In Defense of Steiner and Waldorf Education

Could Steiner be wrong? Of course. Steiner never claimed infallibility -- quite the contrary: "This perception (of the spiritual researcher) can also err, can see in an inexact, oblique, wrong manner. No man is free from error in this field, no matter how high he stands." (Cosmic Memory, p. 40.)

I am taking the liberty of attaching other quotations from Steiner which reflect his true belief in ONE HUMAN RACE and the Society's own position statement on diversity.

Sincerely, Jean W. Yeager Administrative Director

THE ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN AMERICAPOSITION STATEMENT ON DIVERSITY

The Anthroposophical Society in America is committed to developing the potential of every human being to its fullest. Admission to the Society is open to everyone without regard to sex, religion, national origin, race, or ethnicity. In addition, the Society does not discriminate due to artistic or scientific orientation. We emphatically reject racism in all its forms, and embrace the principles of common humanity expressed by the founder of The Anthroposophical Society, Rudolf Steiner:

"[We] must cast aside the division into races. [We] must seek to unite people of all races and nations, and to bridge the divisions and differences between various groups of people."

-- The Universal Human, Lecture 1

We explicitly reject any racial theory that may be construed to be part of Rudolf Steiner's writings. The Anthroposophical Society in America is an open, public society and it rejects any purported spiritual or scientific theory on the basis of which the alleged superiority of one race is justified at the expense of another race.

-- The General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America (1999)

ABOUT ANTIQUARIAN PUBLICATIONS"Antiquarian publications" are commonly viewed within the context of their times and culture. This has been the case for the work of: Martin Luthur, Carl Jung, "Lewis Carroll", Sigmund Freud, "Mark Twain", and others.

Because the work of Steiner continues to form a source of study and inspiration for many people in contemporary life, students are urged to place Steiner's statements on the races in a holistic context which may include: their antiquarian nature, other statements by Steiner which speak positively of the qualities of the races and higher nature of humanity, the life and work of Rudolf Steiner himself, and living work arising from anthroposophy.

QUOTATIONS ABOUT DIVERSITY FROM RUDOLF STEINER

From THE FALL OF THE SPIRITS OF DARKNESS (1917)

"Nothing will hasten humanity in its downfall more than the propagation of ideals based on race, nation and blood."

From KARMIC RELATIONS, VOLUME 1 (1917)Page 186"A fourteenth century person who spoke of the ideals of race and nation would have been speaking in terms of progressive tendencies of human evolution;" not so today! . . .

"If anyone now considers them [ideas of race and nationalism] to be progressive ideals to present to humanity [in 1917], this is an untruth. Nothing is more designed to take humanity into its decline than the propagation of ideals of race, nation and blood. Nothing is more likely to prevent human progress than proclamations of national ideals belonging to earlier centuries which continue to be preserved by the luciferic and ahrimanic powers. The true ideal must arise from what we find in the world of the Spirit, not in the blood."

"The Ego," THE STEINER LIBRARY, December 1909Page 16"To-day in our time, the group-soulness of people is still not yet overcome, and whoever believes that it is completely overcome does not keep in mind certain finer phenomena of life....Certain human beings not only appear alike in their physiognomy, but...also the soul-qualities are similar in groups of human beings: that one can, as it were, divide human beings into categories....The boundaries drawn between the single nations fall away more and more; but other groupings are still perceptible. Certain basic characteristics stand so connected in some people, that he who will only look, can still today perceive the last relics of the group-soulness of man."

Page 17

(Today) "All group-soulness has gradually to be stripped off....the individual nature of each single person [will] come to the foreground more and more."

Page 18

"That idea whereby the group-soulness chiefly expresses itself loses meaning ever more and more in the evolution of mankind, i.e., the idea of race.

Page 18

"Therefore it is necessary that that movement which is called the anthroposophical movement . . . adopts as its basic character this stripping off of the character of race -- that especially it seeks to unite people out of all 'races', out of all nations, and in this way bridges over these differences, these distinctions, these gaps, which are existing between various groups of human beings. For the old racial standpoint had in a certain connection a physical character, whereas what will fulfil itself in the future will have a much more spiritual character. Therefore it is so urgently necessary to understand that our anthroposophical movement is a spiritual one, which looks to the spiritual, and overcomes just that which arises from physical distinctions, through the force of a spiritual movement."

From THE GOSPEL OF MARK, (1912)Page 36"...from the beginning, [the Christ] does not belong to any one people, but realizes the most beautiful principle in spiritual science: to acknowledge something without discrimination of color, race, and nationality."