{"id":2643,"date":"2012-07-05T15:47:51","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T14:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/?p=2643"},"modified":"2015-12-15T21:42:47","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T20:42:47","slug":"the-insidious-pervasiveness-of-the-cult-of-rudolf-steiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/2012\/07\/the-insidious-pervasiveness-of-the-cult-of-rudolf-steiner.html","title":{"rendered":"The Insidious Pervasiveness of the Cult of Rudolf Steiner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This morning, we discovered<\/a> that pharmaceutical companies in Germany that manufacture homeopathic remedies, had being paying shills to discredit critics of alternative medicine. One of the organsiations was Weleda, an anthroposophical health care company founded by Rudolf Steiner.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, on my blog post on the Steinerist Triodos Bank<\/a>, a pro-Steiner commenter tried to discredit my interpretation of Steiner’s views on race and geology by calling an academic who had researched these ideas a “Janus faced historian and intellectual con artist”. I asked him to tone down his language before I would allow him to post. \u00a0It turns out that the person responsible was actually paid by a Steiner organisation to ‘monitor the web’ \u00a0for criticisms of Steiner schools and he has done so with associated legal threats against groups like Mumsnet.<\/p>\n

When I first started writing about Anthroposophical Medicine and Steiner Schools, I struggled to understand the nature of this strange organisation that appeared to be behind so many schools, businesses, farms, banks and medical centres. There is not a great deal of independent writing about Anthroposophy. Much information has to come from places like discussion forums for ‘survivors’ of Steiner schools where parents have actually started to ask questions about what is going on in these schools.<\/p>\n

What appears to be a common theme is that Steinerist organisations do not make a habit of being open about their anthroposophical roots. When I wrote about the proposed Frome Steiner Free School<\/a>, I was critical that parents were being given no insight into the true nature of a Steiner education, instead relying on empty phrases such as it employing \u00a0“progressive approach to teaching that uniquely follows a child\u2019s personal development”. Anyone investing in Triodos Bank<\/a>, again, would have to work hard to uncover its Anthoposophical aims.<\/p>\n

The only way I can really describe Anthroposophy is as an\u00a0esoteric crypto-religious organisation based on a mystical and racist view of humanity and an astrological and clairvoyant view of understanding science. \u00a0Anthroposophy is full of barmpot ideas, such as the literal\u00a0existence\u00a0of gnomes, that the British Isles floats on the sea, homeopathy works, and burning mice ritually will protect your crops from them. Oh, and if you are good, you will be reincarnated as an Northern European Ayrian. And its adherents either don’t want to know this themselves and most\u00a0definitely\u00a0do not want you to know this. Should its fundamental beliefs and aims become common knowledge then it would cause all sorts of problems, not least for Gove’s new free Steiner Schools*. Adherents deny and spread\u00a0disingenuous\u00a0misinformation in order to soften criticism.<\/p>\n

After Jeevan Vasagar wrote a rather watery article in the Guardian<\/a> last May about the new Steiner Schools, I wrote to him asking if I could respond with a piece for Comment is Free<\/em>\u00a0highlighting some of the concerns about Steiner Schools, their secretiveness, and their anti-science. I got a response back from a CiF editor telling me that Jeevan’s article ‘had been critical enough’. It did not\u00a0surprise\u00a0me to learn that many journalists in the Guardian stable have anthroposophical links. We see\u00a0senior\u00a0journalist\u00a0Yvonne Roberts tweeting<\/a> that “Waldorf Steiner schools start at 3 but they also educate the whole lovely child not produce exam robots!” And media reporter\u00a0Jemima Kiss\u00a0tweeting<\/a> an advert for a Steiner teacher. Various Steiner puff pieces have appeared in the Guardian over recent years, including Steiner parent\u00a0Nikki Schreiber telling us that the schools are ‘not full of\u00a0weirdos<\/a>‘. And\u00a0Adharanand Finn telling us<\/a> that it is possible that the time for state funded Steiner Schools has come.<\/p>\n

So, with that out of the way, here is some\u00a0correspondence sent to me recently between a concerned ex-Steiner parent\u00a0who wanted to alert the\u00a0Holocaust Educational Trust about some of the darker associations of Anthroposophy. This, one might think, is important not least given the links between Steiner company Weleda supplying Dachau with ‘experimental’ medical supplies and the biodynamic garden set up in the same camp.<\/p>\n

I hope you get to the end. There is quite a punchline.<\/p>\n

Message: I am writing to ask if the trust are aware of the links between Anthroposophy and Nazism? Helmut Zander, historian of German history calls Anthroposophy ‘the most successful alternative religion of the twentieth century’. Anthroposophy operates almost invisibly and is known by many different names. There are over 10,000 institutions and initiatives that have been founded that endeavor to apply the belief system – Steiner Waldorf education, Spiritual Science, Triodos <\/a>Bank, the Camphill Movement, Biodynamic agriculture, Anthroposophical Medicine, Weleda, the Movement for Religious Renewal (also known as The Christian Community) and Eurythmy.<\/p>\n

Anthroposophy is advertised as spiritual enquiry, the ‘wisdom of man’. What is not made clear is that central to Anthroposophy is the belief that the soul reincarnates through a racial hierarchy from Black to Aryan via the actions of karma. The belief system was claimed to be gained by clairvoyant vision from Anthroposphy’s founder Rudolf Steiner 1865 -1925<\/p>\n

The reason I am writing to you is that many Steiner Waldorf schools are applying for public funding under the government’s Free Schools initiative. I noticed from reading a number of the school newsletters that members of the HET have been invited to speak at Steiner Waldorf schools. I have also written to Michael Gove expressing my concerns and was told that diversity and parent choice are at the heart of his Free School policy, an adviser also referred to a number of disclaimers recently issued from the movement which myself and a colleague analyzed for Professor David Colqhoun’s blog here:<\/p>\n

Steiner Waldorf Schools Part 3. The problem of racism<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n