The case for supranaturalism

 

An old gem.

Owen Barfield has a case

The Mars Buddha revisited

 

Look what I found in an old blog post of mine from 2018. This is the explanation we´ve been looking for!

>>>Steiner's lectures contain another very strange speculation: the claim that the Buddha went to Mars (or perhaps the “Mars sphere”, but Steiner does seem to mean the literal planet Mars) in order to carry out a Martian version of the Mystery of Golgotha (!). 

>>>However, Buddha was never literally crucified (since the Martians seem to be ethereal beings, an actual crucifixion might have been impossible to arrange anyway), but rather sacrificed himself by sending out love and kindness to a planet the inhabitants of which were extremely aggressive. 

>>>Apparently, this kind-hearted act has soothed the conflicts among the Martians, making it easier for human souls to pass through the planetary sphere of Mars during our cosmic sojourn between two earthly existences... 

>>>I admit that this mutant Buddha legend is somewhat difficult to take seriously!

Between planetary spheres

The 8th lunacy

 

ChatGPT talks a bit too much here, but after rediscovering an old blog post of mine about this topic, I just had to ask...

Here is a link to Theosophy Wiki:

Eighth Sphere

Can you tell me about the 8th sphere and the Moon according to Theosophy?

In Theosophical Society and related esoteric traditions, the ideas of:

• the Eighth Sphere,
• and the occult significance of the Moon

belong to some of the most obscure, symbolic, and controversial parts of Theosophical cosmology.

These ideas were developed especially by:

• Helena Petrovna Blavatsky,
  and later elaborated (sometimes very differently) by:
• Annie Besant,
• Charles Webster Leadbeater,
• and later esoteric movements such as Anthroposophy and Luciferian occultism.

The topic is difficult because:

• Theosophists themselves were often intentionally cryptic,
• and different writers interpreted the symbols differently.

---

1. The Seven Planes and the “Eighth Sphere”

Classical Theosophy often describes:

• seven planes,
• seven globes,
• seven rounds,
• and sevenfold evolution.

Human evolution supposedly unfolds through:

• ascending spiritual refinement.

But Blavatsky also hinted at:

an abnormal or dangerous state outside the proper evolutionary chain:
the “Eighth Sphere.”

---

2. What Is the Eighth Sphere?

The Eighth Sphere is usually described as:

• a kind of spiritually dead-end realm,
• a sub-material or astral residue world,
• or a sphere of spiritual disintegration.

It represents:

• extreme materialism,
• severance from spiritual evolution,
• soul fragmentation,
• or descent into purely psychic existence.

In some interpretations:

souls that become utterly attached to lower desires drift toward the Eighth Sphere.

---

3. Connection With the Moon

In early Theosophy,
the Moon plays a very strange role.

Blavatsky sometimes described the Moon as:

• a “dead planet,”
• a decaying former chain of evolution,
• or a corpse-like remnant of a previous cosmic cycle.

According to Theosophical cosmology:

• Earth supposedly inherited life from a prior “Moon Chain.”

Thus:

• the Moon is spiritually exhausted,
• yet still psychically influential.

---

4. The Moon as Psychic but Not Spiritual

In Theosophy,
the Moon is often associated with:

• psychic phenomena,
• mediumship,
• astral forces,
• illusion,
• subconsciousness,
• and lower occultism.

But usually not with the highest spirituality.

Blavatsky repeatedly warned against:

• lunar psychicism detached from true spiritual wisdom.

---

5. The Eighth Sphere and Lunar Attraction

Some later occult interpretations connect:

• the Eighth Sphere
  with:
• the Moon,
• or a shadow-side occult lunar realm.

This does not mean the physical Moon literally contains damned souls.

Rather:

• “Moon” becomes a symbol for:
  • exhausted evolution,
  • astral illusion,
  • sterile psychic existence,
  • and separation from higher spiritual ascent.

---

6. Steiner’s Interpretation

Rudolf Steiner,
who emerged from Theosophical circles,
reinterpreted these ideas heavily.

Steiner associated certain “Moon forces” with:

• hardening,
• intellectualism,
• mechanization,
• and spiritual alienation.

He also linked the Eighth Sphere to:

• occult materialism,
• and destructive spiritual tendencies.

In Steiner’s cosmology,
the Eighth Sphere becomes almost:

a counterfeit creation separated from divine evolution.

---

7. Luciferic and Ahrimanic Elements

Anthroposophy later developed the idea that humanity could become trapped between:

• Luciferic illusion,
• and Ahrimanic materialism.

The Eighth Sphere became associated with:

• artificial spiritual worlds,
• false transcendence,
• or mechanized pseudo-reality.

This later influenced:

• occult conspiracy theories,
• esoteric science fiction,
• and modern esoteric internet mythology.

---

8. Spiritual Danger

In many interpretations,
the Eighth Sphere represents:

consciousness cut off from true spiritual development.

Characteristics include:

• narcissistic occultism,
• obsession with psychic powers,
• hyper-materialism,
• soul hardening,
• or artificial spirituality.

It is often portrayed as:

• seductive but spiritually empty.

---

9. Is It “Hell”?

Not exactly.

Theosophy generally rejects eternal damnation.

The Eighth Sphere is more like:

• spiritual degeneration,
• disintegration,
• or failed evolution.

Some Theosophists suggested:

• certain soul-elements might dissolve there.

---

10. Relation to Mediumship and Necromancy

Blavatsky often associated lower astral realms with:

• séance phenomena,
• shell entities,
• and deceptive psychic remnants.

These lunar-astral regions could allegedly trap:

• confused consciousness,
• obsession,
• or lower desires.

This contributed to the eerie reputation of the Moon in occultism.

---

11. Symbolic Interpretation

Modern interpreters often read the Eighth Sphere symbolically as:

• alienation from authentic spirituality,
• imprisonment in illusion,
• mechanized consciousness,
• or egoic self-enclosure.

Psychologically,
it can resemble:

• spiritual sterility,
• hyper-materialistic existence,
• or dissociation from transcendent meaning.

---

12. Contrast With Traditional Lunar Mysticism

This is very different from traditions where the Moon symbolizes:

• divine femininity,
• compassion,
• mystical reflection,
• or sacred cycles.

Theosophy often gives the Moon a more:

• exhausted,
• psychic,
• ghostly,
• or karmically residual quality.

---

13. Influence on Later Esotericism

Theosophical Moon/Eighth Sphere ideas influenced:

• Anthroposophy,
• occult fiction,
• esoteric astrology,
• New Age cosmology,
• and conspiracy-esotericism hybrids.

But later interpretations vary enormously.

---

14. Important Caution

Blavatsky herself was often:

• symbolic,
• contradictory,
• and deliberately obscure.

So there is no single perfectly clear doctrine of the Eighth Sphere.

Different occultists understood it differently:

• literal astral region,
• metaphysical danger,
• symbolic degeneration,
• psychic trap,
• or failed evolutionary branch.

---

15. Overall Essence

The core symbolic contrast is often:

Higher Evolution	Eighth Sphere
Spiritual ascent	Spiritual entrapment
Living spirit	Psychic residue
True enlightenment	Illusory pseudo-spirituality
Solar consciousness	Lunar shadow
Integration	Fragmentation

Thus the Moon in these systems often symbolizes:

the ambiguous border between imagination, psychic experience, illusion, and spiritual danger.

Herr Doktor has gesagt

 

Did Steiner predict AI in 1921? 

>>>And from the earth will well up terrible creations of beings who in their character stand between the mineral kingdom and the plant kingdom as automative beings with a supernatural intellect, an immense intellect. 

>>>When this development takes hold, the earth will be covered, as with a web, a web of terrible spiders, spiders of enormous wisdom, which however, in their organisation don’t even reach the plant status. 

>>>Terrible spiders which will interlock with each other, which will imitate in their movements all that which humanity has thought of with their shadowlike intellect.

Witches in the wardrobe

 

A rather bland and predictable criticism of Rudolf Steiner´s Anthroposophy c/o Doreen Virtue and a former Waldorf School teacher. There is one funny quip: Virtue at one point wonders if Ahriman is a character from "Lord of the Rings"! 

But sure, I suppose Steiner really was an occultist. Although my main problem with Steiner Schools is that the students don´t actually seem to learn anything...

Not even occultism.

Nature´s open secret

 

From the YouTube channel Formscapes:  

>>>

As of the past couple of years, science communication headlines and pop-sci rhetoric have become increasingly and blatantly arcane. Notice how often words such as "illusion" are used. We are told that such and such phenomena aren't actually, really foreal real. We are told that our experiences of space and time - or physical reality itself - are "controlled hallucinations". "Simulation" theory is just a particularly computer-science-flavored variation of a much more general trend.

Many people within the more woowoo regions of the intellectual landscape seem to be very eager to see this as a concession of some sort; "Ah yes, finally..." they declare, "the scientards are finally wising up to the realization that physical reality isn't really real and that the really real reality is actually a world of [insert consciousness, spirit, quantum energy or whatever] which isn't actually visible to human perception!" Such morons believe that it is actually a positive thing that science is so unapologetically abandoning its final pretenses of actually being **empirical**, because their own woowoo beliefs are equally non-empirical, meaningless clickbait garbage. What we are seeing is not science on the verge of reconciling itself with consciousness. What we are seeing is science on the verge of becoming a disgraceful parody of itself and religion simultaneously - which is, to be fair, a rather impressive accomplishment. The psychical world is not hiding from you, concealed by your physical senses. If science is going to ever become truly scientific, it is indeed going to need to reconcile itself with psyche, but it must do so by being (for the first time) genuinely, radically empirical, not by becoming radically non-empirical.

It is quite clear that academic science is choosing the latter option, and gleefully detaching itself from reality so thoroughly as to make the most delusional new-agers blush. Nothing is hidden.

>>>

The mystery of the Solarian plasma and the Luciferic counter-initiation in the light of Anthroposophy

 

Good luck with this material, a one-hour long discussion about Anthroposophy on (perhaps) middle level. 

Yes, it´s Lucifer versus Ahriman, the Consciousness Soul, the Saturn period, the Solarian (?) and Lemurian periods, and so on. Fun fact: the guy who looks vaguely like Rudolf Steiner himself is actually *not* an Anthroposophist but rather a kind of Whitehead-Jung-occultic best blend. The female mystic Gigi Young, who looks vaguely Pre-Raphaelite, is the Anthroposophist. 

Also contains some criticism of current American spirituality, including its weird combination of the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. As in: use technology to transcend the world! Final point: is the plasma physicist mentioned the same person as the author of "The Sirius Mystery"? No idea. 

As I said, good luck to ya. (Yes, my headline is somewhat ironic.)   

Alone with the alone

 

Found this on a X account called Esoteric Philosophy Memes of East and West, but it´s apparently not his original content. Not sure who made it, but it´s damn funny!

The mystery of Christ

Previously posted on September 6, 2018 under a different title. 

"Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity" is a book by Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy, a spiritual movement which claims to represent esoteric Christianity. In his book, Steiner attempts to explain the relationship between the ancient mystery religions and Christianity. While he makes interesting points, the work is tedious, boring and difficult to read - although not as difficult as many other writings by this author!

Most esoteric groups claim that the Gospels are clever allegories with a message identical to that of earlier mystery cults. Steiner, by contrast, believed that the events depicted in the Gospels were in *some* sense literally true. His belief in spiritual evolution led him to concede that Christianity was, on a number of important points, different from the ancient mysteries. Thus, Steiner adopts a position similar to some modern Christian theologians (and C.S. Lewis). The mysteries were a preparation for the ministry of Jesus Christ, a kind of pagan version of the Old Testament. In this manner, both similarities and differences between the mysteries and Christianity can be accounted for. Christianity, while expressing the same basic truths as the mystery religions, was nevertheless at a higher stage of spiritual-cosmic evolution. Christianity is a "mystical fact", not simply allegory.

In the mystery cults, the initiate becomes "a son of God" by establishing contact with the Spirit in his individual soul. The mysteries were exclusive, in the sense that only a few individuals reached their highest pinnacles. In Christianity, the Son of God or Logos who lies suspended cross-wise in the universe is literally born as a man in order to manifest the Logos to all of humanity, not just a select few. Jesus thus becomes the unique Son of God. Steiner believes there are parallels between the lives of Jesus and the Buddha, but only up to Buddha's death, which Steiner compares with the Transfiguration of Jesus. Buddha disappears in a ray of light, making his transfiguration and physical death identical. Jesus, by contrast, stays behind and enters a new phase of his ministry, which is quite unlike that of Buddha: the crucifixion, death and resurrection.

Since everyone can't experience the passion or "initiation" of Jesus, a church organization with a formal creed becomes necessary. Those who can't directly experience the mysteries, will at least be saved by faith. Thus, in this text Steiner takes a surprisingly irenic view of the Church. He also depicts the various factional struggles within the Church as an attempt to grasp the relation between the historical Jesus and the eternal Spirit of the Mysteries. My problem with this is that Steiner seems to be suggesting something else in other, more "esoteric" texts, where salvation is pictured as a protracted process over several different incarnations (Steiner believed in reincarnation), until some humans eventually become like gods during the Vulcan stage of Earth evolution. He is also less friendly towards the main-line Christian denominations in other texts. Perhaps Steiner's thinking itself "evolved", since "Christianity as a Mystical Fact" is an early text. However, since the death and resurrection of Jesus plays a central role in the cosmic evolutionary process envisioned by the author, Steiner in some strange sense nevertheless remained closer to traditional Christianity than many other new religious movements. (For more details, see my review of Sergei Prokofieff's "Mystery of the Resurrection in the Light of Anthroposophy".)

Apart from Steiner's views on Christianity, "Christianity as a Mystical Fact" also contains expositions on Plato and Heraclitus, arguing that both were initiates into the ancient mysteries.

This book exists in a plethora of different editions. This review is based on the 1961 English translation, published by Rudolf Steiner Publications and available free on-line at the Rudolf Steiner Archive. It contains an interesting introduction by Alfred Heidenreich, who reminisces about Steiner and reveals that this spiritual leader had one very human weakness: snuff tobacco! The edition depicted on this product page could be another one...

A mystery unsolved

 

Previously posted under a different title on September 10, 2018.

"Mystery of the Resurrection in the Light of Anthroposophy" is a book on Christology by Sergei O. Prokofieff, one of the leaders of the Anthroposophical Society, a religious-spiritual group founded about a century ago by Austrian occultist Rudolf Steiner. Prokofieff is a prolific writer on Anthroposophical subjects, perhaps most known for his sharp criticism of Valentin Tomberg, author of "Meditations on the Tarot" and a defector from Anthroposophy.

I didn't like Prokofieff's sectarian attacks on Tomberg, so it was with a certain dose of scepticism that I bought "Mystery of the Resurrection". I admit that I didn't get very far with it. It's an extremely difficult book, bordering on the incomprehensible. Still, I was weirdly fascinated. Perhaps I simply need to read more books on practical occultism or very advanced Christian theology?

Although many of Steiner's ideas about Jesus were strange (to put it mildly!), he is closer to traditional Christianity than most other groups in the New Age-occult underground I'm familiar with. He doesn't view Jesus simply as a great spiritual teacher, but believes that "the Christ being" really was a supernatural being who incarnated on Earth in order to save humanity, not simply to "show us the path to Christhood". The crucifixion, descent into the bowels of the Earth and subsequent resurrection really were salvific acts, and a kind of supernatural gift to fallen humanity from more elevated spheres of existence. The resurrection wasn't purely spiritual, but was, in some sense at least, "physical". Steiner even says at one point that the Resurrection body was created "out of nothing", although it's somewhat unclear what he means by this, since Anthroposophists don't believe in a personal god that creates ex nihilo. However, it seems that the Resurrection body really was a novelty in cosmic evolution, introduced by the Christ being through a purely voluntary act of grace.

One obvious *difference* between Steiner and traditional Christianity is his adoptionist Christology. To Steiner, Christ was a spirit-being who incarnated in the human Jesus after the baptism at Jordan. At the cross, Christ left Jesus who then promptly died. However, it's not clear to me whether the distinction between "Jesus" and "Christ" really means anything after the baptism, since Steiner says that the ego of the human Jesus had to leave him in order to make room for the Christ being. (In a fit of weirdness, Steiner claims that the ego of Jesus was the reincarnated ego of Zarathustra!) Steiner also seems to be suggesting that the human body of Jesus was a kind of sheath for the Christ, which presumably means that the person "Jesus" really ceased to exist when Christ took over his body. It's also interesting to note that Christ isn't an impersonal cosmic principle, but a personal being. To be exact, Christ is a sun-spirit. Since the spiritual sun is the "god" of our solar system, the Christ of Anthroposophy is, in some strange sense, "the Son of God", too!

The work of the Christ is part of the incredibly complex and almost conceited cosmology of Anthroposophy, with its countless spiritual hierarchies, different evolutionary trajectories and even reincarnated planets. There are also several types of physical or quasi-physical bodies. A Christian theologian would probably get grey hairs trying to grasp whether or not the resurrection really was "bodily"! To make a long story somewhat shorter, Anthroposophists believe that human personality and individuality are positive traits. Prokofieff criticizes the impersonalism of Buddhism and Hinduism. However, the personal autonomy of humans also necessitated a temporary severing from the spiritual worlds. This made humans more and more estranged from Spirit. They were also preyed upon by a wide variety of evil spirit-beings: Lucifer, Ahriman, the Asuras and Sorath. If this process had continued unhindered, humanity would presumably have destroyed itself at some point. This is why Christ incarnated on our unfortunate planet and voluntarily sacrificed himself. Prokofieff has an incredibly detailed discussion on how Christ built his different body-sheaths by descending through a whole number of heavenly spheres, how these energies gradually took over the earthly body of Jesus, etc.

Perhaps inevitably, Steiner believed in "infusion" rather than "imputation", to use the Christian terms (not used by him or Prokofieff). The death and resurrection of Christ had real ontological significance. They really cleansed the Earth and our human souls from negative karmic/cosmic influences, opening up a path to salvation. Also, our souls were somehow infused by the spiritual energies emanating from the crucifixion. The passion and resurrection of Jesus weren't purely soteriological acts accessible by faith only.

But what about the bodily or physical resurrection? The physical sheath left behind by the Christ on the cross decomposed as any corpse, but since it was imbued with spiritual energies, it became "a homeopathic medicine" for the Earth. Or the soil? The blood shed on the cross was "etherized" and seems to have entered into both the energy field of the Earth, and into the etheric bodies of humans, strengthening them (at least potentially). Meanwhile, the Christ Being entered the interior of our planet, where Steiner (literally?) believed that the evil forces dwelled. After somehow defeating their influence, Christ restored something Prokofieff calls "the phantom". Frankly, I never really understood what the phantom might be - some kind of archetypal physical body lost by humans during their negative evolution? It was supposedly created by angels at "Old Saturn". From "the phantom", Christ then created the Resurrection body. He also condensed his etheric body, which looked and felt like a physical body. Thus, when Thomas touched the scars of the resurrected Christ, these were not the actual scars from the crucifixion, but etheric substitutes created specially for this occasion. Prokoffief ingeniously points out that the Christ seems to be a bodily being in the Book of Revelation, but lacks the scars! Therefore, the scars can't have been a permanent feature of the Resurrection body.

Steiner was presumably aware of various occult attempts to create an imperishable body. He seems to have regarded both this and the Buddhist attempts to reach nirvana as too narrow paths. The Christ opened up a path that is at least potentially broader and easier by letting his etheric blood fuse with all humans. Human evolution could continue on its intended course, and will end at "Vulcan", a new version of Earth in a very distant future. Vulcan is the closest equivalent to the millennium in Anthroposophy, where humans will become Christ-like beings with the capacity to "create out of nothing". When the Vulcan stage ends, humans will reach even further elevations so lofty that not even Steiner could describe them. In effect, they will become like gods...

Well, I suppose *that* isn't taken from traditional Christianity, LOL.

"Mystery of the Resurrection in the Light of Anthroposophy" is a very narrow, complicated treatise. It's not intended for the general public, but rather for advanced students of Anthroposophy. I don't consider myself to be one, so the above review should be read with that in mind. I'm not sure how to rate this mysterious work, but in the end I give it the OK rating (three stars).

Steiner´s Babylon

Are there similarities between the space opera TV franchies "Babylon 5" and Anthroposophy? Or is it all LOTR fan fiction?

No idea, but it struck me that the war between the Shadows and the Vorlons could be seen as a conflict between Ahrimanic and Luciferic spirits. The Luciferic forces, which everyone assumed represents the "good spiritual guys", turn out to be just as problematic for further human evolution as the more obviously evil Ahrimanic host. Perhaps Commander Sheridan could be seen as a very angry Christ-being, expelling the lot from our galaxy, rather than "balancing" them? 

In one episode, we also get to see the last human, who looks a bit like a Vorlon, before he too leaves the galaxy for greener evolutionary pastures. Is this based on Steiner´s idea of a future "Vulcan" incarnation, during which humans become like gods and indeed reach higher and loftier elevations? 

No idea, and it probably means nothing, but there you go!

The devolution of man

 

Some racist shit
(Credit: Neanderthal Museum)

An interesting piece on the fringey “initial bipedalism” hypothesis, which claims that all vertebrates are descended from a kind of aquatic proto-human, which later “dehumanized” into all the Vertebrata known today…except in the human lineage, of course!

While this sounds very, very bizarre, I´m actually familiar with similar speculations about apes being descended from humans, rather than the other way around. See my review of Friedrich Kipp´s “Childhood and Human Evolution” on this blog (the second link below). 

Kipp is probably an Anthroposophist, and Anthroposophy´s founder Rudolf Steiner seems to have had a view of evolution similar to that of the initial bipedalists, in which humans form the “stem” of a teleological evolutionary process, with all other groups being side-branches. Hence, all living creatures are – in some sense – devolved from a human archetype.

Steiner also proposed, if memory serves me right, that the proto-humans were aquatic. Kipp only discusses the great apes in his book, however, perhaps because he wants to sound as scientific as possible. I didn´t know that a “scientific” version of Steiner´s full speculations even existed, nor was I familiar with the connection to cryptozoology. It seems Heuvelmans was far more “out there” than I expected!

Very interesting stuff to read on a lonely Good Friday morning…

Aquatic proto-people and the "theory" of initial bipedalism

Scientific Anthroposophy? 

The perils of clairvoyance

John Michael Greer´s take on Rudolf Steiner. 

The Perils of the Pioneer

The Ahrimanic Realm

I disagree (I think) with many of the points in the content linked above, but it is interesting, in a somewhat disturbing fashion...

The Subnatural Realm: A Speculation

Cult leader comes clean?

"Dokument inifrån: De utvalda barnen" (The chosen children) is a Swedish documentary in three parts, only available in Swedish at SVT Play. The documentary is made by Jasper Lake, a former student at Solvikskolan, a radical Waldorf school at Järna south of Stockholm. As a grown-up, Lake started a Facebook group for former Solvik students, and much to his astonishment realized that the school had a dark side he was completely unaware of. Former students told stories about bullying and malign neglect, often at the initiative of the teachers. Lake realized that he had been one of the "good" kids, selected and specially treated by the teachers. Those who didn´t fit in were treated very differently... 

Waldorf schooling is an "alternative" form of pedagogy developed by Austrian polymath Rudolf Steiner about 100 years ago. Steiner also created a religious or spiritual movement known as Anthroposophy. Waldorf education is based on the occult and frequently bizarre ideas of Steiner, who claimed the ability to "see" into the spirit-world by supernatural clairvoyance. In Sweden, Järna is the center of Anthroposophy. The relation between Solvikskolan and the wider Anthroposophical movement isn´t entirely clear. On the one hand, Solvik were expelled from the Swedish Waldorf Federation for being too extreme (really for following Steiner´s intstructions to the letter). On the other hand, Solvik were considered a role model by the Anthroposophists internationally, and the school´s founder Pär Ahlbom frequently lectured at meetings abroad, suggesting that *he* wasn´t expelled from much of anything (Ahlbom is in fact a devoted Anthroposophist). 

The atmosphere at the school seems to have been bizarre and cultish even at the best of times (or "best"). Dance, song, music classes and pageants took up most of the school days, but the creativity of individual teachers or children must have been severly hampered by Steiner´s dogmatic specifications: no piano allowed, the dance was "eurythmy" - a special kind of dance developed by Steiner and his wife Marie von Sivers - and the pageants probably had an Anthroposophical message. The students were talked into thinking that they were part of something huge and important. In reality, they didn´t learn anything useful. When Jasper Lake began to attend a non-Waldorf senior high school, he was expelled after just one semester, since he literally didn´t know anything! Other students told similar stories: no grades, no knowledge, some could hardly read, and so on. When the government´s school inspectors showed up, the kids pretended to have real classes with real school books, which were quickly stashed away when the inspectors left...

Gradually, a darker picture emerges. As already noted, the children frequently bullied each other, often with the teachers not doing anything, or even initiating the bullying. The kids were encouraged to play in a rope swing hanging in a tree outside the school building. The play frequently ended with children getting seriously hurt - several times, students had to be flown to the nearest hospital in a helicopter! One teacher "played" some kind of suffocation game with the children, or even stepped on them (the kids were only 8 years old), presumably to make them "wake up spiritually". Children with special needs were looked down upon (yet, Anthroposophists claim to take care of such people), and so was essentially everyone who didn´t "fit the format" one way or another. 

Steiner divided people into four categories depending on their temperament, and it seems that students who were seen as "sanguine" were promoted by the teachers, while the three other personality types were seen as more negative. One teacher let a kid attack and beat up another, with the argument that one of them needed an outlet for his agressions, while the other needed to learn to stand up for herself - apparently some kind of polarity work. Steiner´s weird belief system was never explicitly taught at the school, but it was certainly practiced. This includes its murkier sides, such as the belief in karma and reincarnation. That some kids were hurt or beaten up was seen as "karmic" and hence in some sense "good".

The spider in this web is Pär Ahlbom, who founded the school about 40 years ago. Lake interviewed him at some length. He also talked to his son Gudmund and daughter Elsa. At first, Ahlbom seems to be a nice old man (he is 88 years old) interested in spirituality, art and Kulturkritik. He comes across as a well-meaning utopian who simply doesn´t understand that his ideas and lofty ideals don´t work in the real world. Gradually, however, a more disturbing picture emerges. Pär seems to be in complete denial about what happened at the school during his time as de facto leader, says he "can´t remember" things, that a particularly crazy teacher was "spiritually interesting", etc. At one point, he even seems to be mocking the victims: "Oh, so you were hurt in your soul? How awful". His Anthroposophy is fanatical: Steiner, it seems, can never go wrong, it´s majority society that is sick and needs to change, not the Solvik school. 

Elsa reveals that when she fell badly from the swing (at the age of 10) and was knocked unconscious, Pär didn´t really care...until she told him about an out-of-body experience she had during her trauma. This made him feel exilerated, claiming that her severe accident was actually positive! Elsa then says that her father never feels any shame, guilt or empathy, and seems almost impervious to pain. Is Pär actually a psychopath or, at the very least, a person with undiagnosed Asperger´s? That´s the question I asked myself when seeing this part of "De utvalda barnen".

At the very last moment, the documentary takes a *very* unexpected turn. Pär´s wife dies after a protracted battle with cancer. For the first time in his life, the old man feels real grief. Somehow, this makes him realize that he really has been a bad person most of his life. He admits having been a "dictator" and "almost a cult leader", and tries to reconcile himself with his son during a dramatic eye-to-eye meeting at Solvik. I have no idea whether Pär is sincere (although I would love to think so), but his last minute apology just might be what is needed to save the reputation of Waldorf schools in Sweden. 

Swedish media haven´t yet commented the last episode (which haven´t been shown on regular TV yet, although it´s already available at SVT Play), but reactions to Waldorf schooling and Anthroposophy after the first two episodes were, as expected, uniformly negative. What did surprise me, frankly, was that the newspapers had no problems finding people who had attended Waldorf schools, or knew somebody who did...among their own contributors or sub-editors. Did every other crazy liberal in Sweden attend a Waldorf school? Did this affect their worldview somehow? Made them equally naive and fanatical? This is not the first time I´m baffled by the success among liberals or "the woke" of Waldorf pedagogy, despite the fact that Anthroposophy is a very "problematic" movement. I mean, Steiner supported Germany in World War I, believed in racial differences and hierarchies, and had an obsession with Goethe, who was politically conservative! He probably said something negative about Jews, too, although I haven´t bothered checking.

"Dokument inifrån: De utvalda barnen" is a tour de force and probably even worth some kind of award, but I feel that there might be more to unearth here... 

En oväntat vändning

"Dokument inifrån" om antroposoferna hade ju ett oväntat slut måste jag säga... 

Avprogrammera "antisarna"?

Jag tänker recensera/kommentera dokumentärserien "De utvalda barnen" efter att ha tittat på alla tre avsnitten (det sista är ännu inte tillgängligt på SVT Play), men redan nu är serien *väldigt* uppmärksammad. Nedan en artikel från Aftonbladet som kortfattat tar upp problematiken kring Steiner och Waldorf. 

"Det ockulta är vardag i svenska waldorfskolor"

Waldorf and mistletoe: The theory and practice of Anthroposophy

“Inspirerad av Antroposofi” (Inspired by Anthroposophy) is a Swedish book with somewhat surprising contents. The editors have collected generally pro-Anthroposophy articles from a number of non-Anthroposophists, some of which used to be well known personages in Swedish cultural life. I was surprised to find contributions by Göran Rosenberg, Maria Bergom Larsson, Agneta Pleijel and Annika Åhnberg. Of these, perhaps only journalist, author and editor Göran Rosenberg is known outside Sweden. There is also an article on Rudolf Steiner and his place in intellectual history by Ronny Ambjörnsson. I admit that my own view of Anthroposophy is more negative, and I can´t say this book changed my impression…

The usual entry point into the occult world of Steiner´s Anthroposophy is Waldorf schooling. Many of the contributors placed their children in Waldorf schools. Maria Bergom Larsson was actually a teacher at the Waldorf school at Ytterjärna, where the Anthroposophists have built their Swedish headquarters. Biodynamic farming and, in Rosenberg´s case, the Camphill movement (care of children with learning disabilities), are two other points of entry. The contributors like the “practice” of Anthroposophy, while finding the “theory” (i.e. Steiner´s clairvoyant revelations) hard to believe or even incomprehensible.

Personally, I was apparently very Ahrimanic as a child (as behooves a guy with three planets in Capricorn), since the Waldorf system of pedagogy would probably have driven me nuts: “create your own textbooks”, artistic drawing, fairytales, eurythmy, clothes made of wool, blaaaah. (Not mentioned in this book, the Anthroposophists are also anti-vaxxers.) But sure, I suppose this could work for a certain kind of autistic and special needs children, something also emphasized in the book. Curiously, many Anthroposophists seem to be very left-wing, while the occult philosophy of Steiner is more “conservative” in nature. I suppose the ecological and decentralist angles attract a certain kind of leftists, as does the counter-cultural angle more generally. Maria Bergom Larsson was allowed to be a teacher at the Waldorf school despite not being a true believer in Anthroposophy, which must have been quite the attitude test, since the teachers are supposed to meet every Thursday to study Rudolf Steiner´s lectures – like everything else in this movement, the Waldorf pedagogy (supposedly) comes from the spirit-world as revealed by the sixth sense of Steiner. It was interesting to note that the Waldorf schools have a strong confessional streak, with the children setting up pageants based on the Biblical creation story or Steiner´s speculations about the archangel Michael (who plays a prominent role in his cosmology).  

The most bizarre contribution, perhaps inevitably, is written by an actual Anthroposophist who tries to explain the occult theories behind the movement´s alternative medicine. She seems to be suggesting (it´s not entirely clear) that hay fever isn´t caused by allergens from actual plants, but is a psychological condition! For completely opaque reasons, lemon juice cures hay fever. The author also claims that homeopathic mistletoe can cure cancer – an illegal statement in Sweden, but perhaps only in the context of actual prescriptions? The reasons for why mistletoe has this property is, once again, very opaque. The contributor also expounds at length on what a wonderful learning opportunity many diseases, including potentially fatal ones, can be… Yeah, haven´t we heard that one before!

Ambjörnsson´s article (co-written with Kerstin Thörn) attempts to place Anthroposophy´s founder Rudolf Steiner in a broader perspective. It´s quite interesting. Somewhat surprisingly, given the seemingly original speculations of this man, the Austrian polymath turns out to be very much a child of his time (the early 20^th century) – or perhaps just a few decades behind it. Anthroposophy could be regarded as a synthesis of occultism, Romantic philosophy and evolutionary theory. Theosophy, a strong occult movement at the time, gave Steiner the template to work from. Goethe, Schelling and Herder were other influences – as was Hegel, not mentioned in the article. Steiner´s biodynamic farming was inspired by the Romantic-vitalistic humus theory. His pedagogical and aesthetic ideas, while more original, also had affinities with contemporary reform movements. I suppose somebody could argue that the “practice” could be separated from the “theory”, after all.

Above all, I get the impression from “Inspirerad av Antroposofi” that Anthroposophy is at bottom harmless - in the wrong kind of way. These people will never change the world, let alone initiate some kind of revolution. They are simply a spiritual safety valve for the privileged middle classes. After spending some time in Green Anthroposophy land, it´s back to high modernity (and capitalist) main frame. With that comment, I end this week´s Anthroposophy-bashing session. 

Live long and prosper.

The mystery of Steiner

“The Pre-Earthly Deeds of Christ” is a collection of three lectures by Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy. Only the last lecture is easy to understand for the general reader (well, sort of!), while the two others feel very “in house”. Steiner had a highly complex view of Christ and Christology, and only some aspects of it are covered in these lectures. Some of Steiner's speculations have a family likeness with traditional Christianity, while others are simply “out there”.

In Steiner's system, Christ was a high angelic being who appeared to humanity at several points during its evolution. His first appearance was as Jehovah or Jahve. His second appearance was as Jesus, really a human whom the Christ-being incarnated in. Today, Christ will appear once more, this time in the “etheric” and only visible to those who develop special clairvoyant abilities. Steiner reveals that Christ was at work even in Atlantis and Lemuria, imbuing humanity with much needed spiritual energies to combat Lucifer and Ahriman (the twin devils of Steiner's system). Christ is the only angelic being who has incarnated on Earth as a man and tasted death, something only physical creatures can do. Due to this sacrifice, Christ has evolved and attained an even higher position in the spiritual realm. The Mystery of Golgotha is a salvific act and a turning-point in the Earth's evolution. From now on, Christ is somehow part of Earth's spiritual aura.

Steiner reveals that Christ often works through another angelic being, Michael. This was true both during the Old Testament period, and again today, during the Age of Michael (which started during the 19th century). I get the impression that Steiner conflates Michael and Jehovah-Christ. In other texts, he also mentions Vidar (really a Norse god) as another angel through which Christ works. Interestingly, Steiner claims that the Gospel writers didn't comprehend Christ in the correct “spiritual” way, since they weren't under the influence of Michael, who abdicated his rule of Earth shortly after the Golgotha event. Today, Michael is ruler again, and through Anthroposophy we can get to know the truth about Jesus Christ in its fullness.

Expert theologians will probably recognize every “heresy” in the book in the above account: Jehovah was the Son rather than the Father, Michael was Jehovah, Michael was Christ, adoptionism, spiritual rather than physical resurrection, Steiner claiming to have a “new revelation” restoring the Gospel to its previously unknown pristine purity, etc. Still, it's interesting to note that Steiner placed such emphasis on Christ and the passion, quite unlike Theosophy which inspired other aspects of his system.

Not for the general reader, to put it mildly, but perhaps still worth three stars.

Deafening silence

Taylor Swift's silence on Max Heindel's plagiarism of Dr Rudolf Steiner is deafening.