Oct 17, 2009
Dear Friends and Neighbors of Highland Hall School,
Thank you for following what has become a bit of an intellectual exercise. I think your children will thank you.
Last Tuesday was a special day for me. It was the anniversary of my father’s birthday. He was born in 1915, came to the US at 21, enlisted in the army, and was a veteran of WWII. My father was one of the founders of St. Nicholas Church, which touches the corner of Highland Hall’s property.
It was with some embarrassment that I had to inform St. Nicholas church and many of our other neighbors that racism is being taught to children at their neighborhood school, Highland Hall. That fact is inescapable at this point, however. Highland Hall teaches racist ideas to children because their philosophy is based on racist themes.
Waldorf teachers are taught racist ideas and some of the required reading for Waldorf teachers is explicitly racist, while other materials are implicitly racist. Since I was unable to get Highland Hall’s cooperation to obtain a WISC teacher training reading list — it appears WISC also removed it from their website in the short time since I started my inquiries — I was able to get one from a different Waldorf teaching center through the Freedom of Information Act. I will obtain a copy of WISC’s reading list soon, but it doesn’t matter that much; Highland Hall’s teachers come from all over. Highland Hall, in its typical deceitful manner, won’t disclose what they are teaching on their campus… even what they are teaching to Waldorf TEACHERS.
I’ve discovered that Waldorf teachers are taught that a child’s intellectual capacity is based on physical factors, including the child’s race. The following excerpt is from one of the books that is required reading for Waldorf teachers.
"For 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." (Steiner, Knowledge of Higher Worlds p. 207) This book also is sold by the title “How to Know Higher Worlds.”
By the way, the “harmonious perfection” Steiner talked about isn’t expected for a few thousand years. But mustn’t we concern ourselves with our children TODAY? Do Waldorf teachers really believe children with blond hair and blue eyes are naturally more intelligent than children with different features?
In my last letter, we saw Steiner went into great detail to tell teachers EXACTLY what to look for in each child for every possible issue. Let’s have a quick review from our previous discussions: Steiner’s ideas about… how to know children.
Temperaments – partially determined by body types:
Sanguine = Superficial
Choleric = Destructive
Melancholic = Self-pitying
Phlegmatic = Lazy
Phlegmatic = Lazy
Other physical features and their meaning:
Small Head = Brooding and reflecting
Large Head = Phlegma and lack of attention
Left-handedness = Karmic weakness
Blond hair & blue eyes = Intelligent
White race = High point of human evolution – the “race of the future”.
Black people = Weak ego - absorb light and heat like plants thus have “carbonic
constituents” under their skin making them black.
Red Indians = Ego too strong – destined to die out.
Jews = Useless now and need to disappear into society.
Non-physical attributes and their meaning:
Demons = Some children aren’t human – they are possessed by demons.
What else did Steiner deduce from physical and racial traits? In my last letter, we read from Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner. My letter was posted to the Waldorf Critics list by a former Highland Hall parent.
Roger Rawlings, a former Waldorf student provided a revealing passage from Rudolf Steiner’s Nature Spirits (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1970, pp. 106-110.), in which Steiner himself humiliates a child in front of an assembly of teachers.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19240701p01.html
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19240701p01.html
That Steiner, supposedly an “educator,” would put a child through this humiliating and apparently petrifying experience is not surprising to me, having witnessed firsthand the humiliation some Waldorf teachers are willing to put students through (perhaps based on what they have learned through this example). But why? I think it has a LOT to do with how Waldorf teachers view the child, and this is based on Steiner’s ideas about KARMA.
Since Highland Hall is not cooperating with anything I’m investigating, I obtained the Waldorf Teacher Training Book List from the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training FAQ Sheet.
From the Waldorf Teacher required reading list: Manifestations of Karma – Rudolf Steiner.
Let’s have a look at what they’re teaching our Waldorf teachers, shall we?
“We know that at a certain point in the Earth's evolution there penetrated into the development of humanity the forces we call luciferic, which belong to beings who remained behind during the ancient Moon evolution, and who did not advance far enough to reach, as it were, the normal point of their development. Thereby was implanted into the astral body of man, before his Ego could work in the proper manner, a principle which streamed from these luciferic beings. So the influence of these beings was once exercised on man's astral body, and he has retained it throughout his evolution. This influence plays a great part in human evolution; but for our present task it is important to point out that as a result of these forces, he had within him that which led him to be less perfect than he would otherwise have been if such influence had not come.” p89.
“Now, if man had taken only this principle into himself he would have succumbed more and more to the allurements of the physical earth world; he would gradually have been obliged to resign the prospect of breaking loose again from this world. We know that the Christ influence which came later opposed the luciferic principle and balanced it again, as it were, so that in the course of evolution man again received the means by which to rid himself of the luciferic influence. But with this influence something else was given at the same time. The fact that this influence had penetrated into his astral body made the whole of the external world into which he entered appear different to him. Lucifer entered into the inner being of man, who then saw the world around him through Lucifer. His vision of the earthly world was thereby clouded and his external impressions were mingled with what we call the ahrimanic influence. Ahriman could only insinuate himself and make the external world into illusion because we had previously created from within the tendency towards illusion and maya. Thus the ahrimanic influence which came into the external world was a consequence of the luciferic influence. We may say that when once the luciferic forces were there, man enmeshed himself more in the sense-world than he would have done without this influence; but thereby he absorbed the ahrimanic influence with every external perception. Thus in the human individuality which goes through incarnations on the earth, there is a luciferic influence, and, as a result of this, the ahrimanic influence. These two powers are continually fighting in the human individuality which has become their field of battle.” pp90/91.
LUCIFER and AHRIMAN? This is important for teachers to know… WHY EXACTLY? ALL Waldorf teachers are trained in this. Is it harmless? OR does it set up the premise for discrimination based on physical attributes. Let’s read more:
We can examine certain forms of disease from this standpoint. Let us take pneumonia for example; it is a karmic effect which follows when during his life in kamaloca the person in question looks back to a character which had within it the tendency towards sexual excess, and a desire to live a sensual life. Do not confuse what is now ascribed to a previous consciousness with what appears in the consciousness in the following incarnation. This is quite a different matter. Indeed, that which a person sees during his life in kamaloca will so transform itself that forces are imprinted in him by means of which he will overcome pneumonia. For it is exactly in the overcoming of this disease, in the self-healing which is then striven for that the human individuality acts in opposition to the luciferic powers and wages a pitched battle against them. Therefore in the overcoming of pneumonia is given the opportunity to lay aside that which was a defect in the character in a previous incarnation. In this complaint we see unmistakably the war of man against the luciferic powers. p93.
So Lucifer and Ahriman control our physical incarnations. People with certain afflictions today are overcoming different afflictions they had in previous incarnations. So a child’s karmic destiny to “overcome” should be fulfilled, and this may be done through bullying at the hands of classmates or suffering humiliation and abuse at the hands of teachers.
Anything else Waldorf teachers should know in order to “teach” our children?
“Only in the realm of spiritual companionship is there any equality between man and woman. The further we penetrate into the purely spiritual and into the outer aspect of the human being, the more is accentuated the difference between man and woman in relation to their lives. We can say that woman differs from man also in certain qualities of the soul, and that she inclines more towards those impulses which must be termed emotional. For this reason we find that psychic experiences come to her more easily than to man. Intellectuality and materialism are, on the contrary, more natural to man's life, and these strongly influence the soul life. So the psychic and emotional predominate in woman and the intellectual and materialistic in man.” p202.
OK… So, parents, our daughters are less inclined to be intellectual and more inclined to be emotional. It was, after all, their karma to be women. Why on earth, in this day and age, are Waldorf TEACHERS being taught this in Waldorf teacher training? Oh yeah, I forgot… because if Steiner said it, it must be true. Right? Are you willing to discount your daughter’s intelligence? Because that’s what Waldorf says you should do, and that’s what Waldorf teachers are TRAINED to do.
Steiner ends his “Manifestations of Karma” lecture series with the following:
“Let us endeavour to bring ourselves completely to this, for only then shall we have an Anthroposophical movement which in our small circle exists for the study of spiritual knowledge. Then, however, this knowledge must — first of all in the circle of our members — become life and soul to us, and as such pass over into the world. And the world will gradually see that it was not in vain that at the turning-point of the twentieth century there were honest and upright Anthroposophists — people who honestly and straightforwardly believed in the might of the spiritual powers. And when they themselves believed in it, they became filled with the force with which to work for it. Faster and faster will civilisation proceed in our lives, if we within ourselves transform that which we hear into life, into action and into deeds — and not by trying to convince other people. The present age is not yet ready for that. Those only will be convinced who come to Anthroposophy out of the deepest impulse of their hearts; the remainder will not be convinced. We have karma in the mental sphere too, it was something called forth by materialism; and we must look upon these defects as that against which Anthroposophy must show itself to be a spiritual power.
Therefore that which we have to give to the world must be given out of the conviction that it is the most important thing. Each one who has transformed Anthroposophy into an inner force of his soul will be a spiritual source of strength. And whosoever will believe in the supersensible may be absolutely convinced that our Anthroposophical knowledge and convictions work in a spiritual way, that is to say, they spread invisibly into the world if we make ourselves truly into a conscious instrument, filled with the life of Anthroposophy. “
So, to summarize, if someone doesn’t believe in Anthroposophy, they are defective and a spiritual enemy of Anthroposophy. Waldorf teachers are TAUGHT THIS.
Some who have been ousted from the school or even from their own families by Anthroposophists are coming to understand exactly how important this message of Steiner’s is. It’s really Anthroposophists against the world, spreading Anthroposophy “invisibly into the world” to combat materialism… at ANY expense, even the education, safety, and well-being of our children.
Can anyone, after reading this, still send their child to Highland Hall with a clear conscience? Or are you going to begin questioning what they are teaching our children? There is no mistaking what Waldorf teachers are taught. And there’s no mistaking WHY.
Because Highland Hall is unwilling to discuss this material openly, it has only become more suspect in this. I have sounded the alarm. Parents, it’s up to you now to hold Highland Hall accountable for what they are teaching your children.
In this letter, I’d like to put out a special appeal to alumni of Highland Hall. Many of you know what happened there was wrong. Talk among yourselves, compare stories, and be honest. Be a voice for change at Highland Hall.
My next step will be to focus public and media attention on Highland Hall and their racist teachings, physical and emotional abuse, and illegal activities over the past 50 years. I encourage everyone to prepare. Highland Hall has been hiding the truth about themselves from the outside world and harming children for five decades. Please join me in putting a stop to this nonsense.
Pete Karaiskos
If this is the first email you have received from me, you can see my previous letters at the Highland Hall page of OpenWaldorf.com.
