Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 124
Spotlight on Anthroposophy
Sharon Lombard
Abstract
The author discusses how she and her family enrolled their child in a Waldorf
school—without consciously deciding or agreeing to join a new religious
movement—and found themselves involved in Anthroposophy. She shares
some background on Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf schools, and his
esoteric religion, Anthroposophy, which is inextricably entwined in Waldorf
schools‘ curriculum, pedagogy, and school activities. Her introduction to
Steiner‘s doctrine focuses on identifying Steiner‘s macro-microcosmic
worldview and racist underpinnings. She questions why some Waldorfers
often downplay or deny their fervor and involvement in Anthroposophy and
criticizes the movement‘s leadership for denying Steiner‘s racist doctrine as
documented in the ―Dutch Report.‖ The author shares her own misgivings
about the group‘s religious foundation and argues that some of Steiner‘s
followers work to conceal the religious context of Waldorf education. Some
personal recollections of peculiarities during her family‘s experience with
Waldorf education are discussed, including a benign Anthroposophic
prescription for the author‘s sick child and removal of her daughter from the
Waldorf school.
Steiner: ―WE MUST emphasize again and again that the anthroposophical
world-conception fosters a consciousness of the common source of art,
religion and science. During ancient periods of evolution these three were not
separated they existed in unity. The Mysteries which fostered that unity were
a kind of combination art institute, church and school. For what they offered
was not a one-sided sole dependence upon language. The words uttered by
the initiate as both cognition and spiritual revelation were supported and
illustrated by sacred rituals unfolding, before listening spectators, in mighty
pictures.‖ (Steiner, 1964, p. 83)
A friend of mine who helped start a Waldorf School liked to say, ―If you turn on the porch
lights the moths will come.‖ I would add that an assortment of other insects might also
appear, not necessarily seeking the light. My friend is alluding to Waldorf schools being a
magnet for Anthroposophists and Steiner enforcers, but her allegory is also a fitting
metaphor for my family‘s association with such a school and how we were burned in the
process. As it was, my husband and I were not seeking occult illumination for ourselves, or
our daughter, when we moved to Wisconsin so that our child might attend a Waldorf school.
Ironically, we were drawn to the flame after a conscientious search for a progressive,
nonsectarian education system with an emphasis on creativity, art, and global diversity. The
school‘s full color booklet and interviews validated that our quest was over. The following
personal saga relates how, in retrospect, we unwittingly found ourselves immersed in
Anthroposophy, what we experienced, and how traumatic circumstances led to our climactic
exit. It also shares what my later extensive reading and research revealed concerning the
founder of Waldorf education, his doctrine, which impacts all aspects of follower‘s lives, and
the real meanings of the doublespeak appellations—‖art‖, ―verse‖, ―dance‖ and ―doctor.‖
Rudolf Steiner, Founder of Waldorf Education
The esoteric persuasions of Rudolf Steiner—the Austrian mystagogue who died in 1925—
survive and influence contemporary occult experience in America. They are perpetuated
through a schismatic branch of Theosophy which Steiner expanded to accommodate his

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 125
worldview and entitled ―Anthroposophy.‖ The most successful vehicle for the dissemination
of Anthroposophy is the network of Waldorf Schools established in accordance with the
founder‘s precepts—though many parents have little, if any, historic understanding of
Steiner or his religion, Anthroposophy. The Waldorf School Movement is superficially
perceived as a trendy, alternative education system because it is promoted as nonsectarian,
art based, multicultural, scientific, new education. Critical investigation, however, reveals to
the contrary that these schools are instead centers of occult initiation—modern mystery
schools—where every aspect of the curriculum is rooted in Anthroposophy and its
incorporated magic and rituals. Steiner saw Anthroposophy as a spiritually complete
Rosicrucian path which will guide pupils to higher worlds through an esoteric training, and
although this principle of initiation is adhered to by Waldorf Schools, it is accomplished,
often without participants‘ understanding or sanction.
Born on 27 February 1861, in Croatia, Steiner grew up in Neudforfl near the Austro-
Hungarian border where his father worked as a telegraph operator for the Austrian Railway.
As a child, Rudolf Steiner believed he saw the apparition of an aunt who had committed
suicide walk through a door, into the middle of a room, make some odd gestures and say,
―Try now and in later life to help me as much as you can,‖ before vanishing into the stove
(Wilson, 1987, p. 170). As a grown man he disclosed that after seeing this ghost he was
clairvoyant, able to see the spirit world and communicate with the dead. While a student,
Steiner published philosophical studies and edited Goethe‘s works. These—especially
Goethe‘s mystical writings—remained influential throughout his life. He believed that Goethe
had come into contact with a Rosicrucian source and had experienced a ―lofty Initiation‖
(Steiner, 1981b, p. 9). Similarly, he was to embrace the mysticism associated with the
Rosicrucian tradition for all of his adult life, eventually promoting Anthroposophy as a
spiritually complete Rosicrucianism. In 1884, Steiner became tutor to the four sons of
Pauline and Ladislas Specht in Vienna: one of the children suffered from hydrocephalus or
water on the brain. Steiner lived with this family for six years and experimented with ways
of teaching, claiming that the sick child‘s concentration and learning ability could be
improved if the boy were prepared to receive the instruction (Washington, 1995, p. 150).
Steiner was an active participant in the pan-German movement during the 1880s. In the
late 1880s, early in his career as esoteric evangelist, he wrote that it was not possible to go
public with his occult convictions at that time saying, ―In all this, the public display of
esoteric ideas was out of the question. And the spiritual forces standing behind me gave me
only one piece of advice: ‗Everything in the guise of Idealistic philosophy‘‖ (Steiner &von
Sievers, 1988, p. 11). In 1897 he moved to Berlin where he edited The Magazine Fur
Literatur, claiming to have brought a ―spiritual current to bear on literature‖ by guiding the
magazine into esoteric paths:
Gently and slowly I guided it into esoteric paths, carefully but clearly, by
writing an essay for the 150th anniversary of Goethe‘s birth: ‗‗Goethe‘s Secret
Revelation,‖ which merely repeated what I had already indicated in a public
lecture in Vienna about Goethe‘s fairy-tale ―The Green Snake and the
beautiful Lilly.‖ (Steiner &von Sievers, 1988, p. 14)
He married Anna Eunicke in 1899 and the following year he was asked to give lectures to
the members of the Berlin Theosophical Society. Confidently, at the age of forty, he
presented himself as a Master, in accordance with his occult beliefs that teaching at a
younger age was in error. Steiner met Annie Besant while attending the Theosophical
Congress of 1902 in London. On October 20, 1902, Steiner became General Secretary of
Madame Blavatsky‘s Theosophical Society, which was at that time under the leadership of
Col. Henry Olcott as Blavatsky had died. Steiner led the German and Austrian branches of
Theosophy for ten years. (Annie Besant was to replace Olcott in 1907). Collin Wilson