TheBee,
http://www.openwaldorf.com/readingroom.html
If Waldorf schools aren’t racist, why are Waldorf teacher trainees REQUIRED to read books like “Knowledge of Higher Worlds” which contains the following:
“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)
And of course the foundation of Waldorf teacher training – Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner (now known as “Discussions with Teachers”):
“The use of the French language quite certainly corrupts the soul. The soul acquires nothing more than the possibility of clichés. Those who enthusiastically speak French transfer that to other languages. The French are also ruining what maintains their dead language, namely, their blood. The French are committing the terrible brutality of moving black people to Europe, but it works, in an even worse way, back on France. It has an enormous effect on the blood and the race and contributes considerably toward French decadence. The French as a race are reverting.” (FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, pp. 558-559.)
But maybe you were a good Waldorf child, Mr. Bee… From the same book:
Critical thinking is especially hazardous. Good children “have a respect that
forbids them, even in the deepest recess of their heart, to harbour any thoughts
of criticism or opposition.” [KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT,
p. 10.]
This is what Waldorf teachers are TAUGHT in Waldorf teacher training. What else are Waldorf teachers asked to read, Mr. Bee?
How about this… again from Faculty Meetings:
“For the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade independent religious instruction we could move into a freer form and give a theoretical explanation about such things as life before birth and after death. We could give them examples. We could show them how to look at the major cultural connections and about the mission of the human being on Earth. You need only look at Goethe and Jean Paul [i.e., Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, a German author] to see it. You can show everywhere that their capacities come from a life before birth.” (FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 184.)
So Waldorf teachers are told to teach reincarnation… Agreed?
And of course, they should learn their science, right?
“With the students, we should at least try to…make it clear that, for instance, an island like Great Britain swims in the sea and is held fast by the forces of the stars. In actuality, such islands do not sit directly upon a foundation; they swim and are held fast from outside.” (FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 607.)
“It is not that the planets move around the Sun, but these three, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth, follow the Sun, and these three, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, precede it.” (FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER., pp. 30-31.)
And my person favorite, demonic possession:
Dr. Steiner: “That little girl L.. in the first grade must have something very wrong inside. There is not much we can do. Such cases are increasing in which children are born with a human form, but are not really human beings in relation to their highest I [the highest element of one’s spiritual being]; instead, they are filled with beings that do not belong to the human class. Quite a number of people have been born since the [1890s] without an I, that is, they are not reincarnated, but are human forms filled with a sort of natural demon. There are quite a large number of older people going around who are actually not human beings, but only natural; they are human beings only in regard to their form. We cannot, however, create a school for demons.”
A teacher: “How is that possible?”
Dr. Steiner: “Cosmic error is certainly not impossible. The relationships of individuals coming into earthly existence have long been determined. There are also generations in which individuals have no desire to come into earthly existence and be connected with physicality, or immediately leave at the very beginning. In such cases, other beings that are not quite suited step in…. They are also quite different from human beings in regard to everything spiritual. They can, for example, never remember such things as sentences; they have a memory only for words, not for sentences….
“I do not like to talk about such things since we have often been attacked even without them. Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings. Nevertheless, these are facts. Our culture would not be in such a decline if people felt more strongly that a number of people are going around who, because they are completely ruthless, have become something that is not human, but instead are demons in human form.
“Nevertheless, we do not want to shout that to the world. Our opposition is already large enough. Such things are really shocking to people. I caused enough shock when I needed to say that a very famous university professor, after a very short time between death and rebirth, was reincarnated as a black scientist. We do not want to shout such things out into the world.” (Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, Anthroposophical Press, 1998, pp. 649-650.)
But getting back to Steiner’s racist views… rather than your “new” ideas about what Steiner believed, how about if we get it right from Steiner:
“Thus we see that through these abnormal Spirits of Form there are five potential centres of influence where these reflected planetary forces are concentrated and produce in reflect what we know as the five main races of the Earth. Let us now look more closely into the centre which, in Lecture Four, we situated in the interior of Africa. If we state that the Negro race was born of the cooperation between the normal Spirits of Form and the abnormal Spirits of Form centred in Mercury, then from an occult standpoint we are perfectly correct in describing the Negro race as the “Mercury race”. Let us now continue along the line joining the centres or focal points from which the individual races spread outward. We then come to Asia which is the seat of the “Venus race” or the Malayan race. We then move northward across the wide expanse of Asia and we find the Mongolian race which is formed by the Mars forces. Then we cross over into Europe and find the Europeans who in their original racial character are “Jupiter men”. If we cross the ocean to America which is the centre where civilizations or races die, we find there dark “Saturn’s race”, the original Red Indian race. The American Indian race is the “Saturn race”. Thus if you look into the matter more closely from an occult standpoint you will become aware of the five centres where the planetary forces are concentrated and are manifested in the external world. With a progressively more definite and concrete conception of this racial distribution you will develop an inner understanding of the racial characteristics peculiar to the peoples spread over the Earth, an understanding of this unique cooperation of the normal and abnormal Spirits of Form.
“It is valid for the epoch when, at a definite moment of time in the old Atlantean evolution, the peoples began to migrate from a centre in Atlantis and sought the particular centre where they could receive the training appropriate to their race.
“Now how do we look upon a member of the Ethiopian race, of the Mercury race? We see him as one who was originally chosen, who was predestined by the Elohim to express the quintessence of the all-human. But from the Mercury Centre the potent influences of the abnormal Spirits of Form intervened and modified the form of man to such an extent that the Ethiopian race arose. And such was the case with each individual race.
“Now how do these Race Spirits work in and upon man? They work in a very unique way; they permeate his vital energies, they penetrate even down into his physical body. Now you know that the four fundamental members of man find their impress and are reflected in corresponding parts of the physical body: the ‘I’ finds its impress in the blood, the astral body in the nervous system, the etheric or life body in the glandular system. Only the physical body is self-sufficient; it is a reflection of its own inner being which for the man of the present is subject to its own fixed laws. Now those spiritual Beings who are stirring in man and determine his racial character cannot at first work directly into his higher vehicles. They are active first of all in these reflections of the higher vehicles in the physical body. They cannot as yet enter directly into the physical body, but they are active in the three other members, in the blood which is the reflection of the ‘I’; in the nervous system, the reflection of the astral body; and in the glandular system which is the reflection of the etheric body. The Race Spirits, the abnormal Spirits of Form, are active in these three systems, which are part of man’s organic system, but are reflections of the higher vehicles. Thus the physical body of man is determined from within. These various spiritual Beings invade those members of the physical body which are the preliminary drafts, the suggestions of the higher vehicles. Now where, for instance, does Mercury make his influence felt? Under Mercury, I include all the abnormal Spirits of Form to be found in Mercury. He makes his influence felt by cooperating with others, especially in the glandular system. He is active in the glandular (or lymphatic) system where are manifested the forces born of that preponderance of the Mercury forces which are present in the Ethiopian race. Everything which gives the Ethiopian race its distinctive character sterns from the ferment of the Mercury forces in the glandular system of this people. What transforms the undifferentiated universal human form into the distinctive Ethiopian typewith his black pigmentation and woolly or frizzy hair is the consequence of their activity.
“The Semitic people are an example of a modification of collective humanity. Jahve or Jehovah shuts Himself off from the other Elohim and invests this people with a special character by cooperating with the Mars Spirits, in order to bring about a special modification of his people. You will now understand the peculiar character of the Semitic people and its mission. In a profound occult sense the Biblical writer was able to claim that Jahve or Jehovah had made this people his own. If you add to this the fact that Jahve cooperated with the Mars Spirits who worked principally in the blood, you will understand why racial continuity through the blood-stream was of particular importance to the Semitic Hebrew people and why Jahve describes Himself as the God who is present in the blood of the generations, in the blood of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When he declared himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He proclaimed that He was present in the blood-stream of the Patriarchs. Whatsoever works in the blood, whatsoever must be determined through the blood – the cooperation with the Mars Spirits – that is one of the mysteries which give us a deep insight into the wise guidance of all mankind. The blood of mankind is thus subject to a twofold influence; two races emerge, the Mongolian race and the Semitic race. This points to the existence of an important polarity in mankind and we must emphasize the immense importance of this polarity if we wish to plumb the depths of the Folk Souls.
“Consequently the various peoples may assume the most diverse forms. According as the eye or the ear or one of the other senses predominates, so will the different peoples respond in this or that way to the particularnational tendency within the racial character. In consequence of this they are faced with quite specific tasks. The particular task of the Caucasian race is to find the way to the spirit through the senses, for this race is orientated chiefly towards the sense-world. Here is disclosed something that introduces us to the deeper secrets of occultism; it shows how, in those peoples who are subject to the Venus forces, the initial steps in development, even in occult development, must be concentrated on the respiratory system. Amongst the peoples living more in the Western Hemisphere, on the other hand, the initial steps must start from an enrichment and a spiritualization of the life of the senses. This is experienced by those peoples inhabiting countries more towards the West in their stages of higher cognition, in Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition, in so far as the Jupiter Spirit originally modified the character.
“Finally, the abnormal Spirits of Form who have their centre in Saturn work indirectly via all the other systems into the glandular system. In the Saturn race, therefore, in everything to which we must ascribe the Saturn character, we must expect to find the combination of the forces leading to the twilight of mankind, forces which set the seal upon its development and sow the seeds of its ultimate decline. This action and its effect upon the glandular system can be seen in the American Indian race and was the cause of its ultimate extinction. The Saturn influence finally works via all the other systems into the glandular system which secretes the hardest parts of man. This slow decline is characterized by a kind of ossification which is clearly reflected in the external form. If you look at the pictures of the old American Indians the process of ossification described above is evident in the decline of this race. In a race such as this everything pertaining to the forces of theSaturn 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 Single Folk Souls in Relation to Germanic-Nordic Mythology -Lecture 6 -The five main races of Mankind)
http://petekaraiskos.blogspot.com/
PeteK
Mr Bee wrote:
“The main physical reality behind the concept “Atlantean time” (in my view) needs to be understood as what took place during Cenozoic time – Tertiary and Quaternary – up to the end of the Pleistocene, ending some 8,000 years B.C.”
Yes indeed, that is YOUR VIEW… it wasn’t Steiner’s (I’ve read both Knowledge of Higher Words AND Esoteric Science – as well as dozens of other Steiner books). He was a “scientist” after all… according to Waldorf. Scientists knew words like Cenozoic and Tertiary and Quaternary and Pleistocene back in Steiner’s time. If he meant those periods of time, he would have mentioned them somewhere. He didn’t because he didn’t. You invented this Mr. Bee… as an explanation for Steiner’s weirdness… without ANY support whatsoever in Steiner’s works. Steiner the “scientist” could have expressed man’s development through these periods of time (if he believed it) – very precisely. He wasn’t exactly at a loss for word – was he?
Mr. Bee continues: “While this of course stands out as provocative to say the least to the down the earth consciousness we develop in normal busy day-to-day life, I think it is possible to understand what it refers to.”
Yes – it is a lesson about Steiner’s racist views. Anyone can see that – very plainly. Why do teachers need to know this – if not to relate and apply what Steiner believed about the races to THEIR STUDENTS?
Waldorf teachers are taught Steiner’s racism for racist reasons – to separate and judge children by their race (among other things like head size and temperament). That’s IT! No connection to the scientific view of the early development of humans – this is the invention of Mr. Bee alone – without support from anything in Steiner’s works!
PK
http://petekaraiskos.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=4
Highland Hall Waldorf School in Northridge, CA. explicitly TAUGHT my child that “The European race is more evolved than the African and Asian races”. http://petekaraiskos.blogspot.com/2011/02/racism-conference-emails.html They don’t deny teaching this lesson to my son’s class… they stand behind the lesson. After self-investigating, they claimed the lesson WAS NOT RACIST! http://petekaraiskos.blogspot.com/2011/04/hasib-disguises-racism-at-highland-hall.html
The fact that Anthroposophists/Waldorf teachers don’t believe it’s racist to promote that the white race is “more evolved” than other races does not alter or excuse the FACT that they TEACH RACISM TO CHILDREN AT WALDORF SCHOOLS. http://petekaraiskos.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=4
Here’s AWSNA’s statement on racism and my comments regarding their misquoting of Steiner to make it appear he’s saying something he isn’t: http://petekaraiskos.blogspot.com/2011/05/awsna-comments-on-racism.html
Waldorf representatives should make some effort to determine EXACTLY what constitutes racism, then accept the FACT that they are racists if they follow the tenets of Anthroposophy. It’s that easy!
That’s an interesting one Sune. Where did you get it from? Oh that’s right, you INVENTED it. YOU have tried to disconnect Steiner from the “root races” of Theosophy a term Steiner used in the same way in Anthroposophy. Steiner made NO mention of Tertiary and Quaternary periods of time (despite they were defined during his time) – YOU made this “connection”. Just like AWSNA, you fiddle with Steiner to put words in his mouth that HE DIDN”T SAY! That’s just plain dishonest!
I was part of that arbitration process – so I can report that what you are saying is, AGAIN, untrue. NO ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOURCES was the ruling… not “reliable published sources”. The whole point was to include ONLY reliable sources – and that excluded Anthroposophical sources (obviously). Unfortunately, nobody is left on Wikipedia who is willing to point out that MANY of the sources for the article you site ARE INDEED Anthroposophical sources (McDermott for example) pretending to be mainstream.
My question to you, Sune, is… are you going to post ANYTHING truthful here? If not, rest assured I’ll be back to point out the deceitfulness in what you are posting.
http://operationblackvote.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/independent-report-schools-still-failing-to-tackle-racism/
http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=6984
Do you think it only concerns Waldorf Schools here?
Pete Karaistos, I am not a representative of the Waldorf movement, but you know my suggestion for a sound definition of racism: the definition of Albert Memmi.
I’m not sure I understand your point. Because you find racism in English schools, you feel it’s OK to promote to schools that teach racism as science? Based on the racist ideas of their founder? Why?
Rather than champion against racism, you choose to take the “everybody’s doing it” approach. Why?
As justification, you produce a definition that “defines” racism in a way you think doesn’t apply to Steiner. I’ve read Memmi’s definition of racism… It sounds to me like he was defining “racial discrimination” – not “racism”. You don’t have to be an “accuser” to be a racist, nor does there have to be a “victim”. Many of Steiner’s views are still racist by Memmi’s definition BTW. What a Waldorf teacher taught to my child is racist by ANY definition – especially when put into the context of promoting Anthroposophy, which is indeed the intention of Waldorf.
Although I was critical about the report myself, I do think it is a very interesting report.
It confronts anthroposophical content with contemporary scientific and scholarly thinking (biological, historical, cultural, social). It gives clarification about certain concepts e.g. race, discrimination and racism. It is regrettable that not many critics have read the full version of this report. I even think that the main critics of the anthroposophy of the moment : Peter Staudenmaier and Helmut Zander have not read this full version, but instead read the summary in German. This is understandable because the report is not translated neither in English nor in German. I would say that the fact it hasn’t been translated is an omission. I think it is worth the investment.
I have a question for Francis Gilbert. After I send my latest comment on this blog I received the message “your comment is awaiting moderation”, this was not the case with my first comments. Is this normal?
Of course there isn’t… which makes the point the teacher was making SO much more evident. She didn’t use the word “race” at all. I’ll paraphrase what she said: “The blood of the people in Europe is more EVOLVED than the blood of people in Africa and Asia.” If this statement wasn’t in COMPLETE ACCORDANCE with Steiner’s racist teachings, there wouldn’t be a problem would there? It’s the fact that Steiner’s racism came out in physiology class that is EXTREMELY problematic for Waldorf schools. Again, this isn’t one wacky teacher saying something stupid… The school SUPPORTED the lesson. It doesn’t get more racist than this. Steiner’s racism IS taught to teachers in Waldorf teacher training – and it DOES come out in the classroom. That’s the BOTTOM LINE
I don’t think Steiner was a racist. I think that Steiner could have used another concept than race to describe what he wanted to. He would most likely had done this when he lived in our time. Certainly, also without the word “race” it is possible to have racism. But you cannot say Steiner had the intention to legitimate the causing of disadvantage by a supposed superior group to another supposed inferior group (cf. Memmi).
The things said to your child should not be taught in a Waldorf school nor in
any other school. I think there is more arousal , more consciousness , now for that issue in Waldorf schools. I think Waldorf schools in Britain have now the opportunity to present themselves as schools which are alert and perceptive for any form of racism and should also pay attention to prejudices and stereotypes being the first stages towards discrimination and racism.
Something else Pete, just for my curiosity: did you ever experience that one of the comments you send on this blog was “awaiting moderation”?
When he claimed black people didn’t belong in Europe for example? I don’t know if you consider it a disadvantage when someone declares an entire continent “off-limits” to you… but I think some people bight feel disadvantaged by such a statement.
“The things said to your child should not be taught in a Waldorf school nor in
any other school. I think there is more arousal , more consciousness , now for that issue in Waldorf schools.”
Really? My son was in high school… he’s only 22 now. I think you give Waldorf WAY too much credit for their “consciousness” when it comes to the nonsense they’re teaching children. Remember – they ALL AGREED with the lesson plan!
“I think Waldorf schools in Britain have now the opportunity to present themselves as schools which are alert and perceptive for any form of racism and should also pay attention to prejudices and stereotypes being the first stages towards discrimination and racism.”
How is that possible? They still teach RACIST ways of dealing with children to their teachers in Waldorf teacher training.
“Something else Pete, just for my curiosity: did you ever experience that one of the comments you send on this blog was “awaiting moderation”?”
I have experienced this several times on several blogs (not sure about this one). I know it happens to me on Zooey’s blog often. I find it happens most often if I link to a website or a picture. I think it’s more of an automatic system lag than some human intervention. Have all your comments been coming through OK?
(…) Ruhrbarone publish a short English summary of the BPjM’s decision on Rudolf Steiner. By Andreas Lichte.
The “Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien” (BPjM) (”Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons”) examined 2 books by Rudolf Steiner for “racist content” and decided that the content of the books is racist (…)”
read more: http://www.ruhrbarone.de/waldorf-schools-rudolf-steiner’s-books-are-“an-incitement-to-racial-hatred”-says-bpjm/