Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 146
represented. I began to match Steiner‘s adult teachings to the pupils‘ work. When I saw my
child‘s drawing of gnomes mining in a metal mine I recognized Steiner‘s Anthroposophic
context. Steiner taught that gnomes actually exist and can be found in metal mines!
I should like to relate quite simply and plainly how such beings show
themselves to clairvoyant sight. There are beings that can be seen with
clairvoyant vision at many spots in the depths of the earth, especially places
little touched by living growths, places, for instance, in a mine which have
always been of a mineral nature. If you dig into the metallic or stony ground
you find beings which manifest at first in remarkable fashion -it is as if
something were to scatter us. They seem able to crouch close together in vast
numbers, and when the earth is laid open they appear to burst asunder. The
important point is that they do not fly apart into a certain number but that in
their own bodily nature they become larger. Even when they reach their
greatest size, they are still always small creatures in comparison with human
beings. The enlightened man knows nothing of them. People, however, who
have preserved a certain nature-sense, i.e. the old clairvoyant forces which
everyone once possessed and which had to be lost with the acquisition of
objective consciousness, could tell you all sorts of things about such beings.
Many names have been given to them, such as goblins, gnomes and so
forth...Their nature prompts them to play all sorts of tricks on man, as every
miner can tell you who has still preserved something of a healthy nature
sense—not so much the miners in coal mines as those in metal mines.
(Steiner, 1995b, p. 63)
I now comprehend that the Anthroposophical concept of ―art‖ is very different from mine. I
have a completely different understanding of what Waldorfers mean when they say they
develop imagination—they mean they develop psychic sight. And by art, they mean ―The
Art‖ (of magic). Steiner said ―If you bring children as many living pictures as possible, if you
educate them by speaking in pictures, then you sow the seed for a continuous retention of
oxygen for continuous development, because you direct the children toward the future,
toward life after death‖ (Steiner, 1996, p. 62). Even an innocuous picture of a butterfly has
a deeper meaning when you come across Steiner‘s explanation for this lesson, a child‘s first
Anthroposophic introduction to reincarnation:
[T]he presentation of living pictures, or as we might say of symbols, to the
mind, is important for the period between the change of teeth and puberty. It
is important that the secrets of Nature, the laws of life, be taught to the boy
or girl, not in dry intellectual concepts, but as far as possible in symbols.
Parables of the spiritual connexions of things should be brought before the
soul of the child in such a manner that behind the parables he divines and
feels, rather than grasps intellectually, the underlying law in all
existence....An example may serve to make this clear. Let us imagine that we
want to tell a child of the immortality of the soul, of the coming forth of the
soul from the body. The way to do this is to use a comparison, such for
example as the comparison of the butterfly coming forth from the chrysalis.
As the butterfly soars up from the chrysalis, so after death the soul of man
from the house of the body. No man will rightly grasp the fact in intellectual
concepts, who has not first received it in such a picture. A child who has
experienced this, will approach the subject with an altogether different mood
of soul, when later it is taught him in the form of intellectual concepts. It is
indeed a very serious matter for any man, if he was not first enabled to
approach the problems of existence with his feeling. Thus it is essential that
represented. I began to match Steiner‘s adult teachings to the pupils‘ work. When I saw my
child‘s drawing of gnomes mining in a metal mine I recognized Steiner‘s Anthroposophic
context. Steiner taught that gnomes actually exist and can be found in metal mines!
I should like to relate quite simply and plainly how such beings show
themselves to clairvoyant sight. There are beings that can be seen with
clairvoyant vision at many spots in the depths of the earth, especially places
little touched by living growths, places, for instance, in a mine which have
always been of a mineral nature. If you dig into the metallic or stony ground
you find beings which manifest at first in remarkable fashion -it is as if
something were to scatter us. They seem able to crouch close together in vast
numbers, and when the earth is laid open they appear to burst asunder. The
important point is that they do not fly apart into a certain number but that in
their own bodily nature they become larger. Even when they reach their
greatest size, they are still always small creatures in comparison with human
beings. The enlightened man knows nothing of them. People, however, who
have preserved a certain nature-sense, i.e. the old clairvoyant forces which
everyone once possessed and which had to be lost with the acquisition of
objective consciousness, could tell you all sorts of things about such beings.
Many names have been given to them, such as goblins, gnomes and so
forth...Their nature prompts them to play all sorts of tricks on man, as every
miner can tell you who has still preserved something of a healthy nature
sense—not so much the miners in coal mines as those in metal mines.
(Steiner, 1995b, p. 63)
I now comprehend that the Anthroposophical concept of ―art‖ is very different from mine. I
have a completely different understanding of what Waldorfers mean when they say they
develop imagination—they mean they develop psychic sight. And by art, they mean ―The
Art‖ (of magic). Steiner said ―If you bring children as many living pictures as possible, if you
educate them by speaking in pictures, then you sow the seed for a continuous retention of
oxygen for continuous development, because you direct the children toward the future,
toward life after death‖ (Steiner, 1996, p. 62). Even an innocuous picture of a butterfly has
a deeper meaning when you come across Steiner‘s explanation for this lesson, a child‘s first
Anthroposophic introduction to reincarnation:
[T]he presentation of living pictures, or as we might say of symbols, to the
mind, is important for the period between the change of teeth and puberty. It
is important that the secrets of Nature, the laws of life, be taught to the boy
or girl, not in dry intellectual concepts, but as far as possible in symbols.
Parables of the spiritual connexions of things should be brought before the
soul of the child in such a manner that behind the parables he divines and
feels, rather than grasps intellectually, the underlying law in all
existence....An example may serve to make this clear. Let us imagine that we
want to tell a child of the immortality of the soul, of the coming forth of the
soul from the body. The way to do this is to use a comparison, such for
example as the comparison of the butterfly coming forth from the chrysalis.
As the butterfly soars up from the chrysalis, so after death the soul of man
from the house of the body. No man will rightly grasp the fact in intellectual
concepts, who has not first received it in such a picture. A child who has
experienced this, will approach the subject with an altogether different mood
of soul, when later it is taught him in the form of intellectual concepts. It is
indeed a very serious matter for any man, if he was not first enabled to
approach the problems of existence with his feeling. Thus it is essential that
