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doctrines and/or racist comments. (Staudenmaier, 2002, December 12,
http://www.waldorfcritics.org/active/archives.html search archive).
Steiner‘s hierarchical scheme of human evolution is subtly incorporated into the Waldorf
curriculum. As part of their ―history‖ lessons, pupils learn ancient Indian religious stories as
well as Persian, Egyptian-Chaldean, Greco-Roman and Germanic-Nordic myths which are
meant to jog past life memories. Uninformed parents might interpret the lessons as
―multiculturalism‖ in reality, however, pupils are being passed through a covert mystery
initiation, corresponding to Steiner‘s doctrine of the spiritual evolution of the Aryan. Steiner
believed that Manu saved an ―advanced‖ group of people from the Atlantis flood, guiding
them to India. They evolved ―upwards‖ after a Persian initiation, Egyptian initiation, etc.,
and according to Steiner, will continue to evolve ―higher‖ during his predicted future periods
of Earth. The following example from a Waldorf pupil‘s main lesson book reflects how
Anthroposophic myth-making is woven into the curriculum:
The Journey from Atlantis to India
Thousands of years ago there was a vast continent named Atlantis. The
people used their magic for evil and greedy purposes. On Atlantis there was
a wise man called Manu. Great love lived with Manu. Often he would spend
time alone thinking with his heart about God. One day when Manu was
sitting by a pond he saw a small fish that needed help. As the fish grew,
Manu continued to help the fish. When the fish was as big as a whale he told
Manu that the great rains were coming to wash away evil in the world. Manu
built an Ark and filled it with plants and kind people. The huge fish pulled the
Ark to the Northern Mountains of India. The people were overjoyed at the
sight of the rainbow and for the first time they saw the bright blue skies!
(Personal collection).
Steiner prophesied that the pure and advanced will evolve into various forms on their way
to becoming pure spirit, free from the restraints of the physical body. These future
evolutions of man include a plant-like body during Jupiter and a bee-like state when Earth
becomes Venus. By the Vulcan period, man‘s present organs of reproduction will atrophy
and the spiritually advanced will instead have a highly evolved larynx as an organ of
regeneration man will give birth by speaking another into existence. In other words, in
future, followers will return to spirit and become the creator, the ―universal human.‖ At one
point along Steiner‘s path of evolution, possibly during Earth‘s future Venus period, two
wings or antenna will develop on the forehead and the heart will become an organ of
knowledge—the brain of the ―chest-being.‖ He also predicted that in the future man will fly.
Those who don‘t comply with Steiner‘s way, who do not develop their ―I‖, will be destined to
life in his eccentric hell, when during Jupiter, they will become ―subordinate nature spirits.‖
(Steiner, 1995b, p. 70)
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, in Germany, Steiner and many others who undertook
occult quests, were inspired by the works of Goethe, who equated Christ with the Sun.
During this period, there was a push by volkisch movements to return to Germany‘s roots of
neopagan sun worship—replacing Christ worship—in order to restore the ―true‖ Teutonic
religion of the ancient Aryans (see Noll, 1995). Steiner‘s enlightenment incorporated a Sun
trinity that consists of the physical Sun, the second Sun, and most importantly, the first
Sun. ―Laggard beings‖ that should have evolved into spirits of wisdom, but instead
remained behind, live and work on the physical Sun. Within solar flares, laggard angelic
beings from Steiner‘s Ancient Sun period which ―are in fact ahrimanic beings‖ reside
(Vreede, 2001, p. 41). In the corona, laggard angelic beings, that remained behind from
Steiner‘s Old Moon condition, dwell. Within sunspots the laggard spirits of personality exist,
archai who completed their human stage on Steiner‘s ancient Saturn (p. 41). All the beings

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 137
that live on the physical Sun studied by science ―must all be regarded as having ‗remained
behind‘‖ (p. 41). Within the human chest there exists a second Sun, dwelling place of the
spirits of Yaweh Elohim, who breathed breath into the human being. These beings cause the
circulation of the blood. ―In the blood, in rhythm, in pulsebeat, the second sun dwells within
us‖ (p. 42). And last but not least, ―the first and highest Sun is the Sun of Christ.‖ ―The
Christ Sun has united itself with the Earth‖ (p. 43).
Many people participating in Waldorf schools do not know much, if anything, about the
esoteric subtext. Followers of Steiner often claim that Anthroposophy is not a religion but
rather a philosophy, and Steiner was a scientist, artist, educator and philosopher. Religion
scholars, however, have classified Anthroposophy as a religion and Steiner‘s doctrine
certainly meets criteria for being classified as such: it includes worship of Christ the Sun
Being as well as archangel Michael who is the messenger of the Sun and of the Christ there
is belief in various supernatural beings such as angels and demons, as well as gnomes,
sylphs, salamanders, and undines which are ―elemental‖ spirits that dwell in earth, air, fire
and water there is a destiny of followers and assurance of eternal life in the form of
reincarnation a path to follow to gain psychic sight in order to see spiritual beings that
surround mankind, use of rituals, the promise of a good reincarnation in Steiner‘s prophetic
future if one develops one‘s ―I.‖ Followers stand to inherit the earth and ―all it will yield‖. As
in any religion, there are local communities of like-minded believers.
Doublespeak—Our Personal Experience
You are either in or out, esoterically informed or uninformed. My husband and I were not
spiritual seekers pre-Waldorf and remain so post-Waldorf. In the personal essay that
follows, I shall attempt to tell our story: how I the Freethinker, (one who does not accept
the belief in beings concealed behind the material world) found myself propping up a
religious movement without my knowledge. How I, who values life as extremely precious
because it is most likely finite, found myself, along with my husband and daughter,
participating in a religious movement that embraces reincarnation as a main doctrinal
tenet—but only learning this after we left!
Looking back from a more informed perspective, no longer living in an esoteric knowledge
void, there seem to be several factors that contributed to our confusion about the
movement. The first has to do with how the group presented itself and our passive
acceptance of the group‘s presentation of information. We did not actively seek out our own
information or our own understanding of Rudolf Steiner until after we left and began
searching for reasons for the peculiar experiences and practices that we had encountered in
the group. The Waldorf school did not present itself as a religious movement but, instead,
claimed to be a scientific, art-based, nonsectarian school, having a multicultural emphasis
incorporating stories and festivals from around the world as well as having an
environmental focus. We believed Waldorf‘s claim, because Steiner was portrayed as a
scientist, educator, and philosopher. We had never heard of Rudolf Steiner before looking
into Waldorf, and assumed that he was as advertised. Initially, it never dawned on us that
he was a religious leader and that Waldorf would be a hub for the dissemination of his
beliefs. Even during our time in Waldorf, Steiner was never referred to as a mystic,
mystagogue, Rosicrucian, Theosophist, religious leader, religious educator, occultist, guru,
esoteric, or clairvoyant, etc. Words that would normally help an uninformed person garner a
better sense of the movement as a religious phenomenon were not employed. Use of these
sorts of words would automatically place Waldorf in a clearer context for the uninformed,
but they were missing at our ex-school.
In the occult tradition, the group also used veiled vocabulary devised by Steiner i.e., the
use of words having alternate meanings to the definitions we were familiar with which are
generally accepted by mainstream society. For example, ―psychic sight‖ was termed