Waldorf Problems

Anyone who wishes to follow Rudolf Steiner faces a serious problem. How should s/he deal with Steiner’s many demonstrable — sometimes hilarious, sometimes heinous — blunders? Let’s review a few of them. Steiner was either sincerely wrong about the following statements, or else he was lying.

A brief preface: Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to disprove a statement. If, for example, Steiner said anything as wacky as that fire-breathing beasts once roamed the Earth, or that goblins are present on the Earth today, most of us would be pretty sure he was wrong, but we would have a hard time proving it. Proving a negative (as in “There are no goblins”) is tough. But what does this mean, in practice? Simply that anything that anybody ever imagines may, just barely possibly, exist somewhere, somehow: unicorns, ghosts, little green men... The chance that any of these exist is minuscule, but we can’t absolutely rule out such possibilities. We can, however, insist that people who make weird claims must give us supporting evidence. The burden, in other words, is on them: You say that goblins exist? Show us. Convince us.

Other sorts of claims are easier to refute. Let’s imagine, for example, that Steiner said that the heart doesn’t pump blood or that the Earth doesn’t orbit the Sun. Science has clearly demonstrated that the heart is a muscular pump that sends blood coursing through our veins, and it has shown quite conclusively that the Earth (like all other planets in our solar system) orbits the Sun. One can challenge these findings, but they are extremely well established, so any challenge needs to be bolstered by very powerful proof. Steiner almost never gave evidence for his claims. He just made the claims, blew some people’s minds, and went his merry way.

II.

OK. So what did Steiner claim? Here are a few examples:

Steiner said that fire-breathing beasts once roamed the Earth [1] and that goblins exist. [2] His evidence? None. He did elaborate a bit on his belief in goblins. He said that goblins (sometimes called gnomes, he said) huddle together deep underground. Concerning the underground itself, he said that it consists of many layers (quite true) some of which are conscious, emotional, and given to crying if stepped upon (not so true). [3] He also taught that islands such as Great Britain are not attached to the Earth. They float. [4]

Steiner’s medical teachings do indeed include the preposterous idea that the heart is not responsible for circulating blood. Blood circulates of its own accord, he taught. [5] The heart, you see, is a sense organ, not a pump. [6]

Likewise, the brain is different from what you may have been taught. Thinking does not occur in the brain [7] — except among materialists, who are incapable of real cognition (aka clairvoyance). [8]

Other medical truths, according to Steiner: • Cancer can be treated with mistletoe. [9] • People have twelve senses. [10] • People exhibit four “temperaments” (and, therefore, students of differing temperaments should be segregated and taught differently — they can be in the same room, but in separate parts of that room). [11] • Real human beings are equipped with three nonphysical bodies [12] (this ia not true for “people” who are not really human [13]). • If real people are very very good, they can develop organs of clairvoyance. [14]

Steiner taught that Atlantis existed. [15] Before Atlantis, he lectured, there was another doomed human habitation: Lemuria. Problem for Anthroposophists: There is no shred of evidence that either such place ever existed. [16] Folklore and fables do not constitute evidence.

According to Steiner, the Aryan race arose from people who had lived on Atlantis. Problem: The Aryan race does not and never did exist. [17] A belief in Aryanism is only one doctrine in Steiner’s catalogue of racist teachings, many of which are — as you might expect — hateful. Different races and peoples have different mentalities and spiritual abilities, according to Steiner. Some races are moving upward evolutionarily, creating new spiritual realities as they progress; others are, deservedly, nose-diving. [18]

Steiner interwove his racist and other doctrines with tidbits of astrology. Not to be confused with the science of astronomy, astrology is the baseless, outmoded belief that the position of various heavenly bodies, as seen from the Earth, causes profound effects for everything upon the Earth. This is bunk — or, to be more diplomatic, it is a proposition that has not yet been confirmed by documented substantiation. [19]

Here are a few more blunders Steiner made concerning heavenly orbs: • His discussions of the solar system omitted many of its constituent parts, such as the mini-planets (Pluto and its like), the rest of the Kuiper belt, and the Oort cloud. [20] • He said that Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter do not orbit the Sun. [21] • And he taught that humans migrated to various planets (Mars, Saturn, Jupiter...) long, long ago. [22]

Coming back down to Earth, Steiner advocated “biodynamic” agriculture. But (leaving reality again) he taught that farmers and gardeners should plant their crops in accordance with astrological conditions, especially the phases of the moon. [23] A fine way to prepare fields of planting is to bury cow dung in cow horns for a specified period of time, then dig up the horns, empty the decayed dung into buckets, add water, and stir vigorously, reversing the direction of the stirring every so often in order to maximize the resulting magic. Then spray the liquid onto your fields (if you have no better way to spend your time). [24]

Steiner explained that evolution is not at all what Darwin and subsequent scientists have claimed. Steiner taught that the first living beings on Earth were humans (in a very different shape than we now enjoy). Thus, humans did not evolve from lower forms of life; just the opposite: Most animals on the Earth evolved (or devolved, or involved) from humans. [25]

III.

At least some of Steiner’s blunders result from the limitations imposed on him by period in which he lived. He was largely confined by hypotheses current in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. He was a victim, in other words, of various notions that science has subsequently discarded. • His ignorance of the outer reaches of the solar system was natural for a man of his time, before space probes and giant telescopes gave us new data. • He subscribed to belief in the “ether,” an impalpable substance that was once thought to pervade the universe, providing a medium for the propagation of light waves. [26] • He asserted the existence of Vulcan [27], an imaginary planet that was once believed to account for perturbations in the orbit of Mercury. • He accepted the notion, popular in his day, that Mars has surface features resembling canals. He denied that the lines are canals, but he asserted that the lines exist. Moreover, he taught that Mars is primarily a liquid body. He was wrong on both counts. [28] Indeed, he was wrong on all the matters I've listed just now.

The canal-like lines on Mars vanished in the 1960s when our first Mars probe sent back photos of the planet's surface. (And later probes, including landers, showed that Mars is dry and rocky, with a very thin atmosphere and no signs — as yet — of life.) For the retirement of Vulcan and the ether we can thank Einstein. He showed that the oddness of Mercury's orbit is caused by the Sun's mass, and he showed that light can be considered a stream of particles that do not require an etheric medium. Crucially, in the years since Einstein published his theories, scientists have tested the theories over and over, and confirmed them. (Anthroposophists sometimes jump on the term "theory," as if it means that science is shaky. But in science, "theory" does not signify deep uncertainty; rather, a scientific theory is a testable, systematic explanation of phenomena. All scientific theories may eventually be supplanted by later, more advanced theories, but all stand on solid evidence. An Anthroposophist can test the "theory of gravity," for instance, by jumping out of a high window.) Scientific evidence for Steiner's doctrines, on the other hand, has been woefully lacking.

To completely avoid his errors about Mercury, Mars, ether, and so forth, Steiner would have required information that did not become available until after his death. But this can not acquit him, for two reasons. • Einstein published his seminal paper on the nature of light in 1905. During that same year, he published his special theory of relativity, which he followed in 1916 with the general theory of relativity. Steiner died in 1925, two decades after Einstein’s first breakthroughs. [29] • No matter when he lived and died, Steiner should have known what was coming. Steiner asserted the existence of clairvoyance. [30] Indeed, he claimed his teachings are based on his own clairvoyant perceptions. [31] For instance, he claimed to have peered into the future: He laid out fascinating visions of things to come. [32] But, somehow, these visions did not include developments that have actually come about, such as our increased comprehension of the solar system, the truth about the surface of Mars, and the many experiments that have verified Einstein's theories about light and relativity. (Anthroposophists sometimes jump on the term “relativity,” as if it means that Einstein taught that everything is relative, i.e., not really knowable. Not so. The theories of relativity show that time and space are interconnected, in which context motion is relative. But Einstein was not a moral, intellectual, or spiritual relativist. He famously said that God does not play dice with the universe: The laws of the universe make sense, and we can discover them. [33]) If Steiner was clairvoyant, the future should have been an open book to him, as he claimed it was — but it wasn't, and we can't acquit him of failing by his own lights.

 

IV.

We should linger over that point. While claiming that his doctrines are a form of “spiritual science,” Steiner advocated very different forms of thought than the logic required by science: He beat the drum for imagination, intuition, and clairvoyance. The irony is that these forms of thought lead to the very uncertainty and relativism that Anthroposophists say they oppose.

Perhaps Steiner really saw the things he says he saw. We don’t know: All we have is his word for it. And, equally important, if Steiner truly thought that he saw such things, he himself couldn’t have known whether they were real or merely products of his unconscious fancy. The visions he reported presumably came to him, one way or another (unless he was consciously making them up, of course). They may have felt right to him. He may have thought that they merited implicit belief. But how did he know that they weren’t mere figments of his imagination and thus false? He couldn’t have known, since he advocated imagination as a reliable investigative tool. Finding where to draw the line between imagination and self-deception is a great challenge, one that begs the definition of sanity. People fool themselves all the time, misinterpreting what they see and hear. When individuals develop an intense tendency to see and hear things that we can’t confirm — perhaps even things that aren’t real — we are justified in worrying about them, but we probably don’t want to follow their lead.

Consider the matter from the perspective of one who wishes to believe Steiner’s teachings. An Anthroposophist might well reject the argument I’m making right now because s/he intuits that Steiner is right and I am wrong. Steiner’s teachings feel right to her/him, and mine feel wrong. The obvious danger in applying such subjective standards is that no real proof is required, so one can easily end up believing fantasies or even lies. Steiner said that he his psychic faculties provided objective visions, which he called “imaginations” [34]. But objectivity requires dispassionate reasoning, which is brainwork, which Steiner derided. The issue comes down to this: Which type of “thinking” is reliable: reasoning or clairvoyance?

Let’s look again, very briefly, at a few of the most obviously fallacious assertions that Steiner’s clairvoyance produced. • The heart doesn’t pump blood. • The Earth doesn’t orbit the Sun. • Islands float. • Vulcan exists. • Lower animals evolved from humans. There is a huge amount of scientific evidence on all of these points, and all of it indicates that Steiner was wrong. This is where Steiner’s reliance on non-brain “thinking” led him: to error.

So where does all of this lead us? Steiner’s demonstrable errors demolish his claim that he was a clairvoyant authority. Steiner “saw” marvels, but time after time when we can test these marvels, they turn out to be wrong. The form of thinking Steiner says he employed was unreliable, and the teachings he offers us as a product of that “thinking” are unreliable. Which is very good news. Rudolf Steiner was not a spiritual sage. His authority is zilch. We are led to freedom from his delusions.

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ENDNOTES

I will generally confine myself to a single reference for each blunder. More can easily be raked up.

[1] Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998, Volumes 1 & 2), p.26. Indeed, Steiner was referring to dragons (i.e., dinosaurs that breathed fire): “Yes, those beasts did breathe fire...What I am referring to are dinosaurs from the beginning of the Tertiary Period.” Paleontologists and biologists will be surprised to learn that any dinosaurs, in any period, breathed fire.

One of the editors of FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER took the liberty of actually correcting the geological terms Steiner used in this passage, although the editor attributed the errors to a stenographer rather than Steiner himself. The corrections boil down to switching period names, such as substituting "Tertiary Period" for "Quaternary Period," and so forth. Such alterations do help. Revealingly, however, the editor did not challenge the notion that various ancient beasts breathed fire, nor that human beings once had "jelly-like bodies," another outlandish statement Steiner made in the same faculty meeting. [Ibid., pp. 26 and 27]. For more on ancient dates and periods, see endnote 16.
 
As I mentioned in “Unenlightened,” the small library at the Waldorf school I attended contained books asserting the probable existence of fabulous beasts such as the “Congo dragon.” Teaching children that dragons ever existed or exist now is bestowing a questionable gift on their young minds. http::/homepage.mac.com/nonlevitating/one.html  I do not remember whether any books in the library referred to "dragon birds," but Steiner discussed such creatures with the workmen erecting his headquarters. See Rudolf Steiner, FROM CRYSTALS TO CROCODILES (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2002), pp. 103-111.

[2] Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS. Lectures from 1908-1924 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), pp. 62-3: Dense groups of Goblins bursting asunder.

[3] Rudolf Steiner, THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH: An Esoteric Study of the Subterranean Spheres (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007) p. 31.

[4] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 607. Note that Steiner made this and many other utterly absurd statements to Waldorf school teachers, who did not challenge him.
 
[5] Rudolf Steiner, AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE: Exploring Our Suprasensory Nature (Steiner Books, 2000), p. 84.

[6] Rudolf Steiner, POLARITIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF MANKIND (Steiner Books, 1987), p.56.

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

For Steiner, true cognition is clairvoyance, which he located outside the physical organ known to science as the brain. Neurobiology has shown that cognition certainly occurs in the brain; indeed, it has found the locations central to various mental processes. No location has been found for clairvoyance, not because — as Steiner would have it — clairvoyance is “supersensory” (above and beyond our ordinary senses), but because its existence is unproven and highly suspect.

A semi-facetious aside: A magician, the Amazing Randi, has duplicated various “psychic” powers, purely as tricks — in fact, purely to debunk claims made by “psychics” or “clairvoyants” like Steiner. Randi is not a nincompoop. Under his real name, James Randi, he has written several sensible books, including AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CLAIMS, FRAUDS, AND HOAXES OF THE OCCULT AND SUPERNATURAL (St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997), introduction by Arthur C. Clarke. According to Clarke, “How I wish that Randi’s Encyclopedia could be in every high school and college library, as an antidote to the acres of mind-rotting rubbish that now litter the bookstands!” [p. xii] Years ago, Randi offered a $1 million prize to anyone who could convincing demonstrate real psychic powers or any sort. Randi still hasn’t had to pay out a penny. Also see http://skepdic.com/randi.html and Michio Kaku, PHYSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE (Doubleday, 2008), pp. 90-91.

[8] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 115.

[9] See, e.g., “Treating Cancer with Misteltoe [sic]”, openwaldorf.com.

[10] THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, pp. 142-145.

[11] See, e.g., FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 90-91, and Hermann von Baravalle, “The Four Temperaments,” WALDORF EDUCATION FOR AMERICA (Parker Courtney Press, 1998). Von Baravalle, an acquaintance and follower of Steiner, was a teacher at the first Waldorf school.

[12] References to nonphysical human bodies occur throughout Steiner’s teachings. One interesting example: Rudolf Steiner, THEOSOPHY OF THE ROSICRUCIAN (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1981), pp. 22-25. (Theosophy and Rosicrucianism are forms of occultism from which Steiner borrowed.)

[13] Steiner urged Waldorf teachers not to reveal this particular doctrine: “Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings. Nevertheless, these are facts.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 650.] In my opinion, Steiner’s assertion that some people are subhuman is the most horrid of his doctrines (although some of his racist remarks come close), and it is more than ample reason to keep children out of Waldorf schools.

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

[15] Rudolf Steiner, ATLANTIS: The Fate of a Lost Land and Its Secret Knowledge (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007).

[16] Rudolf Steiner, ATLANTIS AND LEMURIA (Health Research Books, 2000).

Speaking to Waldorf School teachers, Steiner asserted,“The Atlantean period was no more than about nine thousand years ago.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 51.] The Lemurian period, of course, came earlier. Both periods were quite recent, judged by geological time spans. Clouding the picture, however, is Steiner's association of Lemuria with the Mesozoic age and Atlantis with the Cenozoic: “[Y]ou have the Mesozoic, which generally corresponds to Lemuria ... [and] the Cenozoic, that is, the Atlantean age.” [Ibid., p. 50] As any good dictionary or encyclopedia will attest, the Mesozoic ran from 265 million to 65 million years ago, while the Cenozoic began  65 million years back and is still chugging along. Reconciling Steiner's teachings with fact is  generally impossible. "Generally corresponds" is nicely vague, but "that is" seems definite. The best we can do is to assume that, despite his claims that he was teaching "spiritual science," his statements have no bearing on reality as we know it.

[17] E.g., Rudolf Steiner, THE SUBMERGED CONTINENTS OF ATLANTIS AND LEMURIA (Kessinger Publishing, 2005), p.51. See also Peter Staudenmaier, “Race and Redemption: Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy,” 2004, http::/www.waldorfcritics.org, and my essay, “Legends”  http://homepage.mac.com/nonlevitating/24.html

[18] Because the charge of racism is so damning, I should present at least a few substantiating quotations. • “A race or nation stands so much the higher, the more perfectly its members express the pure, ideal human type...The evolution of man through the incarnations in ever higher national and racial forms is thus a process of liberation [leading to] an ideal future.” [Rudolf Steiner, KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT (Anthroposophic Press, 1944), p. 149.] • “On one side we find the black race, which is earthly at most. If it moves to the West, it becomes extinct. We also have the yellow race, which is in the middle between earth and the cosmos. If it moves to the East, it becomes brown, attaches itself too much to the cosmos, and becomes extinct. The white race is the future, the race that is creating spirit.” [Rudolf Steiner, VOM LEBEN DES MENSCHEN UND DER ERDE {On the Life of Human Beings and of the Earth} (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. In a race such as this everything pertaining to the forces of the Saturn evolution has become realized in a special manner; then Saturn withdrew into itself, abandoned man to his bony system and thus hastened his decline.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), pp. 108.] Some of that is, I know, hard to follow. Suffice to say, Steiner taught that heavenly bodies have power over humans and that planets in our solar system can be taken as representing (or actually being) stages of human evolution. • Concerning what Steiner called Jews’ lack of spiritual insight, see Rudolf Steiner, FROM BEETROOT TO BUDDHISM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), p. 59. • Concerning French blood and the decadence of the French “race,” see Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 558-559. The passage there also reflects Steiner’s detestation of Africans.

[19] Steiner’s faith in astrology shows up in odd and troubling ways. For instance, in EDUCATION FOR SPECIAL NEEDS, he uses astrology to reveal the condition of children (note the explicit reference to horoscopes): “Now let us turn to the horoscope of the younger child. Again, here are Venus and Uranus and Mars near together...when we examine more nearly [i.e., more closely] the position of Mars, we find it is not, as before, in complete opposition to the moon. It is however very nearly so. Although the younger child does not come in for a complete opposition, there is an approximation of opposition.” [Rudolf Steiner, EDUCATION FOR SPECIAL NEEDS: The Curative Education Course (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 196.] Using astrology to guide the treatment of children with special needs is clearly a recipe for ineffective treatment, and perhaps disaster.

[20] E.g., THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS, pp. 15-16 and FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER pp. 30-31. I touch on astronomical matters in my essays “Oh My Stars,” “More,” “And More,” and “Steiner’s Logic.”

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

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

Am I going too far in listing ancient migrations to other planets among Steiner’s blunders? Strictly speaking, no claim is automatically implausible, no matter how odd it may seem. Scientists such as Galileo, Newton, and Einstein proposed concepts that, at first, appeared absurd. But eventually they and their work stood up to scrutiny. They successfully bore the obligation of proof. Is Steiner in their league? Do we find ourselves compelled, even if reluctantly, to accept assertions of his such as that humans migrated to Mars, etc., in the distant past? I suggest that all of Steiner’s assertions deserve consideration. But like all other assertions from all other sources, they require validation. Lacking that, they deserve to be considered blunders, fabrications, or — at best — utterly unsupported hypotheses.

[23] E.g., Hugh J. Courtney, "Recommendations for Working with Crops, Sequential Spraying, and Ashing (for U.S.A.), January through June, 2007, (EST until April 1 at 2:00 am, then EDT)," http::/biodynamics.com.

Farmers need all the help they can get — nature can be cruel and fickle. There’s a long tradition in agriculture of consulting the phases of the moon. But sunlight, water, and nutrients are (to say the least) more necessary for plant life. See, e.g., http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-176049239.html. For more on lunar effects in general, see Robert Todd Carroll, THE SKEPTIC’S DICTIONARY (John Wiley & Sons, 2003), pp. 202-206.

[24] E.g., "Biodynamic Frequently Asked Questions," http::/www.biodynamic.org.uk.

[25] A fine summary of such matters is the afterword written by Peter Staudenmaier, available at http::/homepage.mac.com/nonlevitating/26.html.

Some Christians reject Darwinian evolution, but they would make a grave error if they thought Steiner was their ally. Steiner was not a Creationist. Rather than teaching that God created all creatures, he argued for evolution — a different form from Darwin’s, but evolution nonetheless. And Steiner rejected the most basic tenet of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, that there is but one God: “Monotheism...can only represent an ultimate ideal; it could never lead to a real understanding of the world....” [THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS , p.115.]

[26] E.g., Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT SCIENCE: An Outline (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), p. 332.

[27] E.g., Rudolf Steiner, COSMIC MEMORY (SteinerBooks, 1987), p. 163.

[28] The belief in Martian canals, probably built by Martian engineers, arose from a mistranslation of an Italian astronomer's report, and it grew due to the assertions of Percival Lowell, an American astronomer who devoted much of his career to studying the supposed canals and the belts of vegetation that he thought grew along their banks. Steiner, as usual, he felt compelled to correct everyone: The straight lines on Mars do exist, he said, but they are not really canals. But his correction was incorrect: “Mars is primarily of a more or less fluid mass...[As for the canals:] There is nothing to be seen except straight lines.” [Rudolf Steiner, FROM SUNSPOTS TO STRAWBERRIES (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2002), pp. 147-148.] For factual information, see, e.g. ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, "Percival Lowell" and "Mars." Also see NASA's reports on the findings of the Mars rovers and other probes. No Mars probe has found any long straight surface features, and all probes have reported that Mars is dessicated.
 

[29] See, e.g., britannica.com/eb/article-9106018/Albert-Einstein 

http://www.britannica.com

[30] For a description clairvoyance in action, see Rudolf Steiner and John Fletcher, ART INSPIRED BY RUDOLF STEINER (Mercury Arts Publications, 1987), p. 95.

[31] e.g., Rudolf Steiner, AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), p. 6. Not an astronomer, Steiner nonetheless claimed he knew best about planetary motions. Not an MD, he claimed he knew best about the heart. Not a biologist, he claimed he knew best about evolution. He claimed to know about these and most other matters because “true cognition,” in his system, is clairvoyance, which he was fortunate enough to possess.

[32] See my Web site, steiner-predicts http://steiner-predicts.com

[33] In effect, Einstein argued that God is rational and His handiwork makes sense. But Einstein did not deny that nature is difficult to fathom — it took him over ten years to reason his way from the special theory of relativity to the general theory.

Light is certainly difficult to fathom. Physicists today find value in thinking of light sometimes as a stream of particles and sometimes as a series of waves. In neither case, however, do they any longer posit the existence of a universal "ether" for light to travel through.

Planetary motions are also complex. Mercury's odd orbit results from the bending of space in the vicinity of massive objects, such as the Sun. Mercury is the planet closest to the Sun and thus it is the one most affected by the curvature of space around the Sun.

There are many fine expositions of Einstein's work written for the layman. Einstein himself tried to make his two largest theories comprehensible to the mathematically challenged in RELATIVITY: The Special and the General Theory (Three Rivers Press, 1961), originally published in 1916 and revised in 1952. A more sophisticated exposition is Einstein's THE MEANING OF RELATIVITY: Including the Relativistic Theory of the Non-Symmetric Field (Princeton University Press, 1974), originally published in 1922.

[34] E.g., “The content of spiritual perception can only be conveyed in images (imaginations) [sic] through which inspirations speak, while these inspirations in turn stem from a spiritual entity perceived intuitively.” [AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, p. 2.] I did not add the parenthetical clarification: It occurs in the text.