walden (awaldenpond shaw.ca)
Subject: Re: readings for seminar presentation (II)
Peter S.,
Just a quick note to say thanks for posting this. It is very helpful. I
would also appreciate any feedback from learned Anthroposophic list
members. Communication is so important in any serious study. Thanks.
-Walden
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 18:50:43 +0930
From: Willow Firesong (Willow.Firesong creative-interweb.com)
Subject: mostly OT: my long absence, and the idea of a second list
For those who are interested, my time away from the lists has been dictated
by the fact that I have had a very severe fever for four months. I am only
just getting over it.
One of the primary symptoms was body-wide spasms, and a near complete
inability to type. Whenever I typed, I suffered extreme pain, both during
and after. As you can guess, as a house-bound individual who communicates
almost exclusively through the Internet, this was one of the worst possible
things that could have happened to me. I am now finally beginning to get
over it, as I mentioned, but I am still very limited in my ability to type
for very long at all. In response to this, I have converted over to voice
recognition software. This has greatly helped my ability to recover, and
for this I am very grateful; it is also addressing some long-term health
and recovery issues, as even without the spasm problem, I have health
problems which cause my muscles to tear easily, and cause other forms of
damage to occur when I type for very long.
For those who were interested in the concept of a secondary list, I wish
you to know that I did not forget about it, but believe that the purpose
was served by the creation of OpenWaldorf.com - and I do not have the
health at this time to pursue the matter further at this time.
I will probably not be participating intensively in these lists until such
time as I am fully recovered from this fever, which, considering its
severity, may be quite a while. It sucks having no immune system, or one
that has been highly damaged, or one which began that way. (For those who
are interested, there is a chromosome involved in the immune system which
is unusually light in 70 percent of those individuals who have my
condition; for those who have this trait, this causes us to have extreme
difficulty in fighting off infectious diseases, due to a defect in the
manufacture of the RNASE protein. A far cry from Steiner and his theory of
Karma as an explanation for our lack of health, blaming it on either our
past lives or our present use of our intelligence-- a convenient
explanation for why he discouraged his followers from the studies which
might have easily disproven his much-vaunted claims.)
I have not changed my views, either on the importance of science and making
use of our intelligence, and encouraging our children to do the same, or on
the causes of my health problems. I certainly have not changed my views on
the wisdom of sending any child, but particularly a gifted child or one
with health problems, to a Waldorf/Steiner school - in all but a few
exceptional cases, I consider it to be a form of child abuse at worst, and
at best, detrimental to the very children it is supposed to benefit.
To all, regardless of your point of view on this issue, my best wishes for
a healthy future,
Willow Firesong
---
A belief is a conclusion to which one subscribes strongly: "Our belief in
any particular natural law cannot have a safer basis than our unsuccessful
critical attempts to refute it" (Karl Popper).
------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how
basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1035
-- Topica Digest --
Re: mostly OT: my long absence, and the idea of a second list
By nmfoss hotmail.com
RE: Needed: List of questions to ask a school
By snell gv.net
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 12:21:41 +0000
From: "Nicole Foss" (nmfoss hotmail.com)
Subject: Re: mostly OT: my long absence, and the idea of a second list
I'm glad to hear you're on the mend Willow, and I hope the voice recognition
software gives you more freedom. I've missed your contributions over the
last while. Best wishes for good health.
Nicole
_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 May 2003 21:20:17 +0000
From: (snell gv.net)
Subject: RE: Needed: List of questions to ask a school
Lisa D. Ercolano wrote:
)
) Sometime back, I posted a list of questions that we critics recommend
) people
) ask when they are considering enrolling their child/ren in a Waldorf
) school.
)
) If anyone has that list, could you please send it to me offlist? Or else
) post it onlist, and we can discuss them. Perhaps there are some new
) questions we should add.
)
) Thanks!
)
) Lisa Ercolano
Debra:
Wow! I have been unable to get posts from this list for eons. Hopefully
I can stay subscribed this time.
Is this the one you are thinking about? Also, there is an excellent and
printable Waldorf school question list at http://www.openwaldorf.com
Michael Kopp wrote:
One major criticism is paramount: some critics allege that SWA does not
properly disclose its true nature to prospective customers; I am one of
those who feels duped before enrolling.
To answer these questions and suggest a remedy to this alleged false
advertising by SWA, several critics have expressed what they would have
liked to know before they enrolled; and one person, Dan Saykaly, has
written a proposed "full disclosure" document.
One such post (from me, Michael Kopp), and Mr Saykaly's document, are
reproduced below for the benefit of new readers.
As far as we know, no SWA school anywhere gives parents any such
document
that comes close to the fullness of disclosure critics seek, although
there
are apparently some schools which have lesser documents.
Except for generally pooh-poohing the need, tone, and spcecificity of
the
proposed disclosure document, no SWA defenders or apologists have
successfully argued that there is anything substantively inaccurate in
this
description of SWA.
Recently, I also suggested that there should be an international code of
conduct of the SWA movement and its various associations and parts,
which
specifies exactly what any school that uses the names Steiner, Waldorf
or
Anthroposophy must tell parents before they enroll. This idea was
rejected
by SWA defenders as impracticable because of the "autonomy" of SWA
schools
world-wide.
Yet the name "Waldorf" is, in the United States, trademarked, and only
schools which adhere to the Association of Waldorf Schools of North
America
may call themselves "Waldorf" schools (though the movement is using the
name Waldorf with qualifications in the names of public and charter
schools
into which it has injected itself). There are such national Steiner,
Waldorf or Anthroposophical associations in other countries, including
New
Zealand.
Finally, it is obvious from the similarities between SWA curricula
around
the world that there IS enough international `guidance' (I prefer the
term
"dogma") to make disclosure realisable if it was desired by the SWA
movement.
I suggest it IS NOT desired, because it would lead to many people NOT
choosing an SWA eduation for their children, and expose the SWA mumbo
jumbo
for what it is.
Cheers from Godzone,
Michael Kopp
Wellington, New Zealand
---------------------------------------------------------
My [Kopp's] original posts were as follows:
=========================================================
I'll try to be constructive. Some things I would have liked to have
known:
That Steiner/Anthroposophy child development theory is based on a belief
in
reincarnation, and the belief that various spiritual growth stages are
the
result of spiritual forces "incarnating" in children at various stages
of
life.
I wish I'd known that Anthroposophists and Steiner people like to have
philosophical discussions (obviously built around a belief in
reincarnation) which have themes like the following:
'...incarnating with the wrong parents...'
Now it seems to me that I probably would not have been particularly
interested in having my children taught by people who believe that my
children might have somehow picked (or had picked for them) the wrong
set
of parents.
That some of the Steiner science curriculum is apparently based on
something called "spiritual science" which is not like the science that
I
learned and believe in as an intellectual pursuit. I have since read the
Anthrosophical Science list and find most of it mystical mumbo-jumbo.
"The
heart is not a pump" is an example my kids have brought home.
That much Steiner science is based on the ideas of Steiner following
Goethe; and that many scientific ideas of both, which the science world
I
am a part of has rejected, are taught in the classroom as being equally
valid to Newtonian physics.
That many Steiner teachers -- I cannot say if this is because it comes
from
the canon of Anthroposophy or Anthroposophical Science or some wierdness
--
believe that the "ancients" had powers and knowledge lost to us, such as
alchemy, and that they will tell the children they believe in these
things.
That much of the "religious study" that is used in the classroom as a
vehicle for studying ancient "history" is of religio/spiritual ideas
that
are found in Anthroposophy, and which are a very narrow vehicle for
understanding history, in my opinion. This is especially so when there
is
no comparative study, no framework for the study, no interpretation, no
study of religious metaphor, nothing to relate the development of
religions
to the development of civilisation, and no critical questioning, but
simply
repition of the religious myths. By class ten I would expect these
aspects
to be coming to the fore.
That Anthroposophy is not "Christian-centred", but occult-based.
--------------------------------------------------------------
I reproduce below (excerpted, but not substantively altered) Dan
Saykalay's
proposed disclosure document. The original post may be found in the
archives under the header:
From: dsaykaly interlink.net (Daniel Saykaly)
Subject: Informing parents/"Miranda rights"
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 19:33:02 -0500
)=============================================================
) "Informing new parents about Waldorf and Anthroposophy"
)=============================================================
)
)
)"Anthroposophy is a philosophy of life and of man's spiritual role in
)the
evolution of the cosmos. Its core teachings are reincarnation and
karma,
and it teaches the existence of higher worlds and higher beings who
created
our world. It also teaches the relationship of humanity to these higher
worlds and beings. Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman three of the most
important
of these spiritual beings. Anthroposophy teaches that the cosmos is in
constant evolution, and that humans have evolved and will continue to
evolve
individually over many lives. Anthroposophy teaches that man existed as
a
spiritual being before the beginning of the world, and that his
evolution on
earth goes back to (and precedes) the lost continent of Atlantis; that
his
evolution has continued up through the various races (red, black, brown,
yellow and white) of mankind, towards newer, higher forms of humanity
still
to come. Although Anthroposophy believes that certain races are more
spiritually mature than others, it also teaches that most individual
souls
reincarnate in the various races on their way to greater enlightenment,
and
we therefore believe that there is no racism inherent in our philosophy.
People of all races are welcome to the school.
)
)"Anthroposophy was founded by Rudolf Steiner, whom we as
)Anthroposophists
revere as a great thinker, scientist and philosopher. We are convinced
that
Dr. Steiner had the ability to see into and investigate the higher
spiritual
(nonphysical) worlds. He taught a spiritual discipline that we are
convinced
permits individuals to attain such knowledge as well, and you yourself
may
be able to do so if you diligently apply yourself to practicing his
method.
)
)"Persons and reference books outside the Anthroposophic movement often
refer to Dr. Steiner as a 'mystic' and as 'the founder of a religion or
of a
religious movement', but we see him rather as a spiritual scientist
whose
spiritual research into the higher worlds permitted him to become an
authority on numerous important fields of human endeavor, including
education, medicine, dance, art and agriculture. While mainstream
authorities in our country may not accept his discoveries in these
fields at
this time, his teachings are finding a growing audience among persons
seeking alternatives to mainstream medicine, education and agricultural
techniques.
)
)"Waldorf Education (WE) was created by Dr. Steiner to provide a truly
complete education of the full human being. WE rejects an exclusively
academic, marks-driven approach to education present in many schools
today.
WE follows Dr. Steiner's indictions for an approach that progressively
educates the body, the imagination and the intellect of the child. The
goal
of Waldorf education is to develop complete human beings capable of
fulfilling their karmic destiny in this life and in future life cycles.
As
Dr. Steiner said, "We do not only educate the child for the age of
childhood, we educate him for his whole earthly existence, and even, as
we
shall see later, for the time beyond." (The Roots of Education).
)
)"Every aspect of the Waldorf school is inspired by the Anthroposophic
philosophy, and in this respect, it is fair to say that Waldorf
schooling is
indeed Anthroposophic schooling or Anthroposophically directed
schooling.
Anthroposophy itself is is _not_ taught to the children, since it is a
highly complex and demanding esoteric philosophy. However, WE aims to
raise
children according to the principles and values of Anthroposophy in
much
the same way that, for example, a Catholic school teaches elementary
students in accordance with the Catholic philosophy of life without
teaching them the complex theological concepts that inspire and direct
the
Catholic world view and approach to education.
)
)"All aspects of the school and its curriculum are Anthroposophically
directed and reflect the spiritual teachings of Anthroposophy. The
schooling
is very spiritually oriented. We consider this religious content - which
is
present in everything taught by the teachers - to be essentially
Christian
and non-sectarian, since we do not believe that Anthroposophy is a
religion,
but rather an esoteric spiritual philosophy. It should be noted, though,
that some persons outside the Anthroposophic movement consider
Anthroposophy
a religious movement and Waldorf Eduction to be a form of sectarian
religious education. _We reject this idea, but leave it up to the parent
to
make up his or her mind on this issue._
)
)"Here are some examples of how Anthroposphy directs the curriculum and
)the
activities of the school:
)
)1) "The school believes your child has an eternal soul that has
)once
again reincarnated on earth; that he/she chose you to be his/her parent
before she/he incarnated on earth ; and that he/she has led you to
this
school as part of his/her karma in this lifetime.
)
)2) "The School won't teach your child to read before age 7 because
)it
believes that your child's etheric body - as distinct from his physical
body
- will only be born at age 7, and that your child would be damaged by a
too-early introduction to reading before the birth of his etheric body.
)
)3) "The school will avoid any abstract intellectual training for
)your
child until he or she is 14 because his/her astral body - as distinct
from
his/her physical and etheric bodies - will be born at that time,
permitting
him/her to think intellectually.
)
)4) "The school believes that changing this timetable and letting
)your
child read or think abstractly before the indicated ages will tend to
cause
serious health problems such as sclerosis in your child's later life.
)
)5) "The school believes that race, blood and temperament are
)extremely
important factors in understanding your child's deep being, karma and
potential. The school also believes that astrology, numerology and
phrenology are important and valid guides to our understanding, as
educators, of your child. The school's founder taught, and the school
accepts, that racial origin may be a key to your child's potential and
limitations. However, since the school believes that your child will
reincarnate many times in future, evolving each time, if things go well,
the
school does not think that this esoteric view of race and potential is
in
any way a prejudicial or racist concept. The school does acknowlege the
belief of its founder that some races are inherently more spiritually
childlike or mature than others. Some of our staff may agree with this
concept. Others may not. Nevertheless, we stress that our school is open
to
all races.
)
)6) "The school day starts with a verse/prayer being repeated every
morning. A candle is lit for this prayer/verse. An angel is placed on
the
table while the candle is lit. This ceremony represents the
Anthroposophic
deeply held devotion to and reverence for Christ in his role as the Sun
God,
and sets the spiritual tone for the day.
)
)7) "At Christmas, 4 angels are displayed in the classroom to
)represent
)the angels that Anthroposophy teaches govern the destinies of the
)different
races of mankind. Anthroposophy teaches that these angels do indeed
exist
and do indeed affect and guide the destinies of the different races.
)
)8) "There are four seasonal festivals celebrated at the school,
)each
representing an important aspect of Anthroposophic teaching. The
festival of
Michael, for example, celebrates the mighty Archangel Michael who,
Anthroposophy teaches, really exists and really rules over the present
age.
This present age of cosmic history began in 1879, at which same time,
the
Anthroposophic Society was created in the Spiritual Worlds in
preparation
for its incarnation on earth in the 20th century.
)
)9) "The school believes that WE is always developing, but must
)adhere
to certain guidelines to be true to its mission. It will not be willing
to
consider changes to this fundamental method which were laid down by the
founder of Anthroposophy. The school would request the departure of any
family attempting to bring about such changes over the objections of the
teachers.
)
)10) "The pedagogical and spiritual life of the school are solely in
)the
hands of the College of Teachers - a small group of more experienced
teachers, all of whom are fully committed both to WE and to
Anthroposophy.
There is no director. The teachers effectly run the school and are the
main
stakeholders in the school.
)
)11) "The College decides issues by consensus, a process recommended
)by
Dr. Steiner as more in keeping with the spiritual life of the school.
Parents can bring issues and problems to the College, but will not have
a
part in the decision making process. The consensus process is often
longer
and less clear than a voting system, but lies at the very heart of the
school's structure, which is modeled after Anthroposphy's vision of
society.
This model is spiritual and hierarchical, not secular and democratic.
Parents do not vote on issues of the school's pedagogical and spiritual
life.
)
------------------------------
==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how
basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1036
-- Topica Digest --
Anthroposophy and Ariosophy
By pstaud hotmail.com
Utne Reader anthro supplement
By pstaud hotmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 14:41:29 -0500
From: "Peter Staudenmaier" (pstaud hotmail.com)
Subject: Anthroposophy and Ariosophy
Hello critics,
Here is some more detail on the relationship between Steiner and other
denizens of the early 20th century occult-racist underground. Sharon's
question about the sources of Hitler's occult views, and whether some
anthroposophical doctrines derive from the same sources, raises a number of
interesting issues that I think are worth addressing carefully.
Among the earliest studies of Joerg Lanz von Liebenfels, the Austrian former
monk who coined the term "ariosophy", is Wilfried Daim's 1958 book Der Mann,
der Hitler die Ideen gab ("the man who gave Hitler his ideas"). It may be
that the documentary Sharon saw drew on this book (which was republished in
an updated edition in 1994) as one of its sources on Lanz von Liebenfels.
Daim's book is thoughtful and contains much useful material, but it is not
always reliable as history.
Daim interviewed Lanz von Liebenfels in 1951, and Lanz told Daim that Adolf
Hitler had visited Lanz in 1909 in the office of Lanz's periodical, Ostara.
Lanz's account of this visit was fairly detailed, and the details all check
out (that it, there were no obvious errors or inventions in light of what we
know about Hitler's Vienna period); and since Lanz would have had little
reason in 1951 to fabricate an association with Hitler, it is reasonable to
accept that this 1909 meeting actually took place.
More important, in my view, is the plausible evidence (based on testimony
from those who knew Hitler during his Vienna period) that the young Hitler
was an avid reader of Ostara, Lanz's ariosophical journal. It may be that
Ostara was among the antisemitic pamphlets that Hitler mentions in Mein
Kampf as having played a role in shaping his thinking while he lived in
Vienna before World War I.
The contents of Ostara, as well as Lanz's other ariosophical writings, are
the most hyperboliic sort of spiritual-racist fantasizing; they often read
like science fiction, but are presented as pure fact. Lanz von Liebenfels
himself was given to grandiose fantasies; even his name is an invention. He
was born (in 1874 in Vienna) Adolf Josef Lanz, and he realy did become a
monk for a time, joining the Cistercian order in 1893. He left the monastery
in 1899, and began to develop his abstruse racial-theological theories based
in part on Theosophy. He fabricated an aristocratic background, took on the
name Lanz von Liebenfels, and in 1907 founded a pseudo-aristocratic and
aggressively racist fellowship called the Order of the New Templars, which
adopted the swastika as its emblem.
Lanz von Liebenfels drew heavily on theosophical teachings, especially
Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine. He was also strongly influenced by Ernst
Haeckel's Monism. Thus his primary immediate sources were identical to
Rudolf Steiner's, and the two developed their respective variations on
Theosophy at the very same time and within very similar cultural contexts.
Consequently their accounts of racial evolution converge to a great extent:
both taught that the earlier root races of Lemurians and Atlanteans had
yielded racially superior as well as racially inferior groups, and that the
racially superior lineage had produced today's Aryans, while the inferior
lineages were devolving into animals.
Nevertheless, there is little evidence to suggest direct influence of Lanz
on Steiner or of Steiner on Lanz. Their similar remarks on the
interdependence of blonde hair, blue eyes, and intelligence, for example,
appear to derive from shared sources and shared cultural and intellectual
dispositions rather than from direct contact between ariosophy and
anthroposophy. Not that this sort of contact was unusual; in 1905, for
example, Steiner published a positive review of Lanz von Liebenfels' work by
another theosophist in the journal Luzifer-Gnosis, which Steiner edited. In
a subsequent issue he published his own remarks on the review, making it
clear that he considered Lanz von Liebenfels' views too materialistic; in
Steiner's eyes, Lanz had misread the classical theosophical writings on race
as referring to physical bodies, when in fact, according to Steiner, they
referred to astral bodies. At the same time, however, Steiner endorsed the
idea that the contrast between "higher and lower soul-life" played a
decisive role in these "mysteries" of racial evolution. (Steiner's article
is reprinted in GA 34, pp. 500-504)
In short, Steiner tried to distance himself from some aspects of ariosophy,
and the Viennese ariosophists were sometimes dismissive of Steiner. This
in-fighting did not, however, prevent a certain amount of crossover between
the two tendencies. Anthroposophy and Ariosophy represented the two chief
offshoots of Theosophy in German-speaking Europe, and they shared a number
of common adherents. Individuals who for a time bridged anthroposophy and
ariosophy include Karl Heise, Max Seiling, Harald Graevell, and Gregor
Schwartz-Bostunitsch.
The same can be said of the connections between theosophically derived
racial thinking and the early Nazi movement. I am skeptical of accounts that
trace Nazi racism primarily back to occult worldviews, ariosophical or
otherwise. I think the real story here is not so much which particular
marginal fanatic "gave Hitler his ideas", but what were the boundaries and
the contours of the shared worldview, the conceptual overlap that included
parts of ariosophy, parts of anthroposophy, and parts of early Nazism.
This connection is important because it helps us make sense of some of the
pecularities within both Nazism and early 20th century esoteric racism.
Latter-day fans of Steiner sometimes point out that lots of people held
racist views in Steiner's era (apparently implying that this somehow lets
anthroposophical racism off the hook), a claim that is trivially true and
irrelevant. The specific features of Steiner's racial theories sharply
distinguish those theories from the mainstream sorts of racism that abounded
in Steiner's day. Anthroposophical racial doctrines do, on the other hand,
closely resemble other occultist variants of racism like ariosophy, as well
as some versions of Nazi racial thinking.
Indeed the connections continue to this day. A number of far-right
distribution networks and publishing houses promote Steiner's books
alongside those of Lanz von Liebenfels, Blavatsky, and other Aryan
myth-makers; and contemporary conspiracy theorists draw freely on
anthroposophical as well as ariosophical sources. A few anthroposophists
consider Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg one of their spiritual comrades.
One last connection that I would like to mention brings us back to the
question of how to distinguish historically reliable narratives about Nazi
occultism from the flood of sensationalist literature on this same topic.
This distinction is especially crucial when dealing with anthroposophists,
who frequently promote refurbished versions of the same old occultist
nonsense about the Nazis. Over the last few years, this list has seen
repeated instances of this phenomenon, with anthroposophists declaring that
the rise of Nazism was the result of "black magic" and so forth. Tarjei
Straume was probably the foremost proponent of this line, and he was joined
by Dottie Zold and several others; while Terry Boardman and Sune Nordwall
preached variations on a similar theme. This indicates that much of the
anthroposophical movement today remains incapable of sorting out fact from
fantasy when it comes to the history of occultism, Nazism, and the
relationship between the two.
Alongside the work of Jean-Michel Angebert, Louis Pauwels, and Jacques
Bergier, which has done much to spread confusion on such questions, probably
the single most influential source of this kind is Trevor Ravenscroft's book
The Spear of Destiny, which is largely built around anthroposophical
beliefs. Devotees of Steiner have a lot of work to do to make up for the
obfuscations of their fellows.
As always, I would like to recommend the work of historian Nicholas
Goodrick-Clarke as an antidote to this sort of thinking. I have a number of
deep political differences with Goodrick-Clarke, but I consider his
scholarship top-notch. In particular, anyone interested in the connections
between Lanz von Liebenfels and Hitler should read the final chapter in
Goodrick-Clarke's book The Occult Roots of Nazism, as well as chapter six
("The Nazi Mysteries") in his latest book, Black Sun. In addition, there is
a worthwhile pamphlet on a similar topic by a colleague of
Goodrick-Clarke's, Hans Thomas Hakl, now available in English under the
title "Unknown Sources: National Socialism and the Occult". Hakl's pamphlet
is published by a less than reputable outfit, Holmes Publishing Group in
Washington state, but its contents are generally sound.
Peter Staudenmaier
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------------------------------
Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 14:50:16 -0500
From: "Peter Staudenmaier" (pstaud hotmail.com)
Subject: Utne Reader anthro supplement
Thanks to Sharon for bringing this to my attention. The latest issue of Utne
Magazine (the June 2003 issue, in bookstores now) includes an enormous fifty
page supplement on anthroposophy (see from page 96 onward), which is
"sponsored by Rudolf Steiner Foundation and Utne Magazine" and co-authored
by anthroposophist Christopher Bamford and Eric Utne, publisher of the
magazine. Critics, go out and get yourselves a copy.
Peter S.
)Sharon: Peter have you see the latest spread on Steiner in Utne Reader? I'm
)still trying to find a copy but I hear the Anthros have paid for a huge
)spread (no doubt pro-SWA advertising). I'm itching to see it.
)
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==^================================================================
You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how
basic. New threads are always welcome.
End of waldorf-critics topica.com digest, issue 1037
-- Topica Digest --
RE: Utne Reader anthro supplement
By diana.winters verizon.net
From a successful student
By waldorfcritics inxil.com
Re: From a successful student
By nmfoss hotmail.com
Re: From a successful student
By awaldenpond shaw.ca
Re: From a successful student
By waldorfcritics inxil.com
RE: From a successful student
By diana.winters verizon.net
Ariosophy
By Percedol netscape.net
Re: Ariosophy
By pstaud hotmail.com
Steiner on the Jews
By pstaud hotmail.com
Re: From a successful student
By mysplum earthlink.net
Re: Steiner on the Jews
By mysplum earthlink.net
Re: From a successful student
By waldorfcritics inxil.com
Re: From a successful student
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Re: From a successful student
By Gary goodwinter.com
City go-slow policy delays move of Pittsburgh Waldorf school
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Re: From a successful student
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Admin: web counter 115,872
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Re: From a successful student
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Re: From a successful student
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------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 09:05:42 -0400
From: "Diana Winters" (diana.winters verizon.net)
Subject: RE: Utne Reader anthro supplement
Thanks to Peter for making available here more of his research on
anthroposophy and its relation to ariosophy etc. (which I'm slowly
taking in).
As for Utne Reader - yeah, we're on it. :)
I'm sure several of us will have things to say here and elsewhere on the
Utne spread, and I'm sure we'll have to repeat the obvious numerous
times - it's ADVERTISING.
It's not research, it's not journalism, it's not about education, it's a
movement advertising itself. (Since when do "emerging cultures" take out
advertising supplements?)
Consider what a 48-page full-color advertisement in Utne Reader must
cost. Lots of money that could have gone to actual education.
It is financial at base. A windfall for companies like Stockmar and
Mercurius that couldn't normally afford such exposure.
Diana
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 14:59:48 +0000
From: Chris Morrell (waldorfcritics inxil.com)
Subject: From a successful student
My name is Chris Morrell. I'm currently a college student studying
computer science and product design. I own a fairly successful web
design company, and act as the Director of Information Technology at an
international non-profit organization. I'm currently in the process of
forming two partnerships ñ one a firm related to real estate, the other
a job-finding service. I am also a certified home inspector, and plan
on soon obtaining a real estate license.
I'm sorry about the vague details ñ I feel that it's in my best interest
to keep my business names confidential because I fear that any group
that's willing to put the effort into attacking an entire educational
movement has the ability to attack a single businessman/college student.
I mean no offence with that comment, just that I don't know anyone well
enough yet to say whether or not I can trust you.
I found waldorfcritics.org just recently, and was simply amazed. My
personal experience with Waldorf education has been unbelievably
positive, and I know that many of my fellow graduates feel the same way.
I can understand some concerns ñ it's true that I couldn't read until a
year or two later than my public school peers ñ but I feel that in the
end, the system as a whole works amazingly well. I've studied calculus,
physics, optics, chemistry, and other sciences to a much further degree
than even my college peers who took AP courses in those subjects. I
ended up writing an additional research paper and executing an
additional research project for a recent physics course because the
skill level was too low for me. In another recent science course
(involving primarily chemistry and biology), my professor mistook me for
a junior because of my background in the sciences. I never even enjoyed
most science classes!
I think that the real issue is that when "normal" education is cramming
facts and figures down its students' throats, Waldorf education is
helping its students grow in their ability to learn. In high school
there's a major shift to academics, with a high concentration of
AP-equivalent courses and strenuous academic work. In the first year of
high school, when my cousins (one attending public school, the other
attending catholic school) were just learning the basics of chemistry, I
had 3 years of background in the subject and was studying science topics
that they didn't expect to cover until senior year (or not at all). In
fact, most of my friends and relatives thought that I was going to a
preparatory school because of my vigorous academic work. I would visit
my cousins after school, and they might have 30 minutes to an hour of
homework, whereas I expected to spend at least a couple hours each night
writing papers, working on math homework, and studying languages.
I really don't want to discuss Steiner's philosophies, or anything of
that sort. I just thought that I'd open a civil conversation about my
personal experiences with Waldorf education.
Chris Morrell
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 15:52:24 +0000
From: "Nicole Foss" (nmfoss hotmail.com)
Subject: Re: From a successful student
Thank you for sharing your experiences and I'm glad your Waldorf education
served you so well. I can think of several Waldorf graduates from our school
who will likely be similarly successful by the time they have reached your
age. Unfortunately I also know graduates who have had doors metaphorically
closed on them prematurely as Waldorf has exaggerated both their strengths
and weaknesses, leaving them woefully unprepared to move on to high school.
In my family's case, the experience has been mixed, but we will shortly be
leaving Waldorf because of a profound lack of accoutability combined with
irreconcilable "philosophical" differences. My children have been mostly
happy there, especially my older daughter who has had a very good teacher,
although my son has become increasingly frustrated with the lack of an
academic challenge (despite being the youngest in a split grade class). I
remain very pleased that in the 3 years they were there, they all developed
a passion for handwork and other practical skills that should serve them
well.
I taught at the school for a year, and in that time I became increasingly
uncomfortable with the behaviour of some of the staff and with the
"philosophical" underpinnings of the Waldorf movement. I saw things happen
that should not have been allowed to happen, and when the parents tried to
bring their legitimate concerns to the college of teachers, those concerns
were dismissed as slander. The college of teachers rallied round a colleague
whose behaviour was quite simply indefensible in my opinion and that of a
large percentage of the parent body. Many of the people who had tried to
resolve the issue for the good of the school are now leaving or considering
their options as the trust is gone. People also feel deceived as to the
religious nature of anthroposophy, which has led to an irreconcilable divide
between the anthroposophical True Believers and the rest.
I, for one, would be interested to hear more about Waldorf high school and
how it differs from Waldorf education in the elementary grades. There are
fewer people here who've had children in Waldorf high school than in the
younger grades, so we've heard less about it. Were you in Waldorf all the
way from kindergarten to grade 12? Could you also tell us which Waldorf
school you attended?
Nicole Foss
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Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 09:21:53 -0700
From: walden (awaldenpond shaw.ca)
Subject: Re: From a successful student
Chris Morrell - your wrote:
(snip)
I really don't want to discuss Steiner's philosophies, or anything of
that sort. I just thought that I'd open a civil conversation about my
personal experiences with Waldorf education.
Walden: First - thanks very much for your contribution and I suspect nobody
here is disappointed with regards to your success in life post Waldorf. I
am delighted that you seem happy and that you took the time to share your
Waldorf experience here. I see, however, some fog in your post.
I am convinced that people *do well* in life because of many factors - many
of which have little to do with their formal education. I would go so far
as to say many people do relatively well *despite* their formal education.
History tells us of many unschoolers and homeschoolers who seemed to *get
smart* with no formal education. So... did Waldorf help you find success?
Maybe... maybe not.
What critics (and some in the Waldorf movement) are saying is that this
system of education is religious in nature and dishonest in it's public
relations. Are there very good Waldorf teachers - able to help open minds
and teach physics, etc.? Yes. I quoted the last bit of your post for a
reason, Chris. It points to the denial we see in Waldorf and many of those
who have come from it. When we speak of Waldorf education we cannot help
but "discuss Steiner's philosophies, or anything of that sort" whether you
are comfortable with it or not.
That is the problem. It goes way beyond lines like "I went to Waldorf and
did not become an Anthroposophist." The problem is much deeper than that
and deserves a look from outside the movement - yes, a "critical" look.
While you might perceive the Critics site as "attacking" Waldorf I hope you
are able to understand the reason behind such scrutiny. Many of us have
*been there/done that.* You point to your high school experience. How many
Waldorf High Schools are there in North America? What happens to kids after
Waldorf when they do not go to a Waldorf High School? Then there is the big
question of how many kids stay in Waldorf schools for any length of time?
Point to an objective study from a Non-Anthro source and I'll give it a
look. Can you find such a study? Why not? Perhaps your experience truly
was a successful one - I am delighted for you. Really.
I have been a critic for a few years now and have been privy to countless
Waldorf horror stories from too many disappointed, confused, hurt families
from too many places in North America and beyond. I see a pattern and I
find it disturbing. Sorry, Chris, but when we speak of Waldorf Education we
have no choice but to "discuss Steiner's philosophies, or anything of that
sort." Waldorf *is* Steiner and his religion. I can only trust that one
day you will overcome your bias and see it in it's intended light - with all
the good, bad and ugly included in the baggage. This is soul work. This is
a mission. Why would a movement so ostensibly concerned with light keep so
many well intentioned people... in the dark?
-Walden
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 17:02:28 +0000
From: Chris Morrell (waldorfcritics inxil.com)
Subject: Re: From a successful student
Walden,
It seems that you misunderstood my post, and you partially misunderstand
Waldorf education in general. I'll get to that. First, about Waldorf
high school
I agree that there are not nearly enough Waldorf high schools in North
America. Steiner's original ideas were for 13 grades, which is the case
in most European Waldorf schools. I think that in 12 grades, you can
get enough out of it to make up for that 13th year, but I definitely
don't feel that sending your child through a couple of years of Waldorf
education is a good idea. I do think, though, that the education you
get from 1st to 8th grade is still worthwhile. I personally know
countless people who left the Waldorf School I attended in 8th grade,
and excelled in whatever they did next. A good friend of mine just
visited me recently who just graduated from the University of Virginia
with a degree in Biochemistry, Premed. He left our high school in 8th
grade, and though he said that the first few months were tricky, he soon
adapted to the public school system and did extremely well. Another
friend of mine moved to a preparatory boarding school and had a similar
experience.
I have to say that it's understandable that there are political issues
within each school, and that they might not sit well with everyone.
That happens in everywhere. The stories I've heard about public and
catholic schools (I can't speak for others, as I've had no discussions
about them) are just as bad, and often worse. Corrupt faculty,
mistreated children, bad politics, and more are present at many schools
all over the country. To single out Waldorf schools is somewhat
ridiculous. I understand that some people have had bad experiences with
Waldorf education ñ people have had bad experiences with every type of
education.
Now, about my comment about not wanting to talk about Steiner's
philosophies: I've found that talking about Steiner to people who
already have pre-conceptions about him is like trying to convince a
Republican that abortion should be legal. If you really want to start
about it, I'm open for discussion, but I really think that it won't get
anywhere. I think that by now, Waldorf education can be separated from
most of Steiner's principals. That's not to say that it's not rooted in
his ideas, but it has progressed over the years, and has been developed
by so many people that it's quite possible to discuss the education
without touching on a subject that just causes trouble with people of
differing views.
I'd be happy to talk about Waldorf high school. I have to run now, but
I'll try to send an e-mail soon.
Chris Morrell
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 13:30:28 -0400
From: "Diana Winters" (diana.winters verizon.net)
Subject: RE: From a successful student
Chris Morrell wrote:
"My name is Chris Morrell. I'm currently a college student studying
computer science and product design. I own a fairly successful web
design company, and act as the Director of Information Technology at an
international non-profit organization. I'm currently in the process of
forming two partnerships - one a firm related to real estate, the other
a job-finding service. I am also a certified home inspector, and plan
on soon obtaining a real estate license.
I'm sorry about the vague details - I feel that it's in my best interest
to keep my business names confidential because I fear that any group
that's willing to put the effort into attacking an entire educational
movement has the ability to attack a single businessman/college student.
"
Hi Chris, your posts are very welcome and interesting. You will
certainly find that many people here have had Waldorf experiences
*extremely* dissimilar to yours, but I doubt any of the Waldorf critics
will doubt or deny your own positive experiences. What most of us are
here about is accountability, open discussion of ideas and experiences,
asking that both sides of the story be told. The Waldorf PR is
tremendously positive. Obviously there are graduates like you who have
prospered. The down side doesn't get much press since most people who
"go away mad" would rather put it behind them and help their children
move on. However, the down side is very real - poorly trained teachers
with little knowledge of teaching outside of Steiner's eccentric
notions, children who have suffered from poor academic preparation and
mistreatment. We do not dispute that such things happen in a variety of
different schools; we're talking about Waldorf schools here because
Waldorf schools are where this stuff happened to our children, and the
Waldorf experience has its own very unique flavor. (My personal
experience mirrors Nicole's; appreciating certain aspects of the
curriculum, but after working in several of the classrooms, and
attending faculty meetings, realizing that most parents had only a
superficial understanding of the indisputable fact that the school was
based on Steiner and intended to promote Steiner's mission for the
esoteric advancement of humanity, and that the teachers based virtually
every action on Steiner's advice; bluntly stated, that Waldorf schools
are run by a cult.)
I would also like to assure you that you are not going to find Waldorf
critics "attacking" you or your businesses in any way. We are mostly
ordinary parents, or people with other academic or personal reasons to
research Waldorf or anthroposophy. We aren't people who attack anyone;
there are no instances at all of anyone here "attacking" individuals or
doing harm to the Waldorf movement other than to discuss our experiences
with these schools and discussing our readings of Steiner. It is a
discussion of experiences and ideas. We aren't terrorists.
I have to say it troubles me a little that after your wonderful
education you would consider Internet discussion of a movement or
philosophy, whether pro or con, to be an "attack." Perhaps you did not
mean that quite the way it came across, but it is a surprising attitude
for an educated person in a free society that values open public
discourse. (Besides, no one is going to ask you about the details of
your business affairs as they aren't relevant to a discussion of Waldorf
or anthroposophy anyway.)
Diana
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 18:00:08 +0000
From: Percedol (Percedol netscape.net)
Subject: Ariosophy
Peter Staudenmaier wrote:
)
) Hello critics,
)
) Here is some more detail on the relationship between Steiner and other
) denizens of the early 20th century occult-racist underground. Sharon's
) question about the sources of Hitler's occult views
Hitler and the Secret Societies
By Julius Evola (from Il Conciliatore, no. 10, 1971; translated from the
German edition in Deutsche Stimme, no. 8, 1998)
It is remarkable that some authors in France have researched the
relationship of German National Socialism to secret societies and
initiatic organizations. The motivation for this was the supposed occult
background of the Hitler movement. This thesis was first proposed in the
well-known and very far-fetched book by Pauwels and Bergier, "Le Matin
des Magiciens" (English ed., "The Dawn of Magic"), in which National
Socialism was defined as the union of "magical thinking" with
technology. The expression used for this was "Tank divisions plus RenÈ
GuÈnon": a phrase that might well have caused that eminent
representative of traditional thought and esoteric disciplines to turn
indignantly in his grave.
The first misunderstanding here is the confusion of the magical element
with the mythical, whereas the two have nothing to do with one another.
The role of myths in National Socialism is undeniable, for example in
the idea of the Reich, the charismatic F¸hrer, Race, Blood, etc. But
rather than calling these "myths," one should apply to them Sorel's
concept of "motivating energy-ideas" (which is what all the suggestive
ideas used by demagogues commonly are), and not attribute to them any
magical ingredient. Similarly, no rational person thinks of magic in
connection with the myths of Fascism, such as the myth of Rome or that
of the Duce, any more than with those of the French Revolution or
Communism. The investigation would proceed differently if one went on
the assumption that certain movements, without knowing it, were subject
to influences that were not merely human. But this is not the case with
the French authors. They are not thinking of influences of that kind,
but of a concrete nature, exercised by organizations that really
existed, among which were some that to various degrees were "secret."
Likewise, some have spoken of "unknown superiors" who are supposed to
have called forth the National Socialist movement and to have used
Hitler as a medium, though it is unclear what goals they could have had
in mind in so doing. If one considers the results, the catastrophic
consequences to which National Socialism led, even indirectly, those
goals must have been obscure and destructive. One would have to identify
the "occult side" of this movement with what GuÈnon called the
"Counter-Initiation." But the French authors have also proposed the
thesis that Hitler the "medium" emancipated himself at a certain point
from the "unknown superiors," almost like a Golem, and that the movement
then pursued its fatal direction. But in that case one must admit that
these "unknown superiors" can have had no prescience and very limited
power, to have been incapable of putting a stop to their supposed
medium, Hitler.
A lot of fantasy has been woven on the concrete level about the origin
of National Socialism's themes and symbols. Reference has been made to
certain organizations as forerunners, but ones to which it is very
difficult to attribute any genuine and factual initiatic character.
There is no doubt that Hitler did not invent German racial doctrine, the
symbol of the swastika, or Aryan antisemitism: all of these had long
existed in Germany. A book entitled "Der Mann, der Hitler die Ideen gab"
[The man who gave Hitler his ideas] reports on J–rg Lanz von Liebenfels
(the title of nobility was self-bestowed), who had formerly been a
Cistercian monk and had founded an Order that already used the swastika;
Lanz edited the periodical "Ostara" from 1905 onwards, which Hitler
certainly knew, in which the Aryan and antisemitic racial theories were
already clearly worked out.
But much more important for the "occult background" of National
Socialism is the role of the Thule Society. Things are more complex
here. This society grew out of the Germanenorden, founded in 1912, and
was led by Rudolf von Sebottendorf, who had been in the East and had
published a strange booklet on "Die Praxis der alten t¸rkischen
Freimaurerei" [The practice of ancient Turkish Freemasonry]. Practices
were described therein that involved the repetition of syllables,
gestures, and steps, whose goal was the initiatic transformation of man,
such as alchemy had also aimed at. It is unclear what Turkish masonic
organization Sebottendorf was in contact with, and also whether he
himself practiced the things in question, or merely described them.
Moreover, it cannot be established whether these practices were employed
in the Thule Society that Sebottendorf headed. It would be very
important to know that, because many top-ranking National Socialist
personalities, from Hitler to Rudolf Hess, frequented this society. In a
way, Hitler was already introduced to the world of ideas of the Thule
Society by Hess during their imprisonment together after the failed
Munich Putsch.
At all events, it must be emphasized that the Thule Society was less an
initiatic organization than it was a secret society, which already bore
the swastika and was marked by a decided antisemitism and by Germanic
racial thinking. One should be cautious about the thesis that the name
Thule is a serious and conscious reference to a Nordic, Polar
connection, in the effort to make a connection with the Hyperborean
origins of the Indo-Germans--since Thule appears in ancient tradition as
the sacred center or sacred island in the uttermost North. Thule may
just be a play on the name "Thale," a location in the Harz where the
Germanenorden held a conference in 1914, at which it was decided to
create a secret "v–lkisch" band to combat the supposed Jewish
International. Above all, these ideas were emphasized by Sebottendorf in
his book "Bevor Hitler kam" [Before Hitler came], published in Munich in
1933, in which he indicated the myths and the "v–lkisch" world-view that
existed before Hitler.
Thus a serious investigation into Hitler's initiatic connections with
secret societies does not lead far. A few explanations are necessary in
regard to Hitler as a "medium" and his attractive power. It seems to us
pure fantasy that he owed this power to initiatic practices. Otherwise
one would have to assume the same about the psychic power of other
leaders, like Mussolini and Napoleon, which is absurd. It is much better
to go on the assumption that there is a psychic vortex that arises from
mass movements, and that this concentrates on the man in the center and
lends him a certain radiation that is felt especially by suggestible
people.
The quality of medium (which, to put it bluntly, is the antithesis of an
initiatic qualification) can be attributed to Hitler with a few
reservations, because in a certain respect he did appear as one
possessed (which differentiates him from Mussolini, for example). When
he whipped up the masses to fanaticism, one had the impression that
another force was directing him as a medium, even though he was a man of
a very extraordinary kind, and extremely gifted. Anyone who has heard
Hitler's addresses to the enraptured masses can have no other
impression. Since we have already expressed our reservations about the
assumption that "unknown superiors" were involved, it is not easy to
define the nature of this supra-personal force. In respect to National
Socialist theosophy [Gotteserkenntnis], i.e. to its supposed mystical
and metaphysical dimension, one must realize the unique juxtaposition in
this movement and in the Third Reich of mythical, Enlightenment, and
even scientific aspects. In Hitler, one can find many symptoms of a
typically "modern" world-view that was fundamentally profane,
naturalistic, and materialistic; while on the other hand he believed in
Providence, whose tool he believed himself to be, especially in regard
to the destiny of the German nation. (For example, he saw a sign of
Providence in his survival of the assassination attempt in his
East-Prussian headquarters.) Alfred Rosenberg, the ideologist of the
movement, proclaimed the myth of Blood, in which he spoke of the
"mystery" of Nordic blood and attributed to it a sacramental value; yet
he simultaneously attacked all the rites and sacraments of Catholicism
as delusions, just like a man of the Enlightenment. He railed against
the "Dark men of our time," while attributing to Aryan man the merit of
having created modern science. National Socialism's concern with runes,
the ancient Nordic-Germanic letter-signs, must be regarded as purely
symbolic, rather like the Fascist use of certain Roman symbols, and
without any esoteric significance. The program of National Socialism to
create a higher man has something of "biological mysticism" about it,
but this again was a scientific project. At best, it might have been a
question of the "superman" in Nietzsche's sense, but never of a higher
man in the initiatic sense.
The plan to "create a new racial, religious, and military Order of
initiates, assembled around a divinized F¸hrer," cannot be regarded as
the official policy of National Socialism, as RenÈ Alleau writes, when
he presents such a relationship and even compares it, among others, to
the Ishmaelites of Islam. A few elements of a higher level were visible
only in the ranks of the SS.
In the first place, one can see clearly the intention of Reichsf¸hrer-SS
Heinrich Himmler to create an Order in which elements of Prussian ethics
were to be combined with those of the old Orders of knighthood,
especially the Teutonic Order. He was looking for legitimation of such
an organization, but could not obtain it, since these old Orders of
Catholicism were openly opposed by the radical wing of National
Socialism. Himmler was also seeking, without the possibility of any
traditional connection, a relationship to the Nordic-Hyperborean
heritage and its symbolism (Thule), albeit without those "secret
societies" discussed above having any influence over it. He took notice,
as did Rosenberg, of the researches of the Netherlander Herman Wirth
into the Nordic-Atlantic tradition. Later Himmler founded, with Wirth,
the research and teaching organization called the "Ahnenerbe." This is
not without interest, but there was no "occult background" to it.
So the net result is negative. The French authors' fantasy reaches its
high point in the book "Hitler et la tradition cathare" by Jean-Michel
Angebert (Paris, 1971). This deals with the Cathars, also called
Albigensians, who were a heretical sect that spread especially in
Southern France between the 11th and 12th centuries, and had their
center in the fortress of MontsÈgur. According to Otto Rahn, this was
destroyed in a "crusade against the Grail," which is the title of one of
his books. Whatever the Grail and its Grail-Knights had to do with this
sect remains completely in the dark. The sect was marked by a kind of
fanatical Manicheism: sometimes its own believers would die of hunger or
some other cause as a demonstration of their detachment from the world
and their hostility to earthly existence in flesh and matter. Now it is
assumed that Rahn, with whom we corresponded during his lifetime and
tried to persuade of the baselessness of his thesis, was an SS man, and
that an expedition was sent on its way to retrieve the legendary Grail
which was supposedly brought to safety at the moment when the Cathars'
fortress in MontsÈgur was destroyed. After the fall of Berlin, a unit is
said to have reached the Zillertal and hidden this object at the foot of
a glacier, to await a new age.
The truth is that there was talk of a commando unit, which however had a
less mystical commission, namely the rescue and concealment of the
Reich's treasures. Two further examples show what such fantasies can
lead to when they are given free rein. The SS (which included not only
battle units but also researchers and scholarly experts) mounted an
expedition to Tibet in order to make discoveries in the fields of
alpinism and ethnology, and another one to the Arctic, ostensibly for
scientific research but also with a view to the possible situation of a
German military base. According to these fantastic interpretations, the
first expedition was seeking a link to a secret center of the Tradition,
while the other was seeking contact with the lost Hyperborean Thule...
Evola Text Archive
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 13:23:47 -0500
From: "Peter Staudenmaier" (pstaud hotmail.com)
Subject: Re: Ariosophy
For those list members who might by now be inclined to delete Percedol's
vagaries, I recommend taking the time to read the excerpt from Evola he just
posted. The piece is from Evola's late period, not too long before he died,
and draws on his own experience in the 1940's, when he was closely involved
in the SS. His remarks on the various post-war mythologies of Nazi occultism
are most revealing; he objects that these groups did not actually produce
true "initiates" and that the Nazis lacked "esoteric significance". In
short, Nazism was just too darned materialistic. Evola does, however, still
reserve -- thirty years later -- some admiration for the "higher level"
elements within his beloved SS. A fine example of neofascist occultism in
full flower. Evola is today a respected figure among many North American
enthusiasts of the "mystery traditions" and alternative spiritual paths,
most of whom apparently have no idea of his political commitments. But
that's higher consciousness for you.
Peter S.
_________________________________________________________________
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 13:42:50 -0500
From: "Peter Staudenmaier" (pstaud hotmail.com)
Subject: Steiner on the Jews
Hi again everybody,
I'm going to try to give a quick reconstruction of my seminar presentation
from last week on philosemitism and antisemitism in Rudolf Steiner's works,
based on my own notes, to complement the reading selections I posted a few
days back.
I began by laying out my working hypothesis: Steiner's attitude toward Jews
and Jewishness was alternately philosemitic and antisemitic, shifting with
the different stages of his career and the changes in his overall outlook;
and both the philosemitic and antisemitic aspects of his thinking shared
essentially the same logic, a logic of radical assimilationism.
I noted that my interpretation of Steiner on this score is controversial, in
part because most of his present-day followers (including a number of Jews)
consider themselves tolerant, liberal, and enlightened, and in part because
of the mixed record of Steiner personally as well as of the anthroposophical
movement regarding Jewish concerns. As one instance, I remarked that a
fairly important early Zionist leader, Hugo Bergmann, was a devoted student
and admirer of Steiner. I acknowledged that there is indeed a progressive,
universalistic, and humanist side to Steiner's teachings, which many
commentators take as emblematic of his doctrine as a whole.
I tried to illustrate this last point by quoting George Mosse's classic work
Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism, which I consider to
be in most respects a model of historical inquiry. On page 96 of that book,
in the midst of a discussion of theosophically oriented racist thought,
Mosse singles out Steiner's anthroposophy as notably anti-racist, in
contrast to racist variants of Theosophy like ariosophy. Mosse writes:
"Theosophy could, in fact, also support a new humanism. Rudolf Steiner's
Anthroposophical Society, founded in Berlin in 1913, linked spiritualism to
freedom and universalism."
I then explained that in my view, it is these apparently progressive,
humanist, and universalist elements themselves that lie at the heart of
Steiner's deeply problematic stance toward Judaism and the Jewish people. I
gave a brief overview of the contested meaning of the concept of
"assimilation" in Steiner's era, explaining that what Steiner (along with
many other non-Jewish intellectuals at the time) understood by this term was
crucially different from what the vast majority of Jews, both
pro-assimilationist and anti-assimilationist, meant by it. Steiner's own
belief was not so much in "assimilation" in the standard sociological sense,
but in amalgamation and merger. He didn't seek to integrate Jews into
existing European cultures, but to eliminate Jewish distinctiveness and
Jewish identity as such by submerging them into German and Christian
identities.
Next I explained my periodization of Steiner's evolving views on Jews: 1st
phase, pan-German cultural antisemitism (1880's-1890's); 2nd phase,
rationalism and philosemitism, along with a trivialization of organized
antisemitism (1897-1901); 3rd phase, theosophical/anthroposophical mature
doctrine and spiritual antisemitism (1902-1925). I covered the first two
relatively quickly in order to focus on the anthroposophical phase. For the
first phase, I noted that Steiner's pan-German writings sometimes juxtaposed
the spiritually creative Germans with the spiritually infertile Jews, and
that Steiner at this time demanded that Jewry as such should cease to exist
because it was "a mistake of world history", an anachronism that needed to
be overcome through the gradual elimination of Jewish identity. I remarked
that already in this early phase the tension between assimilation and
elimination was clearly evident, since the established middle-class Viennese
Jews who were the chief target of Steinerís diatribes were among the most
solidly and thoroughly assimilated Jewish communities in the world at the
time.
I then examined Steinerís change of heart around the turn of the century,
drawing attention to his friendship with the Jewish author Ludwig
Jacobowski, who favored (in his own words) ìthe complete disappearance of
Jewry into the German spiritî. I pointed out that what Steiner admired in
his friend was that Jacobowski had ìoutgrown Jewishnessî, in Steinerís
words. After Jacobowskiís unexpected death in 1900, Steiner wrote a series
of articles for a journal that Jacobowski had been affiliated with, which
strongly opposed the increasingly militant antisemitism of the period.
Steinerís articles denounce organized overt antisemitism and propose a sort
of super-patriotic solution whereby German Jews would prove themselves more
German than their detractors; in one of these articles Steiner characterized
antisemitism as ìundeutschî or ìun-Germanî. At the same time, Steiner viewed
Zionism (at the time a very young and marginal movement) as worse than
organized antisemitism, indeed he sometimes portrayed Zionism as the chief
cause of antisemitism, which is historically more or less exactly backwards.
Moving on to the mature period, I explained that Steiner experienced a
fundamental internal transformation around 1901-1902, turning emphatically
toward Theosophy while retaining a number of his prior intellectual
commitments, for example his attachment to Haeckelís Monism. This yielded a
kind of social darwinist belief in progressive evolution wedded to an
esoteric spiritual framework, an ìoccult scienceî. At this point the Aryan
myth takes on a central role in Steinerís cosmology. I briefly reviewed the
Theosophical background, describing the combination of organizational and
confessional pluralism (anyone of any race and creed was welcome to join the
Theosophical Society) with ideological racism and aggressive antisemitism.
According to Blavatsky, Besant, Leadbeater, and other leading Theosophists,
Jews are the opposite of Aryans, materialistic, greedy, power-hungry and
unspiritual. I outlined the root race theory and noted the ambivalent
location of Jews within it, explaining that this is where Steinerís earlier
cultural antisemitism became fused with racial notions: the anthroposophist
Steiner saw Jews as biologically different from all other people, especially
regarding their blood. As an example I read the following quote from page
105 of The Mission of the Folk Souls:
ìthe Jahve forces from the moon sphere meet and cooperate with the Mars
spirits and thus a special kind of modification arises, namely, the Semitic
race. Here is the occult explanation for the origin of the Semites. The
Semitic people are an example of a modification of collective humanity.
Jahve or Jehovah shuts himself off from the other Elohim and invests this
people with a special character by cooperating with the Mars spirits, in
order to bring about a special modification of his people. You will now
understand the peculiar character of the Semitic people and its mission.î
Steiner goes on to emphasize that ìracial continuity through the
blood-stream was of particular importance to the Semitic-Hebrew peopleî.
In Steinerís eyes, ethnic exclusiveness was the hallmark of Jewry; he
accused the Jews of ìnational egoismî, along with materialism, abstract
thinking, and corrosiveness toward pure German spirituality. In a remarkable
turnaround from his 1901 writings, by 1905 Steiner was complaining to his
future wife about the ìcorrosiveî and ìtotally materialisticî consequences
of the ìcontinuing Semitic influenceî within the ìAryan epochî. In my
interpretation, this is where Steinerís views get interesting. Despite the
patently racist framework and his harshly negative judgement on Jews and
Judaism, he did not draw the standard conclusions of racial antisemitism,
but remained committed to an assimilationist ìsolutionî to the ìJewish
problemî.
According to Steinerís theory of racial karma, each soul works its way
upward through a series of higher and higher racial forms over the course of
many incarnations. The goal of this spiritual eugenics is eventually to
escape particular racial and ethnic attributes altogether and achieve a sort
of absolute individuality, which Steiner termed ìthe universal humanî. The
Jews had a crucial role to play in this unfolding drama of cosmic evolution:
their ìmissionî was to prepare the way for Christ. In Steinerís racial
theory, the Jewish mission ñ to serve as vehicle for the appearance of
Christ in the physical realm ñ was fulfilled 2000 years ago, and ever since
then there was simply no more reason for the Jews to exist.
Hence the task for modern Jews is to abandon their Jewishness, to
consciously and deliberately repudiate Jewish existence by embracing 1)
anthroposophyís esoteric version of Christianity, and 2) Steinerís theory of
German spiritual supremacy. In the current stage of the cosmic plan, the
Aryans, and especially the Germans, are the carriers of true individuality
and of the universal human. It is the mission of the German people to lead
the way toward the next step in spiritual evolution.
The existence of Jews is a major stumbling block to this mission. Within the
anthroposophical framework, Steiner saw Jewry as the primary embodiment of
ìgroup-soulnessî, the very negation of individuality; because Jews are, in
Steinerís eyes, stubbornly attached to ethnic particularity, they are
hindering the course of cosmic progress toward the universal human. One of
Steinerís favorite images for expressing this theme was the myth of Ahasver.
Steiner embraced this hoary antisemitic legend and used it repeatedly as his
ideal example of a racially backward soul, a soul that refuses racial
progress and therefore must incarnate over and over again as a Jew. Here is
one instance, from a lecture in Kassel in 1907, where Steiner wants to
illustrate the contrast between racial advance and racial stagnation:
ìHow could one express this more clearly than in the image of the person who
rejects the leader, and who is incapable of advancing! That is the legend of
Ahasver, the Eternal Jew, who sat there and pushed away the greatest leader,
Christ Jesus, who wanted nothing to do with evolution, and who therefore
must remain in his race, must always reappear in his race.î
Jewishness, in other words, is the very paradigm of evolutionary regression.
The late Steiner opposed Jewry because it is not progressive, because it is
anti-universal, because it fails to live up to the standards of genuine
humanness. The nature of Steinerís hostility to Jews and Jewishness was both
ordinary and peculiar; it was not so much hatred or fear of Jews that
animated Steinerís mature antisemitism, but ignorance of Jewish existence,
of Jewish culture and history. What little he did know about Judaism was
refracted through a Christian and Germanocentric lens. Steiner accepted the
antisemitic cultural prejudices of his time and elevated them to cosmic
Truths via his esoteric worldview, whose very structure is antisemitic.
Peter Staudenmaier
_________________________________________________________________
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 16:03:29 -0400
From: mysplum (mysplum earthlink.net)
Subject: Re: From a successful student
on 5/5/03 1:02 PM, Chris Morrell at waldorfcritics inxil.com wrote:
I personally know
) countless people who left the Waldorf School I attended in 8th grade,
) and excelled in whatever they did next. A good friend of mine just
) visited me recently who just graduated from the University of Virginia
) with a degree in Biochemistry, Premed. He left our high school in 8th
) grade, and though he said that the first few months were tricky, he soon
) adapted to the public school system and did extremely well. Another
) friend of mine moved to a preparatory boarding school and had a similar
) experience.
Sharon: There haven't been many studies of Waldorf graduates (I know of one
study in German), it would be interesting to see one conducted from outside
the movement. Some of the kids at our ex-Waldorf school dropped out of high
school, one ran away from home at age 14, some young girls got pregnant,
some dropped out of college, some never went to college, while others have
completed college. I know a chap who got his PH.D in Chemistry after
attending a lousy school in South Africa. He got scholarships to American
Universities but his smarts really had nothing to do with the school he
attended in SA. I think some people are just brilliant and driven! (G) I bet
Waldorfers would probably match public schoolers in "success rates," but we
won't know until studies have been conducted will we? And I suppose it also
depends on what "successful" means. I don't believe that Waldorf is the
answer to the world's problems, though that's what Waldorfers wanted me to
believe.
Chris:I have to say that it's understandable that there are political issues
within each school, and that they might not sit well with everyone.
That happens in everywhere. The stories I've heard about public and
catholic schools (I can't speak for others, as I've had no discussions
about them) are just as bad, and often worse. Corrupt faculty,
mistreated children, bad politics, and more are present at many schools
all over the country. To single out Waldorf schools is somewhat
ridiculous. I understand that some people have had bad experiences with
Waldorf education ñ people have had bad experiences with every type of
education.
Sharon: So often Waldorfers miss the point of PLANS. It's as if you cannot
comprehend the issues. Who ever said that all schools are perfect except
Waldorf? I say that Waldorf is a mystery school based on Steiner's
occultism, and that the pedagogy and curriculum serve as a mystery
initiation for both pupil and teacher. I also say that Waldorf's "child
development model" is based on Steiner's personal religious and
reincarnation beliefs. I needed to know this before I enrolled my daughter
and I ask the schools to be open about this. Critics ask that the schools
quit duping people and uphold the First Amendment. It's simple. We are
asking for honesty, that's all. I don't see what the big deal is?
Chris: Now, about my comment about not wanting to talk about Steiner's
philosophies: I've found that talking about Steiner to people who
already have pre-conceptions about him is like trying to convince a
Republican that abortion should be legal. If you really want to start
about it, I'm open for discussion, but I really think that it won't get
anywhere. I think that by now, Waldorf education can be separated from
most of Steiner's principals. That's not to say that it's not rooted in
his ideas, but it has progressed over the years, and has been developed
by so many people that it's quite possible to discuss the education
without touching on a subject that just causes trouble with people of
differing views.
Sharon: Some republicans are pro choice Chris, and some Democrats
anti-abortion. I had no preconceptions about Steiner when I enrolled my kid
in a Waldorf school. I thought he was a scientist, philosopher and educator
because that's how he was advertised by the school. A lot of very weird
things happened at that school while we were there, so we left and I began
to read Steiner. Now that I know a lot about the history of Anthroposophy
and his religious, racist doctrine, I'd be glad to have a little discussion
with you. My ideas are not preconceived because they are based on years of
study, plus experience with a Waldorf school without knowing anything about
the esoteric subtext.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 16:04:56 -0400
From: mysplum (mysplum earthlink.net)
Subject: Re: Steiner on the Jews
on 5/5/03 2:42 PM, Peter Staudenmaier at pstaud hotmail.com wrote:
) Hi again everybody,
)
) I'm going to try to give a quick reconstruction of my seminar presentation
) from last week on philosemitism and antisemitism in Rudolf Steiner's works,
) based on my own notes, to complement the reading selections I posted a few
) days back.
Sharon: Thanks Peter, you're such a great teacher!
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 18:02:18 -0400
From: "Chris Morrell" (waldorfcritics inxil.com)
Subject: Re: From a successful student
Diana,
You're right about the term "attack." I don't know much about your group
yet, so I have no right to use a term like that. Most of the information I
know about waldorfcritics.com is from the friend who introduced it to me,
and they could have easily exaggerated what they saw.
I also understand that you're acting out of your experiences. I really just
wanted to portray my positive experience, and comment on the notion that
these things, for example poorly trained teachers, happen in all types of
educational systems. I have college professors who know less about the
programming languages they teach than I.
Nicole,
What would you like to know about my high school experiences?
Chris Morrell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Diana Winters" (Diana.Winters verizon.net)
To: (waldorf-critics topica.com)
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 1:30 PM
Subject: RE: From a successful student
)
) Chris Morrell wrote:
)
) "My name is Chris Morrell. I'm currently a college student studying
) computer science and product design. I own a fairly successful web
) design company, and act as the Director of Information Technology at an
) international non-profit organization. I'm currently in the process of
) forming two partnerships - one a firm related to real estate, the other
) a job-finding service. I am also a certified home inspector, and plan
) on soon obtaining a real estate license.
)
) I'm sorry about the vague details - I feel that it's in my best interest
)
) to keep my business names confidential because I fear that any group
) that's willing to put the effort into attacking an entire educational
) movement has the ability to attack a single businessman/college student.
) "
)
)
) Hi Chris, your posts are very welcome and interesting. You will
) certainly find that many people here have had Waldorf experiences
) *extremely* dissimilar to yours, but I doubt any of the Waldorf critics
) will doubt or deny your own positive experiences. What most of us are
) here about is accountability, open discussion of ideas and experiences,
) asking that both sides of the story be told. The Waldorf PR is
) tremendously positive. Obviously there are graduates like you who have
) prospered. The down side doesn't get much press since most people who
) "go away mad" would rather put it behind them and help their children
) move on. However, the down side is very real - poorly trained teachers
) with little knowledge of teaching outside of Steiner's eccentric
) notions, children who have suffered from poor academic preparation and
) mistreatment. We do not dispute that such things happen in a variety of
) different schools; we're talking about Waldorf schools here because
) Waldorf schools are where this stuff happened to our children, and the
) Waldorf experience has its own very unique flavor. (My personal
) experience mirrors Nicole's; appreciating certain aspects of the
) curriculum, but after working in several of the classrooms, and
) attending faculty meetings, realizing that most parents had only a
) superficial understanding of the indisputable fact that the school was
) based on Steiner and intended to promote Steiner's mission for the
) esoteric advancement of humanity, and that the teachers based virtually
) every action on Steiner's advice; bluntly stated, that Waldorf schools
) are run by a cult.)
)
) I would also like to assure you that you are not going to find Waldorf
) critics "attacking" you or your businesses in any way. We are mostly
) ordinary parents, or people with other academic or personal reasons to
) research Waldorf or anthroposophy. We aren't people who attack anyone;
) there are no instances at all of anyone here "attacking" individuals or
) doing harm to the Waldorf movement other than to discuss our experiences
) with these schools and discussing our readings of Steiner. It is a
) discussion of experiences and ideas. We aren't terrorists.
)
)
) I have to say it troubles me a little that after your wonderful
) education you would consider Internet discussion of a movement or
) philosophy, whether pro or con, to be an "attack." Perhaps you did not
) mean that quite the way it came across, but it is a surprising attitude
) for an educated person in a free society that values open public
) discourse. (Besides, no one is going to ask you about the details of
) your business affairs as they aren't relevant to a discussion of Waldorf
) or anthroposophy anyway.)
) Diana
)
) ==^================================================================
) You can ask any question about Waldorf you like here, no matter how basic.
New threads are always welcome.
)
)
)
)
)
)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 00:30:39 +0000
From: "Peter Farrell" (feetapparel hotmail.com)
Subject: Re: From a successful student
G'day Chris,
welcome aboard. You mentioned your studies in chemistry at a Waldorf school.
I hope you might be prepared to elaborate a bit. Were your studies based on
Goethean science? Can you give us an idea of how different they were from
your perception of standard chemistry teaching at high school? Do you think
you were taught anything that was not "normal" chemistry as opposed to not
"normal" high school chemistry? If you would prefer to talk about any other
science that would be fine with me too. I'd also be interested if you could
tell us about any teaching at the Waldorf school on farming or compost and
the like.
I for one would greatly appreciate it if you could hang in with us. I think
you might find that many of us are ok despite the fact that we may or may
not disagree with you about a range of issues, and that occasionally we get
quite excited. I almost forgot to say, a few of us really like evidence.
See you, Peter F.
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_mobile.asp
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 21:32:44 -0400
From: Gary Bonhiver (Gary goodwinter.com)
Subject: Re: From a successful student
Welcome, Chris!
What specifically were you taught about the physiology of the human heart,
if anything?
...Gary
on 5/5/03 8:30 PM, Peter Farrell at feetapparel hotmail.com wrote:
)
) G'day Chris,
) welcome aboard. You mentioned your studies in chemistry at a Waldorf school.
) I hope you might be prepared to elaborate a bit. Were your studies based on
) Goethean science? Can you give us an idea of how different they were from
) your perception of standard chemistry teaching at high school? Do you think
) you were taught anything that was not "normal" chemistry as opposed to not
) "normal" high school chemistry? If you would prefer to talk about any other
) science that would be fine with me too. I'd also be interested if you could
) tell us about any teaching at the Waldorf school on farming or compost and
) the like.
) I for one would greatly appreciate it if you could hang in with us. I think
) you might find that many of us are ok despite the fact that we may or may
) not disagree with you about a range of issues, and that occasionally we get
) quite excited. I almost forgot to say, a few of us really like evidence.
) See you, Peter F.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 17:44:52 -0700
From: Dan Dugan (dan dandugan.com)
Subject: City go-slow policy delays move of Pittsburgh Waldorf school
Pittsburgh, PA
Monday, May 5, 2003
Waldorf School plans revived
Monday, May 05, 2003
By Jan Ackerman, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
On a typical morning one day last week, a heaping bowl of hot oatmeal
and bananas was the morning snack for the 3- to 5-year-olds at the
Waldorf School of Pittsburgh.
As the tiny tykes took their seats, teachers Shirley Mallino and
Renee Gielewski lit candles. Then the children joined hands and sang:
"Fire fairies come and light our fire."
[photo caption]
Martez Cromwell-Keith, 8, and Rachel Shopoff, 8, paint in their
fourth-grade class at the Waldorf School of Pittsburgh on the South
Side. (Matt Freed, Post-Gazette)
"Blessings on our snack time," said Mallino, leading the children in
a nondenominational blessing.
Outside, elementary school children danced and sang around a May pole
in the cramped courtyard of an old parochial school on the South Side
where the city's Waldorf School has operated quietly for 10 years.
A group of parents decided to form the school in the early 1990s and,
since 1993, it has operated in space leased at the former St.
Matthew's school on Harcum Way in the South Side. The small school,
which has 85 pupils in its nursery through fifth grades, hopes to
soon make its permanent home in Victoria Hall, a former Ursuline
convent in Bloomfield that it is trying to buy.
Tomorrow, the school's application for a conditional use permit to
convert Victoria Hall, an upscale wedding and banquet hall on
Winebiddle Street, into a school will be on the city planning
commission's agenda.
"We are very pleased," parent Deno DeCiantis said when he learned
that the application, which had been put on hold, was back before the
city. "We want to grow this school."
There are more than 700 Wal