Waldorf Problems

“No person is held qualified to form a judgment on the contents
of this work, who has not acquired — through the School of
Spiritual Science itself or in an equivalent manner recognized
by the School of Spiritual Science — the requisite preliminary
knowledge. Other opinions will be disregarded....”
— Prefatory note appearing at the
beginning of some Steiner texts [1]

“[M]y knowledge of spiritual things is the
result of my own perception.”
— Rudolf Steiner [2]

It may be enlightening to consider just how logical or plausible Rudolf Steiner’s teachings are. In brief, did he make sense?

Steiner called his teachings “spiritual science.” He said that his books and lectures present objective, verifiable facts about the spirit realm. It would seem, then, that the standards of reason and proof that are applied to other sciences should also be applied to Steiner’s “science.” Indeed, Steiner said as much. In defending Anthroposophy from charges that it is unreasonable, he stated “[S]ane and earnest thought not only can but must [emphasis by Steiner] be the touchstone of all the facts presented. Only one who submits what is here advanced to logical and adequate examination, such as is applied to the facts of natural science, will be in a position to decide for himself how much reason has to say in the matter.” [3]

Although Steiner asserted that his teachings were both factual, sane, and scientific, he also erected a thicket of defensive ploys that tend to derail rational criticism. He said that his occult statements were based on his personal spiritual experiences, and therefore he could present them as firmly established truths, not mere theories. He said that his teachings were beyond the comprehension of anyone who disagreed with him. He said that the only way to test his statements was to develop the same clairvoyant powers he possessed. He said that the language in which he clothed his findings had variable meanings. While tipping my cap at Steiner’s defensives efforts, I will argue that no such statements deserve rational assent.

First Look

We can begin our examination of Steiner’s irrationality by looking at the claims I have just now paraphrased. This will only be a first, rough pass. We’ll return to examine matters in more detail later.

• One cannot be the witness who validates one’s own assertions (as in, Steiner says he knows what he’s talking about: He assures us that he has seen the stuff he says he has seen). This boils down to “I am right because I say so.” >To the members of the jury: I prove my innocence by stating that I am innocent. >Sit down, son — you’re going to jail. Taking Steiner at his word is extremely helpful if one is to become an Anthroposophist. Steiner said his teachings are scientifically sound. That is apparently good enough for some.

• Let’s consider the same point from a different angle. The only thing that logically can be known about people who disagree with Steiner is that they disagree with him. They are not necessarily right or wrong. The only way to logically show that they are wrong is to show that Steiner is right. But Steiner did not show that he is right. He merely asserted that he is right. He claimed a lot but proved nothing.

• Establishing impossible conditions for testing propositions is clearly invalid. Requiring us to become clairvoyant is like requiring us to grow additional heads. Steiner actually said that we need to grow “organs of clairvoyance” [4]. A clever defense, but bad science. To make his requirement valid, Steiner needed to prove that clairvoyance is possible. He didn’t.

• Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. >"I saw it with my own eyes" has, on innumerable occasions, led to faulty verdicts in criminal cases. If I tell you that yesterday I saw George W. Bush knock down an old lady and steal her purse, you might (depending on your political affiliation) think that I probably saw someone who merely looked like G. W. Bush, not the man himself. Or, of course, I might have been hallucinating. Or I might be lying. In any event, before sending G. W. Bush to the pen, you should want far more than my eyewitness report. >"I saw it with my clairvoyant 'eyes'” takes this to another level. Such testimony must be even more suspect.

• About his two-sided language: Steiner asserted, for instance, that the names of planets do not exactly apply to physical spheres in the cosmos but, often, to stages of human evolution — or, generally, both. Saying that something is something else — or, actually, two different, logically separate things — produces nothing but confusion and, ultimately, the end of discourse. If I say that by “cats” I mean both felines and cool guys, confusion rather than clarity is likely. >“Cats relieve themselves in litter boxes.” Distinctions must be made, not elided. Complex matters can be expressed clearly — and for the sake of reason, they must be.

• Conclusions cannot be postulated. In any logical system, such as plane geometry, a few basic postulates must be accepted as self-evident, such as: Only one straight line can be drawn between two points. The postulates must be few and obvious. Conclusions, by contrast, must arise from a rigorous process of proof. It is not self-evident, for instance, that a diameter perpendicular to a chord bisects the chord and its arcs, but this conclusion can be proven by a simple series of deductive steps. Clairvoyance cannot be postulated. “Spiritual science” is not self-evidently a real discipline. Simply defining something as true is invalid. Almost all of Steiner’s assertions require proof; almost none get it. [5]

Two Principles

Let’s see what else we can discover. I won’t discuss huge numbers of Steiner’s statements, nor will I try to include examples of every type of logical blunder Steiner committed — we would all die of boredom. Instead, I’ll attempt to satisfy our curiosity with a few representative examples. To facilitate discussion, I will offer Steiner statements that many readers will find familiar.

Two basic requirements of logic are set out in the principles of consistency and non-contradiction. These are virtually axiomatic. To be logical, you must make statements that are consistent with one another, and you certainly cannot make statements that flat-out contradict one another.

Consistency is a broader concept than non-contradiction. Inconsistent statements do not necessarily invalidate one another, as contradictory statements do, but they are hard to fit with one another. If you tell one group of people one thing and another group another, you are being inconsistent. You may get away with it, but you will win no awards for honesty. Politicians violate the principle of consistency pretty often. Meeting with public school teachers, they promise increased funding for public schools. Meeting with anti-tax zealots, they endorse the solemn need to cut all taxes. It is difficult to reconcile these statements since public schools are funded by tax dollars. This is one reason politicians are generally considered liars.

Steiner was, at least occasionally, similarly inconsistent. Addressing teachers at the first Waldorf school, he said “The things I say here, I could not say to parents.” [6] Saying different things to teachers and parents may be canny. It may be politic. It may even be necessary. But it is not truthful.

Contradiction, even more than inconsistency, smacks of intellectual dishonesty. It is not difficult to find specific Steiner statements that overthrow each other, but I want to look at this question with a wider focus. Steiner tried to reconcile various irreconcilable religions in order to roll them up in the package he called Anthroposophy. (Theosophists and others also aim for an all-in-one religion, but we aren’t concerned with them here.) Steiner's doctrines include polytheism, the centrality of Christ, reincarnation, and evolution. Reconciling these tenets is, at the least, a challenge. If Steiner was a Christian, for instance, he should have taught that salvation through Christ results in eternal bliss in Heaven ("My father's house"). Instead, he taught that a good soul progresses toward perfection through a very long karmic process of repeated incarnations. He called this process evolution. The inverse of evolution is involution: Bad souls fall through downward incarnations to lower and lower levels.

Here are three of Steiner’s pronouncements:

• “[P]eople live repeated earthly lives.” [7]

• “What, then, is this mysterious impulse making its victorious way through the world? ...It is the Christ himself. He goes from heart to heart, from soul to soul, living and working in the world regardless of whether he is understood as evolution progresses through the centuries.” [8]

• “Monotheism...can only represent an ultimate ideal; it could never lead to a real understanding of the world....” [9]

Christianity, like Islam and Judaism, is a monotheistic faith: There is but one God. Steiner admitted the supremacy of the Godhead [10], yet he often spoke of “gods,” as when he told Waldorf teachers that they must carry out the gods’ (plural) intentions. [11] Steiner tried to reconcile the various elements of his doctrines by, for example, asserting that few people except for himself understand Christ’s real nature and mission (“regardless of whether he is understood as evolution progresses through the centuries”): Jesus assists humanity in its future evolution through the mechanism of reincarnation. This will come as a surprise to most Christian ministers and theologians.

On the issue of multiple gods, Steiner did not so much resolve matters as make a choice: He opted for polytheism as a truer vision than monotheism (which can “never lead to a real understanding of the world”). We could permit Steiner to embrace both monotheism and a modified polytheism if we agreed that by “gods” he meant entities such as angels and cherubim: God’s attendants. But this would boil down to an affirmation of monotheism, with the subsidiary “gods” losing any real claim to that title, whereas we have just seen Steiner assert that polytheism is the way to go. So no deal.

What do we have here, then? To the extent that Steiner revered Christ, he was a polytheistic Christian. Does this make sense? No. It is possible to spin elaborate rationalizations that seem to remove contradiction from this  picture; Steiner devoted much of his time to such efforts. But in the end, irreconcilable beliefs remain irreconcilable — they contradict one another. Here is a crucial instance: One of Christ's central and most beautiful teachings is that we should love one another as we love ourselves. Every human being deserves compassion; all are morally and spiritually equal. Like the good Samaritan, we should show compassion even to our enemies. This is a doctrine of radical love. Try to reconcile it with Steiner's teachings that some humans belong to inferior races, that good white humans will have to defeat bad colored races, and that some human beings are not really human (a contradiction in itself): They are robots or even demons in disguise. Rather than teaching universal human equality, Steiner taught deep inequality. Anthroposophists may argue that Steiner loved subhumans and inhumans. But this, too, reflects a contradiction: Designating some people as demons is clearly not an act of Christian love. (I have discussed these matters at some length elsewhere: See my essays "Race" http://homepage.mac.com/nonlevitating/nine.html, "Was He Christian?"   http://homepage.mac.com/nonlevitating/25.html, and the final section of "Unenlightened" http://homepage.mac.com/nonlevitating/one.html.)

Where does our discussion to this point leave Christians who may want to accept Steiner’s teachings? Logically, they can do so only if, first, they agree that their churches have misled them about Jesus, and, second, they agree to reject central New Testament teachings. In other words, they can join Steiner if they are prepared to become non-Christian Christians. Does this make sense? 

Logic and Reality

Steiner constantly skated on the edge — and often beyond the edge — of reason. [12] But this brings us to an important empirical point. Being illogical isn’t necessarily the same thing as being wrong. In our topsy-turvy world, illogical things often turn out to be true. >I'm a New Yorker, but I root for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Doesn’t make sense, but there it is: Fact. The same may hold true in the spiritual realm. Possibly the spiritual realm is so far beyond our comprehension that our paltry logic doesn’t apply there. Maybe the spirit realm is so strange, from our perspective, that it is simultaneously Christian and not Christian, monotheistic and polytheistic, geared to salvation after one life and yet also somehow geared to evolution over countless lives. Our minds can’t grasp such a state of affairs, but maybe that’s how things really are. We may just have to accept it.

But do we? The question for us here is whether Steiner gave us any good reason to follow him into wonderland. Put it like this: He invites us to a place that is beyond our comprehension, but in order to choose to follow him, we need a comprehensible rationale. What reason does Steiner give us for believing him? His visions blow away some people, but the standards we are applying here — and which he accepted, remember: the standards of “logical and adequate examination” — require an irrefutable argument. Why should we disavow the testimony of our senses and brains to accept Steiner's teachings? Has Steiner given us a compelling reason? If you are unsure of the answer, please keep reading. 

The Middle

Steiner frequently violated the law of the excluded middle, which states that you cannot divide the difference between true and false: A proposition is either true or it isn’t. Steiner tried to duck this law. He explicitly stated that “true” and “false” do not apply in spiritual science: “The concepts of ‘true’ and ‘false’ are dreadfully barren, prosaic, and formal. The moment we rise to the truths of the spiritual world, we can no longer speak of ‘true’ and ‘false’....” [13] Anthroposophy is a large-scale attempt to split differences and/or to ignore them.

Some may consider Steiner’s position extremely “deep”: The spiritual realm is more profound than our human concepts of true and false, right and wrong, yes and no. Well, maybe so. But in that case, I repeat: Why would anyone believe Steiner? He has given us no comprehensible reason to do so. Indeed, he has stated that no comprehensible reason is possible.

Let’s stipulate that God is beyond human understanding. But is heaven incomprehensible? People aspire to go to heaven because they know, at least to some degree, what the word “heaven” refers to. Now think about a realm where human concepts and comprehension do not apply, a place where there is no “true” or “false.” Not only logic but also religious teachings would totter if such a realm existed. For instance, let’s consider the miracle of Jesus’s birth. >Jesus was born of a virgin. Does it make sense to say that this statement is neither true nor false? Mary was or was not a virgin, surely — and surely it couldn’t have been something in-between. Can we wriggle out of this problem by saying that Mary was a physical human, so the birth of the Savior was not a spiritual event? Not if we consider His birth to be one of the great miracles performed by God.

Let’s go a step farther. For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that Mary’s physical condition was irrelevant to the miraculous birth of the Son of God. So, then, let’s put aside all physical matters and ask some wholly spiritual questions. Are angels God’s attendants? Is there such a place as heaven? Is God omniscient? Does God know whether there is such a place as heaven? Does God know whether God is omniscient? According to Steiner, there are no true answers to these questions (concerning “the truths of the spiritual world, we can no longer speak of ‘true’ and ‘false’....”). What can Steiner mean except that spiritual “truths” are not “true”? Is there any rational way to accept such a proposition? Does it stand up to “logical and adequate examination?” No. Judged by the standards Steiner himself accepted, his statement is false. 

Absurdity

Steiner’s fallacious reasoning can often be exposed by argument to absurdity (or reducio ad absurdum), which states that if a conclusion drawn logically from a premise is absurd, then the premise itself is wrong. Steiner regularly made assertions of the following sort: >I can see hidden truths thanks to my clairvoyance. My clairvoyant ability allows me to assert that the planets do not orbit the Sun. [14] According to Steiner, just about everyone except Steiner falls for an optical illusion about the motions of the planets. Unfortunately for Steiner, however, science has proven quite conclusively that the planets do indeed orbit the Sun. Thus, not only was Steiner factually wrong about the planets, but logically, his premise must also be untrue. In other words, Steiner here allows us to discover logically that he was not clairvoyant.

The matter is a bit more complicated than this, of course, since Steiner rarely set out his positions in even mock-logical terms. I’ve made his “reasoning” seem plainer than it actually was. Still, we can often trip him up by employing argument to absurdity. Consider Steiner’s oft-repeated declaration that the heart does not pump blood [15]. Steiner was not an MD. How did he know what no one else knew about hearts? Because he was clairvoyant. Not.

Steiner didn’t reason, he pontificated. As for absurdity, however, he was tops. Goblins [16], conversing with the dead [17], ancient human colonies on Mars, Saturn, etc. [18] The list is drearily long.

Wide Screen

Illogic is easiest to spot when it occurs within narrow confines: within a few sentences, say. But we can learn even more by adjusting our focal length to consider what we might call Steiner’s meta-fallacies — those that pervade wide swaths of his work. We’ve already done this with Steiner’s self-contradictions. Let’s look at two more examples.

Appeal to authority is a fallacy in which one cites an authority as if the citation were sufficient to prove a point. >Einstein (or Steiner) said so-and-so, so it must be true. The most egregious form of appeal to authority occurs when you cite an “authority” who actually has no real knowledge of the subject under discussion. >Einstein said baseball is the best sport, so it must be true. Einstein’s views, in such a case, carry little weight.

Even when we cite an authority in his/her field of expertise, the citation by itself does not prove anything. Authorities can be mistaken. “Experts” used to assure us that the Sun orbits the Earth, for instance. Also, because they can be mistaken, experts often disagree with one another. Will a rate cut by the Fed bolster the stock market? Sage A says X, Sage B says Y. We haven’t gotten anywhere.

We can also distinguish an implicit form of appeal to authority. This is an error Steiner committed over and over. He would cite an “authority,” or drop a name, or refer to a mystical tradition, and then press on as if he had made a reasonable point. Steiner denied that he did this [19], but he did. His works are studded with references to occult texts, Christ’s disciples, holy men of differing faiths, Buddha, Hindu scripture, Persian demons, mythological gods, creatures of folk lore, etc., etc. But nothing is proven by simply referring to some person or some thing — nothing is proven even by citing vast hordes of such individuals or entities. In the real world, proving a proposition requires the submission of genuine evidence which is then subjected to rational analysis. Steiner almost never did this.

Steiner was highly educated. He could awe some people with his apparently limitless knowledge. He did not credit his education for his store of esoteric information — instead, he said that his personal spiritual experiences included examination of the Akashic Record, a celestial compilation of essentially all knowledge. [20] Various mystic traditions refer to the Akashic Record or some similar repository of transcendent wisdom. But merely associating your claims with claims made by others does not prove anything, nor does tracing information to an invisible data storehouse. (It would be a brave student who footnoted a term paper with references to the Akashic Record; braver even than those who cite Wikipedia.) Steiner asserted that he had seen many things that we cannot see. Maybe he did. Or maybe he was mistaken. Or maybe he was fooling us. Or maybe he was fooling himself. We cannot know without evidence supported by valid reasoning. Steiner’s undocumented assertion that he knew a whole bunch of secret stuff is worthless. [21]

Circling

Meaning

Logic and Reality, Part 2

                                          PERSONAL NOTE

I was a student at a Waldorf school for most of my childhood, grades 2-12. During those long-ago years (1950s-1960s), I had little idea what Rudolf Steiner’s doctrines were. Today, as I read Steiner, I’m haunted by a question. Did my teachers know that Steiner made such remarkably foolish statements as that the Earth does not orbit the Sun? The motions of the planets have been firmly understood since the work of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler — 400 years ago. Did my teachers reject such well-established findings of science?

Probably at least some of them did. I don’t know how many of Steiner’s books and lectures they had studied. However, English-language editions of Steiner titles have been available in the USA at least since 1908. [46] Various books and transcripts were available in Germany even earlier. Those of my teachers who could read German (several could) might easily have read Steiner in his original German, and they would quite possibly have passed the “wisdom” they gained to their colleagues. Booklet transcriptions of Waldorf faculty meetings run by Steiner were circulated in Germany in the 1930s. [47] There were other editions of such transcripts in 1946-1952 and again in 1962. Today, transcripts are available in English as FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER. A companion volume, DISCUSSIONS WITH TEACHERS, became available in Germany at least as early as 1961. [48]

Perhaps the first English translation of a Steiner book dealing with Waldorf education was ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION, which includes passages such as this: “When we behold the earth wandering through cosmic space and taking up into herself elements flowing from the sun, moon, and other stars, we see her living in the cosmos.” [49] This is a profoundly antiscientific conception: The Earth wanders through space, she is alive, and she absorbs elements from such “stars” as the Moon. Astronomers, biologists, and geologists would beg to differ. But these are the sorts of propositions that Waldorf teachers have long received from Steiner.

So I wonder whether my teachers knew and believed what Steiner said about the planets. Or, knowing, did they selectively reject this particular set of teachings while accepting most others? Anthroposophists willingly accept all manner of bizarre Steiner statements. In recent years, I’ve had e-mail exchanges with Anthroposophists who were eager to affirm everything Steiner ever said, no matter how plainly wrong. The Anthroposophical editors of FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER apologized for Steiner’s racism in one especially glaring instance [50], but they offered no apology or explanation for Steiner’s stupid description of planetary motions. For Anthroposophists, stating that the Earth does not orbit the Sun is evidently neither embarrassing nor doubtful.




                                                    -----


                                               ENDNOTES


[1] The prefatory note can be found in, e.g., CHRIST IMPULSE AND DEVELOPMENT OF EGO-CONSCIOUSNESS, SECRETS OF THE THRESHOLD, COSMIC AND HUMAN METAMORPHOSES, WONDERS OF THE WORLD, THOUGHTS ON EASTER, and INNER NATURE OF MAN AND LIFE BETWEEN DEATH AND REBIRTH, all by Rudolf Steiner. During the Christmas season, 1923-24, Steiner announced plans for a school of spiritual science (i.e., Anthroposophy). See Johannes Kiersch, A HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE (Temple Lodge Publishing, 2006). The primary center for Anthroposophical studies today is located at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.

[2] Steiner’s claim that he based his work on his own perceptions rather on books or other ordinary research can be found, e.g., on p. 6 of AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1997). This book, titled in at least one other edition AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE, purports to be a scientifically valid exposition of Steiner’s spiritualistic observations. I invite you to read any edition and evaluate the scientific method as employed (or not) by Steiner. Steiner revised the book often, and he added new prefaces, replying to heavy criticism. Thus, for instance, he wrote “The preface of this book can be no place for entering into many ‘refutations’ of former editions by those who are totally devoid of appreciation of that for which it strives; but it must, none the less [sic], be emphasized that belittling of serious scientific thought in this book can only be imputed to the author by one who wishes to shut himself off from the spirit [emphasis by Steiner] of what is expressed in it.” [Rudolf Steiner, AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE (Anthroposophical Literature Concern, 1922; Kessinger reprint), pp. x-xi.] Steiner stuck by his guns. He labeled Anthroposophy “spiritual science,” and he claimed that opposition to his work came from people who failed to grasp his meaning or who did not recognize his spiritual profundity. He called materialists — the sort of people most likely to disagree with him — automatons: spiritually dead robots. E.g., “[M]aterialism causes the human being to become a thinking automaton...something that thinks, feels, and wills physically.” [Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 115.]

[3] AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE, p. xxiii.

[4] Rudolf Steiner, KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT (Anthroposophic Press, 1944), p. 28.

[5] Two fine sources for information about the rules and forms of logic are Robert Baum, LOGIC (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1989) and Irving M. Copi, SYMBOLIC LOGIC (Macmillan Publishing, 1979).

[6] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 408.

[7] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 46.

[8] Rudolf Steiner, THE FIFTH GOSPEL, (Rudolf Steiner Press), pp. 11-12. Note the title: Steiner claims to have access to a “gospel” not included in the Bible. Just as he often stood in opposition to science, he also stood in opposition to orthodox Christianity.

[9] Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), p.115.

[10] E.g., Rudolf Steiner, THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY (SteinerBooks, 1999), p. 39.

[11] E.g., Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 55.

[12] One of Steiner’s defenders, T. H. Meyer, attempts to substantiate Steiner’s claim that Anthroposophy is scientific. Meyer says that “spiritual science is just as exact and objective as any science which really deserves the name.” [T. H. Meyer, LIGHT FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1997), p. xxvi], and “Generally speaking, any results of spiritual scientific research may be verified in basically three ways: 1) As to the inner logic prevailing in the research presented; 2) By relating the results of spiritual scientific research to ordinary life and asking whether the latter becomes more comprehensible by taking them into account; 3) By adopting the methods given by Rudolf Steiner to develop the spiritual faculties of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition for oneself.” [p. viii] These three methods of “verification” are fallacious. 1) A system may possess interior consistency without, however, having any application to reality. If a system proceeds from faulty premises, its inner logic will produce faulty conclusions. Steiner's "research" consisted of unsubstantiated, and hence inadmissible, claims of clairvoyance. As for logic, the present essay demonstrates Steiner's illogic, inner and outer. 2) One may consider any belief system illuminating, but this does not mean that the system has any scientific validity. E.g., >“My factory job is awful because, as Karl Marx explained, we have not yet established the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Many people have accepted Marxism because it makes the world comprehensible to them, but this does not mean that Marxism has been scientifically proven. Ditto Anthroposophy. 3) If one develops clairvoyant powers and then sees everything Steiner saw, one might then convince oneself. But how can s/he convince others? On what basis would others believe him/her? As I pointed out in my essay, “Unenlightened,” the new “seer” would tell us about the spiritual realm, but still we would have no evidence, no proof. Even the “seer” should be skeptical of the her/his observations, since the human capacity for self-deception is well documented. In brief, none of Meyer’s three methods of verification is logical or scientific.

The triplet faculties, “Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition,” are worth more than a passing glance. Waldorf schools are often explicit about the importance they place on these faculties, but usually they do not explain that cultivating them is meant to lead toward clairvoyance. Steiner himself was not so shy — he explicitly vouched for his own powers of clairvoyance, and he tied imagination to clairvoyance, sometimes suggesting that in fact they are two sides of a single psychic power. “Essentially, people today have no inkling of how people looked out into the universe in ancient times when human beings still possessed an instinctive clairvoyance....If we want to be fully human, however, we must struggle to regain a view of the cosmos that moves toward Imagination again....” [ART AS SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 256.] Likewise, Steiner wrote “The content of spiritual perception can only be conveyed in images (imaginations [Steiner’s parentheses]) through which inspirations speak, while these inspirations in turn stem from a spiritual entity perceived intuitively.” [AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, p. 2.] In a word, clairvoyance.

I have asserted, elsewhere, that there is no such thing as clairvoyance. This is, I know, an unprovable universal negative. If even one person anywhere, anytime, has been clairvoyant, then my claim is wrong. But the onus is not really on me; it is on advocates of clairvoyance. Bring us an example, show us that clairvoyance is possible. Perhaps I should simply state that clairvoyance must be rare, since we see so little evidence of its successful operation. For this milder proposition, I’d like to offer one, perhaps not minor, example. I’ve written about Franz E. Winkler, one of the two leading American Anthroposophists whom I knew personally (see “Unenlightened” and “Rankings” — the other Anthroposophical leader I knew was John Fentress Gardner). Winkler was (or so it was said) clairvoyant. Yet one day, during a private conversation, he told me that he had met John Lindsay, who was then mayor of New York City, and he asserted that Lindsay would become president of the United States. Bad guess. Worse clairvoyance. Lindsay aimed for the presidency and got creamed.

[13] Rudolf Steiner, DEEPER INSIGHTS INTO EDUCATION (Anthroposophic Press, 1983), p. 29.

[14] For Steiner’s comments on planets, see FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER , pp. 30-31.

[15] E.g., Rudolf Steiner, POLARITIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF MANKIND (SteinerBooks, 1987), p.56; Rudolf Steiner, AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE (SteinerBooks, 2000), p. 84; and Rudolf Steiner, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1990), p. 126.

[16] Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), pp. 62-3.

[17] Rudolf Steiner, STAYING CONNECTED: How to Continue Your Relations with Those Who Have Died (Anthroposophic Press, 1999).

[18] Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982), p. 36.

[19] E.g., AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, p. 6.

[20] See, e.g., THE FIFTH GOSPEL: Its subtitle is “From the Akashic Record.”

[21] Steiner’s followers often fall for appeals to authority, in particular when the authority is named Rudolf Steiner. Whether they thereby commit the classic fallacy (citing someone who is not really an authority on a subject) or the lesser form (citing one who is an authority, but not considering whether s/he may be mistaken) is debatable. In any event, among Anthroposophical true believers, an almost unanswerable rejoinder to any argument is “Steiner said [fill in the blank].” I’ve been told that teachers at my old Waldorf school used this clincher pretty often in faculty meetings.

Here’s an example of the thinking employed by Anthroposophists when discussing Steiner’s teachings. The following is drawn from Astrid Schmitt-Stegmann’s introduction to Steiner’s PRACTICAL ADVICE TO TEACHERS (Anthroposophic Press, 2000), p. ix: “Rudolf Steiner’s concern is that growing children be brought into a healthy relationship with themselves and with the world around them. The teacher’s presentation must therefore breathe between the self and world....” Steiner said so-and-so, “therefore” we must do it. In case you think this is an isolated instance, let’s look farther down on the same page: “In a masterful way, Rudolf Steiner opens new vistas for the teacher...Therefore, when we work to develop the children’s mental...” and so on. Granted, teachers in Steiner-based schools probably should heed Steiner. But does it follow that they should accept Steiner’s word uncritically? How do they know that any particular remark by Steiner is true? Go back to the first “therefore,” above. What if Steiner’s views on human nature (we are reincarnated; we have twelve senses; our hearts don’t pump blood; etc.) and his view of the universe (Maya; Ahriman; goblins in the Earth; Yahweh presiding from the Moon; etc.) are utterly bonkers? Should Waldorf teachers still follow Steiner’s directives? Of course, if they don’t question Steiner's teachings, they won’t arrive at this dilemma.

[22] AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, p. 8.

[23] Anthroposophists often profess admiration for Steiner’s ability to discuss so many widely divergent subjects. He was an astonishing polymath, they tell us — his knowledge was so great, surely he had access to supernatural sources of information. It is certainly true that Steiner professed knowledge in many fields, and to some extent the range of his interests is indeed impressive. He clearly read a great deal, although perhaps not much more than most intellectuals. But our awe tends to subside a bit when we notice Steiner’s demonstrable errors. (We all make mistakes, but savants with a direct pipeline to supersensory wisdom don’t have the normal excuses.) We are even less impressed when we notice that a large chunk of Steiner’s reading evidently consisted of occult twaddle.

Anthroposophists' failure to see through Steiner often boils down to argument to ignorance, as in >No one can say for sure that Steiner was wrong, therefore I think he was right. This sort of thinking overlooks the more compelling fact that no one has shown that anything Steiner taught was right. Argument to ignorance is, essentially, merely an admission of ignorance. When something is unproven or unknown, the only sensible thing we can say about it is that it is unproven or unknown. >No one has proven to me that eating arsenic is dangerous, therefore I will now eat a bowl of arsenic. RIP.

[24] Rudolf Steiner, THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 60.

[25] Helena Blavatsky, THE SECRET DOCTRINE, (Theosophical University Press, reprint edition, 1999).

[26] AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE, p. x.

[27] AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, p. 238.

[28] Speaking of ad hominems (i.e., arguments directed at people rather than at ideas or evidence): Steiner rarely assailed individuals, but he frequently spoke slightingly of groups such as scientists, his critics, and — by far the most appalling — entire races. Technically, his rancid racist remarks were not ad hominem arguments, but they implied personal assaults. Thus: (A) Jews have little spiritual insight, (B) Dr. X is a Jew, therefore, (C) Dr. X cannot have much spiritual insight. See what you think:

• “The Jews [have little] recognition of the spiritual world.” [Rudolf Steiner, FROM BEETROOT TO BUDDHISM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), p. 59.]

• “[B]oth east of Atlantis* in the black population and west of Atlantis in the red population we find survivors of the kind of people who had not developed...in a normal way. The human beings who had developed normally [i.e., whites] lent themselves best to progress [i.e., human evolution].” [Rudolf Steiner, THE BEING OF MAN AND HIS FUTURE EVOLUTION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1981), p. 119.]

*To read Steiner, you must adjust. “East of Atlantis” is a real location, for Steiner: He taught that Atlantis was real. Thus, in this passage Steiner is discussing real races on the real Earth, in his opinion.

• “[T]he black race...is earthly at most” [Rudolf Steiner, VOM LEBEN DES MENSCHEN UND DER ERDE (Verlag Der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, 1961), p. 62.]

• “If you look at pictures of the old American Indians the process of ossification is evident in the decline of this race...The descendant of the brown race did not participate in [further human evolution].” [THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS, pp. 108-109.]

• “The French as a race are reverting [i.e., evolving downward, decaying].” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 558-559.]

• “[Superior] human beings...remained untouched by the Luciferic influence. [But] in the case of the lower types of human beings, the life body was too unprotected to be able to withstand the Luciferic influence.” [AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, pp. 238-239.]

Truth is, of course, the perfect justification for any statement, however vile it may seem. But who among us wishes to assert that Steiner was speaking the truth in these cases?

(By the way, Steiner understood that ad hominems are inadmissible, at least when they were aimed at himself. He complained of the “unfounded attacks against the personality of the author [i.e., Steiner]” [AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE, p. x] and “the many attacks on the author” [Ibid., p. xv]. Unfortunately, in defending himself, he fell into another fallacies, such as argument to the people, which attempts to buttress a case by saying that many people agree with it. “[I]t is also a fact at the present time that a number of people can appreciate the supersensible method of research ... Not from a lack of modesty, but with a sense of joyful satisfaction, does the author of this book feel profoundly the necessity for this fourth edition after a comparatively short time.” [Ibid., p. xii.] The problem is that people, both individually and jointly, can be wrong. Saying that so many people agree with me that I must put out a forth edition of my book proves nothing. As P. T. Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute. Steiner's career depended on human gullibility.

Sometimes Steiner's illogic was so blatant as to be laughable. Here's a nifty non sequitur (using irrelevancies to semi-support a statement): Once, trying to convince Britons that Germans are not nationalistic, Steiner explained that students at the Waldorf School often sang "My Heart's in the Highlands." [George Adams, A MAN BEFORE OTHERS: Rudolf Steiner Remembered (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993), p. 19.])

[29] E.g., Rudolf Steiner, THE ORIGINS OF NATURAL SCIENCE (SteinerBooks, 1985), p. 19.

[30] E.g., Rudolf Steiner, ART AS SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY, p.154.

[31] E.g., THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, pp. 69-71.

[32] E.g., Rudolf Steiner, SLEEP AND DREAMS (SteinerBooks, 2003), p. 43.

[33] E.g., Rudolf Steiner, THE REDEMPTION OF THINKING (SteinerBooks, 1983), p. 35.

[34] AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, p. 5.

[35] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 30.

[36] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 30-31.

[37] For astronomers, declination is the angular distance of a celestial object from the imaginary celestial equator: so many degrees north or south. The ecliptic is the Sun’s apparent orbital motion during a year. If we project this path outward, it defines the “plane of the ecliptic”: a circle on the imaginary celestial sphere within which we find the plane of the Earth’s orbit.

There are actually several north poles: • the north geomagnetic pole (the spot from which the Earth’s magnetic field arcs upward in the northern hemisphere) • the north magnetic pole (the shifting place compasses in the northern hemisphere point to: there is deviation in such readings) • the geographic north pole (essentially the spot that we, by convention, choose to call the pole) • the instantaneous north pole (the point at the top of the Earth’s axis — which shifts, describing a rough circle over the course of fourteen months) • the north pole of balance (the point at the center of the circle described by the instantaneous north pole). There are equivalent south poles, plus the “pole of inaccessibility,” the point in Antarctica farthest from any shore.

I can report this stuff because I can read encyclopedias and text books. I have not consulted the Akashic Record. Still, if you are awed by my almost-superhuman knowledge, maybe you’d like to join a little cult I could organize?

[38] There is a virtual infinitude of stars, including stars that appear to be near the pole. In rough terms (more than adequate when discussing Steiner’s errors) there are one hundred billion stars in our galaxy, and there are (as Carl Sagan used to say) billions and billions of galaxies. Most stars and galaxies are invisible to the naked eye. The few that, at any given time, appear to be near the north pole are merely the ones that are close enough to Earth to be visible and that lie in the far northern portion of the celestial sphere.

The orbital movement of the Earth constantly but slowly causes changes in the apparent location of stars as viewed from the Earth. The precession of the equinoxes causes other changes.

The zodiac is made up of major constellations that seem to lie within the celestial equatorial belt. As most educated people know, the constellations and the zodiac do not actually exist. Constellations consist of stars and galaxies that are separated by almost inconceivable distances. They appear to be coherent celestial patterns only because we view them from a position that causes illusory bunchings. If we were to travel to a distant planet in our solar system, the signs of the zodiac would look quite different. If we traveled far enough from Earth — say to another solar system — there would be no vestiges of the zodiac at all, and entirely new constellations would be visible (i.e., created by our own minds through the psychological phenomenon called closure, the subconscious tendency of the human brain to impose apparent order on disordered, disconnected objects).

[39] Have I misrepresented Steiner’s bonzo views on planetary motions? Judge for yourself. The discussion from which I quote occurred on 9/25/1919. Steiner had previously told the teachers at his first Waldorf school that the planets do not orbit the Sun. The following is from a comment he made twenty days earlier, on 9/5/1919: “Here, for example, we have the Sun [Steiner drew a zigzag line and put the Sun on it]; here are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars [Steiner drew these planets’ astrological signs on the line ahead of the Sun], and here are Venus, Mercury, and Earth [represented by astrological signs behind the Sun]. Now they all move in the direction indicated [along the zigzag line], moving one ahead one [sic] behind the other...This creates the illusion that Earth revolves round the Sun. The truth is that the Sun goes ahead, and the Earth creeps continually after it.” [DISCUSSIONS WITH TEACHERS (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 168.] Steiner’s nutty remarks on 9/25 were no aberration; they were an affirmation of nutty remarks he had made previously.

[40] AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, p. 238.

[41] Rudolf Steiner, ART INSPIRED BY RUDOLF STEINER (Mercury Arts Publications, 1987), p. 95.

[42] THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, p. 61.

[43] Rudolf Steiner, THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN (Anthroposophic Press, 1990), pp. 65-6.

[44] Rudolf Steiner, AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE, p. 84.

[45] THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, pp. 69-70.

[46] Rudolf Steiner,THE WAY OF INITIATION: Or How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds (The Occult Publishing Company, 1908).

[47] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. ix.

[48] The English-language version is Rudolf Steiner, DISCUSSIONS WITH TEACHERS (Anthroposophic Press, 1997).

[49] ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION: “Five Lectures delivered [sic] during the Educational Conference at the Waldorf School, Stuttgart, April, 1924” (Anthroposophical Publishing Company, 1926), p. 62.

[50] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 559.