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• Steiner and theosophy

overlap with anthroposophy article

For me, at least, there has been some unclarity about what belongs in this article and what in anthroposophy. I would like this to take some form now.

Steiner's ideas initially formed anthroposophy, but anthroposophy has had a rich existence and development apart from Steiner's own thought and work. I'd like to begin moving what is particular to Steiner into this article, and make the anthroposophy article less one-sidedly Steiner-centric.

This is a long-term project, probably. Any contributions or suggestions would be most welcome.Hgilbert 00:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Star of the East

The fact remains that members of The Star of the East were excluded from Steiners organization because of their religious beliefs. --Vindheim 17:27, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

if i may snip in, i think you are pushing it a little. your edit has a critical undertone. the tolerant theosophist on one side and the 'steiner organisation' on the other excluding people for their religious beliefs. i think if you have valid criticism you should put it into the section 'criticism', but keep the tone of the rest of the article descriptive and neutral. --trueblood 19:09, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

actually I react to sanctification of Steiner and the attempt by him and his followers to put all blame for the split on the theosophists. objectivity means accepting several viewpoints. Sentence reinstated.--Vindheim 21:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

They were not excluded because of their religious beliefs, just as a religious sect trying to spread anthrax bacteria would not be suppressed because of their religious beliefs. In the case of Krishnamurti, anyone could believe whatever they wanted; if they joined an organization (not a religion) that was involved in a political struggle against the T.S. in Germany, however, they were not welcome in that latter group. Hgilbert 02:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you seriously comparing a religious group with other views than Steiner to bacteria? If so it is very revealing of a secterian outlook. --Vindheim 10:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

just for the record i am not a follower and my objection is because the sentence reads like an attempt to bring in criticism between the lines. but as i said before if you have criticism bring it in, go for it, but in it's place. or if it is really that important how about finding a quote by some theosophist of the time commenting on steiner's decision. if you are concerned with sanctification, i think, you should get a really good, referenced critical section together rather than smuggling in critical passages here and there.--trueblood 08:33, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I do not really see why different points of view can not be present throughout the article. And, just for the record, the point about excluding Star of the East members being in breach of basic theosophical principles was not made by just any theosophist, it was a major argument used by Annie besant at the time. I beleive it is relevant to show how the other party perceived the conflict. --Vindheim 10:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

because it is an encyclopedia. in a political article for instance i would not agree with an edit that criticises a certain policy, say the patriot act, but only with one that quotes or sums up the criticism that was made in some sort of public forum. --trueblood 11:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Different points of view can be included, but as editors we do not editorialize (present our own point of view), but present different facts or cited authorities to bring out different sides of a question. Can you see the difference?

For example, you would like to show how Besant viewed the conflict; then you can say that Besant objected to the exclusion on this basis. (Do you have a citation for Besant and Leadbeater criticizing Steiner's exclusion of Star of the East members as violations of the theosophical religious inclusivity? I'd appreciate it if you could give, at least here, or in a footnote in the article, a quotation of the actual passage that claims this and not just a page number; it helps tremendously in a case like this if we can see exactly what was said at the time.) Hgilbert 12:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I can find a relevant quotation on the besant/steiner conflict within a day or two. As for encyclopaedic reliability - precisely in order to be encyclopaedic it is necessary that this article not only contain fawning admiration of the late genius, but presents him in context.--Vindheim 14:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The statements by Annie Besant seem to have been in old issues of the magazine The Theosophist which I at one time studied but no longer have available. However, in the magazine Theosophical History, vol 4, no 1 january 1992, there is an article by Leslie Price: "The loss of Rudolf Steiner" from which I quote:

".. we may readily identify the steps which organizationally led to the exit of the German Section. A General Secretary of the Adyar TS or an Executive Committee of a national Section, cannot refuse to accept as members of that Section, those who belong to some other body. TS members can join whatever bodies they like. No doubt, as every Theosophical leader from HPB onwards has found, this has made the TS a limited instrument for spiritual work, but that is the price to be paid for such advantages as freedom. Rudolf Steiner rejected profoundly the Star beliefs ... He like others could have left the TS in disgust. He and his friends could not constitutionally introduce as a qualification for membership of the German Section, a stipulation about nonmembership of another body. " (I can scan the whole article and email to you if you like, just give me your email)

The point here is not that the quarrel between Besant and Steiner was about legal and organizational technicalities, only that such technicalities marked the progress of the quarrel towards the eventual and probably inevitable split (and of course that both parties added fuel to the fires of the quarrel). --Vindheim 16:26, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

In my mail today was The Occult Tradition(Jonathan Cape, London) by David S. Katz, professor at Tel Aviv University. He writes (p.170)

"Leadbeater inaugurated the Order of the Star in the East in Krishnamurti's honour in 1911, proclaiming him to be the World Teacher. Rudolf Steiner was so appalled by this turn of events that he refused membership in his German Section to anyone who had anything to do with the Krishnamurti cult, and was expelled from the Theosophical Society for his trouble. Steiner founded his own Anthroposophical Society which continues to thrive from its headquarters in Dorlach (sic), Switzerland."

Please note that professor Katz supports the version I have tried to present of the mechanism of the breach between the AS and the TS. --Vindheim 12:32, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

However the Professor is incorrect. The Order was created by George Arundale. Let me quote Mary Lutyens on this issue. From Krishnamurti:The Years of Awakening, Avon Books, 1975, p 49: "On January 11 of the following year, 1911, on the anniversary of Krishna's Initiation, George Arundale, in Benares, formed yet another organization, the Order of the Rising Sun, the purpose of which was to draw together those in India who believed in the near coming of a great spiritual teacher, to help prepare public opinion to receive him and to create an atmosphere of welcome and reverence. A few months later the idea was enthusiastically taken up by Mrs. Besant and Leadbeater and under the new name of the Order of the Star in the East turned into an international organization." Wjhonson 20:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. However the professor got it right about Steiners reaction to the order, and Besants further reaction to that. --Vindheim 21:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

It's clear that the circle around Besant experienced it one way, and the circle around Steiner another (see the historian Lindenberg's comprehensive biography of Steiner for details). To select one of these as the definitive version is to drop neutrality of POV. Hgilbert 02:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

and again racism

i reverted the 'clarication' of the racism section because i did not clarify anything. as it is now it is relatively neutral. the in depth treatment is left to the steiner on races article where one finds a critical and a sympathetic voice on steiner's alleged racism. adding the dutch anthropop soc report in here again tilts the balance to one side. and why does it say citation needed. do you want a racist steiner quote. watch out because i might just find you one the may appear offensive to modern ears. i am not sure if the article would really benefit from that.--trueblood 11:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

What was wrong with a summary line from the article dealing specifically with the topic? Aquirata 16:01, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It is difficult to create a balanced summary that will satisfy all sides. The present format seems to be meeting with acceptance from all sides and I think it is really fair. The sub-article is there for all the striven-over stuff that needs comments from various sides. Hgilbert 16:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

the summary of the racism article cannot be that there are simply no grounds for accusations of racism, since steiners idea are as stated in the article 'complex'. the article also states that : The conclusion of the Commission is that sixteen statements, if they were in public by a person on his or her own authority, could be a violation of the prohibition of racial discrimination under the Criminal Code of the Netherlands. it is just that steiner said a couple of things that 'may appear racist to modern ears'. just leave as it is, otherwise it is only a question of time until someone gets really worked up about this 'anthroposophical whitewash' (might happen anyway) trueblood 18:07, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages standards are to avoid personal statements and especially attacks; these only serve to heat up arguments, not to improve articles, which is our mission. Please keep calm and assume good will on all sides, as we all do; it will make editing a much more pleasant experience for everybody. A neutral tone in discussion also gives the impression that the writer is capable of reaching a higher level of objectivity, which probably tends to give more confidence in the objectivity of his or her edits, as well. Adding objective content to articles speaks most strongly.

A calm approach will also help you recognize when people are actually agreeing with you; your last comment and mine are both supporting the current version.Hgilbert 00:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

oops, sorry i did not mean to sound worked up, i was not. i really meant, that there are this charges of racism (with certain reasons) , and if the article sound too apologetic then it is really just a matter of time until someone stumbles over, gets really worked up and starts an edit war because of this 'whitewash', meant that as a quote. also i wanted to respond to aquirata, rather than you trueblood 11:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

We have worked through to a reasonable balance for the race issue; a brief summary that mentions both aspects of the situation and a detailed analysis in a sub-article. This came out of conversations on the Talk:Anthroposophy page, and all sides felt well met by the solution. Let's not start an edit war here; the section was over-large trying to incorporate the enormous complexity of Steiner's views (see Rudolf Steiner's views on races) within an overview article that is anyway larger than Misplaced Pages standards suggest. Hgilbert 01:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

If you need to save room, take out the stuff about the Goetheanum. Architects don't find it spectacular, it's a church like any other church. Only Anthroposohists think it's great. Steiner's racism, however, is of significant imprtance to people and a whitewash of his teachings is in place here. Steiner's racist remarks are, as I have said, sometimes almost indistinguishable from Hitler's, and this absolutely NEEDS to be reflected here. Steiner was a philosopher - and racism was part of his philosophy. To suggest otherwise is to sweep under the rug the entire basis of Anthroposophy which has at its core physical and spiritual hierarchies. In Steiner's view of spiritual hierarchies, Thrones are higher than archangels, archangels are higher than angels and stuff like that. In Steiner's veiw of physical hierarchies, diamonds are higher than emeralds, roses are higher than carnations, and white people are higher than black people. Racism is part of Anthroposophy and it should be part of this article. --Pete K 02:46, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

hu, chill out a little. comparing steiner to hitler is way over the top. the goetheanum takes a lot more important place in steiners output, than a few racist comments. those few are really ugly, but i don't think they proove that anthroposophy is build on racism trueblood 17:42, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you are the one who needs to chill out my friend. Please slow down and re-read what I wrote. I was comparing Steiner's remarks on race to Hitler's remarks on race, not comparing Steiner to Hitler. Some of them are indistinguishable from Hitler's. If you don't think building a philosophy (Anthroposophy) on spiritual hierchies that are based in racism is important, or significant, or evident, perhaps you need to read a bit more of Steiner's material. People who characterize Steiner's racism as "a few racist comments" make me question if they have a thorough grasp of the subject. --Pete K 19:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

A fair presentation of Steiner's comments will show all sides of his work. Misplaced Pages guidelines suggest avoiding loaded and variously interpreted terms such as racism; instead, show what the person said, wrote and did, and let the reader make up her or his own mind what this means. We are trying to do that on the Rudolf Steiner's views on races page. We can interpolate more quotes (of all kinds) on that page. The issue is truly complex, and I know of no qualified historian, philosopher or corresponding authority who has examined Steiner's works and called them racist. Yet there are certainly comments that characterize races or ethnic groups in ways that imply or state judgments about their relative strengths and weaknesses, sometimes in extreme ways. We need not shy away from presenting these, as well. Hgilbert 21:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

"The issue is truly complex, and I know of no qualified historian, philosopher or corresponding authority who has examined Steiner's works and called them racist." You're kidding right? Have you looked on the web? There are 248,000 links for Steiner+Racism on Google, 121,000 for Steiner+racist. And you know of no "qualified" historian. Have you heard of Steiner historian Peter Staudenmaier? Oh, yes, he sent you articles and published works about Steiner's racism. You've had discussions with him several times. What, in your opinion, disqualifies the foremost historian on Steiner's racism? His academic research? His published works? His PhD? Just curious. --Pete K 15:01, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

As far as I have understood, PS has no qualifications as a historian, though he is seeking to attain these.

oh dude, as it is i am completely chilled. since i don't seem to have a thorough grasp of the subject i say no more, except what is your thorough grasp on the subject based on, except the google search steiner + racism. can you tell me of one encyclopedia were they left out the gotheanum to have enough space for his racist views? on a different note hgilbert or whoever i would like to delete three words from steiner and ethnicity, as this section is probably soon called: including his own, unless someone show me one quote were steiner spoke about his own race in a way that may appear denigrating to some modern ears... trueblood 20:36, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Steiner spoke of the white race as being potentially far more decadent than any other. Give me a couple of days to find this reference, and perhaps one or two others relevant to this statement. Hgilbert 21:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

1. White people take on the qualities of foreign areas more than other races. They decay individually more than other races when they leave their homeland. GA 349, Vom Leben des Menschen und der Erde, p. 62
2. The white race is the result of a cooperation between normal and abnormal spirits: GA 121, p. 85.(English: Mission of the Individual Folk Souls in Relation to Teutonic Mythology)
3. Native Americans are able to hear in nature the voice of the creative Spirit, while Europeans have such a materialistic culture that they can't hear the voice of nature any more. GA100, p. 244

From the article: "He discarded the theosophical terminology of root races, prefering to speak of earth epochs." I don't think this sentence is supportable at all - in fact I think it is an outright lie. Steiner ABSOLUTELY talks about root races throughout his lectures and books. As I recall, in his book Atlantis and Lemuria" he spends almost the entire book talking about root races. Here's a quote from one of his defining works "Knowledge of Higher Worlds" p 207 (the title has been changed in recent years to something like "How to Know Higher Worlds") "According to the nomenclature of the science of the spirit, the Lemurians, Atlanteans and Aryans are root races of mankind. If one imagines that two such root races preceded the Lemurians and that two will succeed the Aryans in the future, one obtains a total of seven. Each root race has physical and mental characteristics which are quite differentfrom those of the preceding one. While, for example, the Atlanteans especially developed memory and everything connected with it, at the present time it is the task of the Aryans to develop the faculty of thought and allthat belongs to it.In each root race various stages must also be gone through. There are always seven of these. In the beginning of a period identified with a root race,its principal characteristics are in a youthful condition; slowly theyattain maturity and finally enter a decline. The population of a root raceis thereby divided into seven sub-races. But one must not imagine that onesubrace immediately disappears when a new one develops. Each one may maintain itself for a long time while others are developing beside it. Thus there are always populations which show different stages of developmentliving beside each other on earth."

Here's another one: "We are within the great Root Race of humanity, which has peopled the earth, since the land on which we now live rose up out of the inundations of the ocean. Ever since the Atlantean Race began slowly to disappear, the great Aryan Race has been the dominant one on earth. If we contemplate ourselves, we here in Europe are thus the fifth Sub-Race of the great Aryan Root Race. The first Sub-Race lived in the distant past in Ancient India. And the present-day Indians are descendants of that first Sub-Race, whose spiritual life is still extant in the ancient Indian Vedas. The Vedas are indeed only echoes of the ancient culture of the Rishis. At that time there was of course no writing yet - there was only tradition. Then came the second, third and fourth Sub-Races. The fourth Sub-Race adopted Christianity. Then, halfway through the Middle Ages, we see that the fifth Sub-Race formed itself, to which we and the neighboring nations belong." (Steiner, Rudolf. The Temple Legend: Freemasonry and Related Occult Movements: Twenty Lectures given in Berlin between 23rd May 1904 and the 2nd January 1906. (1904-1906) Trans. John M. Wood, Edited E.M. Lloyd. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1985, p. 220)

Rather than delete the sentence completely and offhandedly, I'd like to leave this open to discussion for a day or two first. --Pete K 20:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

yep, you so proofed your thorough grasp. impressed. trueblood 22:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

He certainly used the terminology "root race" in his early theosophical period, before splitting off from the Theosophical Society. All the works you quote are from before 1907 or so, when he began changing a great deal in his presentations, including this. Hgilbert 00:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Harlan, LOL! So he didn't "discard" it at all. He used this langage, in his lectures and books and at some point in 1907 when he split off from the Theosophical Society, reinvented HIS OWN terminology to separate himself from Blavatsky. This is hardly what the sentence says now, is it?

Re: Peter Staudenmaier, since you are currently in communications with him, why don't you simply ask him about his qualifications as a historian. He is on the WC list right now describing your exchanges with him - and that you are denying, apparently, what is clearly historical information that he is providing to you. Living in denial of the facts is unhealthy, Harlan.

Re: Denegration of white races - again, what you have demonstrated by your examples IS racism. Your efforts here, and Sune's efforts on the Waldorf page are proving the point - that Steiner considered race to be an important factor in determining things like intelligence, morality, decadence and went into detail about how some races had their internal parts harden too soon, or were burned by the sun and all sorts of other nonsense (to modern ears <G>). Now, I have 25 pages of quotes from Steiner that denegrates all races but the white race, and you have three snippets out of 40 books and 6000 lectures (and even those snippets are taken completely out of context) that say white people decay when they leave their homeland or are more materialistic than Native Americans - as a defense of this "across the board" idea you are trying to promote. It's really ridiculous to suggest this Harlan. In fact, Steiner was against the "mixing of the blood" and that's why he prefered white races not populate areas where "savage" races were.

Trueblood, I studied Steiner in earnest for more than a decade. I apologise for mentioning google searches in my comment above as that may have misled you to think my understanding of this subject is superficial. --Pete K 14:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding HGilbert's claim that "I know of no qualified historian, philosopher or corresponding authority who has examined Steiner's works and called them racist." Here's one - and since you read German, you won't mind:

Helmut Zander, “Der Weltgeist auf dem Weg durch die Rassengeschichte. Anthroposophische Rassentheorie” in Stefanie von Schnurbein and Justus Ulbricht, eds., Völkische Religion und Krisen der Moderne (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2001)

Helmut Zander, “Sozialdarwinistische Rassentheorien aus dem okkulten Untergrund des Kaiserreichs” in Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz, and Justus Ulbricht, eds., Handbuch zur ‘Völkischen Bewegung’ 1871-1918 (Munich: Saur, 1996)

So now you can no longer honestly make that claim. --Pete K 02:47, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I've added this quote by Steiner:

"e are not justified in thinking that human beings were originally like the savages of today. The savages have developed into what they now are--with their superstitions, their magical practices and their unclean appearance--from states originally more perfect. The only superiority we have over them is that, while starting from the same conditions, we did not degenerate as they did. I might therefore say: The evolution of man has taken two paths. It is not true that the savages of today represent the original condition of mankind. Mankind, though to begin with it looked more animal-like, was highly civilized. ... Just as the present savages have fallen from the level of the human beings of primeval times, so the apes are beings who have fallen still lower." (Steiner, 1924, EEM p. 126)

Let's see how long it stays before the revisionists remove it. Anyone interested in seeing the breadth of Steiner's racism can certainly go back through the history pages here and read a new quote every day. If there is any question that his remarks were of racist intent, the abundance of quoted material here should clear that up.--Pete K 23:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, it only took a few minutes for the revisionists to remove the quote. I've added a new quote:

But all such questions are illuminated as soon as we recognize the nature of the spiritual essence which lies at the back of our blood. Who can deny that this question is closely linked to that of race, which at the present time is once more coming markedly to the front? Yet this question of race is one that we can never understand until we understand the mysteries of the blood and of the results accruing from the mingling of the blood of different races. And finally, there is yet one other question, the importance of which is becoming more and more acute as we endeavor to extricate ourselves from the hitherto aimless methods of dealing with it, and seek to approach it in its more comprehensive bearings. This problem is that of colonization, which crops up wherever civilized races come into contact with the uncivilized: namely - To what extent are uncivilized peoples capable of becoming civilized? How can an utterly barbaric savage become civilized? And in what way ought we to deal with them? And here we have to consider not only the feelings due to a vague morality, but we are also confronted by great, serious, and vital problems of the very fact of existence itself.

Those who are not aware of the conditions governing a people - whether it be on the up- or down-grade of its evolution, and whether the one or the other is a matter conditioned by its blood - such people as these will, indeed, be unlikely to hit on the right mode of introducing civilization to an alien race. These are all matters which arise as soon as the Blood Question is touched upon." Rudolf Steiner, Occult Significance of Blood, An Esoteric Study -Berlin, October 25, 1906 GA 55 --Pete K 03:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The quote was deleted an again, I've added it back today. I'm documenting here the attempts by revisionists to remove Steiner's quotes. --Pete K 15:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I removed your pet quotation. If you want to add something "proving" Steiner's racism, add a quotation from a repudable scholar on Steiner. What you are doing is original research. — goethean ॐ 16:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

You're not paying attention - my "pet quotation" is one of about a dozen or more quotations I've posted here over the past couple of weeks. It's not a "pet quotation" - it's characteristic of Steiner's racism. I don't need to "prove" Steiner's racism by a quote from a reputable scholar, Steiner's own words speak for themselves. There is NO original research involved in quoting the man's OWN words. What you are doing here is REVISING HISTORY. I'll add back yet another quote. You have no right to deny users of Misplaced Pages the right to view an example of Steiner's own words regarding the races - nor do you have the right or authority to subjugate my edits and remove these quotes. Do you deny that Steiner said these things? If not, then leave them in the article. --Pete K 18:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Since we can't put everything that Steiner said in the article, your selection of which of his words to quote constitutes scholarship. There is an entire article on Steiner's views on race, and your attempt to spotlight negative quotations by repeatedly inserting them into this page constitutes POV advocacy. Furthermore, your use of the word "malicious" constitutes a personal attack. Please stop. — goethean ॐ 18:44, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

As if this isn't an organized attempt to keep this stuff off the page... LOL! My "Malicious" vs your "Vandalism" - I think both could be considered a personal attack - so I'm not buying what you're selling - and I don't frighten easily. I'm not selecting words to demonstrate Steiner's "scholarship", I'm demonstrating his "racism". If there's room in this article to discuss the ANTHROPOSOPHICAL commission's views on Steiner's racist commentary, then there's room here for examples of the actual words HE used. It's inappropriate to allow Anthroposophists to white-wash the racial issue (as if that isn't a POV advocacy) and then remove discussion to demonstrate the opposite from the page. Please stop with this silly whitewash. Steiner's racist language IS appropriate RIGHT HERE on an article about Steiner and on the topic of racism. I've included complete citations of each quote and each one has been removed by revisionsts here. --Pete K 20:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Please stop attacking editors personally. Discuss content, not contributors. — goethean ॐ 21:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

What do you think YOU are doing by characterizing my edits as "vandalism"? Why don't you stop deleting the quotes I put up here? The content apparently isn't at issue here because I've put lots of different quotes up and they all seem to disappear. So it isn't the content of the material, it's the entire idea of quoting Steiner in this article that you find objectionable. Why not give it a rest and let Steiner's words speak for themselves? --Pete K 22:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

After several attempts today to get a quote to stick, I'll start, again, posting the quotes I'm adding on the discussion pages here. At least people who are interested and savy enough to search the disucssion pages will find this material. Today's quote is:

"Man himself continued to progress, and now passed on into the middle of the Atlantean epoch; the present human form only began to develop during the first half of that epoch; only then did man begin to feel fully at home in it.

Now, there were some beings in those ancient times who were very low down in the scale of humanity; these became the backward races; there were others who kept themselves plastic; and, again, others who only occasionally inhabited human bodies. What I am now about to describe happened very frequently in the first part of the Atlantean epoch. Imagine a man of that time who for an Atlantean was highly evolved; through certain procedures it frequently happened that such a man was caused to separate his physical body (which was then very plastic) and his etheric and astral bodies from his more spiritual parts, which then withdrew more into the spiritual world so as later to take on another body.

It very frequently happened that, long before the physical, etheric and astral bodies were ready to die, they were willingly vacated by their soul and spirit-principles. These, when they had belonged to especially exalted individuals, were pure and good bodies. Highly spiritual beings then let themselves descend into these bodies; and so it frequently happened during the ancient Atlantean epoch that beings who were otherwise unable to incarnate on earth made use of such advanced bodies in order to descend among men. These were the beings who acted as great teachers in the Atlantean schools of initiation. They worked powerfully with the means available at that time."

(http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA/GA0105/19080811p01.html ; p. 104 in the book - lecture, number 7, from August 11, 1908)

Editors who continually remove this type of material are doing a disservice to people who are interested in the topic. --Pete K 22:39, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

A new editor in the Waldorf revisionist tag-team has arrived to delete the quotes revealing Steiner's racist comments. This time they deleted the following:

"You will now understand the peculiar character of the Semitic people and its mission. In a profound occult sense the Biblical writer was able to claim that Jahve or Jehovah had made this people his own. If you add to this the fact that Jahve cooperated with the Mars Spirits who worked principally in the blood, you will understand why racial continuity through the blood-stream was of particular importance to the Semitic Hebrew people and why Jahve describes Himself as the God who is present in the blood of the generations, in the blood of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When he declared himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He proclaimed that He was present in the blood-stream of the Patriarchs. Whatsoever works in the blood, whatsoever must be determined through the blood - the cooperation with the Mars Spirits - that is one of the mysteries which give us a deep insight into the wise guidance of all mankind.

The blood of mankind is thus subject to a twofold influence; two races emerge, the Mongolian race and the Semitic race. This points to the existence of an important polarity in mankind and we must emphasize the immense importance of this polarity if we wish to plumb the depths of the Folk Souls. "

"Consequently the various peoples may assume the most diverse forms. According as the eye or the ear or one of the other senses predominates, so will the different peoples respond in this or that way to the particular national tendency within the racial character. In consequence of this they are faced with quite specific tasks. The particular task of the Caucasian race is to find the way to the spirit through the senses, for this race is orientated chiefly towards the sense-world.

Here is disclosed something that introduces us to the deeper secrets of occultism; it shows how, in those peoples who are subject to the Venus forces, the initial steps in development, even in occult development, must be concentrated on the respiratory system. Amongst the peoples living more in the Western Hemisphere, on the other hand, the initial steps must start from an enrichment and a spiritualization of the life of the senses. This is experienced by those peoples inhabiting countries more towards the West in their stages of higher cognition, in Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition, in so far as the Jupiter Spirit originally modified the character. "

"Finally, the abnormal Spirits of Form who have their centre in Saturn work indirectly via all the other systems into the glandular system. In the Saturn race, therefore, in everything to which we must ascribe the Saturn character, we must expect to find the combination of the forces leading to the twilight of mankind, forces which set the seal upon its development and sow the seeds of its ultimate decline. This action and its effect upon the glandular system can be seen in the American Indian race and was the cause of its ultimate extinction.

The Saturn influence finally works via all the other systems into the glandular system which secretes the hardest parts of man. This slow decline is characterized by a kind of ossification which is clearly reflected in the external form. If you look at the pictures of the old American Indians the process of ossification described above is evident in the decline of this race. In a race such as this everything pertaining to the forces of the Saturn evolution has become realized in a special manner; then Saturn withdrew into itself, abandoned man to his bony system and thus hastened his decline. " The Mission of Single Folk Souls in Relation to Germanic-Nordic Mythology - Lecture 6 - The five main races of Mankind. --Pete K 03:10, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

No surprise again, the quote was immediately removed. Here's today's quote:

"It certainly cannot be denied that Jewry today still behaves as a closed totality, and as such it has frequently intervened in the development of our current state of affairs in a way that is anything but favorable to European ideas of culture. But Jewry itself has long since outlived its time; it has no more justification within the modern life of peoples, and the fact that it continues to exist is a mistake of world history whose consequences are unavoidable. We do not mean the forms of the Jewish religion alone, but above all the spirit of Jewry, the Jewish way of thinking." (Steiner, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Literatur p. 152) --Pete K 15:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

PETE K, YOU SAID: "There is NO original research involved in quoting the man's OWN words. What you are doing here is REVISING HISTORY. I'll add back yet another quote. You have no right to deny users of Misplaced Pages the right to view an example of Steiner's own words regarding the races -nor do you have the right or authority to subjugate my edits and remove these quotes."

You are right in saying that these are his OWN WORDS and you have a good point in thinking that since these are his OWN words, that it should be added to his encyclopedia entry, that taking off his own words is only due to embarrasment of what he said. I'd like to offer another point as to why certain quotes shouldn't be on his page...

Steiner gave many of his lectures to the general public, but most of his lectures, however, were given to members of the Anthroposophic Society. In those private lectures, he did say things to members WHO WERE AWARE that INDIVIDUALITY was a more important factor to destiny than RACE. So even though these were his OWN WORDS, it would be wrong to put them up because they are being taken out of context. Even though they are Steiner's OWN WORDS, posting them in less than full awareness of the context in which he said them is actually slanderous. You can, in fact slander someone with their own words, if you post them out of context, which is what you are so adamant to do.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.185.4.7 (talk • contribs)

I agree that it is out-of-context quotations that are the problem here, although I don't agree with 64.185.4.7 on slander. We deal with this type of thing constantly at Talk:Friedrich Nietzsche. Opponents of Nietzsche take a few quotations out of context to make him sound like a Nazi. It's irresponsible, unethical, and it hurts Misplaced Pages. I think that there are fewer academic studies of Steiner than Nietzsche and that that is also part of the problem here. In the Nietzsche article, we can demand that editors quote Nietzsche scholars. — goethean ॐ 22:35, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm sorry, but that doesn't hold water. Some of the quotes I have listed are directly from Steiner's written works - his books that are the foundation of Anthroposophy itself. Some are from conversations with the workers who were building the Goetheanum - IOW, ordinary people who had, perhaps, some interest in Steiner - but there is nothing that I know of that indicates the workers all (or any) belonged to the Anthroposophical society. Can you identify which quotes, of the ones I have provided, you believe are from lectures that were "private" lectures in which only members of the Anthroposophical society were present? And given the understanding about Steiner's views about individuality, which statements do you then believe are no longer racist? And, for the record, I haven't made any claim that Steiner didn't believe individuality was more of a factor in destiny than race. He did, indeed, believe this. His racism was not directed at individuals (although he never met a black person). His racism was directed at RACES. He made assumptions about which races were advancing and which weren't and which races had certain characteristics that were favorable and which races had characteristics that weren't. Regardless of how Steiner felt about individuals, his ideas about the races ARE RACIST and his statements about the races reveal this. There is nothing slanderous here - he said what he said and even in the context you present, it's still racist. --Pete K 01:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Someone today has added the following commentary with an (apparent) quote:

He also believed that "the concept of race ceases to retain any meaning in our time," and that "Anyone speaking today about the ideal of races and nations and clan allegiance speaks out of decadent impulses for humanity.... And if these so-called ideals are believed to represent progressive ideals before the world, then this belies the truth. Because nothing brings humanity more into decadence than the proliferation of the ideals of race, nation and blood.”

While I am encouraged that users are bringing Steiner's own words here, which is something I truly believe we should be doing, I am concerned at how this particular user linked the first and second quotes as if they were a stream of thought. The first quote is a snippet, not even a full sentence - taken from a lecture in 1909. The second is another snippet with a section removed in the middle and is taken from a lecture in 1917. The editor, who is unnamed, linked the two together and took parts out to make it seem as if the quote is supporting something that Steiner didn't actually support. I would hope these quotes, if we finally agree to bring them here, would be in their true context and not snippets stitched together to form a collage that represents something other than Steiner's true viewpoint. --Pete K 02:37, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

If you want to bring something from Steiner's early lectures in the 1907-1909 period when he actually talked about the concept of race as not having the same meaning as it did in Atlantean times (i.e. before he took a more racist tone) - why not, at least, get the whole clip (which is quite nice BTW) and present it instead of just snipping it into a sound-byte. This is from the SAME lecture the annonymous user referenced in the article.

"We can now say: Today 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. Whoever keeps it in mind will very quickly see that certain human beings not only appear alike in their physiognomy, but that also the soul-qualities are similar in groups of human beings: that one can, as it were, divide human beings into categories. Each person can still today be reckoned into a certain category; with reference to this or the other quality, he will belong perhaps to different categories, but a certain group-soulness is not only valid because the races exist, but also in other connections. 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.

Now we, in our present age, are living in the most eminent sense, in a transition. All group-soulness has gradually to be stripped off. Just as the gaps between single nations gradually disappear, as the single parts of different nations understand each other better, so also will other group-soul qualities be shed, and the individual nature of each single person come to the foreground more and more."

And finally now, we are getting to the part that was sound-byted:

"We have therewith characterised something quite essential in evolution. If we want to grasp it from another side, we can say: 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. If we go back beyond the great Atlantean catastrophe, we see how the human races are prepared. In the old Atlantean age human beings were grouped according to external characteristics in their bodily structure, far more strongly than today. What we call races today are only the relics of those important distinctions between human beings as were customary in old Atlantis. The idea of race is only really applicable to old Atlantis. Since we deal with a real evolution of mankind, we have never employed the idea of race in the most eminent sense for the post-Atlantean age. We do not speak of an Indian race, a Persian race, etc., because that is no longer correct. We speak of an old-Indian period of civilisation, of an old-Persian period of civilisation, etc. And it would be utterly devoid of sense if we would speak of our time preparing a sixth race. If relics of the old Atlantean distinctions, of their group-soulness, are still existing in our time, so that one can still say the racial division continues to work on — that which is preparing for the sixth period of time consists just in the character of race being stripped off. That is the essential. Therefore it is necessary that that movement which is called the anthroposophical movement, which should prepare the sixth period of time, adopts in 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." From GA 117 Dec. 4, 1909.

This is a very nice quote. I don't see why Steiner supporters don't use it instead of Swiss-cheesing sound-bytes to try to make their point (POV). As I have said before, I will support quotes BY STEINER that demonstrate HIS POV (not necessarily mine or yours). But don't expect me to go looking up all the good ones for you guys. --Pete K 03:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Steiner for intermarriage

"... In fact, Steiner was against the "mixing of the blood" and that's why he prefered white races not populate areas where "savage" races were. ..." Pete K 14:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Your statement is contradicted by a lecture, that on the one hand is a comment on a comment by Mefistofeles in Goethe's Faust, and at first formulates the probably questions of a number of his audience, then to continue at the end to tell what Steiner himself thought of intermarriage:

"In earlier times tribes held aloof from each other, and the individual members of families intermarried. You will find this to have been the case with all races and with all peoples; and it was an important moment for humanity when this principle was broken through, when foreign blood was introduced, and when marriage between relations was replaced by marriage with strangers, when endogamy gave place to exogamy. Endogamy preserves the blood of the generation; it permits of the same blood flowing in the separate members as flows for generations through the entire tribe or the entire nation. Exogamy inoculates man with new blood, and this breaking-down of the tribal principle, this mixing of blood, which sooner or later takes place among all peoples, signifies the birth of the external understanding, the birth of the intellect.

The important thing to bear in mind here is that in olden times there was a hazy clairvoyance, from which the myths and legends originated. This clairvoyance could exist in the nearly related blood, just as our present-day consciousness comes about owing to the mingling of blood. The birth of logical thought, the birth of the intellect, was simultaneous with the advent of exogamy. Surprising, as this may seem, it is nevertheless true. It is a fact which will be substantiated more and more by external investigation; indeed, the initial steps along this line have already been taken.

But this mingling of blood which comes about through exogamy is also that which at the same time obliterates the clairvoyance of earlier days, in order that humanity may evolve to a higher stage of development; and just as the person who has passed through the stages of occult development regains this clairvoyance, and transmutes it into a new form, so has our waking consciousness of the present day been evolved out of that dim and hazy clairvoyance which obtained in times of old."

--Thebee 19:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

LOL! How is "intermarriage" the mixing of the blood of races? Nobody is talking about brother marrying sister here Sune. "Exogamy" means no inbreeding - i.e. small villages or tribes should seek people outside their tribe - it doesn't in any way refer to interracial marriages. That you have misunderstood what he wrote is no reason to cut the quotes I have been posting. --Pete K 20:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Exogamy means "marriage outside a particular group with which one is identified"; this can be on any scale. Hgilbert 12:54, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't need an English lesson Harlan, nor do I need help interpreting this quote or any of Steiner's material. The quote is NOT talking about marrying outside one's race. Revisionists, like you perhaps, try to use nonsense like this to convey that Steiner was talking about the mixing of races. The quote does not say this at all, and it doesn't imply this at all - and Steiner was not in favor of this at all - in fact he was very much opposed to the mixing of the blood of different races. Do you want me to post quotes here to support what I have just said? Here's one:

"Occult investigation shows decisively that all the things which surround us in this world - the mineral foundation, the vegetable covering, and the animal world - should be regarded as the physiognomical expression, or the "below," of an "above" or spirit life lying behind them. From the point of view taken by occultism, the things presented to us in the sense world can only be rightly understood if our knowledge includes cognition of the "above," the spiritual archetype, the original Spiritual Beings, whence all things manifest have proceeded. And for this reason we will today apply our minds to a study of that which lies concealed behind the phenomenon of the blood, that which shaped for itself in the blood its physiognomical expression in the world of sense. When once you understand this "spiritual background" of blood, you will be able to realize how the knowledge of such matters is bound to react upon our whole mental outlook on life.

Questions of great importance are pressing upon us these days; questions dealing with the education, not alone of the young, but of entire nations. And, furthermore, we are confronted by the momentous educational question which humanity will have to face in the future, and which cannot fail to be recognized by all who note the great social upheavals of our time, and the claims which are everywhere being advanced, be they the Labor Question, or the Question of Peace. All these things are pre-occupying our anxious minds.

But all such questions are illuminated as soon as we recognize the nature of the spiritual essence which lies at the back of our blood. Who can deny that this question is closely linked to that of race, which at the present time is once more coming markedly to the front? Yet this question of race is one that we can never understand until we understand the mysteries of the blood and of the results accruing from the mingling of the blood of different races. And finally, there is yet one other question, the importance of which is becoming more and more acute as we endeavor to extricate ourselves from the hitherto aimless methods of dealing with it, and seek to approach it in its more comprehensive bearings. This problem is that of colonization, which crops up wherever civilized races come into contact with the uncivilized: namely - To what extent are uncivilized peoples capable of becoming civilized? How can an utterly barbaric savage become civilized? And in what way ought we to deal with them? And here we have to consider not only the feelings due to a vague morality, but we are also confronted by great, serious, and vital problems of the very fact of existence itself.

Those who are not aware of the conditions governing a people - whether it be on the up- or down-grade of its evolution, and whether the one or the other is a matter conditioned by its blood - such people as these will, indeed, be unlikely to hit on the right mode of introducing civilization to an alien race. These are all matters which arise as soon as the Blood Question is touched upon." Rudolf Steiner, Occult Significance of Blood, An Esoteric Study -Berlin, October 25, 1906 GA 55

And for one of my favorites:

STEINER (1923) "No doubt about it, the soul becomes corrupted through using the French language...It is also possible at the present time that the French will even ruin their own blood, the very element which has kept their language going as a corpse. That is a terrible thing the French people are doing to other people, the frightful cultural brutality of transplanting black people to Europe. It affects France itself worst of all. This has an incredibly strong effect on the blood, the race. This will substantially add to French decadence. The French nation will be weakened as a race." [Steiner, Rudolf. *Conferences with the Teachers of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart 1922 to 1923: Volume Three: Being the end of the Fourth Year*. (1923) Trans. Pauline Wehrle. Forest Row, U.K.: Steiner Schools Fellowship Publications, 1988, pp. 87-88.]

And who can forget this one:

"I am convinced that if we get yet another set of Negro novels and give them to pregnant women to read, then Negroes do not have to come to Europe to conceive mulattos; just by reading Negro novels, half-blood children will be born in Europe" (from Steiner's "Health and Illness").

If you need more support for what I have said, please let me know. --Pete K 04:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Your first quote doesn't say anything against mixing of races. The second says that bringing black people to Europe will weaken French blood and race; it is not clear that he means by intermarriage. The German says that "this deed, this terrible cultural brutality, works back unbelievingly strongly on France to weaken its blood, its race." - it is the deed itself that has this effect. The third is Steiner's weirdest ever quote (it is not new to me, I say this out of long experience); it actually doesn't directly address the issue, but indirectly gives credence to your standpoint. Against this stand various quotes: the one about Christ:

'Christ could be born in Galilee just because members of many peoples from various parts of the world were assembled in one spot; there was far less blood relationship, and, above all, far less faith in this than in Judea, in the narrow circle of the Hebrew people. Galilee was a heterogenous racial mixture....Christ's task was intimately connected with this mixing of blood.' (quoted and referenced in article)

A critique of Spengler's emphasis on everything coming from the "blood" (GA 36/p. 98)

"Someone who wishes to go to the root of the German nature cannot be content with that which a materialistic view calls "blood" or "race" of a folk." GA64/p.225

"Another memory lingering into Atlantean times was that although a man no longer felt the Folk-soul directly within him as on the Moon yet he experienced the influence of the old Folk Souls, Race-souls. This influence was so strong that it would have been quite impossible in those times for anyone who belonged to one Race or Folk-soul ever to unite with one who belonged to another race. There was a deep antipathy between the peoples of the various Folk-souls, love only existed between those belonging to the same. We may say that the common blood which earlier in the Moon-period had been poured down from the Folk-soul was the basis of this kinship." Theosophy of the Rosicrucians, lecture 9. This also clarifies the earlier quote about exogamy and shows that Steiner did specifically mean races, not just tribes.

"It will come about that all connections of race and family stock will cease to exist, men will become more and more different from one another, interconnection will no longer depend on the common blood, but on what binds soul to soul. That is the course of human evolution.

"In the first Atlantean races there still existed a strong bond of union and the first sub-races grouped themselves according to their colouring. This group-soul element we have still in the races of different colour. These differences will increasingly disappear as the individualising element gains the upper hand. A time will come when there will no longer be races of different colour; the difference between the races will have disappeared, but on the other hand there will be the greatest differences between individuals. The further we go back into ancient times the more we meet with the encroachment of the racial element; the true individualising principle begins as a whole only in later Atlantean times. Among the earlier Atlanteans members of one race actually experienced a deep antipathy for members of another race; the common blood caused the feeling of connection, of love; it was considered against morality to marry a member of another stock. " ibid. lecture 10, further confirming that exogamy among races is what he means here.

"If in man of an earlier time there flowed blood which bound him with his tribe, today the love which still flowed in the earlier blood shows greater and greater cleavage; a love of a spiritual kind must take its place and then we can ascend again to spiritual realms. There is good reason for us to have come down from spiritual heights, for man must go through this descent in order to find the way up to spirituality out of his own strength. The mission of Spiritual Science is to show mankind this upward path." ibid.

In Central Europe, what is essential is not a matter of outer determinations such as blood or race, but something like a spiritual substance that permeates the world. GA159/p. 58

In GA325, Steiner speaks of the evolutionary/cultural impulses carried by inheritance, by the blood, carrying through to Greek/Roman times, but then reaching a dead end; "nothing more was dependent upon, nothing more came from the blood....the blood gave nothing more"

There's a first selection. Hgilbert 07:16, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think these support your point at all Harlan. He doesn't say anything about mixing the blood of the races, he says that "individuality" will overcome the "racial element". And as for the French quote, here is another version:

"The use of the French language quite certainly corrupts the soul. The soul acquires nothing more than the possibility of cliches. Those who enthusiastically speak French transfer that to other languages. The French are also ruining what maintains their dead language, namely, their blood. The French are committing the terrible brutality of moving black people to Europe, but it works, in an even worse way, back on France. It has an enormous effect on the blood and the race and contributes considerably toward French decadence. The French as a race are reverting."

(Rudolf Steiner, Faculty Meetings With Rudolf Steiner, New York 1998, pp. 558-559)

What do YOU think he means, then? Are you suggesting that Steiner believed that simply bringing blacks to France would somehow have an effect on the blood of the French? "Ruin" their blood? This is an interesting point of view - perhaps supported by Steiner's claim that simply reading a novel about blacks could cause pregnant women to give birth to mulatto babies.

"I am convinced that if we get yet another set of Negro novels and give them to pregnant women to read, then Negroes do not have to come to Europe to conceive mulattos; just by reading Negro novels, half-blood children will be born in Europe" (from Steiner's "Health and Illness").

And lest Sune get on here and try to convince anyone that this was Steiner joking around, he made the same agrument again:

"You see, if a pregnant woman today were to ask for something to read, there is nothing to give her! There isn’t even anything to recommend! Recently I went into a bookstore in Basel and found an example of the latest publishing agenda: a Negro novel, just as the Negroes in general are entering into European civilization step by step! Everywhere Negro dances are being performed, Negro dances are being hopped. But we even have this Negro novel already. It is utterly boring, dreadfully boring, but people devour it. I am personally convinced that if we get more Negro novels, and give these Negro novels to pregnant women to read during the first phase of pregnancy, when as you know they can sometimes develop such cravings, if we give these Negro novels to pregnant women to read, then it won’t even be necessary for Negroes to come to Europe in order for mulattoes to appear. Simply through the spiritual effects of reading Negro novels, a multitude of children will be born in Europe that are completely gray, that have mulatto hair, that look like mulattoes!"

p. 189 of Über Gesundheit und Krankheit (Dornach 1994) (from 1922)

Steiner is, by the way, referring to Rene Maran's novel Batouala.

So which is it? Was Steiner talking about the ruining of the blood through interbreeding, or was he talking about osmosis through close proximity to the black race - or even BOOKS about the black race causing "half-blood" children? --Pete K 14:29, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

In the original German, he refers to the terrible deed of cultural brutality involved in bringing people forcibly from Africa to Europe. He then says that this deed will have an effect on the blood and race of France. He does not say that this will be as a result of intermarriage. Since Steiner did believe that good or evil deeds could affect one's physical being even down to the inherited being, I don't know if he meant this or that there would be mixed-race children born. It's impossible to determine from the context. Hgilbert 16:49, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

It's only "impossible to determine" if you don't want to see the context. Steiner was talking about the black soldiers who were stationed in France. This wasn't slavery. If Steiner wanted to comment about slavery, he could well have talked about the United States. He talked about France because France is part of Europe and that blacks were brought into Europe bothered him. Steiner made lots of comments about the social implications of mixing cultures (and blood - I've quoted some above), about how "savages" would corrupt the Europeans. Steiner, himself, never met a black man. Steiner was referring to Rene Maran's novel 'Batouala' when he was talking about pregnant women reading novels and giving birth to mulatto children. If you are convinced that you don't know what he meant, then why are you arguing? Why not let editors who have studied this and actually KNOW what he meant perform edits to this article that are supported by evidence? --Pete K 17:35, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Once again, such interpretations are considered original research and have no place here. We can quote published studies by competent authorities to bring their interpretations to bear, but cannot impose our own. Hgilbert 19:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Once again, Steiner's OWN WORDS are quotable here and I intend to quote Steiner right here. People can make up their own minds. --Pete K 04:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Repeated violation of earlier agreement on sub pages

I have never given the above view of RS as reason for cutting the quote I've been cutting, as you seem to argue. I have cut them for four reasons.

One is that the "quote" already is described with regard to its actual content at the special sub page of the Steiner page on the issue, linked to in the section.

Another reason is that the "quote" you repeatedly insist on adding to the main page is erroneous and misleading. The original does not say that "a violent battle of white humankind against colored humankind" will take place. It just describes that battles in question -- in some 1,600 years (One of Huntington's 'Clashes of civilizations') - "will" develop between "white humanity" and "colored humanity" (in the context mainly seemingly referring to "Mongoles") but says nothing about who "will" "start" them (insinuated by the erroneous translation: "white" humanity against "colored" humanity), just that a difference between two different ways of relating to the spirit will be the basis of it. That's one of the typical subtle mis(?)translations by the person you've gotten it from.

A third reason is that the quote misrepresents the original source, from where it is taken. The original tells, not as implied in a second step between lines of the erroneous translation, that 'white humankind' will prevail in the battles. Instead it tells that the way of relating to the spirit as something living outside man, as represented in mongol culture, will come to be the basis for the further cultural development of mankind after "the" battles in some 1,500 years in Steiner's view, not something opposite of this, as the translator tries to insinuate. This is all told at the sub page, that you disregard.

The fourth reason is that the quote, like all other quotes you insist on quoting at the main to try to make it into another additional discussion page - disregarding the discussion of the subject at the sub page - violates an agreement developed after long earlier discussions on - as a unified standard in the articles - keeping the introduction of different subjects, discussed at sub pages, short at the main page, and instead present and discuss the issue at the subject page, an agreement you repeatedly violate. --Thebee 21:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

1) Burying ALL racist Steiner quotes is very bad policy and deceitful.

Misplaced Pages treats complex topics in special articles. This is not considered burying, but rather giving adequate consideration. One-sided presentations, on the other hand, are violations of the NPOV principle.

OK, maybe you can point me to where those quotes are still visible on the Misplaced Pages pages. "One-sided presentations" are not advanced by quoting EXACTLY what Steiner said. It is, in fact, one-sided to act like the Misplaced Pages broom and sweep all examples of racism from this page.

Look in the sub-article; some were brought over. Some may be in footnotes; the sub-article has not had longer quotes in the main text (for space reasons, and this applies to both sides), but has relied on summaries with footnotes or links containing the full quotes. I recommend this practice - if the longer quote is in a footnote, it is still fully accessible without breaking the article's flow.

2) If you have a better translation, let's us it. Just because you don't agree with the translation is no reason to remove it completely. Provide a better translation of the same quote, or leave it there.

3) Your own translation of this quote would solve this problem too. I've read your criticism of this quote many times Sune, and I don't agree with it - but again, I invite you to provide your own translation instead of deleting the quote - and EVERY quote that has been placed on the face of the article.

The problem is that the quote you added presents only one side of the situation; if we present a full view, the main article gets swamped. That's why the sub-article was created in the first place, because this section grew too long by far.

Where, on the main article, is the "sub-article" referenced. I've made suggestions to remove some of the stuff that isn't of any importance to make room for the stuff that is. The Goetheanum, for example, is GONE... burned down. It wasn't an architectural masterpiece, it was an oddity. If you want to send something to a sub-article, it should be this.

There are two clear links, one in the "main article" line that starts the section on race, one in the first sentence of that section. Click on either one.

The first Goetheanum is widely recognized as a masterpiece; see article for references. The second has been recognized as a national architectural landmark by the Swiss nation.

4) As far as I'm concerned, any agreement that doesn't challenge whether Steiner's philosophy was based on racism isn't an agreement I can abide by. I don't know or care who agreed to this. Steiner's words speak for themselves. Why don't you let them do that?

We do. See the article devoted wholly to the topic. Add to this to ensure a full and well-rounded and accurate presentation of this complex topic.Hgilbert 12:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't see that you do at all. I see that you remove any and all quotes immediately. If you have a quote from Steiner that contradicts ANYTHING that I have quoted, going back, what, two weeks now - then you should post that QUOTE. You can say that it is one-sided to make a claim until you are blue in the face - if you can't support your argument, then I will contninue to make the claim AND support it with Steiner's OWN words.

There is a special article on the subject. That is the proper place for describing the issue. The task of Misplaced Pages is not to challenge different philosophies, but to describe them in a broad neutral way in articles dedicated to different subjects and aspects of them. What is important also is not to argue about different subjects in articles. With regard to Steiner, who's work is extremely complex, encompassing among other things appr. 6,000 lectures held over two decades, single quotes are less interesting than the actual argumentation in the lectures and lecture series. Also, the same or similar issues may be described and discussed from different perspectives in different lectures during different periods of his life. The task of Misplaced Pages is to do justice to the work in its totality, also with regard to different sub-subjects, that then are described in sub-articles. --Thebee 07:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Steiner's work, in totality, was racist. Anthroposophy is a racist philosophy - it claims that the white race is superior to all others. This is documented in dozens of quotes by Steiner. The sub article doesn't express this at all - in fact it excuses it. It is apparently written by people who don't believe this to be true. So are you saying that the place for ACTUAL quotes from Steiner would be in the sub-article, and that if I provide them they you won't immediately remove them? This is an exhausting process - to go to the effort to find material that supports a view, material that is in the man's OWN words, and then, after presenting that material, having revisionists remove it. I guess, once again, the administrators have to get involved. This is incredibly childish, in my view. Let the man's work speak for itself. --Pete K 18:53, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

See quotes above that show the opposite. I'm afraid the exhausting process you describe is the very nature of expository, as opposed to creative, writing. We are not here to vent, but to document - indeed, to let the man's work speak for itself. Hgilbert 07:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

No, the quotes above don't show the opposite. If the man's work is to speak for itself, then let's POST IT HERE. That's what an encyclopedia is for - presenting the facts, not whitewashing the truth. The fact is, Steiner said ALL the things I have quoted here and that you and others have been systematically removing in order to paint your guru in a good light. It's dishonest not to provide people with the opportunity to see both sides of this issue. You don't get to choose what people are allowed to see of Steiner, Harlan. I think anyone reading these back pages will see that there is more to the story than you are allowing to be presented here. Please, give it up and let both sides be heard. This is not the place for revisionist history. Let Steiner's words speak for themselves - ALL of them. --Pete K 14:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

We are trying to represent both sides. It is impossible to do so adequately within the main article. There is no revisionist history, all quotes from all aspects of his work have a place in the article devoted exclusively to the subject.

I am open to extending the summary somewhat, but then it must be representative, and this has always led to conflicts. I suggest this is another place to find an agreement on a replacement on the talk page first. Hgilbert 16:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Burying "difficult" discussion items is not representing both sides. You have been accused of this before by other editors. Selecting the link in the main article doesn't bring me to Steiner's racist quotes, it brings me to an article that tries to explain away Steiner's racism. These tactics are the type of tactics revisionists use. There will be no agreement that says Steiner didn't say what he said. Let Steiner's words speak for themselves. --Pete K 17:21, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

More precisely, it brings you to an article that represents all of what Steiner said on the issue, not just one side of this. Trying to reduce the complexity of the issue by simply selective quotation is contrary to the neutrality policy. It doesn't matter how many quotes you can present on one side; all sides need to be represented fairly. It is clear that this is impossible within the framework of the article; we need to have some sort of summary and a fuller treatment in the sub-article. To have a whole article treating a subject extremely fully and clear links to this is not burying; it is giving proper consideration without overwhelming an article with an extremely narrowly defined topic. Hgilbert 16:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

In fact, the current article is too long and another section should be broken out into a seperate article. — goethean ॐ 16:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

HGilbert writes: "More precisely, it brings you to an article that represents all of what Steiner said on the issue, not just one side of this." Actually, it doesn't - it brings me to a pathetically apologetic article that tiptoes around what Steiner actually believed so as not to offend "modern ears". Steiner really believed the things I have quoted. He really believed the white European (Jupiter) race is the race of the future, and that the black (Mercury) race "hardened" too soon and that the near East (Venus) and far East (Mars) race and the Native American (Saturn) race all had their own characteristics that put them behind the white race. He believed these things to be spiritual truths - as wild and wacky as they may sound to the casual reader of Misplaced Pages. The "explanations" given don't explain anything - they basically apologize. Indeed, it would be impossible to "explain" in an article here WHY Steiner believed these things. All we can really do here is to explain WHAT Steiner believed. Breaking out lots of different sections won't help. To really get WHY Steiner believed what he believed takes years of reading. You can't give a superficial explanation and expect it to make sense to anyone who hasn't invested in the reading on their own. I understand that it must be frustrating for defenders of Steiner to have to read here WHAT he believed without an opportunity to explain WHY he believed it, but the answer isn't to remove WHAT he believed from these pages. --Pete K 02:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, what he believed can be much more fully represented in a separate article than it ever could be here. The current sub-article represents all sides of his work, not just selected aspects. That doesn't sit with you, but the citations and quote are there, and many more can be given. Hgilbert 10:39, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's no question about the light in which Steiner is to be presented here. Hey, if you think you have done a good job of representing Steiner's views - go for it. What I see is an apology and a lot of Waldorf-speak tiptoeing around the facts. Someone who reads this will see that we needed a separate article about Steiner's racist speech, but that we are afraid to talk about it even there - instead we want to apologize for it. This gets more ridiculous every day and I wonder how frustrated the reader who is actually interested in getting solid information about Steiner must be at reading this version. --Pete K 00:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the only one who is frustrated is you. The information is all accurate and far more comprehensive than only choosing to present a particular slant. Note that your preferred slant is also included here through several large sections. This is what's called here a neutral (because inclusive) point of view for an article. Hgilbert 15:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

esoteric anatomy and world evolution

Steiners presentation of the invisible bodies of the human being is the same as that presented by other theosophical offshoots. From the point of Religious Science it is possible to claim he lifted the scheme in its entirety from Blavatsky. This claim is not made here, but the point is made that Steiner's and Blavatsky's esoteric anatomies are identical (as are many other parts of anthroposophical and theosophical teachings. It is true that Steiner in his autobiography and elsewhere claimed not to have been influenced by theosophy, but this is obviously not true.--Vindheim 10:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

If Hgilbert believes Steiners esoteric anatomy is different from Blavatskys, it is up to him to show the difference. I see no opposition between the scheme of the higher bodies of the human being presented by Steiner in "Theosophy" from those presented by Blavatsky, Leadbeater or Bailey. --Vindheim 18:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

And you could say that in the article: there is no opposition between them. To claim identity between two so different presentations is unjustified. The skeleton is similar: the seven-fold human being (though already here Steiner uses a new vocabulary, with different emphasis). Already here, however, Steiner emphasizes that the etheric body is not just a refined physical (a theosophical concept). In addition, Steiner distinguishes three elements of the soul, three of the body and three of the spirit, resulting in a nine-fold presentation; does this appear in any theosophical work? In any case, most of Steiner's actual characterizations (beyond the barest skeleton) are very particular to him, as those of Blavatsky and other Theosophists are to them, and the styles are so fully different (cf. Blavatsky vs. Steiner!!!); these factors preclude any usage of terms like identity.

In any case, the Outline of Esoteric Science is wildly and completely different than any theosophical presentation of similar material. Hgilbert 10:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

You have a point. identity is too strong. --Vindheim 11:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

people influenced by steiner

Many people were and are interested enough in Steiner to have read books, seen or read his plays, and so on. Nevertheless, no major influence can be assumed merely because someone reads an author's book. What is the evidence that Kafka was actually influenced by, rather than merely curious about or even interested in, Steiner's work? Hgilbert 18:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

i object to mentioning zweig, kafka and tarkovsky in this list without providing further evidence than the link. just the fact that these people have met or have said something about him does not say much. i wonder if any of these even went as far as read a book by steiner. --trueblood 19:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

See Tarkovsky's memoirs from 31 January, 1986 in "Paris, hospital" where he discusses the possibility of making a short film about Steiner (from the Polish edition of Martyrolog, ed. and trans. by Seweryn Kuśmierczyk. Retranslation by Jan at Nostalghia.com, seen here: http://ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheDiaries/sacrifice.html). Tarkovsky writes, "... then — to Berlin where — perhaps — I'll make a short film about Rudolf Steiner with Alexander Kluge...". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.69.69.229 (talk • contribs)

again wanting to make a movie about steiner might mean he was interestered in steiner, but not necessary that he was influenced by steiner. trueblood 20:59, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Steiner and theosophy

This section of the biography has grown out of proportion to the remainder. I am moving parts to footnotes, where they are accessible to interested readers but do not get in the way of what is meant to be a concise overview. In particular, the years from 1910-1925 still need much more detail - these were easily the most full years of Steiner's life. Hgilbert 02:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Steiner founded the A.S. before the T.S. threw his group out; I have fixed this in the text. Do you have any citations to back up the claim that Besant ejected them on the basis of the T.S. statute on religious freedom? Hgilbert 12:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Revised the text slightly and added reference to Theosophical History--Vindheim 13:16, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Added more references so both viewpoints appear. Hgilbert 13:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

i find it unacceptable that you claim this section is too long, and remove parts of it, and then add heaps of detail supporting the anthroposophical version of the split. This makes the article even more unbalanced and propagandist than it was before. I put an objectivity tag on this section, I am sure it could have been placed on the whole article. --Vindheim 14:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It is much too long. But you keep adding the claim that Steiner's exclusion of the Star of the East members violated the T.S. constitution - a claim wholly derived from theosophical sources, a single POV. If the claim is there, then the facts behind this (with quotations from Besant!!) should be there, too, and the German section's POV, which is that the Order had a dogma, contrary to religious freedom. If we drop the claim and just have the fact that the German group was excluded, then the whole documentation of the incident (which doesn't belong here!!) can go.

I have put most of the detailed information in footnotes where it is available to the interested but doesn't overwhelm the article. I hope this is a satisfactory solution.Hgilbert 23:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Theosophical History <http://www.theohistory.org/> is a magazine for scholars of history and religion, not for members of the TS. That Steiner's exclusion of one sect with which he disagreed - The Star of the East - was an exclusion of a religious point of view is a fact, and has been documented to be instrumental in forcing the formal breach between the TS and the AS. It looks as if you are unwilling to include any information which shows Steiner too have been less than saintly. --Vindheim 01:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Removing the neutrality tag because you disagree with it, eh? This article is not your personal playground, Hgilbert. Do that again and I'll bring it to the village pump --Vindheim 01:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

That the German section (not Steiner) excluded members of the Order is a fact. That this is an exclusion of a religious viewpoint and thus a contravention of the T.S. statutes is an interpretation. I am happy to include this information and interpretation, but the NPOV principle states that alternate interpretations should also be included. You are upset if no interpretation appear in the main text, and upset if both do. It seems that you want to force a single point of view into the article. I am genuinely puzzled. I am happy with either solution; either we state the fact of the exclusion and leave the interpretation, or put in the various interpretations.

Perhaps it is helpful to emphasize the distinction between facts and citations. Because a historian says something does not make it a fact; it may well be an interpretation. It becomes citable, but alternate interpretations by other historians (Lindenberg is a notable historian) are also possible and equally citable. Hgilbert 00:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to combine versions. The footnote extensively documents the relationship of Steiner's growing popularity (especially outside German-speaking areas) to the tensions.

Please identify areas where the article generally is not balanced in POV to justify the general template. Hgilbert 15:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Note: the user who had added the template promptly removed it after the above query. Hgilbert 06:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Unclear reference:

The very first line in the section Steiner and the Theosophical Society begins: "A turning point in Steiner's life came when, in the August 28, 1899 issue of this magazine... ". As near as I can tell, this is an allusion to "the literary journal Magazin für Literatur" referred to at the end of the section Writer and philosopher. I suspect that the intervening section was added -- and the continuity was lost -- during an edit. In any event, the magazine being referred to needs to be clarified. Cgingold 13:44, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Concerns have been expressed about article length; I have moved the extensive section on the T.S. to a special, detailed article on Rudolf Steiner and the Theosophical Society to preserve the excellent work there, and put a summary with link in this article. Hgilbert 10:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

About the Goetheanum

I think there needs to be a sentence or two that describes the social/ political/ historical context in which the first Goetheanum was burned down. Was there ever such a line in the article? I realize that the identity of the arsonist(s) was not established, but the general take on this question is that Steiner had stirred up a lot of animosity, particularly among right-wing elements, including Adolph Hitler. (It might even make sense to develop this within section 3.2 Social activism.) I would like to hear other people's thoughts on this issue before I write it up. Cgingold 14:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

There had been a direct threat published in a right-wing extremist journal; see this description with a reference to Steiner's lecture where he mentioned the threat (of spiritual sparks igniting the building). Hgilbert 06:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Chronology

I have once again put the events in chronological order in the section about the Theosophical Society. Please stop reversing them; 1912 (A.S. formed) comes before 1913 (T.S. casts out German section). Hgilbert 09:37, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Archive and Theosophical Society Archive

I have established two archives; one for past discussions and one for discussion about the Theosophical Society specifically. I propose that recent and current discussion about the latter remain on this page for now, but will be archived to the latter when no longer active. Hgilbert 09:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Proper page for subject discussion

I suggest discussions on RS views on "races" is moved to its proper place, the Talks page on that issue. Thanks, --Thebee 17:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't agree, not surprisingly. Rudolf Steiner's views on race belong right here not buried elsewhere. This is, again, another attempted "clean-up" so even the Rudolf Steiner Talk page can stay pristine. This is part of your effort to keep Steiner's ideas about race hidden from public view. If they are moved, I will move them back here. The discussion here is exactly about whether Steiner's views on race should be available on THIS article and not on the sub-page. The discussion is relevant right here. --Pete K 04:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Time for a compromise maybe? Pete K. boils his presentation of Steiners racist remarks down to one paragraph here, and posts some of the rest of his quotes on the Steiner and racism page. just a suggestion. --Vindheim 05:36, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

If they are published in the article on the subject, publishing them here too, as also repeatedly at the main page of the article on Rudolf Steiner is pure spamming and and edit warring and constitutes repeated conscious vandalism of the main article on R.S. --Thebee 08:56, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Spamming? ROFL... The main article on Rudolf Steiner is in need of HEAVY editing, BTW, and will get my full attention when time permits. In the mean time, his views on racism, which have been buried in a sub-article that makes excuses for them, need to be expressed here to some degree. His language was racist, not just to modern ears, but to ears contemporary to his lectures. He promoted that the white race was more evolved, more spiritually suited for the future than other races who had "hardened" too soon. It is incredible to me that anyone would continually suggest Steiner's own words cannot be referenced here. His views on race were a HUGE part of who he was and they were a huge part of his lecture topics, and they were a huge part of his defining literary works. This is not an attack on Steiner - it is a definition of who he was in an honest light. This is not opinion, it is fact and we don't need to go to any sources other than Steiner himself to confirm this fact. That's why it is so important that this be presented HERE in the article. People who have decided to revise history by wiping the fingerprints off this article are not going to win this debate. They cannot disassociate Steiner from racism, and bifurcating the Steiner article from the Steiner Racism article isn't going to divert the attention away from what Steiner actually said. --Pete K 15:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

That's one POV. Steiner fought against anti-Semitism and racism his whole life long, however, both practically and through his writings and lectures. There are many hundreds of quotes to support this. He did not wish any human being to be judged on the basis of race.

At the same time, however, he made many comments about races and ethnic groups. He explained that he believed it was possible to define the tendency of any given group, while emphasizing that individuals were just that - they are not limited by the nature of the group into which they are born. He was comfortable with this to a modern ear paradoxical situation.

Many of his comments seem to go over the edge of defining groups into a casting of relative judgments. These need to be represented too.

I agree with Vindheim; each side needs to be represented here proportionally. Note that this was the case originally, before this edit war; both sides were represented quite fairly. Both sides were also represented briefly because of the complexity of both cases to present. We could try for a somewhat fuller presentation. Hgilbert 00:10, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

"He did not wish any human being to be judged on the basis of race." Yet he judged THE RACES themselves. That's racism Harlan. And no, Steiner didn't fight agains anti-Semitism his whole life, the best that can be said was that at times he was for assimilation - there's a difference. And yes, Harlan, comments and judgments about races and ethnic groups that places some races or one race in a superior standing to others IS racism. There is no question about this. You just seem to want an opportunity to explain your point of view (or his) - and you have done that in the sub-article and now in this article. I like what you added, BTW, and I've added one of the more racy (pun intended) quotes as well. I don't agree that both sides of this issue have been represented well, but it is better now than it was. Can we leave it alone now? --Pete K 01:51, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Steiner wrote criticizing anti-Semitism as barbaric, idiotic, etc. He also said, as one example among many, "It makes no difference whether someone is a German or a Jew." He believed in a world culture, and that all races and ethnic groups should work to contribute towards that. These are real statements, and there are hundreds more like this. He also believed - and this should be compared to his general ideas about the trend toward a loss of racial distinctiveness in the future - that Jews should assimilate rather than remain a separate race or culture. I want to present what he really said in the whole context, not just individual quotes.

You don't seem to have understood, though several people have mentioned this, that Misplaced Pages has an express policy of not labelling things 'racism'; instead, to present a person's words and thoughts and let people draw their own conclusion. It is true that Steiner did not wish people to be judged on the basis of race. It is also true that he differentiated races, sometimes showing all as one-sided in their own way, sometimes in a way that indicates relative value. The latter I too find problematic, and am not seeking to hide this; on the contrary, I included extensive sections on this in the sub-article.

Most of his comments, however, either are simply general about race - always anti-racist - or describe individual racial or ethnic groups in a context of each having its own strengths and weakenesses. Comments drawn from these may sound discriminatory until one recognizes that 1) he was willing to describe his own race and ethnic group in the same way: as having strengths and weaknesses, and 2) he emphasized that individuals were not limited by these group characteristics; on the contrary, many other factors are far more prominent and important than race in an individual's being, including individual innate abilities.

Nevertheless, there are many quotes that describe a given racial or ethnic group in a disparaging way. Some of these belong to the above category - he was willing to disparage every group, since he believed that we all need to overcome our group characteristics to achieve a full humanity. Some are more discriminatory in nature (in the perjorative sense). I have also represented these in the sub-article. They simply form a minority of all his comments about race and ethnicity. I don't expect you to believe this, but I wonder if you draw your knowledge of his work from selections that only represent the latter category? The average reader of Steiner will only encounter comments that are in no way problematic here, not because anyone has hidden certain kinds of quotes, but because they primarily occur in relatively obscure places, and often in a context that makes it apparent that they are not meant in a discriminatory way. On the other hand, every reader of Steiner will have encountered many statements that support an attitude of equality between all races and ethnic groups. The Anthroposophical Society's statutes explicitly require this: all are welcome, of any race, creed, ethnic group, philosophical persuasion whatsoever. This is not the act of a racist, or the expression of a racist philosophy. Hgilbert 22:29, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Harlan, I don't think you really believe my understanding of Steiner's work is superficial, so I won't even comment on this. If you are suggesting that I am trying to do ANYTHING BUT present Steiner's own words and let people draw their own conclusions, I think you have to make that case. You suggest that Steiner was willing to describe his own race in a fashion similar to the way he described other races - and I would assume you also mean to the same degree. I have yet to see evidence of this - and I have evidence to the contrary. His own white race is described as the race of the future while other races are described as having fulfilled their usefulness, or having stopped in their evolution. These descriptions aren't apparent only in obscure places, they are in very prominent places.

Steiner said many things that people would find even more HORRIBLE than what I have presented here. From "The Fifth Gospel - Lecute 5, Oslo, 6 October, 1913 (p65) "And Jesus went on to say; 'If I, also a son of the House of David, were to do as Hillel did and utter the sublime revelations that have brought enlightenment to my soul and are the same sublime revelations as were given to the Hebrews of old, none would have the ears to hear today'"... "As if to sum up everything he had to say on the subject, Jesus told his mother: 'The revelation of ancient Judaism is no longer suitable for the Earth, for the old Jews have passed away; the ancient revelation must be considered worthless on Earth today.'" This is FAR beyond racist speech - in that Steiner, through his "clairvoyant" production of the "fifth gospel" put his racist ideas IN JESUS' MOUTH. This is EXTREMELY offensive material and still, nobody is suggesting it should be in the article.

We haven't even touched on, BTW, Steiner's other wacky ideas regarding reincarnation and karma, for example. We could and should get into those as well - and those too are major themes running through Anthroposophy. For example, Steiner believed that pneumonia was derived from having had sexual excesses in a previous lifetime (From Manifestations of Karma, p93). Anyone could list a lot of things like this if the intention was to make Steiner out to be a nutcase. The point, however, is to examine what Steiner REALLY believed and to put that into an article. Steiner really believed the white race was superior to all others. That's racism, my friend. --Pete K 16:30, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Steiner never said that. He made all sorts of comments about strengths and weaknesses of various races, and one can draw all sorts of conclusions from these, including that various races are better fitted for particular activities or situations, or for developing certain faculties, but not that any one is generally superior. Hgilbert 01:58, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Then how do you explain these quotes directly from Steiner:

"Really, it is the whites who develop the human factor within themselves. Therefore they have to rely on themselves. When whites do emigrate, they partly take on the characteristics of other areas, but they die more as individuals than as a race. The white race is the race of the future, the race that is working creatively with the spirit."

"You see, when we really study science and history, we must conclude that if people become increasingly strong, they will also become increasingly stupid. If the blonds and blue-eyed people die out, the human race will become increasingly dense if men do not arrive at a form of intelligence that is independent of blondness. Blond hair actually bestows intelligence. ... It is indeed true that the more the fair individuals die out the more will the instinctive wisdom of humans vanish."

"We are within the great Root Race of humanity, which has peopled the earth, since the land on which we now live rose up out of the inundations of the ocean. Ever since the Atlantean Race began slowly to disappear, the great Aryan Race has been the dominant one on earth. If we contemplate ourselves, we here in Europe are thus the fifth Sub-Race of the great Aryan Root Race. The first Sub-Race lived in the distant past in Ancient India. And the present-day Indians are descendants of that first Sub-Race, whose spiritual life is still extant in the ancient Indian Vedas. The Vedas are indeed only echoes of the ancient culture of the Rishis. At that time there was of course no writing yet - there was only tradition. Then came the second, third and fourth Sub-Races. The fourth Sub-Race adopted Christianity. Then, halfway through the Middle Ages, we see that the fifth Sub-Race formed itself, to which we and the neighboring nations belong." (Steiner, Rudolf. The Temple Legend: Freemasonry and Related Occult Movements: Twenty Lectures given in Berlin between 23rd May 1904 and the 2nd January 1906. (1904-1906) Trans. John M. Wood, Edited E.M. Lloyd. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1985, p. 220)

"The Western European peoples have become very much crystallized in their national characteristics, but in the case of the German people this cannot happen because of the peculiar nature of the German folk spirit. The result is that German attitudes will always have to remain more universal than those of other peoples. These things relate to profound realities in the spiritual world."

"The German spirit...is prepared for a truth that reveals itself to be true out of itself, not requiring external verification. The German spirit is prepared for this and evidence of this may be found everywhere. The thoughts of those who were truly working within the essence of the German spirit have always taken the form of considering truth to be an inner gift of the human soul."

"What has to come about for the civilization and culture of the future will only come about if the German folk spirit finds souls that transplant the Christ impulse into their astral body and ego the way it can indeed be implanted there in a state of full conscious awareness. It has to come about through harmony being established, by uniting with that which is consciously achieved in Central Europe--more and more consciously."This will need not just one or two centuries, but a very long time. The time needed...I would say counting from the year 1400. Adding two thousand years to 1400 we get the approximate time when something will emerge in the evolution of the earth that has had its seeds in the German life of the spirit...That is the intention of the cosmic intelligence...For the moment the East is very far indeed from achieving this. The very best of them still fall far short. Short sightedly, they still refuse to accept what Central European culture in particular is able to give."

"The most characteristic sign of the time is the belief that when a group of individuals have set up some trashy proposition as a general program--such as the unity of all men regardless of race, nation or color, and so forth--something has been accomplished. Nothing has been accomplished except to throw sand into people's eyes. Something real is attained only when we note the differences and realize what world conditions are." (My emphasis)

"The representative people for the development of the consciousness soul, hence for what matters particularly in our age, is the Anglo-Saxon nation. The Anglo-Saxon people are those who through their whole organization are predisposed to develop the consciousness soul to a special degree. The prominent position occupied by the Anglo-Saxon nation in our time is indeed due to the fact that this nation is especially suited for the development of the consciousness soul."

Is NO amount of evidence enough to convince you? Perhaps the other editors here will see this constant denial of what was clear in Steiner's writing as just that - denial. --Pete K 14:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism ? Yes .

The ongoing edit war has thrown up some fascinating quotes from Der Doktor, mainly posted by Pete K. Now Pete obviously has his own axe(s) to grind, but the reaction of the Steiner acolytes is interesting in itself. I have been reflecting on the use of the word "vandalism" for Petes posting of unsavoury quotes from Steiner. I agree that Pete overdoes it, but then his opponents will apparently not accept the slighest splash of mud on their statue - or[REDACTED] article - of the Great Man. Hence the use of the word vandalism. The picture of the wartless man is destroyed as if Pete were marking the statue with a spraycan of red paint. Now Misplaced Pages is an online encyclopaedia, it is not a museum for idealised portraits or statues. Therefore any attempt at keeping the article free of mud is going to be a tough battle, not only against Pete and me and others with criticisms small and large of Rudolf Steiner. It is a battle against the spirit of Misplaced Pages. Once again I appeal to the common sense of the anthroposophist editors: accept that the article must contain criticism of the Great man. Steiner did have warts. Let them show. --Vindheim 18:59, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

The POV "quotes" that Pete intensely works at spamming the main article on RS with belong in the discussion of the subject in an existing special article on the subject, linked to with two links from the main article, that gives a fuller NPOV oriented picture of the issue. For some discussion of the issue, see :http://www.waldorfanswers.org/Myths.htm ->

http://www.waldorfanswers.org/OnSalonArticle.html

http://www.waldorfanswers.org/AAntisemitismMyth.htm

http://www.waldorfanswers.org/ARacistMyth.htm and

http://www.waldorfanswers.org/ThreeConcepts.htm

Is the special page and discussion of the issue "hidden" or difficult to find from the main article? No. You want to see warts on Steiner? Take them to the proper article and accept a NPOV integration of them in the presentation there --Thebee 20:13, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Waldorfanswers is not a viable website where scholarly research has been done. It is an original research sight that is pretty much nonsense - and certainly not NPOV - so any references to this site will eventually be removed as I find the time. Anything that contains the word "myth" in it regarding Steiner's racism and antisemitism is suspect IMO - as these were very true aspects of Steiner's writings - not myths. The ridiculous attempt to remove any reference to racism and antisemitism in this article is clearly uncalled for here and should not be permitted at all. There are no POV opinions in the quotes that have been posted here - they are the exact quotes from Steiner. I'll continue to replace the removed quotes with new ones until someone here can justify why they should not be part of this article. This is not vandalism, it is an honest attempt to put Steiner's views in perspective and make them visible to people who are interested in them. The continued removal of these quotes (reminds me of the grafitti-removal machines in the movie "Demolition Man") is just an automatic response by people who don't want to see their false picture of their guru blemished. --Pete K 21:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

So today we have the usual suspect placing a POV-Section marker at the material he doesn't like to hear. Steiner's OWN WORDS are not a POV of anyone but Steiner. If you don't like it - don't read it. This is going to start another edit war over somebody wanting to revise history. Steiner said these things. They were ugly, sure, but he said them - and people have a right to know. It's like when people hear that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, it makes a lot of what he wrote in the Declaration of Independence seem creepy - but it's STILL part of history. This is an encyclopedia - not your personal website. You don't get to change history here. --Pete K 14:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Points of View

I put the POV tag on the whole article. It is nonsense to make a direct quotation from the Great Man himself into a POV here. The whole article suffers from extended whitewashing by a number of editors. I still think Pete is going too far, but I agree with him that shoving all controversies off into the corners ( subarticles) is blatant whitewashing.--Vindheim 15:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that there are many quotations from the other side. To put ten of each in this highly specific topic is disproportionate; if we have ten quotes from him on every topic he addressed, the article will be hundreds or thousands of pages long.

Thank you Vindheim. I wish I would have thought to move the POV marker to where it belongs - at the top of the page. Excellent! --Pete K 16:02, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The POV tag is appropriate when concrete issues have been raised on the talk page and not been resolved. Please describe these first - specifically - and strive for resolution.

There are several critiques of Steiner in this article; can you give examples of other comparable biographical articles where more space is given? It is normal Misplaced Pages policy to provide sub-articles for extended sub-subjects, and the whole of the Rudolf Steiner's views on race and ethnicity article in the main article would obviously be inappropriately long. There is no way of dealing with this in a WP:NPOV fashion without the approach here. Hgilbert 13:44, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you can point to issues that HAVE been resolved. It seems nothing has ever been resolved here - people have just gotten tired of arguing with certain editors. I forget, is this the article where you debate that Steiner was not a Theosophist? --Pete K 02:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we have settled that; Steiner was not primarily a Theosophist, though he was a non dues-paying member for twelve years; he joined because they asked him to lead the section's work, and in order to (as he said from the beginning) teach radically different ideas and in a fundamentally different way. Pro forma, of course, he was a member, and this is recognized in the article. It is not a question that either a simple yes or no satisfactorily answers. Much of the settling of issues that takes place here lies in the precise articulation of complex issues that oversimplifications do not do justice to. Some people, of course, prefer nice, simple views of reality; they make everything so much clearer and definite, don't they, Pete? Hgilbert 09:30, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Some people may believe obfuscation is a reasonable approach in an encyclopedia - but that's not very good policy is it Harlan? I think you will find that this type of argument doesn't work with me. Few, if any, of the issues have been resolved here and the POV tag goes back on until they are. --Pete K 17:32, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

re: , that sentence has a citation. — goethean ॐ 20:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Great! Would you please read it to me? Does it mention Hitler, among others? --Pete K 01:15, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

You expect somebody to read it to you? It's in the article and it's not a very big secret. Hitler was involved in the Beer Hall Putch. Try to find somebody who questions this. Venado 02:26, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that references that are in German are not of much use to people who cannot read German.--Pete K 21:17, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Is there a citation that indicates that Steiner actually said what he is claimed to have said? Is this in the German article? I'm not questioning historical fact - I'm questioning what people have atributed to Steiner that is neither a quote, nor supported in a language I can read. Does something in the citation actually say Steiner SAID he was "forced" to leave his home, etc. or is this speculation? It seems he was already living in Switzerland by 1922 and building the first Goetheanum. --Pete K 21:33, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The quote reads, "if these gentlemen were to come to government, I can no longer set foot on German soil." Steiner was in Dornach when he said it. It doesn't say he was "forced" to leave. He wasn't thrown out of Germany - the putsch failed. But Steiner sent someone to close down operations in Berlin after hearing news of the putsch, and relocate home and publishing house to Dornach.Venado 23:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. The corrected article is more factual about this now - yes? --Pete K 16:34, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

• Are you talking about the putsch discussion? Because it hasn't been changed, it never said "forced". What corrections are you talking about? Venado 18:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It is still not clear what specific issues, other than the racism one, are in question; the tag only belongs to that section unless specific other issues have been raised. Can you name them here, please? Hgilbert 11:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

One issue I have is that the article is tries to read in the present tense. Steiner is dead. Why do we say "Steiner postulates" - as if he is still alive and among us? The effect is that it makes it sound as if his ideas are current and still valid - or worse yet that he is a ghost, perhaps the Anthroposophia he himself described walking among us. Steiner said, he saw, he postulated, he emphasized. He should not be treated as a spirit in this text. Here are some examples of what I mean:

"Steiner emphasizes that there is an objective natural and spiritual world that can be known, and that perceptions of the spiritual world and incorporeal beings are, under conditions of training comparable to that required for the natural sciences, but including extraordinary self-discipline, replicable by multiple observers. Thus for Steiner, a spiritual science of a sort is a real possibility, though with radically different epistemological foundations than those of natural science.

For Steiner, the cosmos is permeated and continually transformed by the creative activity of non-physical processes and spiritual beings. For the human being to become conscious of the objective reality of these processes and beings, it is necessary to creatively enact and reenact, within, their creative activity. Thus objective knowledge always entails inner creativity."

"Steiner is certainly remarkable for the breadth of his achievements."

"Steiner postulates that the world is essentially an indivisible unity, but that our consciousness divides it into the sense-perceptible appearance, on the one hand, and the formal nature accessible to our thinking, on the other. He sees in thinking itself an element that can be strengthened and deepened sufficiently to penetrate all that our senses do not reveal to us. Steiner thus explicitly denies all justification to a division between faith and knowledge; otherwise expressed, between the spiritual and natural worlds. Their apparent duality is conditioned by the structure of our consciousness, which separates perception and thinking, but these two faculties give us two complementary views of the same world; neither has primacy and the two together are necessary and sufficient to arrive at a complete understanding of the world. In thinking about perception (the path of natural science) and perceiving the process of thinking (the path of spiritual training), it is possible to discover a hidden inner unity between the two poles of our experience.

Truth, for Steiner, is paradoxically both an objective discovery"

"Steiner sees human consciousness, indeed, all human culture, as a product of natural evolution that transcends itself; nature becomes self-conscious in the human being. He thus affirms Darwin's and Haeckel's evolutionary perspectives but extends this beyond its materialistic consequences." --Pete K 01:32, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

These are not POV issues. The use of the present tense for such descriptions is an accepted literary device, and the norm rather than the exception. From the Misplaced Pages article on Husserl, "In these first works he tries to combine mathematics, psychology and philosophy with as main goal to provide a sound foundation for mathematics. He analyzes the psychological process needed to obtain the concept of number and then tries to build up a systematical theory on this analysis. To achieve this he uses several methods and concepts taken from his teachers. From Weierstrass he derives the idea that we generate the concept of number by counting a certain collection of objects." From David Hume, "Hume believes that all human knowledge comes to us through our senses. Our perceptions, as he called them, can be divided into two categories: ideas and impressions. He defines these terms..." (These are typical excerpts from the first two articles I tried.)

I am removing the POV label. In the future, please specify clear issues and attempt to resolve them before adding such a tag. Hgilbert 05:20, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It's completely different to say "in his works" and then refer to him in the present tense. That isn't what's happening here for the most part. If you need me to correct the tenses of this material, I will. I'm only getting started here. --Pete K 16:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I've changed a few minor usages of the present tense. There are actually relatively few of these in the whole article, and as far as I can see they are fully in line with conventional usage, also in other Misplaced Pages articles. Hgilbert 23:33, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

pov quote spamming

i like that expression, can i use it..

just wanted to point out that i liked this version of the racism section better: Rudolf Steiner's views on race are complex. He advocated treating every individual as unique and suggested that races should no longer be an important factor for humanity, but on a few occasions spoke about particular races (including his own) in ways that appear denigrating or offensive to modern ears.

it was short and came to the point. i fail to see how the new version is an improvement, although the quote from knowledge of higher worlds, seems worthwhile since it seems to be an antiracist comment in a relative central position. trueblood 20:55, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think the original "modern ears" statement said enough - and indeed, many of Steiner's racist remarks were offensive to the ears of some of his contemporaries as well. It isn't as if all people in Steiner's time spoke in this way or held (and promoted) the view that the white race was advancing while others were left behind - or that blond hair and blue eyes bestowed intellect. It isn't enough to say he slipped up and said a few off-color remarks - he actually built Anthroposophy around a set of racist beliefs and hierarchies. That's why the simple sentence that was there before is not indicative of the extent of Steiner's position on the subject of race. --Pete K 01:37, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

me, i found the old version somewhat sharper, than what is there now. i would remove the (including this own) because it is somewhat misleading. i agree with you that some of these quotes (most of the were familiar to me) are so extreme that it seems steiner either was on acid or really racist. i heard this out of context argument before and i cannot see in which context a thing like that could not be racist. but i don't agree with you that you can proove that anthroposophy is build around racism, not even that this is the place to try to do so.

as a compromise, how about if this article mentioned that for some years anthroposophy attracted criticism partly because some of these quotes became known and then put a couple of the stronger quotes in the sub article. and say so in the main article. but move away from trying to prove that steiner was a racist and towards documenting that others have said so. trueblood 12:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, what is there now is not very clear. It attempts to put a spin on the topic of race using Steiner's own words - and that doesn't work very well. Is Anthroposophy built on racist principles? Nobody, to date, has put together a list of Steiner's works that constitute the body of Anthroposophy - and exclude all other works as outside of Anthroposophy. Indeed, all of Steiner's written works and lectures are considered the body of Anthroposophy. And the problem is that Anthroposophists DON'T consider even the most racist of Steiner's material to be racist. The explanations they give are that the comments were "out of context" or "the reader lacks the foundation required to understand them" or "Steiner was just joking around". Now, looking at what constitutes Anthroposophy, and taking then into consideration that Steiner's racialism is an acceptable part of this, where does this fit into the foundations of Anthroposophy? Anthroposophy is an exploration into the nature of things spiritual. Steiner not only described a method for this exploration (In Knowledge of Higher Worlds for example) but also the results of his own findings having explored the spiritual world. It is these findings that constitute Anthroposophy. It is these findings that lead to Anthroposophical medicine, biodynamic agriculture, Waldorf education, and so on.

So what did Steiner find? He found that the spirit world contains lots of beings - and that each of those beings contains lots of parts or "bodies" living on different spititual planes - and that this system is structured in a hierarchy. So Steiner went into great detail about how this structure is laid out - describing Thrones and Seraphim and Cherubs and Archangels and Angels and stuff like that. Then when he described the human spiritual existence, he put in his observations about the races and how they are separated by their blood and where they are in the spiritual hierarchy. After that, he went into the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, the mineral kingdom and so on and described what was revealed to him. And this, the observations that Steiner made about what the spiritual world consists of and how it is structured, constitues Anthroposophy.

So, when Steiner says the following - it ties this together:

"Occult investigation shows decisively that all the things which surround us in this world - the mineral foundation, the vegetable covering, and the animal world - should be regarded as the physiognomical expression, or the "below," of an "above" or spirit life lying behind them. From the point of view taken by occultism, the things presented to us in the sense world can only be rightly understood if our knowledge includes cognition of the "above," the spiritual archetype, the original Spiritual Beings, whence all things manifest have proceeded. And for this reason we will today apply our minds to a study of that which lies concealed behind the phenomenon of the blood, that which shaped for itself in the blood its physiognomical expression in the world of sense. When once you understand this "spiritual background" of blood, you will be able to realize how the knowledge of such matters is bound to react upon our whole mental outlook on life.

Questions of great importance are pressing upon us these days; questions dealing with the education, not alone of the young, but of entire nations. And, furthermore, we are confronted by the momentous educational question which humanity will have to face in the future, and which cannot fail to be recognized by all who note the great social upheavals of our time, and the claims which are everywhere being advanced, be they the Labor Question, or the Question of Peace. All these things are pre-occupying our anxious minds.

But all such questions are illuminated as soon as we recognize the nature of the spiritual essence which lies at the back of our blood. Who can deny that this question is closely linked to that of race, which at the present time is once more coming markedly to the front? Yet this question of race is one that we can never understand until we understand the mysteries of the blood and of the results accruing from the mingling of the blood of different races. And finally, there is yet one other question, the importance of which is becoming more and more acute as we endeavor to extricate ourselves from the hitherto aimless methods of dealing with it, and seek to approach it in its more comprehensive bearings. This problem is that of colonization, which crops up wherever civilized races come into contact with the uncivilized: namely - To what extent are uncivilized peoples capable of becoming civilized? How can an utterly barbaric savage become civilized? And in what way ought we to deal with them? And here we have to consider not only the feelings due to a vague morality, but we are also confronted by great, serious, and vital problems of the very fact of existence itself.

Those who are not aware of the conditions governing a people - whether it be on the up- or down-grade of its evolution, and whether the one or the other is a matter conditioned by its blood - such people as these will, indeed, be unlikely to hit on the right mode of introducing civilization to an alien race. These are all matters which arise as soon as the Blood Question is touched upon." Rudolf Steiner, Occult Significance of Blood, An Esoteric Study -Berlin, October 25, 1906 GA 55

And this is why suggesting that the commentary on the races, the hierarchy of the races - the white race being on the rise while other races on on the decline, is not only appropriate - it is necessary in gaining an understanding of who Steiner was and what he believed and promoted. --Pete K 17:04, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Trueblood that the original version was clearer and sharper. Can we have other opinions here? Hgilbert 01:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Then you agree with me - the current version that you have provided is no better than the original version. Why not just include an example of what we mean when we say the sentence that was in the original version? It's the attempt to HIDE the actual offensive quotes from Steiner that makes the current version muddy. The "Here's an example:" and quotes that I have added in the past clarified what the original version sentence talks about. The sterilized examples you have provided here DON'T.--Pete K 14:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

compromise: the version i quoted plus a sentence about steiner having been criticised and described as being racist, or there being a controversy whether he was racist or not.trueblood 17:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

oh i already said that, well other people also seem to repeat themselves :-) trueblood 17:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

So, should I assume, if I go to the Hitler page, I'll find statements about some controversy over whether Hitler was a racist or not - because members of the NAAWP insist that he's a great guy? (I don't think Steiner was like Hitler, but I like to use exageration in examples). How much evidence of racism needs to be presented here before that claim can be made to stick? Did Henry Ford have THIS much to say about the races? Did Ford build a philosophy based in racism, and open schools based on that philosophy? In Steiner, we have a man who clearly promoted ideas that are racist today and they were racist in his own time, and because some heavy-handed editors like the guy, the editors that want to get at the truth have to tiptoe around the facts. --Pete K 23:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, Steiner based his Anthroposophical Society on admission of all, independent of race, religion or viewpoint. He said that this was the essence of the society, that it united all races, nations and peoples. That is different from Hitler's stance, in case you didn't notice. Steiner's life and deeds show no racism. His words promote the ideal of overcoming racial differences, while acknowledging distinctions that remain. Amongst the latter distinctions, there are highly problematic statements, we all recognize this (and so does the article). Classification of someone who consistently talked of racial differences as a factor of little or no significance in comparison to individual differences, and of the goal of humanity being to overcome all racial distinction, as a racist is highly problematic, to say the least.

In the end, however, whatever your opinions, it is Misplaced Pages expressed policy to avoid the term and present the actual ideas. We are doing this in their full range, with all their light and all their shadow. Basta. Hgilbert 15:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's all very nice Harlan. It's the "I can't be racist - some of my best friends are black" excuse for racism. Even Hitler worked with some Jews. That's not the point here. Steiner had views about *races* - and believed that his views about a particular race applied to all the individuals within that race. He believed blond hair and blue eyes bestowed intelligence. Does that mean that to him, having neither made a person less intelligent? Of course not. But he believed in stereotyping people by their race. Those were his actual ideas - and he promoted these ideas even to Waldorf teachers. Waldorf schools admit all races too... but does that mean the teachers, despite their mandatory instruction on Steiner's racial stereotyping, treat all children without regard to race? Absolutely not. And, despite the Anthroposophical Society policy of "admission of all", Steiner never met a black person - so I'm guessing black people weren't exactly breaking the doors down to get into the Anthroposophical society. I think you are a bit confused - Steiner's words don't talk about the overcoming of racial differences, they talk about the individual overcoming the limitations of his own race, his own blood. While he considered the lives of the individual, he also put great stock into the differences between the races and never passed up the opportunity to put the white race at the top of the list. And the article does NOT reflect this. --Pete K 15:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, he didn't stereotype individuals; he expressly said that individuals could not be judged on the basis of their racial/ethnic background, and acted this way as well. That is where you cannot understand his ideas; he believed that there was a tendency that came from the race or ethnic group, yet the individual contribution outweighed this (his words!!). You can't put that together and make sense out of it; I can. I have a tendency that comes from my family, yet am an individual. No doubt you could tell what in me is from my family, my being an American and my being white and Jewish. Nevertheless I am not determined by all that. It's obvious as soon as you look at real people. Hgilbert 15:36, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Harlan, you are apparently having difficulty understanding what I am saying or you are in denial. You write "Sorry, he didn't stereotype individuals" - I wonder how you can believe the stereotyping of individuals might even be possible. You can't stereotype an individual, the terms are mutually exclusive. You can only stereotype groups of people. I don't know how to make it more clear to you. Stereotyping a race of people and producing a hierarchy of those races is racism. And I have agreed with you that Steiner believed an individual could "overcome" his race. But to say that excuses his racist views is preposterous.--Pete K 16:22, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Trueblood??? At the beginning of this section you write:

just wanted to point out that i liked this version of the racism section better:

Rudolf Steiner's views on race are complex. He advocated treating every individual as unique and suggested that races should no longer be an important factor for humanity, but on a few occasions spoke about particular races (including his own) in ways that appear denigrating or offensive to modern ears.

it was short and came to the point. i fail to see how the new version is an improvement, although the quote from knowledge of higher worlds, seems worthwhile since it seems to be an antiracist comment in a relative central position.

trueblood 20:55, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

And on HGilbert's talk page (only 18 days earlier) you wrote :

again i don't know if these kind of quotes really have to be on wikipedia. but when refering to them we always get vague rather language: may sound denigrating to some modern ears, sometimes in a way that can sound demeaning. come on, we are talking about quotes that are highly offensive to modern ears and as the dutch comission found could get you into trouble with the authorities for racism. trueblood 17:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like at one time a couple of weeks ago, you were supporting a more thorough or at least more honest review of Steiner's racial commentary. Just wondering if you have changed your mind or if I'm missing something. --Pete K 00:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

well, and you know what, i even threaten to dig up one of those weirdo racist quotes that you tried to insert, but when i saw them there i thought they were like grafitti. contrary to you i think that most of these quotes are hidden in more obscure corners of steiner's oeuvre. i was not aware of the quote in knowledge of higher worlds and i think it weighs heavier than something that was uttered somewhere. i think the passage could be sharper, but it was better than what is there now. i would remove the words 'including his own', because they are misleading and would be happier with ' are offensive to modern ears' or even highly offensive. and as said before i would also mention the criticism that steiner and anthropop attracted in the last decades in several years in several countries (germany, holland).anyway, all this got overshadowed by the way you jumped in, editing and discussing in a way that i found very polarizing and way over the top' always with the h-word at hand (no you are not comparing steiner and hitler, but why then mention hitler in this context anyway) suppose i was potentially on your side but on time earlier on when i had a different opinion than you it seemed like in your perception i belong to this anthropop conspiracy to whitewash this article. well i think, this situation (several people together reverting your edits) is of your own making. on more thing, i think it should be mentioned (the racism controversy) but it is not the most important thing to this article. just look at how much space this whole discussion takes up. do you think it is justified, i don't. - was that illuminating?trueblood 19:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, thanks - that's very illuminating. I'm sorry you think the quotes I brought are "weirdo racist quotes" - I didn't make them up, of course. They were Steiner's own words, and I really can't help that. As for Steiner sounding like Hitler, here are some of my favorite comparison quotes - Steiner's, Hitler's and the NAAWP:

“All the human culture, all the results of art, science, and technology that we see before us today, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan. This very fact admits of the not unfounded inference that he alone was the founder of all higher humanity, therefore representing the prototype of all that we understand by the word ‘man.’ He is the Prometheus of mankind from whose bright forehead the divine spark of genius has sprung at all times.... Exclude him- -and perhaps after a few thousand years darkness will again descend on the earth, human culture will pass, and the world turn to a desert.” Mein Kampf, p. 290.

“Human culture and civilization on this continent are inseparably bound up with the presence of the Aryan. If he dies out or declines, the dark veils of an age without culture will again descend on this globe. “Mein Kampf, p. 383.

"You see, when we really study science and history, we must conclude that if people become increasingly strong, they will also become increasingly stupid. If the blonds and blue-eyed people die out, the human race will become increasingly dense if men do not arrive at a form of intelligence that is independent of blondness. Blond hair actually bestows intelligence. . . .It is indeed true that the more the fair individuals die out the more will the instinctive wisdom of humans vanish.” (Steiner, 1922, Health and Illness: Volume I. Trans. Maria St. Goar. Spring Valley: Anthroposophic Press, 1981. p. 86)

“The state is a means to an end. Its end lies in the preservation and advancement of a community of physically and psychically homogeneous creatures. This preservation itself comprises first of all existence as a race and thereby permits the free development of all the forces dormant in this race.... Thus, the highest purpose of a folkish state is concern for the preservation of those original racial elements which bestow culture and create the beauty and dignity of a higher mankind.” Mein Kampf, p. 393-94.

“The representative people for the development of the consciousness soul, hence for what matters particularly in our age, is the Anglo-Saxon nation. The Anglo-Saxon people are those who through their whole organization are predisposed to develop the consciousness soul to a special degree. The prominent position occupied by the Anglo-Saxon nation in our time is indeed due to the fact that this nation is especially suited for the development of the consciousness soul.” (Steiner, 1921, Materialism and the Task of Anthroposophy. Trans. Maria St. Goar. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1987. p. 195)

“The technology we enjoy is almost entirely due to the efforts of White scientists and inventors. And, if we permit our race to fail, the world will descend into a primitive And, if we permit our race to fail barbarism that can scarcely be imagined.” National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP)

"The European sort of invention is impossible for either the Chinese or the Japanese." (Steiner, 1924, The Evolution of the Earth and Man and the Influence of the Stars. (1924) Trans. Gladys Hahn. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1987 p. 77)

“No doubt about it, the soul becomes corrupted through using the French language. . .It is also possible at the present time that the French will even ruin their own blood, the very element which has kept their language going as a corpse. That is a terrible thing the French people are doing to other people, the frightful cultural brutality of transplanting black people to Europe. It affects France itself worst of all. This has an incredibly strong effect on the blood, the race. This will substantially add to French decadence. The French nation will be weakened as a race.” (Steiner, Conferences with the Teachers of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart 1922 to 1923: Volume Three: Being the end of the Fourth Year. Trans. Pauline Wehrle. Forest Row, U.K.: Steiner Schools Fellowship Publications, 1988. pp. 87-88)

“The Aryan gave up the purity of his blood and, therefore, lost his sojourn in the paradise which he had made for himself. He became submerged in the racial mixture, and gradually, more and more, lost his cultural capacity, until at last, not only mentally but also physically, he began to resemble the subjected aborigines more than his own ancestors.... Thus cultures and empires collapsed to make place for new formations. Blood mixture and the resultant drop in the racial level is the sole cause of the dying out of old cultures; for men do not perish as a result of lost wars, but by the loss of that force of resistance which is contained only in pure blood.” Mein Kampf, p. 296.

“The most characteristic sign of the time is the belief that when a group of individuals have set up some trashy proposition as a general program - such as the unity of all men regardless of race, nation or color, and so forth - something has been accomplished. Nothing has been accomplished except to throw sand into people’s eyes. Something real is attained only when we note the differences and realize what world conditions are.” (Steiner, 1920, Spiritual Science as a Foundation for Social Forms. Trans. Maria St. Goar. Ed. Alan Howard. New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1986. p. 122)

So, yes, indeed, Steiner, in his language, is sometimes indistinguishable from Hitler. Again, I'm not making this up. If I'm a rotten guy for bringing this to the world's attention, then so be it. The facts are the facts and supported here by me every time I post something. I get that some people don't like to hear this stuff. I can't say that I blame them. But an encyclopedia, if that's what Misplaced Pages is, shouldn't only publish the material people want to hear - it should present material that is sometimes offensive to modern ears. --Pete K 00:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

i'm sorry, with weirdo racist quotes, i meant that they are not just racist but also really weird, crazy, gaga, i did not mean that you are weird for bringing them up.trueblood 10:58, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

okay, one more time, then i leave you to it. i think you are right in calling these quotes racist. you might even be right in thinking that there is more racism at the base than i thougth so far. but what you are doing here is called original research by[REDACTED] standarts. i don't really care so much because i think that steiner was just weird. but i think the hitler comparison is off limits, because steiner never advocated violence, he never called for the extermination of a part of humanity, he never had his followers organize themselves in paramilitary militias. trueblood 18:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I understand Steiner was not like Hitler. I have been careful to make it clear that he was not like Hitler. It is his SPEECH, however - some of the statements he made that sound like some of the statements Hitler made. I'm not trying to link the two here - I'm trying to defend my original statement which everyone seems to want to jump on. In any case, Steiner's commentary is racist - his ideas were racist, and the resultant philosophy was racist. I don't think he was such a bad guy - really - but I think there is no denying this aspect of his character and people who do deny this are trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. As for "original research" - nothing I have produced on the article page is original research AFAIK. It is all right from the horse's mouth. He said these things - he meant these things - and he should be held accountable for how he believed - AND he would be the first person to agree with me in this regard. --Pete K 20:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Quotations can be abused. A quotation from User:Pete K: "...Steiner was...like Hitler." — goethean ॐ 21:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, some people reading what I wrote and what you have claimed I have written don't see any difference. The problem with your point, however, is the MORE one reads of Steiner, the MORE one gets the impression he was a racist. When you guys (Steiner revisionists) try to come up with something he said that was derogatory of the white race, we get these half sentences that, when taken in their full context, say exactly the opposite. When you try to present something that you claim was a nice thing to say about races other than the white race, again the same thing - a sentence at the most. Reading the entire context of Steiner's quotes confirms his racism far more than it refutes it. That's why so many contortions are made by people here when they try to defend Steiner's racist remarks - "he was just kidding" or "he didn't know the stenographer was behind the curtain" or "the audience knew he wasn't serious". Let Steiner's words speak for themselves. It's easy for me to pick at the stuff you guys post here - because it's nonsense. You have the very difficult task of re-writing history - where I just have to post what the man actually said - IN CONTEXT. --Pete K 22:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

bof, it's just the hitler comparison is so tiresome because hitler is the ultimate bad guy in history. you could probably come up with some other obscure guy that theorized about superiority of the 'white race', but it's got to be hitler. hitler but all this into practise. whilst followers of hitler went exterminate handicapped people, followers of steiner started a movement of communities that took care of handicapped people, that's one difference. if you look at the anthroposophical movement today it is an international; movement concerned with organic agriculture, alternative education and medicine amongst other things. please just go and start to chronicle the critiscism that steiner received for his racist remarks instead of proving things here with comparing quotes from him to hitler quotes.that is what i meant with original research. it'll be a lot more productive and i might even support you. trueblood 13:16, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I know the Hitler comparison is wearing thin for some people. But there's really no point comparing Steiner to some "obscure" guy - that type of comparison is one that requires people to find out about the obscure guy as well as Steiner. That Steiner didn't call for the death of anyone, even handicapped people, is certainly a point in his favor, of course. But if we really look at the Anthroposophical movement today, we find a movement bathed in dishonesty. Biodynamic agriculture, for example, has NO documentation to support that it is any better than ordinary organic agriculture, and there is nothing to support the notion that burying manure in a cow horn on the full moon to create compost starter creates compost that is any better than ordinary compost (although I'll admit biodynamic compost looks pretty good). But still, no evidence of any benefit has been documented by anyone - and basically, people who spend more money for biodynamic foods aren't hurting anyone.

In the case of Anthroposophical medicine, however, this is not the case. People who are sucked into using this type of medicine ARE hurting people. Children, specifically, who have no say so in the matter of the medicine used on them are definitely victims of Anthroposophical medicine. Nutty parents who treat high fevers with lemon wraps on the child's feet, or ear aches with onion wraps on their heads are denying these kids the benefit of true medical treatments that are supported by science. Children sometimes get better, sure, and sometimes they get worse. The point is that without scientific support, the use of Anthroposophical medicine is basically CRIMIMINAL and endangers the lives of children. When we look at Camphill-type environments, we don't always see fantastic places where handicapped and developmentally challenged people are treated with care and reverence, we sometimes see abusive situations (just like non-Anthroposophical facilities) and sometimes this abuse is at the hands of kids 16-18 years old who are stationed at these facilities as helpers. Waldorf schools are probably the worst of Steiner's initiatives because they are based on dishonesty - not only in the recruitment of parents, but in the hidden agenda of dispensing Anthroposophy to students without the knowledge or permission of the parents. Now what does this have to do with Rudolf Steiner? Probably not that much - but Steiner started these initiatives, and he literally "blessed" the dishonest approach evident in some of them (Waldorf especially) - and this makes him accountable in some way for the results of his works.

Was Steiner Hitler? No, of course not. But that Steiner's ideas are still prevalent today disguised as mainstream alternatives to scientifically supported methods of medicine, agriculture, healthcare and learning makes it necessary for people like me to educate the mainstream as to what Steiner's ideas were and what they were based on. And I believe that education belongs right here on his page - because this is where the deception starts, at who Steiner was and what he believed, and the validity of those beliefs. If we're going to start talking about Steiner at Misplaced Pages, by offering a deceptive article - there will be no reason for anyone to look for an article that criticizes his work. --Pete K 15:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Reverted Article - NPOV

I have reverted this article. HGilbert, you are removing quotes that you don't care for and citing a need for a NPOV. What's "Neutral" about the POV you are presenting here? Nothing. Once again, you are a Waldorf teacher with an investment in the promotion of Steiner. There is nothing wrong with the quote I added except that you don't want anything here to demonstrate Steiner's own POV on the races. If you can explain why the quote is not accurate, was taken out of context or doesn't in fact reflect Steiner's own POV, we can consider removing it. Just ripping it out because you don't like what it says is not appropriate. --Pete K 20:27, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought that all quotations were inherently NPOV and fair game? What happened, Pete? — goethean ॐ 14:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

You have again missed the point. Try reading. I'm not interested in your troll-like sniping. --Pete K 15:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

NPOV says that representation should be proportional. Already the POV you are promoting has two large quotes, while the POV you are against (and is equally well represented in Steiner's work) has one large and one small quote, one of which you are trying to remove. I suggest we try to keep the balance here; if anything is to be added next, it should be a quote on the side that is less represented currently. Please discuss this here before further reverts.

In addition, this section of the article is disproportionately long already; further issues should be covered in the existing sub-article. Hgilbert 18:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Harlan, not buying this argument. If you want to shorten the article, there's plenty of fluff that can be removed. Your "small" quote is all you can find to support YOUR POV - and you have to take it out of context in order to do that. Steiner didn't think all races are created equal. Stop trying to re-write history.--Pete K 15:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Hgilbert's quotation can be replaced if more context is provided. — goethean ॐ 16:48, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I didn't remove HGilber's quote. He's complaining that I have added a quote, not that his quote has been removed. Please read more carefully. --Pete K 19:17, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Harlan, sorry about reverting some of your edits that were actually reasonable. It's when you blend the reasonable ones in with the unreasonable ones that we have a problem. Please stop with the Hansson defamation campaign and we won't have so many reverted edits. --Pete K 01:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and you say "Rudolf Steiner's views on race and ethnicity - Balance of POV; Hansson report covered in depth in sub-article; Pete says let Steiner's words speak for themselves)" as your reason for making these silly edits. Hansson's report that is covered in depth in the sub-article is one reason why the sub-article is locked up. You want to remove it from that article as well. Revisionist! --Pete K 01:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. You have no basis for claiming that I want to remove a report from that article; on the contrary, I have tried to include a report that you are seeking to remove. It is an old tactic to accuse someone else of your own deeds. You keep saying "let Steiner's words speak for themselves" - trying to exclude the one report. Now it is evident that you are being dishonest here. Hgilbert 11:31, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

HA! This must be some source of amusement for you. Anyone can read the discussion. You not only want to include a bogus report by a commission of Anthroposophists denying Steiner's works contained racist comments, you insisted on disguising the fact that the commission was COMPRISED OF ANTHROPOSOPHISTS. That's just plain dishonesty at it's best. The bogus commission's report isn't letting Steiner's words speak for themselves - not by a longshot. They are saying, in fact, and you are agreeing with them, that Steiner's words should not speak for themselves, that the conclusions of the commission should tell us whether Steiner's words were racist. It's the same old argument that Waldorf teachers around the world use - "Steiner is difficult" - yeah, people need Anthroposophists to explain to them what they are reading. That's what's happening in this article, and what's happening in the Steiner's views or racism and ethnicity article. YOU guys (Anthroposophists) want to explain everything instead of letting people read the man's words and understand their meaning. Steiner wrote 40 books and gave 6000 lectures. I think he would be considered a pretty fair communicator at some point. If his own words can't get his point across, there is no reason to expect it would be better presented by the less-prepared spin-doctors of Anthroposophy. Let his words speak for themselves. It's THAT simple. --Pete K 15:06, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to revert this article again - since people are counting my reverts, so perhaps one of the other editors here might want to revert it. Or you could just leave this part that another vandal (or the same one) has added: "Rudolf Steiner (February 25, 1861 – March 30, 1925) was an Austrian prankster, nuclear physicist, hashish eater, reality television producer and esotericist. He is the inventor of the H-bomb and the grandfather of Paris Hilton." It's probably as truthful as some of the stuff here anyway. --Pete K 17:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

On a lighter note

Trueblood documented the following edit:

04:48, 3 October 2006 Trueblood (Talk | contribs) (removed large penis)

I guess, depending on where it was found, that may or may not have been a good thing. --Pete K 17:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Where in the article on Rudolf Steiner would you, as repeated editor of the article, find it to be a good thing to have a large penis, and as you seem to have an opinion about this, why don't you add it there, just to lighten it up, as you write? --Thebee 11:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Unlike you, I'm not a vandal. --Pete K 19:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

quotation guidelines

The quotation added by User Thebee offers no online verification and contains an ellipsis. I submit that it would be better to use quotations which can be verified online, and which do not use ellipses. — goethean ॐ 18:59, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I have replaced the recent quote added by TheBee with a shorter and more complete quote. --Pete K 20:05, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Let me add here, that on-line verification is not something that is always possible with Steiner's more "racy" quotes. Most of the material that is on-line comes from the Rudolf Steiner Archive - and that has been edited over the years by revisionists. Even books as common as "Conferences with Waldorf Teachers" - later re-titled "Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner" underwent heavy editing during the process. "Difficult" material was removed - despite that Steiner said it and that it was, indeed, his viewpoint. I would suggest, however, that in places where Steiner has self-edited, as in the reprinting process of his own books, such edits should be respected as it is practically impossible to determine whether the edits were made based on a change of view or for political or other reasons. --Pete K 20:17, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, regarding the use of elipsis, one of the things apparent in Steiner's lecturing style was a tendency to go off-topic. In cases of this, where he goes off topic for a sentence or two (or even a paragraph) the use of elipsis is reasonable. What I don't like to see is where a snippet is taken from here and attached to a snippet taken from there to produce something quite different. I have documented one occurrance of this happening here where a snippet was taken from 1909 and attached to a snipped from 1917. This is a practice that I believe should be avoided.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pete_K (talk • contribs)

Because of the contentious nature of these articles, ellipses should be avoided altogether. If your quotation goes unreasonably off-topic, then it's not the best quotation to use, even if it furthers your own personal agenda. Personally, I oppose the use of quotations at all. They are simply too often and easily abused. The only reason that I support them to some extent here is because of the paucity of neutral academic work on Steiner. — goethean ॐ 20:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Nope - not buying into this one Goethean. You're just looking for reasons to remove the quotes I've posted. And I get why you don't think Steiner should be quoted. It makes it too difficult for you to refute what he actually said. You're wasting your breath here. --Pete K 01:35, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

These are reasonable, neutral standards that both parties should be able to agree to. It is revealing that it is the Steiner 'exposer', rather than the Steiner apologists, who objects to them. — goethean ॐ 14:00, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Pete: It is incredibly dishonest to keep removing quotes by Rudolf Steiner from this section and then accuse others of seeking to do so. Do you not see your own inconsistency here? Can you not hold yourself to standards you claim you wish others to maintain? Hgilbert 11:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

My standards have always been consistent - to represent honestly what Steiner said. Truth is, I don't trust you guys - so I'm seeing this as an attempt to remove relevant quotes that honestly represent what Steiner said. I have supported adding quotes - and we all know Steiner spoke out of both sides of his mouth many times, so there's no surprise when two quotes conflict. I don't recall removing any quotes - other than extremely long, extremely patched quotes that struggled to make your POV. I left the one that was patched from 1909 to 1917, but recommended a better, supportive quote from the same lecture right here in these discussions. You would be wise to replace the patched one with the better one, but that's up to you. I don't find anything wrong with quoting Steiner, back and forth because the truth is in one breath, he said something nice about a race, in the next he said something horrible. You guys don't seem to want to publicize that balance - you only want to push the nice side of Steiner, so that leaves me with the responsibility of pointing out the other side. If you guys would paint a fair picture of Steiner's views, I wouldn't have to be the "exposer" you guys think I am. If it were up to me, there would be no elipsis in quotes - the whole lecture, no matter how many tangents Steiner takes us on, would be quoted. There is never an attempt, on my part, to hide anything meaningful by the use of elipsis. The statement above, that quotes should not be used at all is, I think, ridiculous. If what you guys write about Steiner is refutable by Steiner himself, then don't write it. It makes you look like idiots. --Pete K 16:07, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

If what you guys write about Steiner is refutable by Steiner himself, then don't write it.

You are missing the point. Primary quotations are just as easily manipulated (through mere selection or taking words out of context or otherwise) and abused as any other source is. Think of how Jesus' words have been misused over the centuries. Repeating over and over again that these are "Steiner's own words" is pointless. It would be better if we both could acknowledge that both sides are working in good faith. You think that Steiner was a racist, and others do not. The guy wrote and spoke a lot, and both sides can supply endless quotations that appear to prove our respective points. You seem invested in the belief that the pro-Steiner side is working in bad faith. That will cause you problems at Misplaced Pages, as it contradicts one of Misplaced Pages's central tenets. So I suggest that you give that point up. — goethean ॐ 16:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Goethean wrote: "You think that Steiner was a racist, and others do not. The guy wrote and spoke a lot, and both sides can supply endless quotations that appear to prove our respective points." I hate to rain on this picnic, but I have some bad news for you. Racists are human beings, with their own good and bad points like anybody else. Racists, obviously, say some things that are not racist. When someone has said a bunch of things that are racist, and a bunch of things that are not racist, the correct conclusion is that . . . he or she is a racist. I'm sorry but this is not rocket science. Long quote wars will not change this. The racist quotes cannot be made not racist by setting the non-racist quotes beside them. That is not how it works. Nor will the racist quotes go away even if you succeed in deleting them from a particular article on wikipedia. For one thing, the discussion page highlighting them will remain here. I would suggest that in the long run, expecting to cleanse an article on "Rudolf Steiner's views on race and ethnicity" of all or most of Steiner's less, well, enlightened views on race and ethnicity, is an exercise in futility. You may win a battle here and there but the war is long since lost. The man said the stuff that he said, and that is the big problem you are not going to be able to get around. It is THERE. It is on[REDACTED] now, and it is lots of other places too. You want 20+ articles on Steiner/anthroposophy on wikipedia: face the fact that some of his racial views are going to find a place on wikipedia, too.DianaW 18:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I get the point quote well. If you will look at the article (actually read it) you will see, hopefully, that it is a spin in its entirety. I don't believe every person on both sides is working in good faith, in fact I'm quite certain some are not - as I know some of the people involve here from other discussions elsewhere. So Misplaced Pages's central tenet isn't going to change that - I can't assume something to be true when I know it isn't. I will, however, try to look at each edit as if it was intended in good faith, and see if that helps. Regarding the manipulation of quotes, the best answer for this is to include more, not less, of the quotes. When you guys put in tiny snippets to support your commentary, it not only doesn't read well, it reenforces what you have stated above, that quotes can be misused. Applying a larger section of the quoted material gives the reader a better perspective on what is actually being said. --Pete K 17:21, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Applying a larger section of the quoted material gives the reader a better perspective on what is actually being said.

No, it degenerates into a point-of-view pissing contest. — goethean ॐ 17:28, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

First rule of pissing contests - when you find yourself in one - stop pissing. --Pete K 17:36, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Dutch Anthroposophical Society's Commission on Racism

Please see here for discussion about the inclusion/exclusion of this source of information. --Pete K 20:07, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Your reference to the discussion page you mention is completely irrelevant. My description of ten of the fifteen quotes from the original published Steiner works, that I have added to the end of the article is based on my having the report by the Commission and having read the fifteen quotes from the original sources, that I describe. It is my description of them, not anybody else's. I have read them. You clearly have not. I will add the completely correct description of them, and expect that you not will take any more disruptive action regarding it. --Thebee 20:31, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, you have the report, do you? Isn't that interesting! It will be a simple matter then for you to look into the question of whether the authors are anthroposophists, which became quite a point of contention for awhile. How very odd that you remained silent while people scurried around trying to look them up, while you possessed the document itself. "Good faith"?DianaW 21:11, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Is your question a "Good faith" one? Your insinuation completely lacks a basis in reality. I took a pause from the English Misplaced Pages for a number of days, and just returned. When I did, I saw the discussion on the issue, checked the report and added the info that the Commission was an anthroposophical Commission to the description of it. --Thebee 21:23, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back.DianaW 01:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

If you want to put a reference to the Dutch commission in this article, you had better be sure to call it The Dutch Anthroposopical Society's Commission of Biased Anthroposophists. BTW, the Dutch Anthroposopical Society's Commission of Biased Anthroposophists found 16 counts of racist speech that would have put STEINER IN JAIL if he were to have said them today. Maybe we should be talking about this here - I don't recall seeing this description in the previous statements about Dutch Anthroposopical Society's Commission of Biased Anthroposophists. Remember, if you reference the Dutch Anthroposopical Society's Commission of Biased Anthroposophists, we will also have to reference the article that describes who they are - so please expect this to follow. I say this with the utmost of good faith. --Pete K 01:23, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Proportion and subarticle

The racism section is again becoming a disproportionate part of an article that necessarily needs cover many themes. The subarticle is there to provide a complete discussion; the whole subarticle is now creeping back into the main article. The present length is already substantially more than is reasonable for a specialized topic covered extensively in a separate article. Let's please respect a reasonable proportion here; note that there is a reasonable balance of opinion included in the present text. Hgilbert 01:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Um... a discussion that you guys won't allow. Please don't decide which sections deserve more attention. The Goetheanum doesn't deserve a lot of attention - and neither does the Dutch Anthroposopical Society's Commission of Biased Anthroposophists. If the article is getting out of hand, let's prune it fairly and not in a lopsided fashion. --Pete K 01:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Gentlemen, be serious. Let's take a look at what's presently in this ludicrous article. "Childhood and education" - Rudolf Steiner is not someone whose CHILDHOOD deserves 3 paragraphs on[REDACTED] - be serious. Nothing about his childhood was exceptional. This needs one sentence: "He was born here and educated in such-and-such." The section is full of embarrassing fond lore, too, like the oft-repeated tale of the "simple herb gatherer." Aren't you embarrassed by this smarm? It's like he met his fairy godmother on the path in the woods one day. Clearly inappropriate nonsense for an encyclopedia. What's next, his baby pictures? If you could bring yourselves to cut all this silly fluff that no one else could possibly care about other than Steiner's gushing fan club, there would be plenty of room for more substantial material.

Let's go on - "attacks and death" of Rudolf Steiner is also not a subject that[REDACTED] readers need THREE PARAGRAPHS on. This is insider gossip, and it reads like a celebrity tabloid. There is nothing interesting about this man's death (and the reports of "attacks" give the article a paranoid, cult defenders feel). Give his birth and death dates - there is no other material on Steiner's childhood or death that is interesting except to his groupies.

A biography normally includes information beyond birth and death dates.

Diana adds: I don't know who this is who has interspersed comments, but I'll note I was scolded for it, myself. A full-length biography includes whole *chapters* on someone's childhood and education. An encyclopedia entry certainly does not. It should give dates, place of birth, parents' origin, anything significant about the parents, where the person was educated and in what, and anything of signficance that happened during the person's childhood. It would not normally include things like "meeting a simple herb gardener." I'm sorry but I had a much more interesting childhood than this *myself* and don't expect anyone to want to read about it on wikipedia.DianaW 19:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The "Philosopher" section is also embarrassing. Outside of his cult following no one considers Rudolf Steiner to have made significant philosophical contributions. You could just delete this. 739 words on a philosopher that no one has heard of in a university philosophy department.

He was a PhD in philosophy and published a number of works on the subject. This belongs to his biography.

Be serious. There are lots of people out there with PhD's in philosophy, and lots of other things, too. We don't write encyclopedias about all these people. We acknowledge people's legitimate *contributions*.DianaW 19:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

"Social activism"? This apparently refers to the fact that he published his views on social questions, and gave a lot of lectures. I'm not aware of any other "social activism" undertaken by Rudolf Steiner. Isn't there a separate article on threefolding, anyway? (If there's not, I'm sure there will be soon.) Delete this, it sounds desperate. The man was not a social activist. Stick to what he actually created of lasting import in the world - his spiritual science.

There a numerous volumes of his lectures on social questions, and he was in his time a widely-known social activist, especially through his lectures to workers and others in Germany after 1918.

Exactly what I said, all he did was lecture. You've reasserted he was a social activist but offered no evidence of such activities; only "lectures." So include them in your bibliography. I've given lectures too and it doesn't make me a social activist.DianaW 19:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Your logic is flawed if you think that your statement "I've given lectures too and it doesn't make me a social activist" argues for your assertion that Steiner was not a social activist. Arguing that lectures constitute social activism does not entail that all lectures do so equally. — goethean ॐ 19:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Lectures aren't activism. Activism is things like organizing people, demonstrations, protests, working on political campaigns, attempting to influence legislators or elected officials, civil disobedience actions, public events to capture media attention for a cause, etc.70.20.218.230 19:51, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

You could ditch the picture of the First Goetheanum. It's a monstrosity. If there must be a picture the second one is not nearly so bad, though it is not exactly candy for the eyes either.

It is his work and included in the referenced list of masterpieces of modern architecture and online library of great architectural works.

Right-o. Too silly to argue about. Nobody in architecture has heard of him. I haven't checked out your "online library" but there are gazillions of such things. I don't really care if this article describes him as such, personally; you're merely showing that you have no perspective on Rudolf Steiner.DianaW 19:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

"Breadth of activity" is another section that should be cut entirely. Reads like it comes out of a fan club mail bag. Repeats all the material above it, and is nothing but self-congratulations.

Part of his biography.

Sigh. Yes, Harlan, or whoever you are. Part of his biography.DianaW 19:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The article can and should be much shorter.DianaW 01:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

If you aren't interested in having a longer article then stop adding to it. This is hypocritical. Let those who are interested work on the article.

I've neither added anything to the article, nor suggested adding anything to it. Interesting accusation!DianaW 19:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I've just picked up on this adorable little snippet too. Trying to see if there is anything worth keeping under "Writer and philosopher," I find that Steiner once wrote for a magazine devoted to combatting antisemitism. The reference for this says literally: "Steiner's early articles are collected in five volumes of the complete edition of his works, GA 29-33."

Guys . . . that is not a reference. How many more embarrassments such as this can we find if we go through this article with a fine-tooth comb? Wish I didn't need to go get 8 hours of sleep. How stupid is this. You cannot cite a reference that is FIVE VOLUMES of someone's work. The name of this magazine that he supposedly wrote for is not even *mentioned*. And clearly the implication that he was out there fighting against antisemitism cannot be supported in this way, even if the magazine he wrote for is named. This is *pathetic*. Absolutely you must either cite an article that Steiner wrote for this magazine, as well as actually showing that the article combatted antisemitism, or (speaking of bogus references) this little beauty is out of here.DianaW 02:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The sentence says that he wrote numerous articles; the reference appropriately tells where these are to be found. I have added references and the title of the magazine for the clause about his writings against anti-Semitism. Hgilbert 15:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, dear God. If this weren't so funny it would be impossible. No Harlan. Not going to work. The sentence reads as follows: "Steiner also wrote articles for various journals, including a series for the Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus, a magazine devoted to combatting anti-semitism, during this time." Reference 4, Harlan, needs to be to a series that Steiner wrote for Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus in the 1890's; it cannot be to writings appearing on an anthroposophical web site in 2006. You need the title of the article(s), the year, volume and issue numbers of the publication, and the page range for the article(s). That's a reference. If you're going to cite it as some sort of indication of Steiner's stance against antisemitism, I think you're going to need to post some of it here, so the rest of us can see whether it is a statement from Steiner against antisemitism. So far, it's still rather cloudy whether you've actually ever eyeballed this article.

More "summaries" from you folks on Waldorf and anthroposophical web sites about the deeds of the great man are NOT sources that can be used in[REDACTED] articles; the word "summary" per se ought to set off everybody's bullshit detector. This is no different from the plethora of "summaries" on Sune's web sites that have already been deemed unacceptable here as "sources" for just about anything.DianaW 19:00, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

LOL the summary is not even in English. I see the periodical mentioned in this article; I am guessing, though can't be sure, that the article states that Steiner contributed to this periodical. If there is a specific citation of Steiner's article or series of articles I can't find it. Is it there Harlan?70.20.218.230 19:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The "Reception of Steiner" section is almost entirely POV, and apologetic. More "What a man he was" stuff. The article would be improved by removing this section. The conclusion "one cannot justly link Steiner or his movement with a totalitarian intent; rather the reverse, for his whole philosophy is based upon individual freedom" certainly does not belong in an encyclopedia. It is entirely POV, and can only have the effect of making people think, Hmmmmm, obviously somebody thinks he IS linked with a totalitarian intent.DianaW 02:32, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess this is the first time I've taken a close look at some of this stuff. It is full of puffery, obviously written by someone with no perspective on Steiner. I'm pasting in the "Writer and philosopher" section, followed by my suggested revision of this section. It presently reads:

"In 1888, as a result of his work for the Kurschner edition, Steiner was invited to come to the Goethe archives in Weimar to become an editor for the official complete edition of Goethe's works. Steiner remained with the archive until 1896. As well as the introductions for and commentaries to the resulting four volumes of Goethe's scientific writings, Steiner wrote two books about Goethe's philosophy: The Theory of Knowledge implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886) and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897). During this time he also collaborated in complete editions of Arthur Schopenhauer's work and that of the writer Jean Paul. Steiner also wrote articles for various journals, including a magazine devoted to combatting anti-semitism, during this time. Steiner was one of the defenders (with Emile Zola) of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish Captain in the French army falsely accused of treason.

During his time at the archives, Steiner wrote what he considered his most important philosophical work, Die Philosophie der Freiheit (The Philosophy of Freedom) (1894), an exploration of epistemology and ethics that suggested a path upon which humans can become spiritually free beings (see below).

In 1896, Friedrich Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche, asked Steiner to set the Nietzsche archive in Naumburg in order. Her brother by that time was no longer compos mentis. Forster-Nietzsche introduced Steiner into the presence of the catatonic philosopher and Steiner, deeply moved, subsequently wrote the book Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom.

In 1897, Steiner left the Weimar archives and moved to Berlin. He became the owner and chief editor of as well as an active contributor to the literary journal Magazin für Literatur, where he hoped to find a readership sympathetic to his philosophy. Dissatisfaction with his editorial style led to his departure from the magazine."

It can advisably be shortened as follows: "Steiner's early career (1888-1897) included editing the scientific works of Goethe as well as writing two books on Goethe, and another on Nietzsche; collaborating in complete editions of Arthur Schopenhauer's work and that of the writer Jean Paul; and contributing to various periodicals. During his time at the Goethe archives, Steiner wrote what he considered his most important philosophical work, Die Philosophie der Freiheit (The Philosophy of Freedom) (1894), an exploration of epistemology and ethics that suggested a path upon which humans can become spiritually free beings (see below)."

The relevant book titles can of course be given in the bibliography. Other than Philosophy of Freedom, they aren't necessary in the body of the article. His writings on Goethe, for instance, are relevant to the later development of his spiritual ideas, but he's not a significant Goethe scholar. There is no need to mention editing of a literary journal, as he never made any notable contributions in this field either. I would move right into his spiritual research after explaining the years working on Goethe etc. This is what the man is famous for. It would be charitable to say he is very minor figure when it comes to architecture, Nietzsche scholarship etc., and the article loses credibility aiming for this Renaissance man, "renewed all aspects of society" type thing. His lasting significance was as founder of anthroposophy.DianaW 02:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's more of the stuff that is just simply fluff "As a playwright, Steiner wrote four "Mystery Dramas" between 1909 and 1913, including The Portal of Initiation and The Soul's Awakening. They are still performed today." Yeah, he was a "playwright" alright. I wonder who is performing these Mystery Dramas? Anybody want to venture a guess? I'll give you a hint... it starts with "A" and ends with "nthroposophists". The only significance of ANY of these celebrated "accomplishments" is to Steiner's own, as Diana put it, "gushing" followers. If I write a play and my kids perform it for their grandmother at Thanksgiving, does that make me a playwright too? --Pete K 02:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Do not delete any of this relevant biographical information. — goethean ॐ 14:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The biography is verifiable and accurate. There is no reason to cut it arbitrarily. Information about a person's life and work is normal to a biography, as I'm sure you are aware. Hgilbert 15:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I gave you some pretty good advice, that would make anthroposophy look better - I told you how to make the article more professional. I'm sure the biography is "verifiable and accurate," Harlan. (Well, I'm not sure, really, but since so much of this is trivial, it's not worth verifying.) Lots of things are verifiable and accurate and don't belong in encyclopedia entries. This isn't a celebrity fan piece, and it isn't a full-length biography of Rudolf Steiner, either. It's an encyclopedia entry. You could make anthroposophy look better by not coming across as fawning groupies, and merely submit some factual and succinct information on who this man was and what he is recognized for today. Rudolf Steiner is not renowned for drama, sculpture, architecture, "social activism," and surely not for taking a stand against antisemitism. (He didn't do *anything* describable as social activism.) He is not relevant to Nietzsche studies or Goethe studies, unless as a footnote. He is recognized for anthroposophy and what comes out of it: namely, Waldorf education, Camphill, biodynamics, eurythmy. A few other areas deserve mention like anthroposophical medicine. Many other details of his life and work may be important to *you*, and nobody begrudges you, but you're making anthroposophy look foolish trying to cram all this into an encyclopedia article. You'd do Steiner greater credit by writing a credible article on him.DianaW 19:00, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

No, none of the RELEVANT information will be deleted... trust me on this. The question is, shouldn't we delete the irrelevant information? I agree with editor DianaW and say YES! This puff-piece article needs to be updated, and several editors have said exactly this right here on this discussion page. --Pete K 14:58, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

trust me on this

That's not possible at this time, I'm afraid. You have proven that you have an axe to grind. — goethean ॐ 15:21, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

"The biography is verifiable and accurate. There is no reason to cut it arbitrarily." A good deal of it is only relevant to Anthroposophists - and nobody is suggesting an arbitrary pruning of this. Diana has made some very reasonable suggestions that would cut down this already too-lengthy article which you yourself have complained is too long. Your solution, of course, is to remove the stuff that defines Steiner (his political, scientific and spiritual views) and leave in the stuff nobody cares about (his early childhood and 4 plays that nobody but Anthroposophists has ever heard of - or wants to). If we're really pressed for space here, then let's remove the fluff and leave in what Steiner said, believed and promoted. That's what makes a good encyclopedia article. --Pete K 15:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

"trust me on this That's not possible at this time, I'm afraid. You have proven that you have an axe to grind." I don't see any reason why I should have to respond to this childish baiting. --Pete K 15:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty clear most of this stuff doesn't belong here. I think I will suggest that we start removing or re-writing it little by little. Diana, one way to ask for sources is with the {fact} tag. We should be putting this wherever inadequate or original research sources are referenced anyway. This article should probably get a {POV} tag at the top too. Maybe it's time for a complete re-write here anyway. I can just see the edit wars (shaking my head) - it's really a shame that everyone here can't work toward the goal of an honest concise representation of the subject matter and stop trying to make every article here a promotion of their POV. --Pete K 22:49, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Motivation for lock, of this article TOO?

It is with deep reluctance that I write here. The reason I in the main have refrained from it so far is the repeatedly extremely emotional nature of the discussion and argumentation.

After the locking of the sub article on RS' views on race and ethnicity against further editing, Pete has again moved to the main article on RS, insisting on again developing the section "Rudolf Steiner's views on race and ethnicity" in the main article with a number of more 'quotes', and - when I have complemented this with other balancing quotes in a NPOV direction for the section in its totality - not accepted this, but added even more quotes in the POV direction he represents.

I have therefore - not deleted any of the new quotes added by Pete, but - but again added complementing quotes to those he has added and at the end of the section added a description of the in total 14 quotes on American Indians, found and documented by the Dutch Commission in its its intermediary report. As Pete does not seem to have the report, and knows that what I write is a very short summarizing overview of the content of the 14 quotes from the original published sources with regard to the issue of the two basic causes for the near extinction of the American Indians, by me, not the Commission, he has twice deleted my short fully verifiable description of the original published sources, and then twice omitted it when reintroducing the excessive quoting in the section, constituting a 3rr violation, for which an admin has warned, but forgiven him.

He has also 'edited' my fully correct description of the article by Hansson, given in the original version of Hansson's article in Swedish, described by Pete as a 'Report', in a way that made it unintelligble, based on the argument that it was 'unintellible' before his edit .... I have also slightly edited the description by Pete of one of his quotes, describing what he in a simplified way asserts is Steiner's 'true view' as this is contradicted by the overview of the in total 14 quotes from RS' works on American Indians. And I have a second time repaired the description by Hansson himself of the background for his article, made unintelligible by Pete.

None of this constitutes an 'edit war' on my part. I have only in the main added fully verifiable quotes from original published sources, made a summarizing description of 14 of them, and corrected a description by Pete of the nature and background of Hansson's article, based on its original publication.

This has all added to, not lessened the quality of the article (apart from contributing to making the section on an issue, descibed more in full in sub article, excessively long, as Pete has refused to accept limiting it to a reasonable size).

Do you consider any of my described actions to constitute edit warring, Longhair? Or did you lock the article because you feared edit warring from someone else because of my actions? --Thebee 10:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

The reason given for protecting of this article, which is viewable in the article history was Protected Rudolf Steiner: Protection against edit warring. That's exactly what occured. Who did what is hardly important - it takes more than one editor to edit war. -- Longhair\ 11:58, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Longhair, for locking this article. It is unfortunate, again, that my reluctance to edit-war the recent changes allowed the article to be locked in the dishonest form it is currently in. There will be little incentive for the Waldorf supporters to have this lock removed as they have managed to have it locked up with their controversial edits included - edits that are currently under discussion. The locking of articles has become a game of musical chairs - editors, when they foresee a lock-up, hurry to get their POV in before the music stops and the article is locked-up. This is unfortunate, but I guess now that all the articles are locked up, we can all have a good weekend. --Pete K 15:41, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

You write, Pete: "It is unfortunate, again, that my reluctance to edit-war the recent changes allowed the article to be locked in the dishonest form it is currently in." "Your reluctance to edit-war"? Maybe I can remind you that you are the one who violated the 3rr rule four times, noone else, and all four times completely without any tenable basis for it. --Thebee 19:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

That's just not true... which is typical of your contributions here at Misplaced Pages and everywhere else Sune. Again you dishonestly offer defamatory statements about me. You have launched into personal attacks on me (and other editors) on practically every page I have been involved in editing, AND on the talk pages of several administrators, AND on your own talk page. You have even tried to underhandedly coax administrators into off-line conversations with you so you could obviously bend their ear. You continually spam these pages with links to your own personal defamatory websites - for no other reason than to promote your own twisted POV. Even Steiner supporters have asked you to cool it. Why don't you take their advice and give it a rest? I am hoping the administrators, editors and readers in general are keeping an eye on your tactics and behavior. You take Misplaced Pages to a new low with every post and continually make ridiculous, undocumented, unexplained edits you know will be reverted - then point fingers at those who have reverted them. Banning you would do a great deal toward ending these edit wars - and it will give us all a much-needed rest from the folderol that seems to continually spew from your keyboard. --Pete K 23:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

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