Waldorf Problems

QUOTATIONS

With the exception of one quotation that is about Rudolf Steiner, all of the following statements were made by Rudolf Steiner. I have trimmed several of them, to make them clearer (Steiner tended to ramble), but I have not altered the meaning of any statement.

Ask yourself whether you want your children to be “educated” by the followers of a man who made statements such as the following.

◊ [Humans in the Distant Past] “The human being was at that time only jelly-like in external form.” [Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p.26]

◊ [Gnomes] "Gnomes are...unable to grasp how there can be anything but an ineffectual relationship with [our] world.” [Rudolf Steiner, CHANCE, PROVIDENCE, AND NECESSITY (SteinerBooks, 1988), p. 95.]

◊ [Punishment] "We may never place ourselves in a situation where we may have to relent in a disciplinary decision...With punishment, we cannot relent." [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 109.]

◊ [Twilight Zone] “[T]he moon today is like a fortress in the universe, in which there lives a population that fulfilled its human destiny over 15,000 years ago, after which it withdrew to the moon together with the spiritual guides of humanity...This is only one of the ‘cities’ in the universe, one colony, one settlement among many...As far as what concerns ourselves, as humanity on earth, the other pole, the opposite extreme to the moon is the population of Saturn.” [Rudolf Steiner, RUDOLF STEINER SPEAKS TO THE BRITISH (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), p. 93.] 

◊ [Waldorf’s Religious Agenda] “Among the faculty, we must certainly carry within us the knowledge that...we are actually carrying out the intentions of the gods....” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 55.]

◊ [Lunacy and Sunstroke] “If, as he had developed on the Sun, man was called plant man, the man of the Moon can be called animal man...[T]he Sun man could only elevate himself into a plant by thrusting a portion of his companions down into a coarser mineral realm...The animal man of the Moon does not yet have firm bones. His skeleton is still cartilaginous. His whole nature is soft, compared to that of today....” [Rudolf Steiner, COSMIC MEMORY: Prehistory of Earth and Man, (SteinerBooks, 1987), pp. 193-195.]

◊ [Reincarnation] “[R]ealize that looking at the human head you are looking at the transformed body of your previous earth life, and that the head you had then was the transformed body of your preceding life—you must imagine it without the head, of course. The head you see now is the transformed organism of the last life lived on earth. The rest of the organism as you see it now will be the head in the next life. Then the arms will have metamorphosed and become ears, and the legs will have become eyes.” [Rudolf Steiner, POLARITIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF MANKIND (Steiner Books, 1987), p. 59.]

◊ [Saturn Humans, Lucifer, Lower Types of Humans] “We can also distinguish 'Saturn humans'...In human beings of this type, both the life body and the physical body had portions that 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.” [Rudolf Steiner, AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE (SteinerBooks, 1997), pp. 238-239.]

◊ [Categorization & Segregation of Children] “The important thing for us to remember is the diversity of children...Such diversity can be traced to four fundamental types, and the most important task [sic] of the educator and teacher [sic] is to know and recognize these four types we call the temperaments...sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic, and choleric...We can always find that the characteristic constitution of each child belongs to one of these classes of temperatures...In this way we can divide a class into four groups, and you should gradually rearrange the seating of the children with this goal in mind.” [Rudolf Steiner, DISCUSSIONS WITH TEACHERS (SteinerBooks, 1997), pp.13-15.]

◊ [Jesus and “Sun Force”] “It is...important that the deeds of Christ Jesus are always seen in relation to the physical sun, which is the external expression of the spiritual world that is received at the point where Christ’s physical body is walking around.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN: The Evolution of Individuality (Anthroposophic Press, 1990), p. 65.]

◊ [Antiscientific teachings] “[Science] sees the heart as a pump that pumps blood through the body. Now there is nothing more absurd than believing this....” [Rudolf Steiner, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY, (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1990), p. 126.]

◊ [Jupiter Humans] “[There were] human beings who had their origins in the interbreeding of Earth offspring with humans who...moved to Jupiter...." [AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, p. 238.]

◊ [Tardiness] “We lose all control the minute we look away...it would make us somewhat laughable. Of course, it’s just laziness...If a child comes late ten minutes, have him or her stand for half an hour...Let them stand uncomfortably...you can be particularly effective if you allow [sic] them to stand in an uncomfortable place...We could also buy a number of little sheds....” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 109-110.]

◊ [Star Trek] “The last planet which can still be counted among the series of earthly transformations, and hence follows Venus, is called ‘Vulcan’ by mystery science...Not much can be publicly communicated about life on this planet...only mystery students of the higher order, who may leave their physical body [sic] and acquire supersensible knowledge outside it, can learn something about Vulcan.” [COSMIC MEMORY, p. 163.]  

◊ [Clairvoyance] “If the person devoting himself to the color which covers these physically dense walls were one who had made certain occult progress...the consciousness that the walls shut off the outer world would vanish...We need only reflect that behind everything around us physically there are spiritual beings and facts...The worlds which surround us spiritually are of many kinds, many different kinds of elementary beings are around us...In a red room, other beings become visible than in a blue room....” [Rudolf Steiner quoted in ART INSPIRED BY RUDOLF STEINER, John Fletcher (Mercury Arts Publications, 1987), p. 95.]

◊ [Races, Sub-Races, Aryan Race—mentioned even in a book about farming] “Now there are various ways of finding the Godhead. The Indians, who were the first sub-race of the Aryan race...”  (Footnote, p. 207: “It is from the Aryan peoples that modern intellectual and materialistic culture has developed.”) [Rudolf Steiner, AGRICULTURE: An Introductory Reader (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 23.]

◊ [Our Next Planet, Clairvoyance] “On the planet which will replace our Earth, the whole of humanity will have [the] psychic-consciousness or Imagination, the ‘Jupiter’ consciousness....” [Rudolf Steiner, UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN BEING (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993), pp. 30-31.]

◊ [Racism] “White mankind is still on the path of absorbing spirit more deeply into its essence. Yellow mankind is on the path of preserving the period when the spirit is kept away from the body, when the spirit can only be sought outside of the human-physical organization. But the result will have to be that [mankind’s next evolutionary stage] cannot happen differently than as a violent fight between white mankind and colored mankind in the most varied areas.” [Rudolf Steiner, DIE GEISTIGEN HINTERGRÜNDE DES ERSTEN WELTKRIEGES {The Spiritual Background of the First World War} (Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1974), p. 38, translated by Roger Rawlings, 2005.]

◊ [Anti-Semitism] “The Jews have a great gift for materialism, but little for recognition of the spiritual world.” [Rudolf Steiner, FROM BEETROOT TO BUDDHISM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999), p. 59.]

◊ [Anthroposophy at Waldorf] “Anthroposophy will be in the school when it is objectively justified, that is, when it is called for....” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 495.]

◊ [The Spiritual World] “When we climb out of the physical world into the spiritual world...we shall gain the impression of powers in the spiritual world that take pity, as it were, on our weakness and say, ‘Well! so you were weak in the physical sense world! If only you climb into the spiritual world through the prime [window] I must dissolve you, suck you up and break you to pieces. But if you enter through the second [window] I will offer you something from the spiritual world and remind you of something that is there as well.’” [Rudolf Steiner, ART AS SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF MYSTERY WISDOM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), p.105.]

◊ [Germans] "[S]peaking of the character and task of the German people, [Steiner] went on to say: 'The Germans are not really nationalistic'. This was met with evident surprise; the war [World War I] had not been long over. Dr. Steiner repeated his statement and proceeded to illustrate it with a story of the opening week of the Waldorf School...the children [who were German], running up and down the corridors and in the playground, would keep singing, not any German Lied or folksong, but 'My Heart's in the Highlands'." [George Adams, A MAN BEFORE OTHERS: Rudolf Steiner Remembered: "Rudolf Steiner in England" (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993), p. 19. I have included this quotation mainly for comic relief. But Steiner's views on the "character" and "task" of the German people merit scrutiny. See my essay, "Rankings," at http://steiner-predics.com.]

◊ [Antiscientific Teachings] “[E]arthly development would have long ago reached its final stage were the Earth not continuously fed with the forces of human corpses, the forces released by the human spirit-soul at death." [Rudolf Steiner, THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 71.]

◊ [“Temperaments” of Students] “The choleric temperament becomes immediately annoyed by and angry about anything that interrupts its activity. When it is in a rhythmic experience, it becomes vexed and angry, but it will also become angry if it is involved in another experience and is interrupted...In cholerics, you will generally find an abnormally developed sense of balance (Libra)...In sanguines (Virgo), in connection with the sense of balance and sense of movement, the sense of movement predominates. In the same way, in melancholics (Leo) the sense of life predominates and in phlegmatics (Cancer) the sense of touch predominates physiologically because the touch bodies are embedded in small fat pads.” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 90-91.]

◊ [Strange Physiology] “Your head is not just a lazybones sitting on your shoulders. It is actually the thing that would like to keep you an animal.” [Rudolf Steiner, HEALTH AND ILLNESS, Vol. 1 (Anthroposophic Press, 1981), p. 185.]

◊ [Goblins] “There are beings that can be seen with clairvoyant vision at many spots in the depths of the earth...Many names have been given to them, such as goblins, gnomes and so forth....” [Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), pp. 62-3.]

◊ [Automata] “The task of Anthroposophy is...to raise the spirit-soul into the realm of the spiritual, so that the human being is no longer a thinking and feeling automaton....” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 115.]
 
◊ [Karma, Evolution, Moon Forces] “In the course of its development, the good portion of humankind will learn to use the Moon forces to transform the evil part [of mankind] so that it can participate in further evolution as a distinct earthly kingdom.” [AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE, p. 393.]   

◊ [Subhumans] “[C]ases are increasing in which children are born with a human form, but are not really human beings...[they] are not reincarnated, but are human forms filled with a sort of natural demon....” [FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 649-650.]

◊ [You call it] “[I]f we give these Negro novels to pregnant women to read, then it won’t even be necessary for Negroes to come to Europe in order for mulattos to appear. Simply through the spiritual effects of reading Negro novels, a multitude of children will be born in Europe that are completely gray, that have mulatto hair, that look like mulattos!” [Quoted in “Race and Redemption: Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy,” by Peter Staudenmaier, waldorfcritics.org.]