Instead of the intended consecutive development of races, there was a coexistence of races. ...The second example of sanitisation of English translations of Steiner texts is another one where an entire chapter of the original book is absent from the English translation of it. — Rudolf Steiner, ibid. In a message posted at the Waldorf Critics list, Tom Mellett disputes the idea that Steiner repudiated his racist teachings late in life. If, during sixteen incarnations, you repeatedly choose the path of evil and falsehood, you will be unable to incarnate again. Rudolf Steiner, THE CYCLE OF THE YEAR AS BREATHING PROCESS OF THE EARTH (Anthroposophic Press, 1984), p. 68. The white race is the race of the future, the spiritually creative race.” (p. 67). Above all they marry among themselves. They see the racial qualities, not the spiritual. [Abnormal] peoples whose ego impulse was developed too strongly...became...the Red Indians of America. Steiner schools were closed down by the Nazis and a number of Anthroposophists had to decamp to Switzerland. According to the nomenclature of the science of the spirit, the Lemurians, Atlanteans and Aryans are root races of mankind." The overall pattern of human evolution, as Steiner described it, consists of some people moving ahead to higher and higher stages of consciousness, while others (quite often members of nonwhite races, the descendants of "abnormal" humans) prove themselves incapable of further evolution. Racism. (Note that Steiner, here again, speaks explicitly of "higher races. [2] Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), p. 70. Each of us passes through the different racial stages, and the passage signifies a progressive development for the individual soul. Presumably he didn't understand the implications of his own teachings. He actually had a pleasing, attractive face.”. "[I]t was the normal human beings that were ... the most capable of evolving. But those souls who had themselves decided to incarnate in Chinese bodies were thereby prevented from [incarnating in] these ‘opiumised’ bodies. And this is able to assimilate all the light and warmth that are inside a person. I’ll append it here, although it repeats some of what we have already seen. Lucifer and Ahriman (the Zoroastrian devil) disrupted the harmonious evolution of humanity by causing older forms of mankind to survive while other segments of humanity evolved to higher levels. pp. “The state funding of Steiner schools needs to be reviewed,” he said. ANTHROPOSOPHY BASED STATEMENTS. 1 (Anthroposophic Press, 1981), pp. They take it in. "The physical organism of man survives when strange blood comes in contact with strange blood, but clairvoyant power perishes under the influence of this mixing of blood, or exogamy." Writer Andreas Lichte adds this Steiner statement: ◊ “The white race is the race of the future, the race that works creatively on the spirit.”. What can you conclude? Steiner said the answer depends on blood and whether a race. The white race is the race of the future, the race of spiritual creativity. This notion is crucial to Steiner's theory of racial and ethnic evolution overall. — Rudolf Steiner, ibid., p. 55. Races would never become decadent, never decline, if there weren't souls that are...unwilling to move up to a higher racial form. Referring to Steiner's racial doctrines, Daisy said: 'there is a fraction of his work that could be construed as promoting the idea of a kind of hierarchical evolution through the races.' —. Steiner further distinguishes between two different kinds of "uncivilized" peoples: those that are advancing evolutionarily and those that are regressing evolutionarily. Steiner said that humanity will remain divided by race for many centuries yet. So believing that blacks are less evolved than whites means passing a permanent racial judgment. but we also lose sight of much that is important, so we must evolve further, to greater vision. Edwin Kreulen, the education editor for the Dutch daily TROUW. Enough souls are pouring in from other quarters for incarnation in races that are on the down-grade (i.e. Steiner said that some people are not really human at all: "Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings." Indeed, Steiner sometimes spoke of Native Americans as if they have already become extinct. ), Steiner taught that, like blacks, Jews also cut themselves off from true spirituality. In recent years, occasional charges of racism have been leveled against Rudolf Steiner and against institutions arising from his work, such as the Waldorf schools. I will explain this thought in particular later. One of Steiner’s basic racial tenets is that the division of mankind into races resulted from demonic interference. Steiner also said that some people who are human will degenerate to a lower condition: "Beings that stay behind at such stages appear in a later epoch as subordinate nature spirits." In realistic, human terms, a "near future" lasting a "few thousand years" would be a virtual eternity, especially if it entailed a continuation of racism. Over 70 family, faculty, and board members have participated, which has evolved into an active and growing Undoing Racism core group. This is the deeper meaning of Ahasver [the 'wandering Jew'], who must always reappear in the same form because he rejected the hand of the greatest leader, Christ. (This is a different translation of the same book, published under a slightly different title.). What is generic in him serves only as a medium in which to express his own individual being. — Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF FOLK SOULS, lecture 4, GA 121. There are other backward groups in whom not only the system of bones, but also the system concerned with nutrition hardened too early, that system governed by the forces of the etheric body; while the bony system is governed by the forces of the physical body. This argument overlooks a few things. Steiner seems to avoid this error when, for instance, he differentiates between the evolution of individuals and the evolution of races, as we have just seen. It does not penetrate through the whole body, but lingers on the surface of the skin, and the skin itself thus turns black. Are children raised in the Waldorf way likely to be prepared for real life in the real world? It omits the chapter which when translated would be titled “The Essence of Jewry”. Here, we learn that blacks are decadent and spiritually blind, according to Steiner. Our daughter has suffered racism for the first time at a school. The souls shunted to Europe are better than those that incarnate now in China, but normally these souls should not have come to Europe until they evolved to the European level. The genus explains why something in the individual appears in the form we observe. That history contains a warning, and we ignore this at our own risk. This isn't about decades ago, this is about now. Steiner delivered the lecture, in Berlin, right in the middle of Germany's genocidal campaign against the Herero and Nama peoples in the German colony of South-West Africa, during the run-up to the famous "Hottentot election" in which German colonialism was a central contested issue. Staudenmaier is a historian, not primarily a critic of Steiner Waldorf education. One who appears today as a member of the European race went through different races in earlier times, and will in later times proceed through races other than ours. That’s all I need to know. Let's amplify these points. "Each root race has physical and mental characteristics which are quite different from those of the preceding one.” For this reason, “there are always populations which show different stages of development living beside each other on earth.” — Rudolf Steiner, ibid., p. 46. When this race goes toward the East, it turns brown, it attaches itself too much to the cosmos and dies out. It is a denial of racial equality. If we go over to Asia, we have mostly the yellow race. I'm a Mum who recently pulled her daughter out of a Steiner School in the UK precisely because of the racism in Steiner’s work and racism at the school. This background helps account for Steiner's ambivalent viewpoint on exogamy or intermarriage. Normal, highly evolved souls will continue evolving higher and higher. The human beings who had developed normally lent themselves best to progress.” [15] The normal progression should be from black to white, Steiner taught. He said there were also questions over the DfE’s role in ensuring Steiner schools met the inspection criteria. When they sink far enough, they lose to capacity to reverse their descent; they lose to ability to evolve upward. "Thus it is really very interesting: on the one hand there is the black race, which is the most earthly. ", "I believe this is enough, not only to refute the erroneous belief that Steiner disavowed or repudiated any of his 'earlier root race infections' by the dastardly racist doctrines of Helena P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society, but more importantly to open a dialogue here about the racial issue today. Beings that stay behind at such stages appear in a later epoch with approximately the character of the earlier age. The Japanese will therefore follow all the European inventions, but they will never think up something on their own.”, > “Thus it is really very interesting: on the one hand there is the black race, which is the most earthly. Would Steiner-free Waldorf schools provide a good education? It does not penetrate through the whole body, but lingers on the surface of the skin, and the skin itself thus turns black. What does this amount to? [23], Steiner here explains why, in his view, the "Wandering Jew" remains trapped at a low evolutionary level — he has rejected Christ. 45-46. Me, I believe that the theory is racist. Serving students Nursery through 12th grade. He could explain the workings of karma [8] and reincarnation [9]. registered in England (Company No 02017289) with its registered office at 26 Red Lion But what this means, really, is that Waldorf schools might become more or less okay if they ceased to be Waldorf schools. Many well-informed people, contemporaries of Steiner, vigorously rejected racism. Rudolf Steiner, DAS HEREINWIRKEN GEISTIGER WESENHEITEN IN DEN MENSCHEN (Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1984), GA 102, p. 174. Originally, all of humanity should have progressed together from one racial form to the next, higher racial form. The souls shunted to Europe are better than those. (Challenging Anthroposophy and Steiner Education). "The American Indians died out, not because of European persecutions, but because they were destined to succumb to those forces which hastened their extinction." Steiner's defenders sometimes argue that the racial divisions of mankind were important in the past, but the categories called "races" lost their meaning a long time ago. He framed his position as spiritually enlightened; he spoke, often, in lofty terms; yet he was, manifestly, a racist. According to Steiner, it is not true that everyone passes through all levels. Let us suppose he reaches what is to be reached in sixteen incarnations; he takes the sixteen false paths. [16] Rudolf Steiner, READING THE PICTURES OF THE APOCALYPSE (SteinerBooks, 1993), pp. Presumably Steiner didn't mean to be a racist. Baffled by the school’s response, Lottie Googled "Steiner school racism" at home that night and was stunned by the result. So they fall out of evolution and become a subordinate form of nature spirit — a being, bound up in the forces of materialistic nature, that has no true spirit. These ideas are heavily indebted to several of the chief strands within 19th century racist thought. Steiner himself had racist views – he espoused a hierarchy of races from “black to Aryan” – and at some UK schools there have been complaints about racism. — Rudolf Steiner, THE BEING OF MAN AND HIS FUTURE EVOLUTION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1981), pp. Finally, one further crucial factor which many Anthroposophists today entirely overlook is that a number of Anthroposophists historically have explicitly opposed intermarriage between different racial and ethnic groups. [http://waldorfblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/staudenmaier-rezension/], Ansgar Martins has written a perceptive and provocative book about a topic many prefer to avoid: Rudolf Steiner’s racial teachings, a perennial bone of contention between anthroposophists and their critics. so do materialistic races remain at the standpoint of evil, and will people the earth as evil races. racism by a teacher at one Waldorf school in Holland some 10 years ago, a Dutch commission was initiated by the Anthroposophical Society in the Netherlands to investigate fully this issue. Martins notes the apologetic tendency of the vaunted ‘Dutch report’ on anthroposophical race doctrines and observes that its focus on legal issues is not especially helpful from a historical perspective (17). [4] Rudolf Steiner, THE BEING OF MAN AND HIS FUTURE EVOLUTION (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1981), pp. Our own souls once lived within the Atlantean race, and they then developed themselves upward to a higher race. “A recurring theme in the material provided is that bullying is not tackled within Steiner schools,” the document says. they began their existence evolving alongside us. The intricate relationship between the racist features and the cosmopolitan features of Steiner’s esoteric system defies easy elucidation, but it is not hopelessly inscrutable or eternally enigmatic. “All free school applications are rigorously assessed before they are approved to ensure they offer an inclusive education which meets our tough academic standards. Individual humans, Steiner says, differ from individuals animals or other subhuman beings. — Rudolf Steiner, "[T]he blood of mankind is acted upon in a twofold manner; that two races originate, by the blood of mankind being acted upon [i.e., two different racial types result from two differently affected blood types]; on the one side we have that which we call the Mongolian race, on the other that which we may describe as belonging to the Semitic race. E.g., the yellow race has "slanted eyes, a hollow face, flat nose, and coarse black hair. I invite everyone to try a thought experiment: A white person is standing next to a black person. Such a renunciation is not in the cards yet, and it may never be. Thus, an individual human may evolve to a higher condition while the race into which s/he was born remains stagnant or even declines to a lower level. In the same way, the bodies of those people who do not develop themselves in a progressive fashion will continue into the next era and will constitute the Chinese of the future. Blacks, who Steiner says are largely guided by the "rear brain" ("Hinterhirn"), lead an “impulsive life” ("Triebleben"). In sum, Steiner taught that different races have different form of blood, and this is reflected in the differences between their racial or folk souls. But this line of argument is hazardous for Anthroposophists — it is, in effect, an acknowledgment that Steiner was not a clairvoyant savant, as he claimed. In the Negro the rear-brain is therefore especially developed. Outsiders are often surprised to learn what Steiner's followers believe. He said Steiner teachers at the state-run school recommended they not immunise their children because it would lead to the 'bestialisation of humans.'”. Look, they say, everybody passes through all the racial levels. We also have the yellow race, which is in the middle between earth and the cosmos. Before humankind can make its intended progress, vigorous measures must be taken to deal with the less-evolved peoples. branched off then, staying behind as protozoa. They can’t be dismissed simply by saying that Steiner was a child of his times. Still, even if s/he is morally wobbly just now, s/he is currently superior to any black person in an important sense: S/he occupies a higher level; s/he is a member of a higher race. 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.” [7]. And world history will consist of the events that will lead to these battles between white and colored mankind until the great fight between white and colored mankind has been brought about. "be on the up- or down-grade of its evolution...." — Ibid., p. 13. We are moving closer and closer to the solution of this puzzle and we can realize that in the future we will have other epochs to go through, we will have other paths to follow than the ones made by race. If Anthroposophy were removed, the ideological justification for these techniques would melt away. Steiner begins the lecture by reaffirming the central importance of race to a proper understanding of spiritual reality: “One can only understand history and all of social life, including today's social life, if one pays attention to people's racial characteristics. [3]. (Rudolf Steiner Verlag 1985), GA 54, pp. We must therefore carefully distinguish between soul development and race development. Racism means judging people based on race. If it moves to the West, it becomes extinct. Such souls hold back the bodies of the race." In sum, you know a lot about the two strangers you see standing before you. 9. But Kevin Avison, senior adviser to the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, rejected suggestions that bullying was endemic in Steiner schools, either among pupils or teachers. Therefore, you will become a subhuman nature spirit — that is, a being like a goblin who cannot evolve in the proper, human way and who will be excluded from the joyous destiny of all the good (white and whiter-than-white) humans on Vulcan and beyond. [25] I am referring to the racist lessons my classmates and I received in 1963-1964. Only those peoples that were capable of holding the balance with regard to their ego could develop into the future.”, "Groups of men in whom the bones had, as it were, become too strong, were now left behind as degenerate races. The Negro race does not belong to Europe, and the fact that this race is now playing such a large role in Europe is of course nothing but a nuisance.”, > “Let us look first at the blacks in Africa. — Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF FOLK SOULS (Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., 1929), lecture 6, GA 121. It was not so much hatred or fear of Jews that animated Steiner’s mature anti-Semitism, but ignorance of contemporary Jewish life, of modern Jewish culture and history, as well as a myopic commitment to German spiritual superiority. According to Steiner, these are the predominant human races today. A black person is less evolved than a white: S/he may be a good person who will evolve higher, or she may be a bad person who is descending from higher racial forms. What does this amount to? The English translation is of Steiner’s book ‘From Beetroot to Buddhism’ (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999). All materialistically thinking souls work on the production of evil race-formations ... Just as older conditions which have degenerated to the ape species seem grotesque to us today. I have also translated an anti-Semitic lecture. Two fundamental legends embraced by Steiner, Steiner’s strange version, tied to his racial teachings, : the worst word, used in a Steiner school. In childish simplicity they worship their gods." — Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), pp. Then blacks will not catch up with whites in future incarnations — there will be no future incarnations. Peace and best wishes. [29] Rudolf Steiner, THE SPIRITUAL HIERARCHIES (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 92. In the present era [Steiner taught] the relevance of the races is shrinking and they will indeed disappear at some date in a distant future. Steiner spoke of "animalistic-racial" tendencies, We see more clearly when we reach the modern, intellectual stage —. It is crucial to his theory of reincarnation in successively higher forms, to his overarching framework of cosmic evolution, and to his essential contrast between spiritually progressing and spiritually stagnating souls. Perhaps the most instructive instances are Steiner’s various statements about black people. He has, as they say, powerful physical drives, powerful instincts. If you happen to be black in this incarnation, you are low on the ladder, but you will rise in future incarnations. Today I simply wanted to show how the same essence appears in different forms, and in fact in a much more correct sense than natural science would have us believe. ◊ Today's red and black races descend from abnormal humans and have not participated in the evolution led by whites: “[I]t was the normal human beings that were...the most capable of evolving. The commission reviewed in detail the 89,000 pages … [3]. It goes through his spinal cord. It is deplorable. I saw it as a kind of paganish, not properly religious — maypole dancing, a harmless arty place. Yet he also made a number of statements that deplore racism. Steiner's 1923 lecture “Color and the Races of Humankind” can be found in VOM LEBEN DES MENSCHEN UND DER ERDE (Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1993); it was excised from the English translation of the book. Steiner taught that different races stand at different levels, and each has its proper place on the Earth: When a race leaves its proper place, it "becomes extinct" — or it risks this destruction, in any case. —, "be on the up- or down-grade of its evolution....", "The white race is the future, the race that is creating spirit.". 1 (Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., 1988), lecture 13, GA 173. Describing our evolution through a series of "epochs," Steiner said: “[A]s we evolve from the fifth into the sixth and then into the seventh epoch, the ancient connections of race and blood will be increasingly lost. (Note the significance of word placement on the diagram. People evolve to higher racial forms because they are good, Steiner said. The Silver Tree Steiner School therefore, rejects all forms of racist behaviour and is committed to the elimination of racial discrimination (including direct and indirect racism, racial vilification and harassment) in its organisation, curriculum and in the They did not really say this, because they did not reflect in this manner. Does this mean that Steiner's teachings on such matters are free of the taint of racism? 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. The Oriental races, he said, are ancient, wise, but vitiated. So we are all alike, basically. “Our values are that children are enabled to become as resilient human beings as possible,” he added. The primary traits of each racial type are identified. The French are a "race" in that they are a subdivision of the white race. Since 2017, the Brooklyn Waldorf School has partnered with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond in hosting and participating in regular and ongoing Undoing Racism Workshops. Then there are those who degenerated at too early a stage through the nervous system becoming hardened and not remaining soft long enough for it to become available as an instrument of higher thought; of these the Malays are the last relic. The French race is damaging itself by promoting the influx of Africans into France, and the French are damaging blacks by removing them from their proper place on Earth, Africa. From 1900 to 1945 statements about blacks, Jews also cut themselves off from. 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