A Bridge too Far?
Neo-Nazi elements sold as Anthroposophy
By Floris Schreve
‘The members of the board hereby declare on behalf of the Rudolf Steiner
Nachlassverwaltung that they emphatically reject the use of Rudolf Steiner's remarks in any
way which calls for hate against groups of people or is directed in a hostile and discriminatory
way against groups of people on the basis of race, nation, gender, religion, etc. They would
see that not just as a violation of basic principles of human dignity but also as an abuse of the
intentions of Rudolf Steiner’
The Board of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, October 2007
From ‘The Frankfurther Memorandum’1
Almost two years ago (autumn 2007, ironically almost at the same time the Board of the
Nachlassverwaltung published this declaration) I searched the internet on the (Dutch) terms
‘antroposofie’ and ‘racisme’, trying to find an article I read years before (Jan Willem de
Groot, Kosmisch racisme; over racistische elementen in de antroposofie on the website of
Simpos2). I found this article but also something else. The article Zogezegd racisme (‘So
called racism’) of Thomas Voss, as it appeared in the google search engine, was part of a
series of hundreds of articles on a Belgian website.3 This website and magazine, De Brug
(means ‘The Bridge’) called itself ‘anthroposophical’. Partly it appeared to me as
anthroposophical as a lot of articles were dealing with Rudolf Steiner and with an affluent use
of terms as ‘Atlantis’, ‘Lemuria’, ‘reincarnation’, ‘Archangels’, ‘Lucifer’, ‘Michael’ and
above all ‘Ahriman’. But this was totally different stuff than I used to know as
‘anthroposophy’, as from my own memories of my primary school, the moderate and
civilized Dutch anthroposophical magazine Jonas which I knew from my parental house and
the basically non racist, quiet progressive and well educated, friendly and civilised people I
knew with a strong sympathy for anthroposophy. Even after I read about the possibility of
racist thought in Steiner’s work appeared in the newspapers and after the discussion began,
and I started to believe there is some racism, this website was something I had never
expected.
Long time ago, at my own Waldorf school (I did just my primary school at a Waldorf school)
my teacher told me for the first time something about the second World War and about what
happened with the Jews. Here I could read, in the name of the same anthroposophy, that this
was a lie and that a few brave people, like the revisionists David Irving, Ernst Zündel and
1
See http://www.info3.de/ycms/download/memorandum_english.pdf
2
See http://www.stelling.nl/simpos/antro1.htm
3
Homepage of ‘De Brug’ http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/diabasis/index.html . The index of articles, with on
the first page fifteen articles with the subject ‘Ahriman’ can be found on http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/
diabasis/inhaztot.html The article of Thomas Voss (German original appeared in Erziehungskunst) can be found
on http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/diabasis/b14rac.htm
1
Robert Faurisson, had the guts to discuss this lie, known as the Holocaust.4 They published
also an interview with another Holocaust revisionist, Johannes Lerle.5 And I could read on
this site that ‘the Jews betray there fellow race members, when this is convenient to them’6
(although it is a translation, the sentence has the same strange appearance in Dutch). And the
lie of the Holocaust was a creation of Ahriman, together with some Anglo-Saxon Loges,
Illuminati, capitalists and Zionists, to destroy the spiritual impulse of Central Europe.7
This was not the only thing which appeared to me as totally insane. A few examples. Ahriman
had provoked the opium war, by kidnapping souls which were meant to incarnate in European
bodies. But he putted them into Chinese bodies.8 Homosexuals are displaced souls, born in a
non fitting body as if they were ‘transsexuals’. But the reason why there are more
homosexuals today (? Maybe homosexuality is more visible, since the acceptance and
tolerance increased) is because of the increase of abortions. For that reason there are more
displaced souls, who never got the chance to fulfil their Karma in the live which was meant
for them, which was cut off. 9
For me as a homosexual a bit hilarious (but to be honest also quiet insane and sick), but not
for everyone. After this magazine published another tirade against homosexuals (we will
discuss this article later), a reader (apparently homosexual) wrote an emotional letter that,
although he was positively interested in anthroposophy and just started to read more about
this philosophy, he felt deeply offended. De Brug published his emotional letter on the
internet (lucky for him they didn’t show his name) with a reply (entitled The pain of being
different) filled with speculations about his psychological condition and explained his ‘anger’
by his so called displaced state of being, because he is a homosexual (but subconsciously he
realised himself that there was something wrong with him). 10
I don’t think it would be wise to speculate about the mental health of the authors of this
magazine, but their articles are quiet often a little bit paranoid (just a little bit). What about a
texts like these? A small collage: ‘Non-anthroposophists always see conspiracies of
Freemasons, illuminati and Zionists (they always do, FS), while the real anthroposphist know
these conspiracies are real, but that all these ‘occult fellowships’, including UFOs (apparently
they are also organised by a secret occult fellowship, FS), are directed by Ahriman’. In the
same article they admit that it is not easy to say something about UFOs, because
‘unfortunately Rudolf Steiner never spoke about this phenomenon, so we have to think by
ourselves, which is (to be honest) not common use for us as anthroposophists’. 11 These real
anthroposophists (not the weak hearted anthroposophists in the Netherlands, who installed the
4
http://users.pandora.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b46met/b46.htm
5
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b57net.htm
6
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b45.htm
7
http://users.pandora.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b46met/b46.htm
(see also note 4)
8
http://users.pandora.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b44deel1.htm.
9
http://users.pandora.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b50defhtm.htm.
10
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b49hyper.htm#001
11
http://users.pandora.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b48met/b48.htm#ahr
2
van Baarda commission to examine the possibility of racism in the work of Steiner 12) are
comparable ‘with the Christians in the catacombs during the rule of the Roman emperor Nero.
But finally his empire collapsed!’ So there is hope! (‘this could give us a bit of courage’, in
their own words). 13
Above all, anthroposophists are seen as victims. Victims of the materialistic science
(Ahriman!), of the political correct elite, who tries to censor everyone with a non political
correct opinion (also Ahriman! although I have not the impression that anyone tries to censor
this strange magazine, because ‘the weak hearted mainstream’, in their view, has no problem
to be associated with these ideas, at least till now). They seem almost to beg desperately:
‘Please, help us, we want to be like David Irving. Hated, discredited and persecuted. Help us
to confirm our self declared victimization’.
Belgium, their own country, is not a real nation but a ‘black magic construction’! Founded by
‘the occult loges’ and inspired by Ahriman. 14 I know there is a large movement of extreme
right Flemish nationalists, sometimes organized in often racist political parties, but this was
quiet weird. Also the European Union is an ‘Ahrimanic construction’ and Ahriman and his
fellows (probably ‘the occult loges’) are building a ‘World Termite State’ (‘Wereld
Termietenstaat’, as they call it). Ahriman was even the genius behind 9/11! (because his face
was seen in the smoke and dust of the collapsing twin towers, as they try to prove with a
picture they compare with a sculpture of Rudolf Steiner of the head of Ahriman 15). And above
all: ‘Ahriman does not want us to become wise!’ (‘The wiser we become, the more wisdom of
former incarnations we will gather, but if we neglect this wisdom, than someone comes to
steal it and who knows to use it: Ahriman!’)16
This website was linked to a larger website www.vrijgeestesleven.be (‘Freies Geistesleben’,
in the Netherlands ‘Vrij Geestesleven’ is the oldest anthroposophical publishing house. But
this was something different than the decent publisher of the Dutch translations of the work of
Rudolf Steiner). Who enters this website will be welcomed with the following text: ‘Vrij
Geestesleven’, for all the victims of local, federal (Belgium is a federal state) and European
Soviet Governments: Revisionists, smokers, refusers of vaccinations. (only the last group
seemed to me more or less related to anthroposophical ideas, FS) More categories will
follow!’ (so there are more victims of the Belgian and European Soviet regime? FS) . The link
behind the ‘revisionists’ leads to the website www.vho.org announced as ‘The World’s largest
website for Historical Revisionism! The Holocaust Controversy – A Case for open Debate’.
And probably it is the largest ‘revisionist’ site, with a lot of illegal downloads of the works of
David Irving, Ernst Zündel cs. Also Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry, which I
believe it is abused by these Nazi types, is illegally published in different languages on this
site (Finkelstein, an American scholar with an Eastern European Jewish background, has the
opinion that the remembrance of the Holocaust is being misused to support Israel by all
12 According
to this article the Dutch Anthroposophical Society lacked ‘Michaelic courage’, when they decided
to start an investigation for possible racism in the work of Rudolf Steiner, http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/
diabasis/b14eur.htm
13
Ibid.
14
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b44deel2.htm
15
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/dornach/b33duivel.htm
16
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b40a.htm#10
3
means, also against the Palestinians and to maintain the illegal occupation of the Palestinian
territories. Not everyone agrees with his ideas, but this book definitively doesn’t belong on a
neo Nazi site). However, on this site the book of Finkelstein is available in different
languages, also in Dutch (they used the text as it was published by Mets & Schilt, probably
illegal).
I had no idea what this had to do with anthroposophy. Reading these articles I sometimes
thought this website is a sick but brilliant joke (of monstrous proportions, both in ‘quality’ as
‘quantity’). But finally it appeared not to be. But what is it? Anthroposophy or neo-Nazism?
(if you can combine these two things) Or total madness? And why was I almost the only one
who saw this? Even now, when I putted a lot of attention on this ‘thing’ (earlier I called it ‘an
orgy of insanity’ and I still agree with that), there were just a few anthroposophists who
openly dared to criticize the insights as exposed on this website. In the first place I have to
mention Ramon de Jonghe, who owns the website (Steinerscholen) where most of the
discussions took place. Originally trained as a Waldorf school teacher, he runs this critical
website and wrote recently a sharp analysis on everything what going on in the world of the
‘Steinerscholen’, as Waldorfschools are called in Belgium (in the Netherlands they are known
as ‘Vrije Scholen’). 17 Also Michel Gastkemper did, editor of the new Rudolf Steiner
translations in the Netherlands, on his own weblog and on the site of Ramon de Jonghe. But
till now they are the only ones from ‘anthroposophical inside’ (if Ramon de Jonghe considers
himself, or is considered as such).18
When I discovered this website two years ago my curiosity had been triggered. I was
intrigued by this phenomenon and started to find out and to read everything about this subject
I could get. A lot of Rudolf Steiner, works of other anthroposophists, different kind of critics,
both from the Netherlands and abroad and all those articles of this strange website,
recommended as an anthroposophical magazine on every mainstream anthroposophical
webportal of both the Netherlands and Belgium, together with decent journals as Flensburger
Hefte, Info3 and Der Europäer.19 De Brug is even sponsored by Demeter, or at least a banner
of Demeter is shown on the homepage. 20 I have no idea if someone at Demeter realises what
they support, just as some other anthroposophical companies and institutions who recommend
or are linked with De Brug (recently one banner of a Dutch anthroposophical organisation
disappeared).
I wanted to find out how it is possible that this medium is generally accepted by the
mainstream, without any critical comment or whatsoever. And above all, how (or even ‘if’)
these radical ideas fit in the tradition of Rudolf Steiner and the anthroposophy. This was the
beginning of a lot of reading resulting in a series of articles on my blog and finally of a lot of
17
Ramon de Jonghe, Focus op de Steinerschool; onderwijs op maat van wie?, Unibook, 2009 (see also http://
antroposofie.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/schotschrift/)
18
The contributions on the issue of racism (and also on this particular issue) of Michel Gastkemper can be found
on his site http://antroposofieindepers.blogspot.com/search/label/racisme
19
For example www.antrovista.com, the largest anthroposophical webportal of the Netherlands. See under
‘tijdschriften’
20
4
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/diabasis/index.html
long lasting debates with all different kind of anthroposophists and critics.21 In this article I
will discuss some insights of mine since that time, first some of the ideas of Steiner himself
and than focus on this strange magazine/website I discovered two years ago.
There is a kind of racial doctrine
As an ex pupil of a primary Waldorfschool in the Netherlands (I didn’t go to high school at a
Waldorfschool) and grown up in a family with a strong sympathy for anthroposophy, I
followed the discussion about racist elements in the anthroposophy and thought of Rudolf
Steiner in the Dutch newspapers during the nineties. In the beginning I wasn’t convinced that
the things were that bad as some critics pointed out 22 (at that time mainly Toos Jeurissen,
author of Uit de Vrije school geklapt; racisme en antrpoposofie, een stellingname and several
articles). Gradually my opinion changed when I finally started to read the original German
text of Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen (GA 121, 1910). After studying this and several
other texts of Rudolf Steiner, as Vom Leben des Menschen und der Erde (GA 349, 1923),
Menschheits-entwickelung und Christus Erkenntnis; Theosophie und Rosenkreuzertum; Das
Johannes Evangelium (GA 100, 1908), Aus der Akasha Chronik ( GA 11, 1907) and some
other works, I gradually became to believe that there is a structural problem of racism in the
anthroposophy, even when you regard this in the context and the time of Rudolf Steiner
himself. Although the Report of the so-called van Baarda-Commission (the commission
installed by the Dutch Anthroposophical Society, which had the assignment to examine the
possibility of racism in the entire work of Rudolf Steiner) concluded that there is no racist
doctrine in the work of Steiner (just sixteen passages which would be severe discriminative
under the current Dutch law) in my view they missed the real point.
21
My articles on anthroposophy (in Dutch) on my blog, http://florisschreve.blog-s.nl/. The following debates
were on the site of Ramon de Jonghe (Belgium), racisme-debat http://antroposofie.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/
racismedebat/ and (about the magazine De Brug) http://antroposofie.wordpress.com/2009/03/21/brugklasje-vanangry-man/
22
Before the van Baarda-commission was installed in 1996, there were several critical publications in the
Netherlands about the issue of racism in the work of Rudolf Steiner. The most significant were (chronologically)
August de Roode, Evert van der Tuin and Gjalt Zondergeld, Antroposofisch racisme, of: als de Blonden
uitsterven zullen de mensen steeds dommer worden, Nijmeegs Comite van Waakzaamheid, 1984; Bram
Moerland, Rassenleer met charisma; over het racisme van Helena Blavatsky en Rudolf Steiner, Haagse
Academie voor Filosofie, 1989; Toos Jeurissen, Uit de Vrije School geklapt; antroposofie en racisme; een
stellingname, Baalproducties, Sittard, 1996 (published in English as Waldorf Salad with Aryan mayonaise, http://
www.waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/waldorf_salad.html ) and the article by Jan Willem de Groot, Kosmisch
racisme; over racistische elementen in de antroposofie, Skript, Amsterdam, 1996, see http://www.stelling.nl/
simpos/antro1.htm After the publication of Jeurissen, Mr. Christof Wiechert, vice-president of the Dutch
Anthroposophical Society, was invited for an interview on the Dutch radio. He claimed that Steiner’s insights
about the nature of black Africans and native Americans could be right, pointing at the successes of the team of
Ajax, the Amsterdam soccer club (with a lot of black players, he pointed at their ‘energy surpluses’) and he
mentioned the massacre of Wounded Knee in 1890 as possible evidence that the native Americans are a dying
race. After these remarkable statements for the Dutch radio, in the Netherlands arose a lot of publicity. Finally
the Dutch Anthroposophical Society installed a commission to investigate the work of Rudolf Steiner for
possible racism. In 2000 they presented their report (720 pages). The commission found sixteen passages which
could be severe discriminative under the current Dutch law, but their main conclusion was ‘There is no structural
racist thought in the collected work of Rudolf Steiner’. This report was also used as a basis for the more recently
published Frankfurter Memorandum, of the editing board of Info 3 in Germany. See here (http://www.info3.de/
ycms/download/memorandum_english.pdf ) the text of the Frankfurther Memorandum and here (http://
www.egoisten.de/autoren/staudenmaier/frankfurt_memo/frankfurt_memo.html ) a sharp analysis of the
Memorandum by Peter Staudemaier.
5
I will mention three ‘cases’. First Steiner’s notorious remark in Die Mission einzelner
Volksseelen (GA 121:4): ‘Nicht etwa deshalb, weil es den Europäern gefallen hat, ist die
indianische Bevölkerung ausgestorben, sondern weil die indianische Bevölkerung die Kräfte
erwerben mußte, die sie zum Aussterben führten’. The commission qualified this statement in
the so called third category ‘passages without discrimination of any kind’. They ‘defended’
this quote with the argument that genocide was not the only reason for the decimation of the
population of the native Americans. There were also imported diseases from Europe the
commission report states, referring to a recent study of Jarred Diamond, Guns, Germs and
Steel; The fates of Human Societies, New York/London, 1999.23 In my view a quiet
opportunistic argument to justify Steiner’s concept of the native Americans as a decadent and
dying race, representing ‘der Abenddämerung der Menschheit’ 24. Above all this argument is
completely ignorant to the fact that this representation of the native Americans is a part of a
larger concept in which each race has it ‘s own place, see also fig. 2. Steiner (in GA 121:4):
‘Diese Linie besteht auch für unsere Zeit (see figure 2). Der afrikanische Punkt entspricht
denjenigen Kräften der Erde, welche dem Menschen die ersten Kindheitsmerkmale
aufdrücken, der asiatische Punkt denjenigen, welche dem Menschen die Jugendmerkmale
geben, und die reifsten Merkmale drückt dem Menschen der entsprechende Punkt im
europäischen Gebiete auf. Das ist einfach eine Gesetzmäßigkeit. Da alle Menschen in
verschiedenen Reinkarnationen durch die verschiedenen Rassen durchgehen, so besteht,
obgleich man uns entgegenhalten kann, daß der Europäer gegen die schwarze und die gelbe
Rasse einen Vorsprung hat, doch keine eigentliche Benachteiligung. Hier ist die Wahrheit
zwar manchmal verschleiert, aber Sie sehen, man kommt mit Hilfe der Geheimwissenschaft
doch auf merkwürdige Erkenntnisse (...) Wenn wir dann diese Linie weiterziehen, so kommen
wir weiter nach Westen nach den amerikanischen Gebieten hinüber, in jene Gebiete, wo
diejenigen Kräfte wirksam sind, die jenseits des mittleren Lebensdrittels liegen. Und da
kommen wir — ich bitte das nicht mißzuverstehen, was eben gesagt wird; es bezieht sich nur
auf den Menschen, insofern er von den physisch-organisatorischen Kräften abhängig ist, von
den Kräften, die nicht sein Wesen als Menschen ausmachen, sondern in denen er lebt -, da
kommen wir zu den Kräften, die sehr viel zu tun haben mit dem Absterben des Menschen, mit
demjenigen im Menschen, was dem letzten Lebensdrittel angehört. Diese gesetzmäßig
verlaufende Linie gibt es durchaus; sie ist eine Wahrheit, eine reale Kurve, und drückt die
Gesetzmäßigkeit im Wirken unserer Erde auf den Menschen aus. Diesen Gang nehmen die
Kräfte, die auf den Menschen rassebestimmend wirken. Nicht etwa deshalb, weil es den
Europäern gefallen hat, ist die indianische Bevölkerung ausgestorben, sondern weil die
indianische Bevölkerung die Kräfte erwerben mußte, die sie zum Aussterben führten. Von der
Eigentümlichkeit dieser Linie hängt das ab, was auf der Oberfläche unserer Erde mit den
Rassen sich abspielt, was von den Kräften, die nicht unter dem Einfluß der normalen Geister
der Form stehen, bewirkt wird. Wo Rassencharaktere in Betracht kommen, da wirken sie in
dieser Weise. In unserer Zeit wird der Rassencharakter aber allmählich überwunden’.25
23
Antroposofie en het vraagstuk van de rassen; eindrapport van de onderzoekscommissie, Antroposofische
Vereniging in Nederland, Zeist, 2000, p. 423
24
Rudolf Steiner, Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen im zusammenhange mit der Germanisch Nordische
Mythologie; Vortragzyklus gehalten in Christiana (Oslo) GA 121, 1910 (Nachlassverwaltung, im Selbstverlag,
Dornach 1950), p. 80-81 (online version: http://www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/bib_steiner_ga_121.htm
25
6
Steiner, Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen, idem
As we see, Steiner’s remarks are not an isolated description of historical events considering
the native Americans, but they are part of a esoteric doctrine with an holistic worldview, in
Fig. 1: Hermann Poppelbaum, Zur Metamorphose der Menschengestalt, in ‘GäaSophia, Jahrbuch der Naturwissenchaftlichen Section der Freien Hochschule für
Geisteswissenschaft am Goetheanum Dornach’, Band 3, Volkerenkunde, Stuttgart,
Den Haag, Londen, 1929.
which every race needs a fitting place. The African race represents the stage of childhood, the
Asiatic the teenager, the European adult stage of humanity and the native Americans the latest
fase of coming at age.
Another example of defending Steiner with all means is how the commission discussed a
passage from Steiner from 1923 (Vom Leben des Menschen und der Erde; über das Wesen des
Christentums, GA 349, Dritter Vortrag Farbe und Menschenrassen). This was a lecture given
for the workers who built the Goetheanum. For this public Steiner used some more drastic
metaphors, more plastic than he normally did, like in this descriptions of the ‘black race’. A
few examples of his three pages exposure considering ‘der Neger’: ‘Nun nehmen Sie einen
Baum an. Der steht zunächst auf der Oberflache der Erde, nimmt etwas Licht auf, aber viel
Licht verschluckt er, viel Wärme verschluckt er. Nun, das geht solange, bis er unter der Erde
geblieben ist, was wird er? Schwarze Kohle! Schwarz wird er wie ein Baum war, Licht und
Wärme in sich aufgenommen hat (…) Wenden wir das auf den Menschen selber im
Weltenraum an. Sehen wir uns zunächst die Schwarzen in Afrika an. Diese Schwarzen in
Afrika haben die Eigentümlichkeit, daß sie alles Licht und diese Wärme vom Weltenraum
aufsaugen. Sie nehmen das auf (...) Dadurch, daß er das tut, wirken über den ganzen
Menschen hin die Kräfte des Weltenalls. Überall nimmt er Licht und Wärme auf, überall. Das
verarbeitet er in sich selber. Da muß etwas da sein, was ihm hilft bei diesem Verarbeiten. Nun,
sehen Sie, das, was ihm da hilft beim verarbeiten, das ist namentlich sein Hinterhirn. Beim
7
Neger ist daher das Hinterhirn besonderes ausgebildet. Das geht durch das Rückenmark. Und
das kann alles das, was da im Menschen drinnen ist an Licht und Wärme, verarbeiten. Daher
ist beim Neger namentlich alles das, was mit dem Körper und mit dem Stoffwechsel
zusammenhängt, lebhaft ausgebildet. Es hat, wie man sagt, ein starkes Triebleben,
Instinktleben. Der Neger hat also ein starkes Triebleben. Und weil er eigentlich das Sonnige,
Licht und Wärme, da an der Körperoberfläche in seiner Haut hat, geht sein ganze
Stoffwechsel so vor sich, wie wenn in seinem Innern von der Sonne selber gekocht würde.
Daher kommt sein Triebleben. Im Neger wird da drinnen fortwährend richtig gekocht, und
dasjenige, was dieses Feuer schürt, das ist das Hinterhirn. Manchmal wirft die Einrichtung des
Menschen noch solche Nebenprodukte ab. Das kann man gerade beim Neger sehen. Der
Neger hat nicht nur, durch dieses Kochen in seinem Organismus, sondern er hat auch noch ein
furchtbar schlaues und aufmerksames Auge. Er guckt schlau und sehr aufmerksam (…) Der
Schwarze ist ein Egoist, der nimmt alle Licht und Wärme auf’.26
These remarkable passages about ‘der Neger’ in relation to the racial determined symptom of
‘kochen’27 (cit. 124 of the report) were explained and defended by the commission as
following: ‘The formulations of Steiner arouse some alienation for the public in these days.
But by physiological research we could examine if there is any empirical evidence for these
statements, but that is not within the goals of this report’. 28 That is almost everything the
commission has to say about these remarkable statements of Steiner. Although the
Commission qualified five passages of this lecture as severe discriminative (five of the
sixteen passages of the total oeuvre of Steiner the commission found discriminative), all the
above cited assertions on ‘the black race’ were classified as ‘non discriminative but could be
discriminative interpreted without the context of the anthroposophy as a whole’ (this category
was used for a lot of these kind of statements by Rudolf Steiner).
Finally the commission tries to argue with several different passages of Steiner, that in his
view the ‘differences between races’ were significant in the past, but have no meaning
anymore for today.29 Interesting is in this part of the report they also choose this quote of
Steiner (from Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen) to argue that the differences between races
lost their meaning in the past and that the racial differences are not important anymore: ‘Die
Rassen sind entstanden und werden einmal vergehen, werden einmal nicht mehr da sein. Sie
wiederholen sich nicht etwa immer in der gleichen Art, wie es bei Sinnett falsch im
«Esoterischen Buddhismus» dargestellt wird. In der alten lemurischen Zeit müssen wir das
Aufgehen der Rassenmerkmale, der Rasseneigentümlichkeiten suchen; wir müssen dann
deren Sich-Fortpflanzen bis in unsere Zeit verfolgen, müssen uns dabei aber klar sein, daß,
26
Rudolf Steiner, Vom Leben des Menschen und der Erde; über da Wesen des Christentums, (GA 349)1923
(Rudolf Steiner Taschenbücher aus dem Gesamtwerk, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1993), p. 54, 55-56,
online version: http://www.anthroposophieonline.net/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=3709:dritter-vortrag-dornach-3-maerz-1923&catid=247:ga-349-vomlebens-des-menschen-und-erde-&Itemid=19
27
In Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen, sixth lecture (GA 121: 6) Steiner says almost the same: ‘Alles, was der
äthiopische ihre besonderen Merkmahle verleiht, das kommt davon her, daß die Merkurkräfte in dem
Drüssensystem des betreffende Menschen kochen und brodeln. Das kommt davon her, daß sie auskochen, was
die allgemeine, gleiche Menschengestalt zu besonderen der äthiopischen Rasse macht-mit der schwarzen
Hautfarbe, dem wolligen Haar usw.’ (Nachlassveraltung, 1950, p 116)
28
Report van Baarda commission (Antroposofie en het vraagstuk van de rassen), p. 384
29
Ibid., p 271-293
8
wenn unsere gegenwärtige fünfte Entwickelungsepoche von der sechsten und siebenten
abgelöst wird, keine Rede mehr sein kann von einem Zustande, den wir als Rasse werden
bezeichnen können. Wenn wir uns diese Entwickelung aber so vorstellen, als ob sie immer
nur gleichmäßig so fortrollte, dann haben wir nur eine Art Mühlrad im Kopfe, sind aber weit
entfernt von dem Verständnisse dessen, was in der Welt wirklich vor sich geht’.
Ironically, Helmut Zander mentions also this quote, but to argue the opposite (in my view
more convincing). Zander: ‘Rassen seien ein Intermezzo der Menschheitsgeschichte. »Die
Rassen sind entstanden und werden einmal vergehen, werden einmal nicht mehr da
sein.« (GA 121,76 [1910]) Erneut artikulierte Steiner sein antimaterialistisches Leitmotiv,
aber bei näherem Hinsehen bleibt dies ein gänzlich unpolitisches Argument. Die
Rassenentstehung, die erst in der lemurischen Zeit begonnen habe, werde in der sechsten und
siebten »Entwickelungsepoche« verschwinden (ebd.), das heißt: frühestens ungefähr im 9.
Jahrtausend. Für eine politische Erledigung der Rassenfrage und für die Geltung von Steiners
Rassentheorien ist dies eine lange, eine zu lange Zeit. Daß die Vielfalt von Völkern und
Rassen ein Reichtum der Pluralität sein könnte, tritt im übrigen nicht in Steiners Blickfeld’.30
In my view is the most interesting aspect of this particular issue, when Steiner discusses the
native Americans in the sixth lecture of Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen (GA 121: 6), he
says: ‘Sehen Sie sich doch die Bilder der alten Indianer an, und Sie werden gleichsam mit
Händen greifen können den geschilderten Vorgang, in dem Niedergang dieser Rasse. In einer
solchen Rasse ist alles dasjenige gegenwärtig geworden, auf eine besondere Art gegenwärtig
geworden, was in der Saturnentwickelung vorhanden war; dann aber hat es sich in sich selber
zurückgezogen und hat den Menschen mit seinem harten Knochensystem allein gelassen, hat
ihn zum Absterben gebracht. Man fühlt etwas von dieser wirklich okkulten Wirksamkeit,
wenn man noch im neunzehnten Jahrhundert sieht, wie ein Vertreter dieser alten Indianer
davon spricht, daß in ihm lebt, was vorher für die Menschen groß und gewaltig war, das aber
die Weiterentwickelung unmöglich mitmachen konnte. Es existiert die Schilderung einer
schönen Szene, bei welcher ein Führer der untergehenden Indianer einem europäischen
Eindringling gegenübersteht’. 31
‘Wenn man noch im neunzehnten Jahrhundert sieht’… And these pictures of ‘die alten
Indianer’ were taken in the Lemurian era just as when these meetings took place with the
30
Helmut Zander, Anthroposophie in Deutschland; Theosophische Weltanschauung und gesellschaftliche Praxis
1884–1945, Band 1, Göttingen, 2007, p.665
31
9
Steiner, Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen (Nachlassverwaltung, 1950), p. 122
‘europäischen Eindringling’.32 At least all his remarks about the Native Americans are about
the situation in ‘Unsere Zeit’ (he cites even a Native American chief from the 1830’s!), not
Fig. 2: Steiner’s model of the human races as explained in the fourth and the sixth
lecture of Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen, presented on a anthroposophical
website (http://wiki.anthroposophie.net/Rassen, see original figure: http://
florisschreve.hyves.nl/fotos/450289093/0/ZLnH/?pageid=3MEJ8NFYBCIS0GG04 )
Fourth lecture (scheme of four human races, modelled to the different stages of
age): Der afrikanische Punkt entspricht denjenigen Kräften der Erde, welche dem
Menschen die ersten Kindheitsmerkmale aufdrücken, der asiatische Punkt
denjenigen, welche dem Menschen die Jugendmerkmale geben, und die reifsten
Merkmale drückt dem Menschen der entsprechende Punkt im europäischen Gebiete
auf. Das ist einfach eine Gesetzmäßigkeit (..) Wenn wir dann diese Linie
weiterziehen, so kommen wir weiter nach Westen nach den amerikanischen
Gebieten hinüber, in jene Gebiete, wo diejenigen Kräfte wirksam sind, die jenseits
des mittleren Lebensdrittels liegen. Und da kommen wir — ich bitte das nicht
mißzuverstehen, was eben gesagt wird; es bezieht sich nur auf den Menschen,
insofern er von den physisch-organisatorischen Kräften abhängig ist, von den
Kräften, die nicht sein Wesen als Menschen ausmachen, sondern in denen er lebt -,
da kommen wir zu den Kräften, die sehr viel zu tun haben mit dem Absterben des
Menschen, mit demjenigen im Menschen, was dem letzten Lebensdrittel angehört.
Diese gesetzmäßig verlaufende Linie gibt es durchaus; sie ist eine Wahrheit, eine
reale Kurve, und drückt die Gesetzmäßigkeit im Wirken unserer Erde auf den
Menschen aus. Diesen Gang nehmen die Kräfte, die auf den Menschen
rassebestimmend wirken. Nicht etwa deshalb, weil es den Europäern gefallen hat, ist
die indianische Bevölkerung ausgestorben, sondern weil die indianische Bevölkerung
32
In the Netherlands orthodox anthroposophists who even rejected the van Baarda report often state that there
was one article written that rejects all accusations of racism against Rudolf Steiner, except of the article of
Lorenzo Ravagli, Rudolf Steiner und die Überwindung des Rassismus, Institut für Soziale Dreigliedung, 7-2003,
see http://www.dreigliederung.de/essays/2003-07-003.html or even Karl Heyer’s Wie man gegen Rudolf Steiner
kämpft from 1932 (!). This was Dieter Brüll, ‘De Nieuwe reactionairen, met een bijzondere aandacht voor het
verschijnsel Zondergeld’ (The new Reactionaries with a special attention the phenomenon ‘Zondergeld’),
Driegonaal, 1986, no. 1, an article that is considered as the best defence against the accusations of racism by a
number of Dutch conservative anthroposophists (who reject even the van Baarda-report). It was Brüll’s reply on
the first publications about racism in the work of Rudolf Steiner by the Dutch historian Gjalt Zondergeld (Free
University of Amsterdam). Brüll wrote this article as a defence of the Dutch but original German
anthroposophist Sigismund von Gleich (whose Der Mensch, der Eiszeit und Atlantis was strongly criticized as a
racist work, see for some quotes in Dutch this article, published in de Brug, http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/
diabasis/b18chincul.htm ). The only remark about Steiner’s own ideas Dieter Brüll makes is ‘After the Christian
era, in Steiner’s view the meaning of the factor ‘race’ lost their meaning’, which is completely untrue when you
consider Steiner’s remarks about the native Americans or his general exposure about when the differences
between races will disappear (As in Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen, but also in other works).
10
die Kräfte erwerben mußte, die sie zum Aussterben führten. Von der
Eigentümlichkeit dieser Linie hängt das ab, was auf der Oberfläche unserer Erde mit
den Rassen sich abspielt, was von den Kräften, die nicht unter dem Einfluß der
normalen Geister der Form stehen, bewirkt wird. Wo Rassencharaktere in Betracht
kommen, da wirken sie in dieser Weise. In unserer Zeit wird der Rassencharakter
aber allmählich überwunden’ (p. 80-81, online version http://
www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/bib_steiner_ga_121_04.htm)
Sixth lecture (scheme of five races, modelled to the planets, see the astrological
signs): ‘Wenn wir den Punkt, den wir vor einigen Tagen in unseren Darlegungen in
Afrika gefunden haben, uns jetzt näher dadurch charakterisieren, daß, weil die
normalen Geister der Form zusammenwirken mit denjenigen abnormen Geistern der
Form, die im Merkur zentriert sind, die Rasse der Neger ensteht, bezeichnen wir
okkult ganz richtig das, was in der schwarzen Rasse herauskommt, als die MerkurRasse. Jetzt verfolgen wir diese Linie weiter, die wir dazumal durch die Mittelpunkte
der einzelnen Rassenausstrahlungen gezogen haben. Da kommen wir nach Asien
und finden die Venus-Rasse oder die malayische Rasse. Wir kommen dann durch
das breite Gebiet Asiens hindurch und finden der mongolischen Rasse, die Mars
Rasse. Wir gehen dann herüber auf europäischen Gebiet und finden die
europäischen Menschen, in ihrem Ur-Charakter die Jupiter Menschen. Gehen wir
über das Meer hinüber nach Amerika, wo der Punkt, der Ort ist, an dem die Rassen
oder Kulturen sterben, so finden wir die Rasse des Finsteren Saturn, die
ursprüngliche indianische Rasse, die amerikanische Rasse. Die Indianische Rasse ist
also die Saturn Rasse. Auf diese Weise Sie, wenn Sie sich okkult die Sache immer
genauer vorstellen, die Kräfte, die diesen Weltenpunkten, diesen fünf Planeten, ihre
äußere materielle Offenbarung erfahren haben. ( p. 113, online version http://
www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/bib_steiner_ga_121_06.htm)
about the situation in Atlantis, Lemuria or before Christ, as suggested by some
anthroposophists who tried to defend Steiner’s ideas about races, as Thomas Voss or Dieter
Brüll.33
Races and evolution in Steiner’s worldview
In my view the report of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society did not succeed in proving there
is no racial doctrine in the work of Rudolf Steiner. I showed just a few examples but there are
many more of the same kind. I agree with Helmut Zander, who stated in an interview: ‘Rudolf
Steiner ist auch in der Evolutionslehre ein Kind des 19. Jahrhunderts. Er hat geglaubt, dass
sich die Menschen von einem sehr primitiven Zustand zu einem hoch entwickelten
entwickeln. Und dann gibt es natürlich degenerierte Rassen und solche, die einfach diese
Entwicklung nicht mitgemacht haben. Das halte ich für keinen Ausrutscher, sondern für einen
zentralen Teil seiner Weltanschauung (..) Er schwimmt in diesem Typus des rassistischen
Denkens mit, wie gesagt, nicht als einer der Hurra-Patrioten, aber eben auch nicht als jemand
33
Different anthroposophists stated Steiner didn’t speak about the contemporary situation, when he discusses the
‘diffences between races’. Beside Dieter Brüll (see also note 10) it was said by Thomas Voss in the article
Antroposofie en racisme (originally published in Erziehungskunst). This article can be found (in Dutch) on the
site of de Brug, (http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/diabasis/b14rac.htm (see also note 1)
11
- und davon gibt es auch im 19. Jahrhundert viele -, die gesagt haben, das ist
wissenschaftlicher Humbug, Rassen gibt es eigentlich nicht’ 34
There are some accusations against Steiner I do not agree with. That his teachings about races
are closely related or even the same as the racial theories of the Nazis. There may be a
historical connection with Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels and the so-called
‘Ariosophie’ (Liebenfels was, just as Steiner, highly influenced by the thought of Helena
Blavatsky and the Theosophy). But these connections are indirect, at least for so far I know.
There may be a few similarities. In Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen Steiner mentions
sometimes the term ‘arische Kaukasische Rasse’ (sixth lecture), and in his description of the
history of the following ‘Nach-Atlantische Kulturepochen’ (at the end of the fourth lecture) he
follows the same scheme which was often used by several descriptions of the Mythical roots
of the Aryan race (the Aryan Myth). The main concept of this Aryan Myth (acc. Gobineau
and later Lanz and von List) was that the superior and ruling race of this era originated in
India slowly travelled to the west, on its way creating one sublime culture after another. This
is quiet similar to Steiner’s vision on history, the notion of the so-called Kultur-Epochen. He
describes this notion many times in different works and in different stages of his live. In 1923
(GA 349:3) he stated: ‘Und so ist es wirklich ganz interessant: Auf der einen Seite hat man die
Schwarze Rasse, die am meisten irdisch ist. Wenn sie nach Westen geht stirbt sie aus. Man hat
die gelbe Rasse, die mitten zwischen Erde und Weltenall ist. Wenn sie nach Osten geht, wird
sie braun, gliedert sich sich zu viel dem Weltenall an, und stirbt aus. Die Weiße Rasse ist die
zukünftige, ist die am Geiste schaffende Rasse. Wie sie nach Indien gezogen ist, bildete sie
die innerliche, poetische, dichterische, geistige indische Kultur aus. Wenn sie jetzt nach
westen geht, wird sie eine Geistigkeit ausbilden, die nicht so sehr den innerlichen Menschen
ergreift, aber die äußere Welt in ihrer Geistigkeit begreift’.35
Most of the time Steiner didn’t use the word ‘Aryan’ in a ‘conventional’ way or in the way
nationalists or national socialists used it. In most cases he used the word ‘Aryan’ in the way
Helena Blavatsky did, who spoke several times about the ‘Ffth Aryan rootrace’. In her view,
as exposed in The Secret Doctrine the rootraces represented the humanity during a certain era.
There was, for example, the Lemurian Rootrace, the Atlantean Rootrace and after the
downfall of Atlantis the Aryan Rootrace, divided in several subraces, like the ancient Indian,
the ancient Persian, the Greek-Roman, etc. Also the subraces represented different cultural
episodes or stages in the development of mankind. Certainly ‘eurocentric’ or even ‘aryocentric’ but not strictly racial. Nevertheless, she discussed the Rootraces in terms as: ‘(before
the Sixth Root-Race dawns), the white (Aryan, Fifth Root-Race), the yellow, and the
African negro — with their crossings (Atlanto-European divisions). Redskins, Eskimos,
Papuans, Australians, Polynesians, etc., etc. — all are dying out. Those who realize that every
Root-Race runs through a gamut of seven sub-races with seven branchlets, etc., will
understand the “why.” The tide-wave of incarnating Egos has rolled past them to harvest
experience in more developed and less senile stocks; and their extinction is hence a Karmic
34
Deutschland Radio Kultur, see http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/kulturinterview/655387/
35
Rudolf Steiner, Vom Leben des Menschen und der Erde; über das Wesen des Christentums, Dornach, 1923,
GA 349 (Rudolf Steiner Taschenbücher aus dem Gesamtwerk, Dornach, 1993), p. 67
12
necessity’.36
In Aus der Akasha-Chronik ( GA 11, 1907) Steiner used the same terms as Blavatsky
(Wurzelrassen, Unterrassen), but in the years after (as in Geheimwissenschaft, GA 13, 1909)
he abandoned these terms and changed them in ‘Zeitalter’ and ‘Kultur Epochen’. But in
general in Steiners teachings eurocentrism is dominant, with a very special role and mission
for the European (Aryan) white race. Steiner in Aus der Akasha-Chronik: ‘Die größte Masse
der atlantischen Bevölkerung kam in Verfall, und von einem kleinen Teil stammen die
sogenannten Arier ab, zu denen unsere gegenwärtige Kulturmenschheit gehört. Lemurier,
Atlantier und Arier sind, nach der Benennung der Geheimwissenschaft, Wurzelrassen der
Menschheit. Man denke sich zwei solcher Wurzelrassen den Lemuriern vorangehend und
zwei den Ariern in der Zukunft folgend, so gibt das im ganzen sieben. Es geht immer eine aus
der andern in der Art hervor, wie dies eben in bezug auf Lemurier, Atlantier und Arier
angedeutet worden ist. Und jede Wurzelrasse hat physische und geistige Eigenschaften, die
von denen der vorhergehenden durchaus verschieden sind. Während zum Beispiel die
Atlantier das Gedächtnis und alles, was damit zusammenhängt, zur besonderen Entfaltung
brachten, obliegt es in der Gegenwart den Ariern, die Denkkraft und das, was zu ihr gehört, zu
entwickeln’.37
Although these passages of Rudolf Steiner and Helena Blavatsky look like pure Aryan
obsessed racism, it is important to stipulate they don’t use the regular definition of a ‘race’,
when they discuss the phenomenon ‘Rootrace’ . With the concept ‘Rootrace’/ ‘Wurzelrasse’
they mean the dominant part of humanity during a certain era. In our time, in their view these
are the ‘Aryans’. But this is a broader notion of the concept Aryan then used for example by
the Nazis. With Rootrace they mean the dominant and cultured part of humanity during a
certain episode.
On the other hand Blavatsky is very clear that ‘negroes’, Papuans and ‘other primitive peoples
or races’, even the black race and the yellow race are not a part of the Aryan rootrace. Steiner
is more indirect, but in other works he is quiet explicit that for example the Native Americans
are decadent dissents of the Atlantean race and not a part of the ruling Post Atlantean
Rootrace . In the Akasha Chronik he calls the population of Oceania decadent dissents of the
ancient Lemurians. Steiner: ‘Denn in der lemurischen und noch in der atlantischen Zeit waren
Steine und Metalle viel weicher als später. - (Dem widerspricht nicht, daß noch Nachkommen
der letzten Lemurier und Atlantier vorhanden sind, die heute ebenso feste Formen aufweisen
wie die später gebildeten Menschenrassen. Diese Überbleibsel mußten sich den geänderten
Umgebungsverhältnissen der Erde anpassen und wurden so auch starrer. Gerade darin liegt
der Grund, warum sie im Niedergang begriffen sind. Sie bildeten sich nicht von innen heraus
um, sondern es wurde ihr weniger entwickeltes Innere von außen in die Starrheit gezwängt
und dadurch zum Stillstande gezwungen. Und dieser Stillstand ist wirklich Rückgang, denn
36
Helena P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine; the Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy, London, 1888,
Part II ‘Antropogenesis’, additional commentaries on Stanza XII, online version http://www.theosociety.org/
pasadena/sd/sd2-3-09.htm
37
Rudolf Steiner, Aus der Akasha Chronik, Gesammelte Artikel aus Luzifer Gnosis, 1906, GA 11, chapter 2
‘Unsere Atlantischen Vorfahren’, online version: http://www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/
bib_steiner_ga_011_02.htm#_Toc17205762
13
auch das Innenleben ist verkommen, weil es sich in der verfestigten äußeren Leiblichkeit
nicht ausleben konnte.)’ 38
If there are dissents of the Lemurians, we may conclude that they are not a part of the fifth
rootrace. So we can conclude that with the term rootrace stands for not just an era but for a
part of humanity that is dominating a certain era. Second conclusion, also in Steiner’s view
the Aryans are the dominating race, the rootrace. And the Native Americans were not a part of
it. Steiner in Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen (GA 121: 6): ‘Was war für den Indianer das
Größte? Es war, daß er noch ahnen konnte etwas vonder alte Größe und Herrlichkeit eines
Zeitalters, welches in der alten Atlantische Zeit vorhanden war, wo noch wenig um sich
gegriffen hatte die Rassespaltung, wo Menschen hinaufschauen konnten nach der Sonne und
wahrzunehmen vermochten durch das Nebelmeer eindringenden Geister der Form. Durch ein
Nebelmeer blickte der Atlantier hinauf zu dem, was sich für ihn nicht spaltete in eine Sechsoder Siebenheit, sondern zusammenwirkte. Das, was zusammenwirkte von den sieben
Geistern der Form, das nannte der Atlantier den großen Geist, der in der alten Atlantis dem
Menschen sich offenbarte. Dadurch hat er nicht mit aufgenommen das, was die Venus-,
Merkur-, Mars- und Jupiter-Geister bewirkt haben im Osten. Durch dieses haben sie gebildet
all die Kulturen, die in Europa in der Mitte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts zur Blüte gebracht
wurden. Das alles hat er, der Sohn der braune Rasse, nicht mitgemacht. Er hat festgehalten an
dem großen Geist der unfernen Vergangenheit. Das, was die anderen gemacht haben, die
unfernen Vergangenheit auch den großen Geist aufgenommen haben, das trat ihm vor Augen,
als ihm ein Blatt papier mit vielen kleinen Zeichen, den Buchstaben, von welchen er nichts
verstand, vorgelegt werden’.39
We may conclude that in Steiner’s view the Native Americans were decadent dissents (Steiner
uses the qualification ‘decadent’) of the Atlanteans. In Menschheits-entwickelung und
Christus Erkenntnis; Theosophie und Rosenkreuzertum; Das Johannes Evangelium (GA 100;
7) Steiner says the following about the Native Americans: ‘Um uns hineinzuarbeiten in der
Art und Weise, wie die Geisteswissenschaft über die Evolution denkt, müssen wir vom
Nächstliegenden ausgehen. Nicht alle heute auf der Erde lebenden Menschen stehen auf
derselben Stufe der Entwickelung. Neben den Völkern, die auf einer hohen Kulturstufe
stehen, gibt es Naturvölker, welche in der Kultur weit zurückgeblieben sind. Es hat sich in der
heutigen Naturwissenschaft die Anschauung herausgebildet-und sie wird mit großer Zähigkeit
festgehalten, obschon neuere Tatsachen dagegen sprechen-, daß die höherentwickelten
Völkern abstammen. Diese Anschauung is den Ergebnissen der Geistesforschung nicht
entsprechend. Erwähnen wir hier beispielweise die Völker, die durch Entdeckung Amerikas
bekannt wurden, und schildern wir in Kürze eine Episode, die uns einen Einblick in das
Geistesleben dieser Völker gewährt. Bekanntlich hatten die Weißen die Indianerbevölkerung
immer weiter in das Innere des Landes Zurückgedrängt und das Versprechen, ihnen Ländreien
zu geben, nicht gehalten. Ein Häuptling dieser Indianer sagte einmal zu Anführer eines
europäischen Eroberungszuges: Ihr Bleichgesichter habt unsere Länder genommen und habt
uns versprochen, uns andere zu geben. Aber der weiße Mann hat dem braunen Mann das Wort
nicht gehalten, und wir wissen auch warum. Der bleiche Mann hat kleine Zeichen, in denen
Zauberwesen stecken und aus denen erforscht er die Wahrheit, denn es ist nicht gut. Der
38
Ibid., at the of the chapter Die Lemurische Rasse, http://www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/
bib_steiner_ga_011_04.htm#_Toc17205764
39
Steiner, Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen, p. 123
14
braune Mann sucht nicht in solchen kleinen Zauberzeichen die Wahrheit. Er hört den ‘Großen
Geist’ im Rauschen des Waldes, im Rieseln des Baches. Im Blitz und Donner gibt ihm der
‘Großen Geist’ kund, was recht und unrecht ist.
Wir haben in der amerikanischen Rasse eine primitieve Urbevölkerung vor uns, die weit, weit
zurückgeblieben ist, auch in Bezug auf religiöse Weltanschauung. Aber sie hat sich bewahrt
den Glauben an einen monotheistischen Geist, der aus allen Lauten der Natur zu ihr spricht.
Der Indianer steht mit der Natur in so innigem Verhältnis, daß er noch in allen ihren
Äußerungen die Stimme des hohen schöpferischen Geistes hört, während der Europäer so in
der materialistischen Kultur steckt, daß er die Stimme der Natur nicht mehr wahrnehmen
kann. Beide Völker haben denselben Ursprung, beide stammen von der Bevölkerung der
Atlantis ab, die einen monotheistischen Glauben besaß, entsprung aus einem geistigen
Hellsehen. Aber die Europäer sind hinaufgestehen zu eine höhere Kulturstufe, während die
Indianer stehengeblieben und dadurch in Dekadenz gekommen sind. Diesen
Entwickelungsvorgang muß man immer beachten. Er läßt sich darstellen wie folgt. Im laufe
der Jahrtausende verändert sich unser Planet, und diese Veränderung bedingt auch eine
Entwickelung der Menschheit. Die Seitenzweige, die nicht mehr in die Verhältnisse
hineinpassen, werden dekadent. Wir haben also einen geraden Entwickelungsstamm und
abgehende Seitenzweige, die verfallen (siehe Zeichnung, fig. 3, FS).
Von dem Punkte der atlantische Zeit, wo Europäer und Indianer noch miteinander vereint
waren, weiter zurückgehend, kommen wir in eine Zeit wo die Körper des Menschen noch
verhältmäßig weich, von gallertartiger Dichtigkeit war. Da sehen wir wieder Wesen sich
Fig. 3: Evolution model 1, from GA 100; 7
abzweigen und zurückbleiben. Diese Wesen entwickeln sich weiter, aber in absteigende Linie,
und aus ihnen entsteht das Affengeschlecht. Wir dürfen nicht sagen, der Mensch stamme vom
Affen ab, sondern beide. Menschen und Affen, stammen von einer Form ab, die aber eine
ganz andere Gestalt hatte als die Affen und heutigen Menschen. Die Abzweigung erfolgte von
einem Punkte, wo diese Uniform die Möglichkeit hatte, einerseits aufsteigen zum Menschen
15
und anderseits hinunterzufallen, zum Zerrbilde des Menschen zu werden. Wir wollen die
Abstammungslehre nur so weit verfolgen, als nötig ist, um den Zusammenhang zu finden mit
dem, was in früheren Vorträgen gesagt worden ist. Bei den alten Atlantische Menschen war
der Ätherleib noch außerhalb des physischen Körpers. Heute ist nur noch der Astralleib des
Menschen, und zwar im Schlafe, außerhalb des physischen Körpers. Heute ist daher der
Mensch nur im Schlafe imstande, die Müdigkeit des physischen Körpers zu überwinden, weil
da sein Astralleib außerhalb des physischen Körpers ist und so die Möglichkeit hat, sich an
demselben zu betätigen’.40
Fig. 4: Evolution model 2, from GA 100; 7
Again Steiner cites the native American Chieftain (he used the same quote in the sixth lecture
of Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen, to argue the American Indians are a dying race), who
40
Rudolf Steiner, Menschheits-entwickelung und Christus Erkenntnis; Theosophie und Rosenkreuzertum; Das
Johannes Evangelium, GA 100, 1907, 7th lecture, Die Abstammung des Menschen- Das Wesen des Christus als
Gesit der Erde, (Verlag der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, 1967) p. 240-241
16
spoke these words in the nineteenth century41 (not in the pre-Christian age, when the
differences between races would have disappeared, acc Dieter Brüll and several others), so
Steiner’s descriptions of races are also about the contemporary situation. But the main topic
here is that a ‘Wurzelrasse’ is not the humanity as a whole during a certain era, but the
dominating race during an era. Because (acc Steiner) the native Americans were still a part, or
decadent dissents, of the Atlantean rootrace. And in our era the dominating race is the Aryan
race, from which the native Americans are not a part of.
Remarkable is that in Steiner’s view both the Aryans as the Semites (he means most of the
time the Jews) are dissents of the so called ‘Ur-Semiten’, one of the cultured people/subraces
of Atlantis. All the ‘post Atlantean cultures’ (but not all cultures of humanity, only the cultures
he calls ‘Kultur-Epochen’, like ‘the Ancient Indian’, ‘the Ancient Persian’, etc.) are Aryan in
Steiner’s view.
An important aspect of Steiner’s evolutionary view is that human beings as we know exists
since the end of the Atlantean era. During the Atlantean ers, the Lemurian era, etc. man was
present but not in his contemporary form. Like there is an evolutionary line of the material
form of natural life, Steiner believed there is also an involutionary development (a declining
line) from the spiritual world. Human kind in Atlantis and Lemuria were made of a more
etherical stuff than the complete material human beings of today. Steiner describes this
process in several works. His most extended description of his view on evolution is his
chapter ‘Die Weltentwickelung und der Mensch’ from his magnum opus Geheimwissenschaft
(GA 13). This chapter is more than hundred pages and probably to complex to give even a
short summary.
Steiner’s view on evolution has summarised and well formulated explained by Henk van
Oort, in his Dutch short introduction on anthroposophy Antroposofie; een kennismaking
(‘Anthroposophy; an introduction’), published by Vrij Geestesleven, Zeist ( the real one, not
the strange website from Belgium). He describes Steiner’s concept of evolution on the hand
of the evolution model drawn by Hermann Poppelbaum (see fig. 5), biologist and
anthroposophist of the first generation. I have translated his explanation of two paragraphs:
‘The following visualisation will probably clarify the complex concept: Let us imagine that
the ‘essence of human’ is present in a large floating balloon. This ‘human essence’ needs to
develop apparently in a certain direction before the balloon lands on earth. The balloon floats
to the earth. The moment of landing is constantly postponed because elements of this human
essence separates and leave the balloon. First the balloon decreases less rapidly and, secondly,
the space is increasing for developing the human essence. Many elements are successively
emitted: starting with the minerals, then plants, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds,
mammals, primates and finally humans. There are two parallel levels on this development: the
41
On ‘racisme-debat’ one of the participants (Ton Majoor) showed the probable source of this speech, quoted by
Steiner. The source of the text he quotes in GA 121 and GA 100, is probably Dr. Ludwig Kuhlenbeck, Der
Occultismus der Nordamerikanischen Iindianer, Wilhelm Friedrich Verlag, Leipzig, 1886, p. 8-10. Ironically
Kuhlenbeck’s text is very respectful to the Native Americans, especially witin the context of that time. He
explains that their culture, unless the differences, is not necessarily less than ours, which can be considered as a
very progressive point of view for someone in the end of the nineteenth century. These remarks of Kuhlenbeck
are in sharp contrasting with Steiner’s remark, just after he used this quote in GA 100: Wir haben in der
amerikanischen Rasse eine primitieve Urbevölkerung vor uns, die weit, weit zurückgeblieben ist, auch in Bezug
auf religiöse Weltanschauung’. For the quote Steiner paraphrased a leader of the Choctaw (a small sedentary
Native American nation, originally from the Eastern part of the US, later ‘transported’ to Oklahoma), known as
Chief Mingo. Steiner used some quotes of a much more longer text (also Steiner picked sometimes some
fragments of a longer story and reconstructed this as if this was one passage). Contributions of Ton Majoor on
‘racisme-debat’, from http://antroposofie.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/racismedebat/#comment-1706
17
Fig. 5: The anthroposophical evolution model, drawn by Hermann Poppelbaum, as it
appeared in Mensch und Tier (1928). Texts translated in Dutch. Most of the text will
be clear, except probably the descriptions on the involution and evolution line.
Above left: ‘Spiritual essence’. Along the involution line: ‘spiritual development
declining’. Left under: ‘fysical body’. Along the evolution line: ‘fysical development
ascending’.
spiritual essence (= the balloon falls to the earth) and the physical medium, which leaves the
balloon and materialise itself after landing on the earth. The hardened forms evolve each in
their own earthly way. When the plants and animals are on the earth, is the process begin
Darwin calls 'evolution'. Steiner completes what Darwin says, he doesn’t exclude Darwin’s
theory. The existing animal forms are the result of centuries of specialization. Every animal is
a specialist (...) then when the primates, the apes, are leaving the imaginary balloon to
incarnate on earth. Then the predecessors of humans are following. Under these early human
forms we reckon the Peking Man (360.000 BC), the Pithecanthropus (100.000 BC) and
Neanderthals (75.000 BC). The current man comes not from these precursors and certainly
not from the ape men, as it becomes clear. When all these precursors arrived in the visible
world, in the imaginary balloon, there was one form left. The latter form occurs gradually in
the visible around 50,000 BC. This is what we call homo sapiens. According to Rudolf
18
Steiner, these first people figures were as thin as the scent of a flower. The materialising
process is continuing. Slowly the physical body materialises to cartilage. Then there is a
hardening till the current hardness is achieved.
If you think back in time, keeping in mind that the bones were still soft, you may never be
found fossil remains of the ancestors of the current humans. Cartilage, or soft material, now
has been lost and didn’t fossilise like hard bones’. 42
I think this is a quiet effective explanation, except for one thing. For so far I know Steiner
doesn’t discuss, or hardly discuss (on ‘racisme debat’, one of the contributors claimed that he
does somewhere, but these passages are unknown to me) earlier forms of man, like the
Neanderthals, etc.. Steiner talks about ‘human races’. If we change the words ‘Peking Man’,
‘Pithecanthropus’ and ‘Neanderthals’ in ‘Indianer’ we can explain his two evolution models
from GA 100. ‘Beide Völker haben denselben Ursprung, beide stammen von der Bevölkerung
der Atlantis ab, die einen monotheistischen Glauben besaß, entsprung aus einem geistigen
Hellsehen. Aber die Europäer sind hinaufgestehen zu eine höhere Kulturstufe, während die
Indianer stehengeblieben und dadurch in Dekadenz gekommen sind’ and ‘Von dem Punkte
der atlantische Zeit, wo Europäer und Indianer noch miteinander vereint waren, weiter
zurückgehend, kommen wir in eine Zeit wo die Körper des Menschen noch verhältmäßig
weich, von gallertartiger Dichtigkeit war. Da sehen wir wieder Wesen sich abzweigen und
zurückbleiben. Diese Wesen entwickeln sich weiter, aber in absteigende Linie, und aus ihnen
entsteht das Affengeschlecht. Wir dürfen nicht sagen, der Mensch stamme vom Affen ab,
sondern beide. Menschen und Affen, stammen von einer Form ab, die aber eine ganz andere
Gestalt hatte als die Affen und heutigen Menschen’. So the Native Americans left ‘the
balloon’ too early and became ‘decadent’. According to the second drawing of GA 100 is the
‘real homo sapiens’ (in the terms of Henk van Oort) ‘der Arier’ (I will nuance this by
stipulating that Rudolf Steiner considered all human races as human).
It is interesting to have a look on two fundamental quotes of Rudolf Steiner, both from two
essential works. First a passage from Aus der Akasha-Chronik (from chapter 6 ‘Die letzten
Zeiten vor der Geschlechtertrennung’), also discussed in the van Baarda Report, as passage
54: ‘In diesen Tieren hat man also Wesen zu sehen, welche auf einer früheren Stufe der
Menschenentwickelung stehenbleiben mußten. Nur haben sie nicht dieselbe Form behalten,
die sie bei ihrer Abgliederung hatten, sondern sind zurückgegangen von höherer zu tieferer
Stufe. So sind die Affen rückgebildete Menschen einer vergangenen Epoche. So wie der
Mensch einstmals unvollkommener war als heute, so waren sie einmal vollkommener, als sie
heute sind. - Was aber im Gebiet des Menschlichen geblieben ist, hat einen ähnlichen Prozeß,
nur innerhalb dieses Menschlichen, durchgemacht. Auch in mancher wilden Völkerschaft
haben wir die heruntergekommenen Nachfahren einstmals höher stehender Menschenformen
zu sehen. Sie sanken nicht bis zur Stufe der Tierheit, sondern nur bis zur Wildheit’.43
The van Baarda Report comments this passage (quote 54) as following: ‘In the article
(originally published Aus der Akasha-Chronik as a series of articles in the journal LuziferGnosis, FS) where this passage comes from, a fundamental part of anthroposophical thought
on development is being explained: the evolution was not only as a development from lower
to higher organisms. The origin of the evolutionary development lays in the spiritual world.
42
Henk van Oort, Antroposofie; een kennismaking, Vrij Geestesleven, Zeist, 2006, p. 59, 61
43
Rudolf Steiner, Aus der Akasha-Chronik (GA 11), chapter 6 ‘Die letzten Zeiten vor der Geschlechtertrennung’,
http://www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/bib_steiner_ga_011_06.htm#_Toc17205766.
19
The human kind was originally a spiritual being. In the long history as terrestrial arose
essentially as a secondary development in addition to humans and the animal world, the plants
and mineral world (see again the model of Poppelbaum to understand this assumption, FS).
Both the terrestrial and the spiritual man made in this long history evolved. The animal is in
that sense the precursor of man, but the (spiritual) man is the precursor of the terrestrial
animals and terrestrial humans. The last remains ‘im Gebiet des Menschlichen’, from which
the animals were separated.
The origin of the forerunners of current animals took place in what in anthroposophy is
known as the ‘Lemurian era’. The original animals were then derived and according to Steiner
human body shapes were developed higher than the current species. The ethereal formed
human bodies didn’t leave any fossil remains, because they were not yet sufficiently
hardened. The current monkeys are dissents of relatively higher developed animals, which are
dissents of the ethereal formed people of that time. In this sense, Steiner called ‘die Affen
rückgebildete Menschen einer vergangenen Epoche. So war der Mensch einstmals
unvollkommener war als heute, so waren sie einmal volkommener als wie heute sind’. People
have been further developed, the monkeys were in their human-stage ‘more perfected’ than
they are today.
With regard to what he called ‘wilden Völkerschaft’ Steiner opposed the idea that they are at
the beginning of a development of civilization. In his view they were descendants of the
groups, at that time precursors of the present people who were highly developed, but returned
in their development and had become primitive’.44
I think this time the report explained this perfectly well. But in my view the best parts of the
report are when it explains anthroposophy. These parts are outstanding. But in qualifying
passages like this in my view the report misses the point. Because I think this is the essence of
Steiner’s racial teachings. The commission explains perfectly well why the Native Americans
are a degenerated and decadent race (‘they had become primitive’, as the commission says).
But that is racism, or at least ‘racist taught’.
Another crucial passage of Steiner can be found in probably his most important work Die
Geheimwissenschaft in Umriß (GA 13) in the long chapter ‘Die Weltentwickelung und der
Mensch’ (more than 100 pages, almost a separate book): ‘Diejenigen Menschen-RassenFormen, welche sich vor diesem Zeitraum verfestigt hatten, konnten sich zwar lange
fortpflanzen, doch wurden nach und nach die in ihnen sich verkörpernden Seelen so beengt,
daß die Rassen aussterben mußten. Allerdings erhielten sich gerade manche von diesen
Rassenformen bis in die nach-atlantischen Zeiten hinein; die genügend beweglich gebliebenen
in veränderter Form sogar sehr lange. Diejenigen Menschenformen, welche über den
charakterisierten Zeitraum hinaus bildsam geblieben waren, wurden namentlich zu Körpern
für solche Seelen, welche in hohem Maße den schädlichen Einfluß des gekennzeichneten
Verrats erfahren haben. Sie waren zu baldigem Aussterben bestimmt.
Es hatten sich demnach seit der Mitte der atlantischen Entwickelungszeit Wesen im Bereich
der Menschheitsentwickelung geltend gemacht, welche dahin wirkten, daß der Mensch sich in
die sinnlich-physische Welt in einer ungeistigen Art hineinlebte. Das konnte so weit gehen,
daß ihm statt der wahren Gestalt dieser Welt Trugbilder und Wahnphantome, Illusionen aller
Art erschienen. Nicht nur dem luziferischen Einfluß war der Mensch ausgesetzt, sondern auch
demjenigen dieser anderen Wesen, auf die oben hingedeutet worden ist und deren Führer nach
44
van Baarda Report, p.309
20
der Benennung, die er später in der persischen Kultur erhalten hat, Ahriman genannt werden
möge. (Der Mephistopheles ist dasselbe Wesen.) Durch diesen Einfluß kam der Mensch nach
dem Tode unter Gewalten, welche ihn auch da nur als ein Wesen erscheinen ließen, welches
den irdisch-sinnlichen Verhältnissen zugewandt ist. Der freie Ausblick in die Vorgänge der
geistigen Welt wurde ihm immer mehr genommen. Er mußte sich in der Gewalt des Ahriman
fühlen und bis zu einem gewissen Maße ausgeschlossen sein von der Gemeinschaft mit der
geistigen Welt’.45
This long passage, in the report quote 48, is the only passage Steiner discusses theme ‘race’ in
this chapter of Geheimwissenschaft. You could think this theme became less important in
Steiner’s view on evolution (the report says the same), but I think that is very questionable,
because one year later, he gave his lectures in Norway, known as Die Mission einzelner
Volksseelen. On this passage the commission has a short comment: ‘In the following quote
the words ‘Menschen-Rassen-Formen’ and ‘Rassenformen’ mean ‘the form of human races’.
The word ‘form’ stands both for the forms of human races as for the appearance of the human
body. With the use of the word ‘form’ Steiner emphasises that the race is the appearance of
the human physical form, not his essence. Because these forms were not fitting anymore for
the post-Atlantean situation, most of the Atlantean varieties died out’.46
‘Reincarnation as an alibi’. Although I heard this argument very often from different
anthroposophists, in several debates, I read it in several articles, written to defence Steiner’s
view on races and even long before from different sympathizers with the anthroposophy,
when I confronted theme with racist remarks of Steiner. But the most interesting is, Steiner
confirms his view on races again. Apparently there are decadent ‘leftovers’ from Atlantis, for
whom there was no place anymore in the new situation. Therefore these degenerated forms
had to die out, because they didn’t fit in the new situation. Steiner said this many times. Here
with just one general remark, but much more detailed in Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen
and in 1923, one and a half year before his death in 1925, in Vom Leben der Menschen un der
Erde (GA 349): ‘Die Gelben wandern nach Osten hinüber. Wenn die Gelben nach Osten
hinüberwandern, dann werden sie braun. Da entstehen dann die Malaien; die werden braun.
Warum? Ja, warum werden sie braun? Was heißt denn das: sie werden braun? Nicht wahr,
wenn sie gelb sind, werfen sie einen bestimmten Grad von Licht zurück; das andere nehmen
sie auf. Wenn sie braun werden durch die andere Art, wie sie jetzt in der Sonne leben, weil sie
ja von einem anderen Erdstück kommen, dann werfen sie weniger Licht zurück. Sie nehmen
mehr Licht in sich auf. Also diese braunen Malaien sind ausgewanderte Mongolen, die sich
aber jetzt, weil die Sonne anders auf sie wirkt, angewöhnen, mehr Licht und mehr Wärme
aufzunehmen. Bedenken Sie aber: nun haben sie nicht die Natur dazu. Sie haben sich schon
45
Rudolf Steiner, Die Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß, GA 013, 1909, chapter 4 ‘Die Weltentwickelung und der
Mensch’ online version http://www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/bib_steiner_ga_013_04.htm#_Toc14861974
46
Van Baarda Report, p. 303
21
Fig. 6: Ilustration from GA 349; 3
angewöhnt, sogar ein solches Knochengerüste zu haben, daß sie nur einen bestimmten Grad
von Wärme aufnehmen können. Sie haben nicht die Natur, so viel Wärme aufzunehmen, als
sie jetzt als Malaien aufnehmen. Die Folge davon ist, daß sie anfangen, unbrauchbare
Menschen zu werden, daß sie anfangen, Menschen zu werden, die am Menschenkörper
zerbröckeln, deren Körper abstirbt. Das ist in der Tat bei der malaiischen Bevölkerung der
Fall. Die stirbt an der Sonne. Die stirbt an der Östlichkeit. So daß man sagen kann: Während
die Gelben, die Mongolen, noch Menschen in der Vollkraft sind, sind die Malaien schon eine
absterbende Rasse. Sie sterben ab.
Wenn die Neger - was sie allerdings heute weniger tun können, heute sind die Verhältnisse
schon anders, aber in Urzeiten war das schon so, wie ich es erzähle -, nach dem Westen
hinüber-wandern - eine Schiffahrt hat es ja immer gegeben, und es waren ja außerdem durch
den ganzen Atlantischen Ozean noch Inseln, der Atlantische Ozean war ja früher auch ein
Kontinent -, also wenn die Schwarzen nach dem Westen auswandern, da können sie nicht
mehr so viel Licht und Wärme aufnehmen wie in ihrem Afrika. Da kommt ihnen weniger
Licht und Wärme zu. Was ist die Folge? Ja, ihre Natur ist eingerichtet darauf, so viel als
möglich Licht und Wärme aufzunehmen. Ihre Natur ist eigentlich eingerichtet, dadurch
schwarz zu werden. Jetzt kriegen sie nicht so viel Licht und Wärme, als sie brauchen, um
schwarz zu werden. Da werden sie kupferrot, werden Indianer. Das kommt davon her, weil sie
gezwungen sind, etwas von Licht und Wärme zurückzuwerfen. Das glänzt dann so kupferrot.
Das Kupfer ist selber ein Körper, der Licht und Wärme so ein bißchen zurückwerfen muß.
Das können sie nicht aushalten. Daher sterben sie als Indianer im Westen aus, sind wiederum
eine untergehende Rasse, sterben an ihrer eigenen Natur, die zu wenig Licht und Wärme
bekommt, sterben an dem Irdischen. Das Irdische ihrer Natur ist ja ihr Triebleben. Das
können sie nicht mehr ordentlich ausbilden, während sie noch starke Knochen kriegen. Weil
22
viel Asche hineingeht in ihre Knochen, können diese Indianer diese Asche nicht mehr
aushalten. Die Knochen werden furchtbar stark, aber so stark, daß der ganze Mensch an
seinen Knochen zugrunde geht.
Sehen Sie, so hat sich die Sache entwickelt, daß diese fünf Rassen entstanden sind. Man
möchte sagen, in der Mitte schwarz, gelb, weiß, und als ein Seitentrieb des Schwarzen das
Kupferrote, und als ein Seitenzweig des Gelben das Braune - das sind immer die
aussterbenden Teile.
Die Weißen sind eigentlich diejenigen, die das Menschliche in sich entwickeln. Daher sind sie
auf sich selber angewiesen. Wenn sie auswandern, so nehmen sie die Eigentümlichkeiten der
anderen Gegenden etwas an, doch sie gehen, nicht als Rasse, sondern mehr als einzelne
Menschen, zugrunde. Aber sie tun dafür noch etwas anderes. Sehen Sie, alles dasjenige, was
ich Ihnen jetzt geschildert habe, das sind ja die Dinge, die im Leibe des Menschen vor sich
gehen. Die Seele und der Geist sind mehr unabhängig davon. Daher kann der Europäer, weil
ihn Seele und Geist am meisten in Anspruch nimmt, Seele und Geist am meisten verarbeiten.
Der kann es am ehesten vertragen, in verschiedene Erdteile zu gehen’.47
In this long passages there are three passages which the van Baarda commission considered as
severe discriminative (three of the sixteen in the total work of Steiner). So they were harsh on
this lecture for the workers on building the Goetheanum in Dornach. Although Steiner’s
formulations are quiet rough, what he says is not essentially different than what we saw
before. There are some differences; for example he states that the predecessors of the Native
Americans are Black Africans. Earlier, and more often, he said that the Native Americans
were a kind of Atlanteans who survived, but became decadent. But this is the only thing in
which he is not consequent. His description of the ‘Knochen’ (ashes on the skeleton, because
in an earlier stage these Indians were ‘boiling negroes’) of the Native Americans, and his
remark that they are ‘eine untergehende Rasse’, who ‘sterben an ihrer eigenen Natur’ is
something we have seen before, in different varieties (‘Nicht etwa deshalb, weil es den
Europäern gefallen hat, ist die indianische Bevölkerung ausgestorben, sondern weil die
indianische Bevölkerung die Kräfte erwerben mußte, die sie zum Aussterben führten’, in Die
Mission einzelner Volksseelen, or the description and the drawings from GA 100, where the
native Americans are represented as a ‘decadent race’).
There are many, many more examples, too much to discuss them all. But that is not the aim of
this article. The main conclusion is that there is a kind of structural racial teaching in the work
of Rudolf Steiner, in contrary to the van Baarda Commission’s main conclusion: ‘Géén sprake
van Rassenleer’ (‘No racial teachings’). There really is, whatever Steiner’s intentions were
(see the declaration of the ‘Nachlassverwaltung’, which I have no reason to doubt).
According to Helmut Zander there are three central issues in Steiner’s racial teachings which
are often defended by anthroposophists to argue Steiner was not a racist, but studying them in
detail, these arguments are even quiet unvalid and even reveal the essence of the problematic
side of Steiners racial teachings. Helmut Zander (in his major work Anthroposophie in
Deutschland):
1. ‘Rassen sind für Steiner ein Epiphänomen der Materie und sollen den Menschen als
Geistiges Wesen letztlich nicht betreffen: ‘Da alle Menschen in verschiedenen
47
Rudolf Steiner, Vom Leben des Menschen und der Erde, 1923 p.60-62, online version: http://
www.anthroposophieonline.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3709:dritter-vortragdornach-3-maerz-1923&catid=247:ga-349-vom-lebens-des-menschen-und-erde-&Itemid=19
23
Reinkarnationen durch die verschieden Rassen durchgehen, so besteht, obgleich man
uns entgegenhalten kann, daß der Europäer gegen die schwarze und die gelbe Rasse
einen Vorsprung hat, doch keine eigentliche Benachteilung’ (GA 121, 78 [1910]). Weil
der Mensch also in der Reinkarnation in andere Rassen und Völker inkarnieren müsse,
seien rassische oder völkische Dimensionen der Anthropologie sekundär. Dies war
Steiners Versuch, dem biologischen Determinismus zu wehren. Allerdings ist dies eine
bloße Binnenperspektive hat ihre Tücken: Wenn das karmische Schicksal eine Folge
guter oder schlechter Taten ist, is das Leben in einer ‘degenerierten’ oder ‘passiven’
Rasse eine Strafe (oder Vorleistung für ein besseren Leben). Kant etwa bekam dies zu
spüren, da Steiner glaubte, ‘daß in Kant eine junge Seele lebte. Ja, die Tatsachen sagen
es, da ist nichts dagegen zu machen. Und man könnte nun darauf hinweisen, daß die
jüngeren Seelen sich allerdings in der Mehrzahl in den farbigen Rassen verkörpern,
daß also die farbigen Rassen, namentlich die Negerrasse, vorzugweise jüngere Seelen
zur Verkörperung bringen’ (GA 126, 35 [1910]). Diese bedeutet daß ‘Neger’, Indianer
oder andere negativ stigmatisierte Menschen in dieser Verkörperung ihre
Strafinkarnation ableisten.
2. Rassen seien ein kollektiver Faktor und beträfen das Individuum letztlich nicht: ‘Die
Rasse kann zurückbleiben, eine Völkergemeinschaft kann zurückbleiben, die Seelen
aber schreiten über die einzelnen Rassen hinaus’ (GA 104, 89 [1908]). Auch in
derartigen Aussagen kann man Steiners Versuch lesen, den Biologischen
Determinismus zu umgehen, Steiner wollte keine Fixierung auf eine blutsmäßige
Abstammung. Aber zugleich drückt sich darin eine ungeheure Naivität gegenüber die
kulturellen Prägekraft gesellschaftlicher Verhältnisse, und eben dies sind ‘Rassen’
auch, aus. Zudem bleibt auch hier die Evolution das unangetastete Gesetz der Kultur:
Wer zurückbleibt, gehört zu Konkursmasse. Die Abwertung aktueller Völker und
Rassen bleibt bestehen.
3. Rassen seien ein Intermezzo der Menschheitsgeschichte. ‘Die Rassen sind entstanden
und werden einmal vergehen, werden einmal nicht mehr da sein’ (GA 121, 76 [1910]).
Erneut artikulierte Steiner sein antimaterialistisches Leitmotiv, aber bei näherem
Hinsehen bliebt dies ein gänzlich unpolitischen Argument. Die Rassenenstehung, die
erst in der lemurischen Zeit begonnen habe, werde in der sechsten und siebten
‘Entwickelungsepoche’ verschwinden (ebd.), das heißt: frühestens ungefähr im 9.
Jahrtausend. Für eine politischen Erledigung der Rassenfrage und für die Geltung von
Steiners Rassentheorien ist dies eine lange, zu lange Zeit. Daß die Vielfalt von
Völkern und Rassen ein Reichtum der Pluralität sein könnte, tritt im übrigen nicht in
Steiners Blickfeld’.48
So Helmut Zander argues the following (summarized in my own words):
1. Although, in Steiners view, every individual incarnates within different races, Steiner
is very explicit about the different ‘qualities’ of these races. The ‘white race’ is the far
48
Helmut Zander, Anthroposophie in Deutschland (Band 1), p. 634-636
24
best compared with other ‘races’, like native Americans or black Africans. So you
could say there are more or less racial conglomerates of ‘Straf Inkarnationen’ (using
this effective characterization of Zander).
2. The race is just a temporary step and just one factor in the development of an
individual soul, on its journey through different incarnations. In Steiner’s view the
individual can’t be reduced to its ‘race’. But this assertion doesn’t mean that in
Steiner’s view all races are equal (the reincarnation alibi argument). This defence
doesn’t release certain ‘races’ of their negative stigmas
3. In the several articles, discussions but also in de van Baarda rapport, very often has
been argued by anthroposophists (see also Dieter Brüll and Thomas Voss) that Steiner
believed that races were an important factor in the past, but that they lost there
meaning in the present time. Zander shows one passage of the 4th lecture of the
Mission einzelner Volksseelen, but there are many more of such passages, that the
differences between races will disappear in the far future (acc. Zander’s calculation in
the 9th millennium!49)
But Zander continues and he discusses one aspect I think it is crucial in Steiner’s total vision
on the development of mankind considering the ‘races’. Zander: ‘Schießlich unterschätzen
derartige Interpretationen von Einstellen die Bedeutung einer zentralen Konstruktionsstelle in
Steiners Denken: der Evolutionsdoktrin. Steiner sah die Entwickelung von Rassen, wie die
Kosmologie oder die Bewußtseinsgesichte, als evolutiven Prozeß, der letztlich alle
Dimensionen des Kosmos, des Leben oder der Kultur unterwarf. Hier liegt ein zentrales
Problem seiner Rassismen, sie sind der Ausdruck eines tief im 19. Jahrhundert verwurzelten
Evolutionsdenkens, das alle Bereiche seiner Weltanschauung prägte. Steiner formulierte mit
seinem theosophischen Sozialdarwinismus eine Ethnologie, in die Rede von ‘degenerierten’,
‘zurückgeblebenen’ oder ‘zukünftigen’ Rasse keine ‘Unfälle’, sondern das Ergebnis einer
konsequent durchgedachten Evolutionslehre waren. Ich sehe im Gegensatz zu viele
Anthroposophen keine Möglichkeit, diese Konsequenz zu bestreiten. Ein weiteres Zentralen
Problem liegt im Rassenbegriff: Anthropologen bestreiten heute, daß dem klassischen, auch
kulturellen Begriff der Rasse ein genetische Substrat unterliegt.
Zurück zur Einfangsfrage dieses Kapitels, mit deren Beantwortung die Deutung der
Geschichte zur Stellungnahme in einer aktuellen Debatte wird: Gibt es einen Rassismus bei
Steiner? Wenn Rassismus die Bindung wichtiger Elemente der Anthropologie an
augenblicklich existierende Rassen bedeutet, seien die biologisch oder spirituell definiert,
dann kann man Steiner als Rassisten bezeichnen. Es wäre hilfreich, wenn manche
Anthroposophen zugestehen würden, daß dies keine schlicht polemische Aussage ist, sondern
in der kontextualisierenden Deutung des historischen Materials gründet. Zugleich aber gibt es
49
Zander’s calculation is based on the anthroposophical timescale. Earlier I made the same kind of calculation.
To explain this as simple as possible: the post Atlantean eras (Kulturepochen) are each lasting 2160 years, based
on the period during the equinox the sun rises in one constellation of the zodiac (acc. Henk van Oort,
Antroposofie; een kennismaking, Zeist, 2006, p. 67) . We are living in the 5th post-Atlantean cultural era (Kultur
Epoche). This era started in 1413. Steiner says in this passage of the 4th lecture of Die Mission (GA121) the
differences between races have disappeared when the sixth and the seventh era are over. This means there is a
big margin, but if we consider that our era finishes in 3573 and that we need two more eras of 2160 years, which
means 4320 years, so the year 3573 plus 4320 years, it means that we are dealing with the year 7893, so within
5884 years from now and 106 years before the beginning of the 9th millennium, the moment the moment when
the post-Atlantean era (Zeitalter) will end. So the 9th millennium is a very realistic (but Zander says
‘frühestens’) calculation..
25
bei Steiner Versuche, die deterministischen Konsequenzen dieses Denkens zu brechen, und es
wäre gut, wenn viele Kritiker zu Kenntnis nehmen würden, daß Steiner kein Rassist sein
wollte; aus diesem Grund spreche ich lieber von Steiners Rassentheorie als von Rassismus.
Aber diese abgemilderte Begrifflichkeit birgt für die politische Debatte das Problem einer
möglicherweise voreiligen Salvierung Steiners. Denn es gibt philanthropischen
Anthroposophen solche, die rassistisch denken, wie es bei den Kritikern verständnisvolle
neben blindwütigen gibt. Wir waren einen großen Schritt weiter, wenn man die historisch
bedingten und in meiner Wahrnehmung vorhandenen Rassismen bei Steiner und die
politischen Konsequenzen analytisch differenzieren könnte, bei Anhängern wie Kritikern
Steiners.
Solange Anthroposophen sich hier zurückhalten, weil man Steiners höhere Einsicht nicht in
Frage stellen will oder mit dem Argument, die Anthroposophie kenne keine Dogmen, aus
rassistische Deutungen von Anthroposophen innerhalb der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft
deckt, bleibt die Debatte explosiv. Es gibt meines Erachtens nur einen Weg, Steiners
Rassentheorie zu entschärfen: Indem man sie als Zeitgebundene Vorstellungswelt historisiert,
sich insoweit davon distanziert und in normativer Hinsicht als Irrtum verwirft. So führt ein
Weg von Steiners evolutionär hierarchisierte Rassentheorie zu einer egalitären Philantropie.
Aber vor einer solchen Revision schrecken viele Anthroposophen weiterhin zurück, weil dies
den Einstieg in die Kritik von Steiners ‘höheren Einsicht’ bedeuten würde’. 50
So far this long passage of Zander. I have to say I just agree with these last conclusions and
suggestions of Zander. In my earlier articles, although much more provocative and polemical,
and far less empathically than Zander does, I wrote that the racial doctrines of Steiner are
deeply interwoven with his concept of evolution and his view of the ‘quest’ of the
development of the human kind. I argued more or less the same in this article. So I believe
this is the main problem, but possibly also the most important challenge of anthroposophy in
our current time. Although I am myself not a believer I never had any problem with the
spiritual content of anthroposophy, just with the racist elements, or maybe better (in the words
of Zander) ‘racial theories’. Nevertheless I believe this is the fundamental point. The same
kind of thing was also said by Jana Husmann Kastein, also from the Humboldt University (I
cited her article several times before).51
But whatever you may think of these factually nineteenth century and colonial
‘misconceptions’ of Evolution, as they were fit in a well constructed mystical and esoteric
worldview (which in my view the problematic aspect of anthroposophy), there is no ground
nor justification for denying the Holocaust in Steiner’s name, as some of his followers are
doing. I think every even orthodox but decent anthroposophist should agree with that.
But let us have a look on Steiner’s position on Judaism and try to find out if there is any
justification in the work of Steiner, which may ‘justify’ (from an anthroposophical point of
view) some of the anti-Semitic texts of De Brug.
Steiner on Judaism
50
Helmut Zander, Anthroposophie in Deutschland (Band 1), p. 636-637
51
Jana Husmann-Kastein, Schwarz-Weiß-Konstruktionen im Rassebild Rudolf Steiners, Berliner Dialog 29 Juli
2006, http://www.religio.de/dialog/106/29_22-29.htm
26
A different issue is the question of anti-Semitism in the work of Rudolf Steiner. The opinions
about this sensitive issue are different. In the Netherlands one of the fiercest critics of
Steiner’s racial theories Gjalt Zondergeld (Professor of History at the Free University of
Amsterdam) stated (in an essay, written with the historian Evert van der Tuin, published in
1988 and republished in 2002): ‘Steiner was not anti-Semitic in the way the national socialists
were. In the past we may have made to easy the connection with the Nazis’ (referring their
earlier publications in the early eighties). ‘In the fierce debate, following after our first
publications on this issue, the prominent anthroposophist Professor Dieter Brüll defended
Steiner, by pointing at the current problems of Israel. He stated that Steiner was thinking of
‘solving the Jewish problem’ by racial mixing, because Steiner was against ‘racial
messianism’, as Judaism in Steiner’s opinion stands for. The remarkable thing was that Brüll
used the term ‘Jewish Race’.52
The same kind of argument in defending Steiner was used by the Belgian chemist and
prominent anthroposophist Dr. Jos Verhulst. In an article, later republished in ‘De Brug’ he
stated: ‘In the article ‘Is anthroposophy racist?’ (De Morgen, June 23, 2000, p. 34) the
following ‘serious discrimination’ quote of Steiner was mentioned: ‘The Judaism itself has
long survived, has no justification within the modern life of peoples, and that it still exists in
the present, is a failure of world history of which the consequences could not be occurred.
Here we mean not only of the Jewish religion, but also the spirit of Judaism, the Jewish way
of thinking’. Verhulst continues: ‘At the first sight this statement of Steiner seems pure antiSemitic and racist. But the things are not what they look like. The sentences immediately
preceding the quote shows that Steiner means with the spirit of Judaism ‘the Jewish variant of
racial segregation and group’. Steiner has always been the most consistent pronouncing
against anti-Semitism. But in his criticism he did not spare Zionism and the Jewish obsession
with traditional racial purity (…) This ‘Jewish thinking’ is still alive. For example, the Jewish
Professor Deborah Lipstadt, who was charged unsuccessfully for libel in court by the
revisionist David Irving (!), is an active advocacy against ‘mixed’ marriages (…) Steiner had
a realistic and differentiated view on Judaism, he knew many Jews, several of them were good
friends and he lived for a while with a Jewish family as a private teacher for their disabled
child, who was educated successfully. He had been attacked himself by anti-Semites. But he
was not a supporter of the traditional Jewish tendency to live in racial segregation in relation
to the other men, in his view an aberration. If that is racism, I am racist too’.53
This strange argument to defend Steiner was later used by other anthroposophists. I heard this
myself in the fierce debates I participated in, with different Dutch and Belgian
anthroposophists. ‘Steiner was not a racist, but the Judaism is racist. He was even so antiracist that he corrected the Jews on their own racism’. 54 The remarkable fact that Jos Verhulst
is mentioning the notorious revisionist and martyr/hero of the international neo-Nazi
movement David Irving (why mentioning Irving in this particular case?) is not an incident, as
we have seen earlier.
52
Gjalt Zondergeld, Goed en kwaad; vijftien opstellen, van fascisme tot pacifisme, van Rudolf Steiner tot Colijn,
Garant, Antwerpen/Apeldoorn, 2002, in the essay (with Evert van der Tuin), Rudolf Steiners visie op rassen
volken, p. 72
53
Jos Verhulst, Was Rudolf Steiner een antisemiet?, published in ‘De Brug’, see http://users.telenet.be/
antroposofie/dornach/antisem.htm
54 As
pointed out by an editor of a prominent anthroposophical journal (Driegonaal) in the Netherlands on http://
antroposofie.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/racismedebat/#comment-277
27
Steiner’s passage (from his Homunkulus review, an epic poem of Hammerling, in Magazin für
Literatur in 1886): ‘Das Judentum als solches hat sich aber längst ausgelebt, hat keine
Berechtigung innerhalb des modernen Völkerlebens, und dass es sich dennoch erhalten hat, ist
ein Fehler der Weltgeschichte, dessen Folgen nicht ausbleiben konnten’ has been discussed
many times. Finally the van Baarda Commission categorized is passage as severe
discriminative (one of the sixteen passages of Steiner the Commission found ‘there was
serious discrimination’).
But on the other hand, Steiner criticized also anti-Semites, which he considered as not very
intelligent. That he called them ‘Ungefährliche Leute’ is a naivety you can’t blame him for;
this was long before the National Socialism became a serious factor in German politics.
There is one quote of Steiner which wasn’t discussed in public; at least in the Netherlands. It
has been mentioned by the van Baarda Commission, but they also missed the point. In my
view this is the most serious and close to real anti-Semitism. In Menschheitsentwickelung und
Christus-Erkenntnis (GA 100, 1907) Steiner says: ‘Und diejenigen, die so recht am
Alltäglichen haften, die sich nicht verbinden wollen mit dem, was der Zukunft entgegengeht,
werden mit der Rasse verschmelzen. Es gibt solche Menschen, die bei dem bleiben wollen,
was althergebracht ist, die nichts wissen wollen von dem, was weiterschreiten heißt; die nicht
hören wollen auf solche, die über die Rasse hinüberführen zu immer neuen Gestaltungen der
Menschheit. Die Mythe hat in wunderbarer Weise diese Tendenz erhalten. Nicht besser
könnte sie das darstellen, als indem sie auf einen der Größten hinweist, der das Wort
ausgesprochen hat: ‘Wer nicht verlässt Vater und Mutter, Weib und Kind, Bruder und
Schwester, der kann nicht mein Jünger sein’, und dagegen das Traurige in einem Menschen
darstellt, der da sagt: Ich will nichts von einem solche Führer wissen!- und ihn zurückstößt.
Wie könnte man das klarer ausdrücken als in dem Bilde dessen, der den Führer von sich
weist, und der nicht aufzusteigen vermag! Das ist die Sage von Ahasver, dem Ewigen Juden,
der da staß und den größten Führer, den Christus Jesus von sich stieß, nichts wissen wollte
von der Entwickelung, und der deshalb bei seiner Rasse bleiben muß, immer wiederkehren
muß in seiner Rasse. Das sind solche Mythen, die der Menschheit zum ewigen Gedächtnis
gegeben sind, damit sie weiß um was es sich handelt’. 55
The Commission mentions this passage in a series with others, to argue that the ‘differences
between races’ (in Steiner’s view) are something from the past. The report hardly discusses
this specific quote and almost ignores the remarkable things Steiner has to say. The
commission makes one short remark:
‘Anthroposophy can’t be understood with just the ratio, but also with the intuition. Our openmindedness will be tested when we know that the saga of the 'Wandering Jew', Ahasverus,
who turned his back to Jesus on his way to Golgotha and for that reason he has to wander the
earth and to wait for the return of Christ, is factually a representation of a man who refuses to
participate in the development of humanity and for that reason will incarnate in the same race.
(!) Superficial conclusions that Ahasverus would represent Judaism in general, that the
rejection of Christ would have something to do with the rejection of Christianity and that
55
Rudolf Steiner, Menschheits-entwickelung und Christus Erkenntnis; Theosophie und Rosenkreuzertum,
vierzehn Vortrage, gehalten in Kassel vom 16. bis 29. Juni 1907, GA 100 (Verlag der Rudolf SteinerNachlassverwaltung, Dornach, 1967), Vierzehnter Vortrag: Weitere Stufen der Rosenkreuzerschulung, pp.
182-183. The van Baarda-report quotes this passage (cit. 39) on p. 293.
28
several incarnations in the same race only happens with the Jewish 'race', are totally
unjustified’.56
Are they? I am not that sure that it is ‘totally unjustified’ to assume that in this case Steiner
had other ‘races’ in mind than the Jews, or this should mean that all the non-Christian peoples
(races!) of this planet are ‘doomed’ to their own ‘race’. Earlier I discussed Steiner’s passage
from Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen (GA 121: 4): ‘Da alle Menschen in verschiedenen
Reinkarnationen durch die verschiedenen Rassen durchgehen, so besteht, obgleich man uns
entgegenhalten kann, daß der Europäer gegen die schwarze und die gelbe Rasse einen
Vorsprung hat, doch keine eigentliche Benachteiligung’. But do we have to assume that we
just benefit from this ‘Überwindung des Rassencharakters’ when we recognise Christ? Steiner
says something like that in the same cyclus (at the end of his lecture of 22 November 1907 in
Basel) when he states that ‘the mantle of Christ will unite the four main races of humanity’ 57,
but I don’t think there is any reason to assume that he means the same in this case, or
probably ‘except the Jews’. And why does the commission advice us to understand this
passage with our intuition and not with our ratio? But anyway, this is not a very elegant
passage of the report. I may have been sometimes quiet harsh about the report, in this article
and in earlier comments, but the report is, except for the good parts- mainly the passages
where anthroposophy in general is explained, full with of statements like this (see in this
article also the call for a physiological research in case of Steiner’s statements on the
‘kochende Neger, mit furchtbar schlaue Augen und er nimmt alle Licht und Wärme auf’, in
GA 349).
The most significant thing is Steiner uses the term ‘ewige Jude’, ignored by the commission.
The use of this term, in relation to the ‘Ahasverus Myth’ places this passage (not the entire
work of Steiner or Rudolf Steiner himself) in a long (Christian) anti-Semitic tradition. Steiner
mixes this with typical anthroposophical ideas, like reincarnation and ‘salvation’ of ‘racial
deformations’, originated by the ‘Dynameis Geister’, or ‘abnormen Geister der Form’ in the
Lemurian Era, but something we will overcome in the future, probably with the help of
Christ. But than he makes an exception for the Jews, because they didn’t recognise Christ, is
an original Christian concept, later used in the nationalistic German rhetoric. We find this idea
also in the work of Richard Wagner, especially in his opera ‘Der Fliegende Hollander’.
Wagner uses the personage Ahasver who rejected the Salvation by Christ as a metaphor for
the ‘Wandering Jew’. Later this anti-Semitic notion was used for the Nazi propaganda film
Der ewige Jude, in 1940 (Steiner uses also this term). Originally, the ‘Ahasverus Myth’ even
came from the mystical Jewish tradition, but this legend was used in the German nationalistic
tradition, as a symbol for the eternal non-Christian ‘Heimatloser’58 unrooted element as the
counterpoint of the Aryan Man. I don’t think there could be any misunderstanding about the
interpretation of this passage.
But for this article it is sufficient to mention this remarkable passage. The only thing I want to
is that this quote of Rudolf Steiner is, for so far I know, the passage which comes most close
to national socialist thought, although even the term ‘ewige Jude’ wasn’t an original Nazi
56 Antroposofie
en het vraagstuk van de rassen (The commission report), p. 294-295
57
Steiner, Menschheitsentwickelung und Christus Erkenntnis / Das Johannes Evangelium, (GA 100:7, Verlag der
Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, 1967) p. 249-250
58
Ironically In Die Mission einelner Volksseelen, but in the first lecture, Steiner pleads for the state of
‘Heimatloser Mensch’.
29
concept, like almost nothing was original in the Nazi thought, so enough reason to be not to
conclusive. Further the Nazis didn’t believe in ‘Salvation’ for the Jews, just as they didn’t
believe in reincarnation. We may conclude that this concept was very ‘Wagnerian’ and later
used both by Steiner and the Nazis. But the use of the term ‘ewige Jude’ is not a triviality
which could be ignored.
Peter Bierl pays a lot of attention to Steiner’s view on Judaism in his book Wuzelrassen
Erzengel und Volksgeister (2005). At the beginning of his chapter on this subject he
summarizes Steiner’s development of thinking about Judaism as following: ‘Anhand der
veröffentlichten Briefe, Zeitungsartikel, Vorträge und Bücher lässt sich belegen, dass Steiners
Haltung gegenüber Juden sich im Lauf der Zeit veränderte. In einem Zentralen Punkt blieb
sich Steiner treu. Ob als deutschnationaler Student und Journalist, als Verfechter eines
Idealistischen Individualismus, der sich für Dreyfus engagierte, oder als Esoteriker: Er war
überzeugt, dass das Judentum sich überlebt habe; Assimilation bedeutete für ihn, dass jede
eigenständige jüdische Identität verschwinden sollte. Daraus resultierte auch seine scharfe
Abneigung gegen den Zionismus. Nach der Wende zu Esoterik um 1901 leitete Steiner seine
Sicht des Judentums aus der Wurzelrassenlehre ab, kombiniert mit Motiven des traditionellen
christlichen Antisemitismus. Je mehr er sich von den Theosophie entfernte und christliche
Elemente in die Anthroposophie aufnahm, desto stärker betonte Steiner, die Juden leugneten
Christus und seien eine verderbte, Wurzellose Rasse’ . 59
Also interesting is this passage: ‘Wie andere völkische Ideologen behaupten Steiner und seine
Anhänger, dass die Juden besonders rassisch dächten und sich von der Fixen Idee der Reinheit
des Blutes leiten ließen, ‘es liegt bei ihnen im Blut, des Einheitsgott, das Momon zu
vertreten’ (see Jos Verhulst and in his particular case the possibility of ‘völkisch’ thought is
not exaggerated, as we will see later, FS). Hans Razum meinte, ‘jahrtausendelange Inzucht
charakterisiert die Rassenpolitik der Juden’; aber diese Reinheit des Blutes helfe nichts, wenn
die ‘geistige Kulturaufgabe’ eines Volkes erfüllt sei. Mission erfüllt, Verfall programmiert,
lautet die anthroposophische Grundregel (in my view Bierl explains it well, see all the earlier
discussed passages of Steiner about the Native Americans, FS). Aus einer angeblich besonders
starken Blutsbindung der Juden schlussfolgerte Steiner abstrakte Strenge und Unerbittlichkeit.
Er leitete daraus allerlei Klischees ab: Monotheismus gleich geistige Erstarrung, die Juden
lebten nach einem ‘unfruchtbaren Gesetz’, seien ausgedörrt und versteinert’.60
He pays also some attention to the passage of Steiner from GA 100. Bierl: ‘In Blavatskys
Theosophie werden die Juden, im Gegensatz zu Ariern, als bösartige, verschlagene,
59
Peter Bierl, Wurzelrassen Erzengel und Volksgeister; die Anthroposophie Rudolf Steiners und die
Waldorpädagogik (Aktualisierte und erweiterte Neuausgabe), Konkret Literatur Verlag, 2005, p. 127
60
Idem, p. 132
30
machthungerige Rasse dargestellt.61 Steiner verknüpfte diese Lehre mit dem Christlichen
Motiv der jüdischen Gottesmörder und Gottesleugner und erklärte seinen Zuhörern (1907)
dass die Juden darum rassisch nicht aufsteigen könnten: ‘Wie könnte man das klarer
ausdrücken als in dem Bild dessen, der Führer von sich weist und der sich nicht aufsteigen
vermag! Das ist die Sage von Ahasver, dem Ewigen Juden, der da saß und den größten Führer,
den Christus Jesus, von sich stieß, nichts wissen wollte von der Entwickelung, und der
deshalb bei seiner Rasse bleiben muss, immer wiederkehren muss in seiner Rasse’ (we have
seen this passage before, FS). Nach der antisemitische christlichen Überlieferung ist der Jude
Ahasver auf ewig verflucht, weil er Jesus auf dem Kreuzweg eine Ruhepause verweigerte.
Der Phantasierte Zusammenhang zwischen spiritueller Entwickelung und rassischer
Höherentwickelung und die Vorstellung, die Juden als Gottesleugner seien Angehörige einer
zurückgebliebenen Rasse, werden noch deutlicher in einem Vortrag, den Steiner ein Jahr
später hielt (…)‘Und wenn andere Menschen, welche auf die großen Führer der Menschheit
hören und die Seele mit dem ewigen Wesenkern bewahren, in einer vorgeschrittenen Rasse
wiedererscheinen, so wird der, der von großen Menschheitsführer von sich stößt, immer in
derselben Rasse wiedererscheinen, weil er nur die eine Gestalt hat ausbilden können. Das ist
die tiefere Idee des Ahasver, der immer in derselben Gestalt wiederkehren muss, weil er die
Hand des größten Führers, des Christus, von sich gewiesen hat. So ist die Möglichkeit für den
Menschen vorhanden, mit dem Wesen einer Inkarnation zu verwachsen, den
Menschheitsführer von sich zu stoßen, oder aber die Wandlung durchzumachen zu höheren
Rassen, zu immer höheren Vervollkommnung. Rassen würden gar nicht dekadent werden, gar
nicht untergehen, wenn es nicht Seelen gäbe, die nicht weiterrücken wollen zu einer höheren
Rassenform. Schauen Sie hin auf Rassen, die sich erhalten haben aus früherer Zeit: Sie sind
bloß deshalb da, weil da Seelen nicht höher steigen könnte’.62
The passages of GA 100 and GA 102 shows also something else; whatever Jos Verhulst and
some other defenders of Steiner may say (using the argument that the Jews themselves are
61
This is true, and in case of Blavatsky it is even worse. In the Secret Doctrine she claims that the word
Abraham originally means ‘No Brahmin’, like ‘a-Brahman’, or ‘anti-Brahman’ as counterpoint for the ‘Aryan’
Brahmans. Blavatsky: ‘The inflectional speech — the root of the Sanskrit, very erroneously called ‘the elder
sister’ of the Greek, instead of its mother — was the first language (now the mystery tongue of the Initiates, of
the Fifth Race). At any rate, the “Semitic” languages are the bastard descendants of the first phonetic corruptions
of the eldest children of the early Sanskrit. The occult doctrine admits of no such divisions as the Aryan and the
Semite, accepting even the Turanian with ample reservations. The Semites, especially the Arabs, are later Aryans
— degenerate in spirituality and perfected in materiality. To these belong all the Jews and the Arabs. The
former are a tribe descended from the Tchandalas of India, the outcasts, many of them ex- Brahmins, who sought
refuge in Chaldea, in Scinde, and Aria (Iran), and were truly born from their father A-bram (No Brahmin) some
8,000 years B.C. The latter, the Arabs, are the descendants of those Aryans who would not go into India at the
time of the dispersion of nations, some of whom remained on the borderlands thereof, in Afghanistan and Kabul,
and along the Oxus, while others penetrated into and invaded Arabia’, Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine
Part II Antropogenesis, ‘Stanza IX: ‘The final evolution of Man’,
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd2-1-10.htm
This is absolutely nonsense, although she uses the word ‘root’ (common linguistic term in describing Semitic
languages, but not in this way). ‘Abraham means, like Ibrahim in Arabic, literally ‘affluent Father’, but factually
‘Father of many’, or ‘Patriarch’, which means that he was a father from whose offspring both the Jews and the
Arabs are dissents. See this website for the explanation of the Hebrew word ‘Abraham’, http://en.wiktionary.org/
wiki/Abraham#Etymology. In Arabic ‘Abu Rahim’ = ‘Father of many’, in a junction as ‘Ibrahim’ (literal
transcription, Arab from the right to the left):
ā (ī)-b-r-ā-h-i-m-‘ =
62
‫ﺇﺑﺮﺍﻫﻴﻢ‬
Bierl, p. 132-133. In the last passage he cited Rudolf Steiner from Das hereinwirken geistiger Wesenheiten in
den Menschen, Vorträge, 1908. GA 102
31
‘racial obsessed’) this is not what Steiner says. Jews have to incarnate in the same race,
because they didn’t recognise Christ. Although there are strong parallels with the traditional
Christian anti-Semitism (the Jews are doomed, because they didn’t recognise or even
murdered Christ) it is interesting to see how this notion mixed with Steiner’s idea of the
Mission of people and races.
The words of this passage, original from GA 102, are a reprise of what we have seen earlier.
Some races became decadent, but the higher souls incarnated in newer and better forms. The
sad thing is that some contemporary anthroposophists still use these kind of arguments to
defend Steiner, also in the many debates I participated in, totally unable to identify this as
racism. This was in case of the Native Americans. The argument was, although the natives
had a great spirituality and philosophy about Nature and Harmony (all those clichés), in the
current Indians are incarnated lower souls, see their poverty, casinos and addiction problems
in their reservations ( the natives were literally called ‘a sick race’). Another opponent (from
outspoken ‘orthodox signature’ and editor of an important anthroposophical magazine in the
Netherlands) said that he didn’t like it, but Steiner had said this was ‘eine Gesetzmäßigkeit’,
so it was no fun, but these are the facts. But the higher souls of the former spiritual natives
have now incarnated in new forms, so nothing wrong with that.63 But what can you expect
from individual anthroposophists as even de van Baarda-report uses arguments like these?
Because what do they have to say about this passage (cit. 40 in the report)?
‘The essence of this quote is ‘Rassen würden gar nicht dekadent werden, gar nicht
untergehen, wenn es nicht Seelen gäbe, die nicht weiterrücken können und nicht weiterrücken
wollen zu einer höheren Rassenform’. Also here, Steiner uses the word Race in a
Theosophical way, somewhere further he mentions some peoples from Atlantis. The different
physical possibilities of races, are called ‘Rassenformen’, but they are always at service of the
souls who want to incarnate on earth. On earth there have to be physical bodies which are
necessary for the next stage of development of those souls, or fitting with the individual needs
of these souls. If every soul went through a certain development, the races which were
necessary for this development are dying out, because there is no need for any soul to
incarnate in such a race. So the human soul is not dependent on a race, the human souls
themselves decide which races will appear on earth. With the decadency of a race Steiner
means that the bodies of that race were stagnated in their development. When there are still
souls incarnating in such a race, these are souls who didn’t develop themselves. And with
decadent, Steiner means not developing anymore, which means stagnation. But this is never
meant definitively for a soul, because the has always the possibility to incarnate again in a
body which fits in the necessary development of the human kind’.64
Again reincarnation as the universal alibi for racism. ‘Mission erfüllt, Verfall programmiert’,
calls Bierl this universal law of Steiner. ‘Daß is einfach eine Gesetzmäßigkeit’, says Steiner in
the fourth lecture of Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen and immediately followed by this
explanation: ‘Da alle Menschen in verschiedenen Reinkarnationen durch die verschiedenen
Rassen durchgehen, so besteht, obgleich man uns entgegenhalten kann, daß der Europäer
gegen die schwarze und die gelbe Rasse einen Vorsprung hat, doch keine eigentliche
63
See the many contributions on ‘Racisme-debat’, http://antroposofie.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/racismedebat/
64
Van Baarda-report, p. 295
32
Benachteiligung. Hier ist die Wahrheit zwar manchmal verschleiert, aber Sie sehen, man
kommt mit Hilfe der Geheimwissenschaft doch auf merkwürdige Erkenntnisse’65
Remarkable is that Helmut Zander doesn’t mention this example of the Ahasver Myth. He
mentions another example: ‘…in der Substanz der Evolution des Judentums kein Vermögen
mehr besteht, heraufzureichen zu den Offenbarungen des Gottesreiches (GA 148, 60);…Es
nicht mehr für diese Erde möglich die Offenbarung des alten Judentums, denn die alten Juden
sind nicht mehr da, um sie aufzunehmen. Das muß als etwas Wertloses auf unserer Erde
angesehen werden’.66
Zanders general remark on Steiners position on Judaism is nuanced: ‘Ein kritischer Blick auf
seine Evolutionsbegründeten Abwertungen des Judentums hat sich ihm gleichwohl nicht
eröffnet, hier liegt das Kernproblem seines theosophischen Antisemitismus. Ihm war auch
nicht klar, in welch großem Ausmaß er mit derartigen Hierarchisierungsmodellen
evolutionistische Entwürfe der Ethnologie und Religionswissenschaft um 1900 aufnahm. Bis
heute fällt es Anthroposophen schwer, die Ambivalenz Steiners zwischen der Verteidigung
jüdischer Positionen einerseits und seinem Antijudaismen und Antisemitismen andererseits zu
realisieren’. 67
I think it would be wise to be not to conclusive about this sensitive issue. But there is one
thing we can be sure of. Radical anti-Semitism or Holocaust revisionism are not to justify in
the tradition of Rudolf Steiner, beside that it is also immoral in general. But also based on
Steiner’s ideas about Judaism or even races in general, there is absolutely no ground for the
severe aberration of anthroposophy I will discuss in the next part.
How Ahriman and the occult fellowships are ruling the world and made up the
‘Holocaust Myth’ to suppress the Christian Impulse from Central Europe
Jens Heisterkamp, prominent anthroposophist in Germany, one of the authors of the
Frankfurther Memorandum and editor of Info3, on the Russian anthroposophist Gennady
Bondarew: ‘Während Bondarew als Ziel von West Alliierten und Sowjets im Zweiten
Weltkrieg die ‘Ausrottung der Bevölkerung Mittel- und Osteuropas’ ausmacht, finden sich in
Bezug auf die Ausrottungsaktionen der Deutschen nur vielsagende Auslassungen von Seite
241 der Publikation an, wo es um das Schicksal des europäischen Judentum während der
nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft geht, erklärt der Verlag in einer Fußnote: ‘Die heute in
Westeuropa allgemein geltenden Rechtsvorschriften zwangen die Redaktion, dieses Kapitel
um einige Abschnitte zu kürzen. Es bleibt zu hoffen, das der geneigte Leser den Gedanken des
Autors trotzdem zu folgen vermag’. Dies fällt allerdings nicht schwer. Jene
‘Rechtsvorschriften’ beziehen sich ebenso wie die durch Klammern ausgedeuteten Passagen
Bondarews auf die mittlerweile auch in der Schweiz strafbare Leugnung der
65
Steiner, Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen, p. 80-81
66
Helmut Zander, Anthroposophie in Deutschland, Band 1, p. 832
67
idem
33
Massenvernichtung der europäischen Juden im Dritten Reich. ‘Müssen wir uns jeden
Schwindel, jede Lüge anhören und uns damit ihren Folgen generationslang unterwerfen?’
fragt Bondarew. (…) Zurück bleibt der Eindruck eines heillosen Sektierums. Was immer
Bondarew in Russland während der schweren Jahre des sozialistischen Regimes geleistet
haben mag- dieses Buch ist eine Schande für Rudolf Steiner und der Anthroposophie’.68
Also in the Netherlands there was even a ‘Bondarev affair’. It hardly reached the media,
except ‘de Groene Amsterdammer’. In an article of Rene Zwaap, on 15-10-1997, we could
read that Ron Dunselman, chair of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society, made a strong effort
at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to withdraw a visa for the Russian anthroposophist
Bondarew, who was invited to come to the Netherlands, ironically by the prominent Dutch
anthroposophist Willem Frederik Veltman and the banker Rudolf Mees, a strong supporter of
anthroposophical initiatives in the Netherlands. The reason was that Dunselman, who ordered
to translate some fragments of the Russian version of Bondarev’s book Antroposophie auf der
Kreuzung der okkult-politischen Bewegungen der Gegenwart, after rumours of anti-Semitism,
concluded that this man was a structural racist and anti-Semite.
Things appeared far more worse than he expected. Bondarev appeared not only a severe antiSemite but also a Holocaust revisionist, basing himself on the ideas of the French Holocaust
denier Robert Faurisson (we will see this name again). Although supported by the
organisation of Veltman and Mees, who even invited former foreign minister and ex UN High
commissioner on the Minorities and Human Rights, Max van der Stoel, to join the committee
of recommendation, for Dunselman this was enough reason to try to keep Bondarev away
from a congress he was invited to speak, in The Hague, October 1997. Although this was a
little bit a blamage for a general respected ex minister Max van der Stoel and some other
prominents (according to this article van der Stoel appeared to be a former classmate of WF
Veltman, for that reason he joined the committee) the Dutch anthroposophical community
made a principal statement. This gave some troubles within the anthroposophical ranks of the
Netherlands; for example WF Veltman, one of the most prominent but also an outspoken
conservative member of the Dutch anthroposophical society, withdraw his membership. 69
This happened at the moment that the Dutch Anthroposophical Society was in the middle of
the ‘racism affair’. A year before, two parents of children on a Dutch Waldorfschool contacted
the media after they found some racist text and a drawing in the school cahiers of their
children. A large newpaper opened with the article ‘Op de Vrije school hebben negers dikke
lippen’ (‘on Waldorschools, negroes have thick lips’). After this first rumours, one of these
parents, Toos Jeurissen, wrote a brochure ‘Uit de Vrije school geklapt; Antroposofisch
racisme; een stellingname’. Again this arose a lot of publicity and finally Mr. Christof
Wiechert, vice chairman of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society was interviewed on the radio.
He explained some passages of Steiner by pointing at the vitality surpluses of the black
footballplayers of Ajax and on the tragic events of the massacre of Wounded Knee, to suggest
that Rudolf Steiner was right with his insights about the native Americans as a dying race.
68
Cited from Guido und Michael Grandt, Waldorf connection; Rudolf Steiner und die Anthroposophen, Alibri
Verlag, Aschaffenburg, 2001, p. 220-221
69
Rene Zwaap, Russisch revisionisme, de Groene Amsterdammer, 15-101997, http://www.groene.nl/1997/42/
Russisch_revisionisme or the full text in the forum of ‘Brugklasje van Angry Man’, on the site of Ramon de
Jonghe’, http://antroposofie.wordpress.com/2009/03/21/brugklasje-van-angry-man/#comment-2185 (both in
Dutch)
34
After this happened, on a special general assemblee, the Dutch anthroposophists decided to
install the van Baarda Commission to research the work of Steiner for possible racism. This
story has been told many times, at least in the Netherlands.
But the most interesting thing here is, we have seen the Dutch anthroposophists acted quiet
effectively in the case of Bondarev. Lobbying for refusing someone’s visa is quiet a radical
measure, I think. Maybe to much (you can also declare you don’t support or agree with these
ideas), but anyway the Dutch anthroposophists acted (like the German anthroposophists acted
in the case of Andreas Molau70). My question is, why even promoting (on all the Dutch
anthroposophical websites) a magazine and website which is at least as radical as Bondarev? I
never had the opportunity to read Bondarev’s texts, but I can’t imagine that it is even more
worse than this. Let’s not forget that Bondarev’s most radical texts were not even translated in
German (only a softened version). The difference with this website is, that it is all in Dutch
and available on the internet. So why even promoting this ‘medium’? I will show here a long
fragment, translated into English and German, of one of the articles of ‘de Brug’. From The
Ahrimanic Society; Ahriman, state, multiculturalism and Holocaust (the German version,
translation FS and edited by Michael Eggert) can be found here http://florisschreve.blog-s.nl/
german-version-ahriman-staat-multikultur-und-holocaust/?preview=true, and here the original text: http://
users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b46met/b46.htm ). Here the English version (translation FS with
some editing of Ramon de Jonghe):
‘In the sequence of Post-Atlantic culture periods, we see a resonance between the first and
seventh, second and sixth, and third (Egyptian-Babylonian) in our fifth post-Atlantic period.
That does not mean that the fifth culture period must be a repetition of the Egyptian period. It
should be a mirror in which the new element, the Christ-impulse, is included.
Ahriman tries to make a repetition of it in which every reference to Christ is missing. It seems
that he, the Antichrist, is creating a kind of anti-religion in the lives of many with the main
doctrines: multiculturalism and holocaust.
- Multi-culture: the mendacity of this ‘concept’ was yet again demonstrated following the
accession of Turkey to the EU. Adultery was no longer punishable. Several commentators
pointed out that business and trade compliance of a contract while suddenly obvious - where a
voluntary personal commitment of faith to marriage - is not a contract that should be
respected.
Matthias Storme in ‘De Doorbraak’ (No. 9 October 2004):
"The great majority of the cultures, the compliance with the voluntary loyalty obligation is
still important to the social order and, if not physical then at least before its intangible
spiritual entity of man. But the new high priests of the ‘Eureligion’ know of course much
better: their materialistic and family hostile ideology is the only one who is still permitted.
70 Andreas
Molau was a teacher of history on a Waldorfschool in Braunsweig, but became active in the extreme
right NPD. The school decided that it was no longer possible to work with Molau, who wrote since 1996 articles
for several extreme right magazines (under pseudonym, so unnoticed by the school). But the German
Waldorfschools were clear they wanted nothing to do with neo Nazism. Peter Bierl, p. 9
35
That a democratically elected parliament in a country that thinks otherwise can not be
accepted, the concept of multi-culture can only be used for traditional social institutions to
move aside and, of course, not to keep them. In the new ‘Eureligion’ virtues as natural loyalty
and faith fit no longer, but is a suspect idea from an obscurantist past. The idea that we are
committed to forming a co-based family of faith is unacceptable in that religion: man must be
liberated from all those heavy bands and constantly be open for new consumer experiences,
constantly ready to use the market goods, which must be replaced by new, nicer, more
modern. "
- The ‘Holocaust’.
In the Western world everyone is free to think what he wants on a particular historical fact.
Has someone the opinion that Napoleon never had a campaign in Russia, and he writes a book
with arguments for that proposition, he can do. But there is one topic that should not be
examined, and that is the ‘holocaust’, the dogma of the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews
during the Second World War.
In most Western countries it is prohibited by law to comply with this ‘fact’.
Why only to this ‘fact’? Stalin and Mao were responsible for the deaths of millions of people,
but nobody seems to be disturbed by these facts. Why systematically revive and picture the
German war action?
There is obviously no doubt that the Anglo-Saxon occult lodges know that a threat for them
only can come from Central Europe. And as to frustrate each operation of a spiritual impulse,
Germany is depicted as the origin of all evil.
Where the Mystery of Golgotha is the spindle in the spiritual development of humanity for all
mankind, a shining beacon in the joint search for the right way to realize the Christ Impulse in
the world, we are on a central mental-rejection point, the black hole in human history which
everyone must avoid and that humanity unites in a common hatred against .... the spiritual
impulse from Central Europe! Because it is no coincidence that the Holocaust was to be kept
alive for a constant hatred against the German people, against Germany as an area for which
humanity should be careful and vigilant. Even before the war the hate propaganda already
began.
Previously, in the cinema new movies were always shown before the film began. In 1981 died
Jack Glenn, the man who made movies in the United States. Occasionally, this guy made
arrangements of world events played by actors in a theatrical sequel decor. One of his movies
was ‘Inside Nazi Germany’, launched in 1938. It contained a scene of a concentration camp,
filmed on Staten Island with New York actors. Much of the film was included in the Third
Reich by a freelance cameraman, but Louis Roche Ment, the producer, had the feeling that the
film was censored by the German authorities and ordered Glenn to dramatize the Nazi
brutality. Millions of Americans who saw these new movies in their local cinema, were
convinced that what they saw was reality. How many of those situations that we’re presented
today would not get the work of movie artists?
The fact is that after the war the Allies hired Hollywood producers to make propaganda films
for army use.
David Irving’s commentary:
36
"A few years ago came, I think on BBC2, a program on 'documentaries' of this Glenn. The
documentary revealed that the scenes of SA brown hordes who molest their enemies who
were in the streets of Berlin and the Jews in Vienna who were cleaning up the sidewalk, were
filmed in the scenes of Hollywood. The Japanese soldiers babies on their bayonets tasks and
other atrocities were also hate propaganda scenes from Hollywood. I am not saying that these
facts do not actually have occurred. But modern television makers are now using those
images to fill their own reports, just as material from the former Soviet GPOE is used as
authentic. For years they have deceived the public and fed the wheel of hate. "
On the website of David Irving (http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/index.html ) we can also read
how a film crew from the U.S. army directed the ‘discovery’ of a bag with golden teeth of
concentration camp victims in the (empty) safes of the Reich Bank. Another clever piece of
propaganda.
Why is Spielbergs film ‘Schindler List’ recorded in black and white? Shortly after the release
of the film, the first cameraman in a German magazine declared that they intentionally wanted
to create documentary impression so that later (even less critical - fdw) generations would be
easily convinced of the veracity.
The film is however based on a novel, the product of the imagination of a writer, Thomas
Kenneally. But there is something strange that happened. In the first edition of the book,
before the film was released, the word 'fiction' appears five times. In the second edition three
times and in the third edition the word ‘fiction’ disappeared. Some weekend newspapers even
list the book as non-fiction "!
Why are the so called ‘revisionists’ as Norman Finkelstein, David Irving, Robert Faurisson,
Ernst Zündel stubbornly prosecuted as if they were heretics during the Inquisition period? For
the same reason as then: they have set themselves outside the community of believers who
cherish the dogma: Germany is the source of all evil.
In Canada, Ernst Zündel is imprisoned for 22 months (December 2004) in solitary
confinement because of his conviction; he has never hurt anyone, but only expressed his
opinion. The lawsuits against him seem like Kafka’s books: the former head of the secret
service that has followed him for years now is his judge. Each question of the defence is
rejected because of national security.
The Antichrist, cunning to change things in their opposite, tries to replace the Holy Spirit by
a very worldly, very empty, concept with the name Holocaust, not coincidentally in English
sounding as ‘Holy Ghost’.71
So far this long fragment of this remarkable ‘article’(more a collection of slogans) from de
Brug. Although one of rougher category, it is not the only one in its kind. But let’s also have
look on a kind of ‘propaganda wallpaper’ (fig. 7), they placed in the same issue (I don’t know
what else this could be). I translated the Dutch texts in English. Here we see Rudolf Steiner
71
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b46met/b46.htm
37
represented as an alternative for Bush and Bin Laden, or better, he is putted between them
surrounded with slogans.
<<<<<<<<<<<<
Vecht voor mij om de
waarden van onze
materialistische god veilig
te stellen
Kies voor vrijheid van
levensbeschouwing:
Reclame wijst de weg
Economische vrijheid =
Sociaal darwinisme
Hier broederlijkheid
>>>>>>>>>>>
In de rechtssfeer is
iedereen gelijk
1 burger = 1 stem
Vecht voor mij om de
waarden van onze
spirituele god veilig te
stellen
Directe Democratie
Je hebt geen vrijheid van
houdt Westerse
economische en Oosterse levensbeschouwing nodig :
Allah wijst de weg
geestelijke tendenzen
binnen hun respectievelijke
grenzen
Geestelijke
.
gelijkheid=ontkenning van
het individu
Hier gelijkheid
Hier vrijheid
Fig. 7 ‘propaganda-wallpaper’ from de Brug (http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b46met/
b46.htm) Rudolf Steiner as an alternative to ‘Bush’ and ‘Bin Laden’. Translation: Left
(under ‘Uncle Sam’): ‘Fight for me to save the values of our materialistic God.
Choose freedom of religion, commercials will show the way. Economic Freedom =
Social Darwinism. Here (lacks) Brotherhood’. Right (under ‘Osama Bin Laden’): ‘Fight
for me to save the values of our spiritual God. You don’t need freedom: Allah will
show the way. Spiritual equality = denying the individual. Here (lacks) Freedom’.
Middle part (under Rudolf Steiner): ‘In the sphere of law everyone is equal. One man
= one vote. Direct democracy keeps the western economic and the eastern spiritual
tendencies within their boundaries. Here (lacks) Equality’. (they probably mean
‘uniformity’, although it is typical for ‘de Brug’ to promote inequality, FS).
Something different than Steiner’s idea of the Social Threefolding.
In another article, The Ahrimanic personality, after a description of how the demonic the
character of the Rothschild family is) we can read:
‘In these circuits, we find the occult brotherhoods. That they might predominantly by Jews at
this time is no longer relevant. If it suits their purposes, they also betray their ‘fellow race
38
members’ (‘hun rasgenoten’, FS) (There are several interesting studies on what kind of
networks financed Hitler). As you can deduce from the article above even their own family
members are not safe if they are willing to receive the ahrimanic inspirations.
We said that the efforts of occult lodges are designed to suppress every spiritual impulse of
the Central European spirit. From there alone could come the only model for society that can
fulfil the needs of mankind in the era of the consciousness soul. But this model, the Social
Threefolding, means the end of the dominance of certain elites. These elites can maintain
their power, when the people get no fruitful and inspired ideas about build up an alternative
to deal with money, about direct democracy, about ‘Geisteswissenschaft’. And that is exactly
what only can come from Middle Europe. From the Belgium-Brussels the European Moloch
got prepared, decorated with western thinking, which seduced Central Europe. The Eastern
areas were powerless and waiting for the impulse from Central Europe. It is because of the
powers of the same centre that Hitler and Stalin could come to power. Nazism and
Bolshevism have disappeared now, but the totalitarian system are restructuring themselves,
both in Europe as in North America. Many Ahrimanic types work together to realise these
systems’.72
Also this passage seems totally paranoid. The same lack of structure, but also the same hate
against almost everything and above all the radical anti-Semitism(‘If it suits their purposes,
they also betray their ‘fellow race members’). Beside that in this case Hitler is also
‘Ahrimanic’.
But the sympathy for the ideas of David Irving and Ernst Zündel, etc., goes even further. For
their magazine they published an interview with another ‘Holocaust revisionist’, Johannes
Lerle, who is also an anti-abortion activist. The reason why they publish the words of this
personality is explained as following:
‘So executing criminals is not human, but apparently to murder unborn, innocent children is
called human. There is obviously more behind this than what the legislators themselves do
believe there is; a useful and cost-benefit principle in morality.
Through the years of indoctrination, we believe abortion is not a moral problem, it is nothing
more than the disposal of some ‘pregnancy tissue’. So the people were all just deceived by the
idea that the principle that life must be slain if we decide there is no chance for a live in
dignity (..) And all those women who want to maintain this principle ‘baas in eigen buik’?
(means literally ‘boss of your own belly’. This was the slogan of the Dutch feminist abortion
activists during the seventies, FS).
In fact they are desperate, like the Indians who were forced by the Spanish conquistadors to
work to death in the silver mines, desperate killed their own offspring. They saw no future
for their children’.
‘This policy will result in a complicated chaos of Kharmic connections. Even the Angels and
their hierarchies will be confused! Maybe this is a probable reason why nowadays there are so
many broken families: were they originally meant to live together?’ 73 (so we are confusing
72
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b45.htm
73
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b57net.htm#04
39
the higher spiritual hierarchies that much with our abortion policies, that they putted people
together who were never mentioned to be together? FS)
After this remarkable conclusion they published an interview with a militant Catholic anti
abortion activist and Holocaust revisionist, Johannes Lerle, after the following introduction:
‘We as anthroposophist has to be alert for the sake of our fellow citizens. And perhaps we
should be as inventive as John Lerle!’ The interview follows:
‘Dr. Johannes Lerle from Erlangen in Germany is a known anti-abortion activist.
In June 2007 he was 1 year convicted for... negationism, particularly ‘because of instigating
the people by denying openly the Nazi atrocities’.
How come we read in an interview with him on the Catholic website www.kreuz.net What our
negationism called in German: Holocaust-leugner means literally ‘denying the Holocaust’.
We translated this as the first questions (and answers) to understand.
Dr. Lerle, are you a ‘Holocaust Leugner’?
If a dissentient is called a denier (Leugner), then you are in the religious sphere. There are
people who deny the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, the Resurrection, etc.
What do you mean?
The expression holocaust ‘Leugner’ that you use, reveals that this obviously is an article of
faith. Because historical facts can you deny all you want.
Examples?
You may ignore many historical facts: the war crimes of the Soviet Army in the "liberation" of
Germany, the war and post-war crimes of our so called American friends, even the child
murders in their parental body, on a much larger scale than the Nazi horror .... All one can
deny, except the crimes Hitler.
Is that a problem?
Yes, a great problem. Because the fundamental right of free speech should only be limited by
general laws, and not the exception for laws that deny the crimes of Hitler are punishable,
while all other crimes and problems with impunity and denied excused them.
And the genocide of the Jews?
An Exceptional inconsistent with the Constitution, the Holocaust into a religion doctrine
imposed by the State. To deny it is forbidden, just like heresy in earlier centuries.
So the holocaust is a new religion?
Yes. But the problem is it that only God can provide an article of faith, nobody else. And
40
about the Nazi gas chambers is simply nothing in the Bible. Therefore, it can’t be considered
as a religious dogma.
No article of faith of God, but surely of the people?
Of course. But people can wander, and people can lie, even deliberately.
Do you have reasons to believe that?
I wasn’t born during the Hitler time. But I have learned at school the lie that the Nazi regime
made soap of human bones and lampshades of human skin.
What did you conclude on this?
I heard myself that that they lied to us about Hitler's crimes. In Germany we say: ‘Einem
Lügner glaubt man nicht, wenn er auch die Wahrheit spricht’.74
This is going on in the same way. I show this very detailed (maybe too) but I think it is
important to show what this magazine is doing. For me there is still the question why?
Because the main aim of this website is (in there own words): to spread the thoughts of
Rudolf Steiner, because we believe the world needs them’
Holocaust denying is not the only activity of this magazine which should be questioned.
There is more, maybe to many.
Another interesting fragment comes from the article ‘The Ahrimanic Future’. Although this is
a concept of Steiner himself (as they explain), the way they describe this is typical for de
Brug:
‘This expression is for anthroposophists a concept for a phase in human development which is
largely still has to come and a powerful and intelligent creatures who try to neutralize the
Christ-impulse. Several inspired artists have already described how this future will look like.
We have in mind of course ‘1984’ by George Orwell and ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous
Huxley, but many lesser-known science-fiction authors, cartoonists and filmmakers have the
same picture of a depressing future had a future in which the people as an amorphous mass
consumer a soul and spirit free existence in a society by a small elite with sophisticated
techniques governed. Since 1998, the business rapidly affected. This is not only determined
by anthroposophists. The Internet is overloaded with websites of the various facets of this
trend and highlight different assumptions and present conspiracy theories. The difference of
these theories with the anthroposophical interpretation is that we assume that this is organised
by a spiritual entity, an organized power of non earthly or materialistic origin, while nonanthroposophists search the guilty ones within the earth atmosphere (Freemasons, Lodge,
Illuminati, Zionists, capitalists ) or outside the earth atmosphere, where they assume work of
more or less material intelligences (UFOs, etc.). We are aware that the organizations and
groups that we see working in the direction of a ‘World-termite State’ (original ‘Wereld
74
idem
41
termietenstaat’, they use this expression on different places, FS) is also the implementation of
a superhuman intelligence, called Ahriman.
The world today is massively overwhelmed by his influence, we can see the lies’. 75
In another article, describing this ‘Ahrimanic future’, we can read the following:
‘Since the last 2000 years the Luciferian type had replaced gradually by the ahrimanic type. If
we read the descriptions of Caesar how inspired the Nervians fought against the Romans till
the last man died, we conclude that in terms of individual courage they were higher developed
than the average Roman. The Romans fought with more technology, in certain tactical setups,
so with the cold, calculated reason. And they won. Also in the last world war, it is significant
how the Germans fought with honour, compared with Americans (That the propaganda has
managed to reverse this view illustrates yet again the great potential of the occult groups)’. 76
You could say that the people who wrote these articles are completely insane (sometimes it is
more Starwars than anthroposophy, with Ahriman as the Dark side of the Force, or the Dark
Lord of the Sith). Maybe, but they are very capable to read Rudolf Steiner, as they discuss a
lot of his work on several places on this website, even his complete scheme of evolution,
based on the different texts of Geheimwissenschaft about the past and future.77 And that is not
the easiest stuff concerning anthroposophy. Both editors of this magazine are respected
members of the Belgian anthroposophical community. On several websites you can find their
names (I don’t want to mention their names here, but everyone can find out who searches this
website). They have several functions in the anthroposophical scene and are giving lectures
on different anthroposophical subjects, also at the Rudolf Steiner Academie in Gent, one of
the most respected anthroposophical institutes of Belgium. And they are not the only ones
who write these kind of articles in this magazine. There are also others (different guest
authors). So if these people are invited to give lectures about complex anthroposophical
concepts (like the Ahrimanic future) I will take them seriously.
In this article I will mention one name of someone who wrote several articles for this
magazine and who is also very active in the environment of this site (as shown before, in the
introduction of this article, this website is a part of a collection of sites of the same kind,
which are all connected, like for example ‘Vrij Geestesleven’). Jos Verhulst, a prominent
anthroposophist in Belgium and also respected in the Dutch anthroposophical scene. He is the
author of several books (mainly about Steiner’s ideas of evolution, which he tries to
implement or to correspondent with accepted scientific insights). He also wrote a lot of
articles which are accepted in the ‘more serious’ (anthroposophical) media. Earlier I cited his
article on Steiner’s passage on Judaism, in which he also used David Irving as an example.
But Verhulst is not a marginal figure in the anthroposophical scene of both the Netherlands
and Belgium. So here a few passages of what he writes in de Brug in his article with the
optimistic title A short preview on a terrible future:
75
http://users.pandora.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b48met/b48.htm#ahr
76
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b45.htm
77
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b52a.htm
42
‘Remarkable how quick the boundaries are moving of what can be said and what can’t be
said. In the shadow of the Holocaust, which acts as an Ersatz-Mystery of Golgotha of the
secular world religion, the taboos are increasing. Guy Verhofstadt (the Belgian Prime Minister
at that time, FS) is ashamed now for the reasonable words, he wrote just ten or fifteen years
ago on Islam in his ‘Burgermanifest’ (means ‘Civil Manifest’, FS). Opinions which thirty
years ago could be published in the newspapers, are now a reason for prosecution for
‘incitement to hatred’. The sky above the Free Word is darkening rapidly, and the world
becomes a stifling web of restrictions on speaking and even thinking.
But everything is more or less organised. Somewhere, situated in a centre X, rather than in a
classic organized body, but more a diffuse anti-cultural breeding ground, there is a kind well
structured ‘factory of memes’, that step by step pushes our world forward in a terrible
direction. The real leader is not human but a spirit of anti-civilization, which more and more
the powerful of the earth are willing to receive. I don’t know the exact nature or location of
this source, but that it exists is as clear as the hunter is clearly aware of the existence of his
prey, of which he has tracked the imprints in the snow. Who is watching how ideas and social
norms are accelerated moving in the same direction, can not hide for this conclusion. This is
not a ‘random drift’, nor a coincidental series of events. This is structural. Here is a corrupt
kind of intelligence at work’.78
After this quiet paranoid theory (I think it is Ahriman) Verhulst is mentioning a lot of
examples from Canada, most from the gay rights movement (I still wonder why this is such
an issue for anthroposophists, but it apparently is, especially for the authors of the several
articles on this website). But his main point is that he believes there are dark forces at work to
censor every opinion, which is considered as ‘non political correct’. His conclusive part:
‘There is little doubt that the global anti-discrimination lobby accelerates towards a global
ban on critical remarks on homosexuality.
Just as in Belgium in the Netherlands the political class converted to the anti-discrimination
ideology . In our northern neighbour country, even the Constitution begins with the
proclamation of this human hostile principle (this is nonsense, FS79 ).
The consequences of such a step should be more reflected. What are the logical consequences
of the fact that people are more open to disclose their criteria for choosing a marriage partner?
This means nothing else than that the marriage choice itself is basically nationalized. The
political class has the right to intervene with the introduction of the anti-discrimination laws,
including the right appropriated to this life domain. It is one of the last stages of the
collectivisation of family life. Individuals with such laws against the state step by step in the
same ratio as the ratio has a rabbit against rabbit breeder. People have gradually manoeuvred
into a position where they are in the eyes of the political class a kind of culture subjects. Do
not think that this is far-fetched. About thirty years ago someone had said that the currently
existing laws on real marriage, abortion, censorship, etc. ever reality would be, would love
78
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b48met/b48.htm#toek
79
The Dutch constitution (article 1) begins (just as in Belgium, as in the most democracies): ‘Everyone who is
present in this country is equal to the law’. That is something different than the anti-discrimination laws. It
simply says that there is no class justice. Since the French Revolution equality by law is accepted by all
democracies
43
worn. However, it is now ready. What will be thirty years our part? What are the objectives
that our guardians now have in mind? Nothing can be predicted with certainty, but an
extrapolation of what during the previous decades was ‘achieved’ can be the basis for an
‘educated guess’. We may, for example, polygamous' marriages' expect the introduction of
prostitution as a recognized profession, the imposition of quotas marriage - with premiums for
'mixed marriages'. On the wish list are undoubtedly the abolition of the Christian calendar and
the Christian era, mandatory Holocaust education (relevant measures were already
Verhofstadt promised during his visit to Israel) and ethnic taxes (higher rates for people with a
'guilty' ethnic or racial background). Again: don’t think this is exaggerated. Towards this
direction we will evolve. Don’t have any illusions. And the worst things have still to come’.
After this optimistic message of Jos Verhulst, de Brug concludes with a short editorial
comment:
‘Sounds all rather depressing, but this is a step in the development of mankind which we
should go through. For us it is a challenge to find the right ideas and thoughts to come and to
distribute especially the thoughts of the social threefolding, that the human beings live
together within three areas, each with its own principles.
The situation of the first Christians in the catacombs of Rome was also not very bright, Nero
and his fellows accused them of burning down the city, that they were terrorists! But
ultimately the Empire collapsed by its own unwieldiness. That may give us a little bit of
courage ...’80
The issue Sigismund von Gleich
If you have a look on this collection of articles you might question what all this (quiet
depressing and xenophobic) stuff has to do with anthroposophy. There may be some racism in
the work of Steiner, but why transmitting the ideas of David Irving into the anthroposophy?
And why all this self declared victimization?
This kind of pessimism or even fatalism, which also dominates these articles, has a certain
tradition in anthroposophy. I think de Brug perfectly fits into that tradition. If there is one
example of this pessimistic voice, it is Sigismund von Gleich, an original German
anthroposophist who lived for a long time in the Netherlands. His magnum opus Der Mensch
der Eiszeit und Atlantis (1936) is a more personal variant on Steiner’s view on the history of
mankind, but sometimes even more racist. In de Brug, the editors published a short excerpt of
this work. Maybe it is worthwhile to show it here (translation of the Dutch original, which is a
very confusing text, even almost unreadable in Dutch, FS):
‘In the development of man and earth, we identify several larger and smaller units of time.
The Earth went through different stages which we designate by the name of a celestial body,
80
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/vanaf40/b48met/b48.htm#toek
44
eg. Saturn, Sun and Moon. As you know we live now in the fifth culture period of the fifth
period. After the fourth period, called Atlantis, followed by the Deluge. Then came the ancient
Indian culture period, the ancient Persian, the Egyptian-Babylonian and Greco-Roman. It
seems that in anthroposophy all large, well-known cultures have a place, except one: the
Chinese. That has to do with the strong sequel of Atlantic elements in this culture. Sigismund
von Gleich searched for the origins of various peoples, and discovered interesting
connections. A number of terms he used in modern anthropology is no longer used (Indo
Germanic became Indo-European, etc.), but for modern science will the spirit science is
nonsense anyway. We will therefore begin the story with Noah:
‘Manu or Noah led the most practicable part of the fifth Atlantean race (the ‘Ur-Semites’ fdw) from the sinking Atlantis to Inner Asia.81 Therefore this race represents the Noah origin,
of which was rescued from the deluge and developed to the fifth rootrace (after-Atlantic or
Aryan). Noah had three sons: Japhet, Ham and Sem. How should we reveal these historical
ethnologic insights from the spiritual science of the history of the ice age?
Japhet meant the bulk of the Indo-Germanic mankind. The people mentioned in Genesis,
show clearly the name ‘Javanese’, like the Ionians, ‘Madai’ the Medes, ‘Gomer’ the Cimbres.
Actually Japhet stands for the Euro-Caucasian humanity. The Greeks called him Japetos,
whose son Prometheus was chained by Zeus-Jupiter in the rocks of the Caucasus. This image
tells us: The promethean power of the brain of the Aryan-Caucasian people in the postAtlantic period was developed, first in the high rocky mountains of the head, the Jupiterthinking seated in the brains. Japetos and Prometheus are at the beginning of the Greek family
tree. In antiquity, the Greeks and Ionians were regarded as a Zeus-Jupiter People, the people
of thinkers. Rudolf Steiner described Plato as a typical representative of this spirit. The region
of the Sea of Azov (or Asa Sea) to the peaks of the Caucasus, where Europe goes into Asia,
was always called Asia. The Gothic and Scandinavian peoples called the foot of the Caucasus
in their Nordic Saga, Asaland, or the wall of Asahai. It is the origin of the dynasty of the
81
The story of Manu is told by Steiner in Aus der Akasha-Chronik (GA11), in the 2nd chapter ‘Übergang die
Vierte in der Fünfte Wurzelrasse’, http://www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/
bib_steiner_ga_011_03.htm#_Toc17205763
45
Fig. 8 Map of the ‘post-Atlantean world’, as described by Sigismund von Gleich
(published in de Brug, http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/diabasis/b18chincul.htm
‘Asgardians’82, their gods and heroes, and in all myths Odin departed from there to the
European North... Prometheus' mother or wife was Asia. The lofty Caucasus itself as origin of
the Asgardians still has the word 'Asi' in its last syllable. All the people there regard it as a
holy mountain chain. Asia is the land of the gods and angels, but especially the Jupiter
Beings of which the Aryan Caucasian or Indo-Germanic peoples of Europe belong to because
they felt themselves the gods worked in them as the ‘form forces’ from the region of the
Caucasus.
The origin of both the Indo-Germanic peoples as the Semites can be found in that part of the
Atlantic rootrace, occupying the northwestern European part of Atlantis, to the area of
Hyperborea, and the areas in Asia. This group of people we call ‘Noah’, as it has survived the
deluge. This Noah, the seeds of Eurasian-Aryan humanity comes from Japhet, the
‘Indogermanicness’. Sem or the Semites sprang from the same blood, but formed a separate
branch. In the Semite race works also the Turanian element *. The ‘Geisteswissenschaft’ has
found that at one time the North Atlantic peoples flow together with the southern stream of
Turanians who left Atlantis via Africa. The Semites emerged as a strange mixture.
‘Everything which was decadent of the Turanians worked transforming and eliminating in the
Hebrew people’. (Rudolf Steiner explains in Das Mattheus Evangelium, ‘that the old Atlantic
‘Hellsehen’ is not manifested in a lower astral body of the Hebrews, but inwarded and hit the
82
The Asgardians, or the Gods of Asgard, were the members of the most important dynasty of Gods in the
Nordic Edda. Wodan (Odin), Thor, Baldur and Freya belonged to this family of Gods
46
inner life’). Sem is the mixture of pre-Aryan element with the North Asian, Mongolian
Turanian-world flow attached. This is what Sem while the pre-Aryan element, especially in
the more Chinese element lived, although the Mongolian part had become strong. Finally, the
Sem-Semite element of the subsequent time when the Eurasian-Aryan element, the Turanian
had recast in a positive way - in contrast with the Chinese element.
The result is a very special polarity between Semites and the Mongolian-Turanian Chinese
elements. The two are related, but opposite in their polarity! In both ethnic groups the blood is
highly organized, working alongside the general human forces of the sun especially the forces
of Mars in case of the Turanians. But in the Mongols these solar effects are overwhelming,
while with the Semites there is the reverse situation. However, both varieties are very
aggressive (oorlogszuchtig!). Rudolf Steiner describes this in detail in Die Mission einzelner
Volksseelen (GA 121).83 It is one of the main imprints of the second period after Atlantic
culture which the constellation of Gemini is the emergence of the Semites and the polar
opposite Chinese, which in many respects belong to each other as light and shadow. The old
Chinese culture, which around 3100 from Inner Asia (Turkistan) went east where it awoke,
wanted to keep the Luciferian Spirit of Atlantis, but the old Persian and old Semitic-which
developed parallel to them- dived bravely into the darkness of the matter and fought with the
earth-darkness. The Light Culture of Iran stood against the dark magic of Turan and prepared
the Christianity. Across the Persian dualism of Ormuzd and Ahriman stood the ancient
Chinese of Yin and Yang - the heavenly and earthly in polarity. But at the same time formed
from the Turanian-Semitic Aryan mixing the Twins, whose Hebrew branch prepared
Christianity, while the Arab branch as a shadow of the post-Semitism turned against the latter.
But in the ‘Hebrewship’ itself, which began with Abraham, with Ishmael as the ‘Arabness’,
revealed the Gemini principle (in the course of history this happens all the time time). By the
end of the Gemini Era the Semite element-originated in the region of the Caspian Sea and
were created from the contact with Turanians, appeared for the first time in North Babylon
and conquered by its lust for war Anatolia and the Levant, and some later Arabia, where a
secondary centre was established.
Everyone who compares the real-Semitic Hebrew face type eg. with the classic Turkish
(Turanian), will notify the great similarities. Semites and Chinese are peoples who are both
masters in mathematics, and they have a perfect control over the monetary system and all
trade! It should be remembered that, in addition to the Hebrew Semites traditionally the
Assyrians, the Babylonians (2000 BC), the Syrians, and of course the Arabs are included.
Mathematics and monism are the philosophies that have become classic, thanks to the
Semites. It becomes clear how the teachings of the Atlantic Manu admitted one from Inner
Asia to the West in the ‘Turanised Semiteness’ and eastbound in the Aryan affected the
‘Turanianship’/ ‘Chineseness’ (Sigismund von Gleich, or the translator are using the same
kind of neologisms, FS). The Hebrew Ye-ho-va corresponds with the Chinese name of God ‘IHi-Wei’, whose trinity Lao-Tse profound described: ‘Who looks on thou and thou do not see
it, which is the name I mentioned. Who listens and thou will hear him, which is the name
83
In the sixth lecture of Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen, Rudolf Steiner says both the Mongols and the
Semites are under influence of the planet Mars. But the Mongolians are also influenced by the Sun, while the
Semites are more under the influence of the forces of the Moon. Jahwe, according Steiner one of the seven
‘Elohim’, works from the Moon, while the other six Elohim operates from the Sun. See http://
www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/bib_steiner_ga_121_06.htm
47
called Hi, to whom be the hands and grabs him, which is the name of Wei. These three are not
understandable, nor penetrable, so they are united’. [... ]
So we see again how misleading schemes sometimes can be. They give the impression as if
there is any period or culture period is fully completed, while in reality forerunners and
laggards along with the mainstream business. On the next page we try to identify what was
discussed above (see fig. 8, FS). For completeness we mention that the Ham Hamite
population arose, through a mixture of the fifth and sixth race of Atlantis. Hugo Obermaier
wrote : ‘The ancient Egyptians are the main representatives of Hamites which are the white
North Africans, like Europeans, but considering colour, hair type and face they are more
related to the west Mediterranean race’. 84
Beside this is historical, linguistic, etymological, anthropological, etc. (you name it) complete
nonsense, it is sometimes also quiet racist. At least stereotyping. Why these remarks about
‘the Semites who have a perfect control over the monetary system and all trade’? The ‘normal
science’ could be far from perfect, but this ‘spiritual science’ (Geiteswissenschaft) is nothing
more than promoting stereotypes (at least this example of ‘Geisteswissenschaft’).
But, there is one remarkable thing to tell about the author, Sigismund von Gleich. Whatever
you may think of these ideas, it seems that he was a principal dissident of the Nazi regime. He
even fled to the Netherlands, before it was occupied by Germany. After the war he was one of
the few in the Netherlands who openly criticized the Dutch colonial war against the post-war
independence movement of Indonesia, of Sukarno. This has been described by Dieter Brüll,
professor in Tax Law and prominent anthroposophist in the Netherlands (of German origin).
Earlier the ideas of von Gleich were strongly criticized by Gjalt Zondergeld, professor in
History at the Free University of Amsterdam and the first criticizer of Steiner’s views on races
in the Netherlands. After Zondergeld published several articles Dieter Brüll wrote a now
famous reply (at least in the circuits of conservative anthroposophists in the Netherlands)
entitled ‘De Nieuwe Reactionairen’ (The new Reactionairies). In this article he defended von
Gleich and praised him for his principal and brave attitude against the Nazis. Probably Brüll
was right, so all respect to the person von Gleich. It doesn’t change my opinion on the ideas
as described above. Beside this, von Gleich wrote some more text after the war, during his life
in the Netherlands. An example is his small publication The Holy Grail and the New Era of
Christ (in Dutch ‘De Heilige Graal en de nieuwe tijd van Christus’). In this booklet he shows
he didn’t change fundamentally. His ideas are quiet the same as his pre-war ideas. The
difference is he writes some more positive about Judaism. The new target of his xenophobia
has become the Islam. Two passages:
‘With a deep sense of sorrow and pain in the heart, many of us ask themselves: how many
cruelties has the human kind to suffer before we reach the year 2000? And there are
increasing numbers of people who feel or realise that the last years of this century will be
crucial for the eternal faith of humanity. Most of the time we think of the superficial
appearance of things. We fear the outbreak of the Third World War, revolutions, concentration
camps, massive bloodshed, atom bombs and severe famines or epidemics, but less the
spiritual collapse and the moral decay. Some of us may think of the possibility of unexpected
84
http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/diabasis/b18chincul.htm
48
natural catastrophes. The harsh afflictions which will suffer are more spiritual and will reach
their climax around 2000. They are more related with the increasing but disastrous and
immense disturbed changes of the condition of the soul and the moral orientation of the
people, connected with the transformation of the rational and materialistic consciousness
towards the spiritual inspired state of mind of the near future’. 85
Unless the promise of a better future in the last sentence this seems typical anthroposophy in
the same style of Jos Verhulst and the Ahriman obsessed articles of De Brug. This is a kind of
dark and pessimistic anthroposophy I wasn’t familiar with, at least not in my own
environment. But von Gleich continues:
‘While the old dreamlike clairvoyance of the Israelites changed in a deep religious or inspired
thought, that was able to witness the presence of God, hardened this gift of the Ishmaelite
Arabs of the desert in a way, that the seed originated for a form of intelligence, which denies
the spirit and ‘ridicules’ the divine. Because of this the later Islamic monotheism is like a dead
copy of the Israeli monotheism, although also the Law of Moses was revealed on Mount
Sinai. Allah is the shadow of Jehovah!’86
Here we see the old von Gleich, like he was in 1936, although he changed his targets, which
fits better in the post war climate. Suddenly he becomes almost a fan of Israel. He continues:
‘What a striking image (says von Gleich about his own metaphor, FS) for a dry, barren
become power of the intellect - the desert, which all live is dead. The contemporary view of
nature resembles a desert, where nothing is growing and the forces of life are nothing but a
dead mechanism of atoms’. 87
The interesting thing is that Dieter Brüll, in his defence of von Gleich, made the following
statement (in the footnotes): ‘Who reads the books of von Gleich will be affected by the
warmth of the way he describes the contribution to human civilization of the Arabs, the
Chinese and the Jews’88 This is not a joke, Brüll really says this in his famous article ‘De
nieuwe reactionairen’ (The New Reactionaries, the most effective defence against all
accusations of racism in anthroposophy, according to an amount of conservative Dutch
anthroposophists). Well, have a look yourself.
So far Sigismund von Gleich (old style or new style). Although, maybe one thing. In his
defence of von Gleich against Zondergeld Dieter Brüll wrote the following (I quote the whole
passage):
‘Like as if the Devil plays with Zondergeld he attacked exactly the ‘wrong racist’ Sigismund
von Gleich. It is true that he published on Steiner’s ‘racial teachings’ before the Christian
period (after the Christian era in the view of Steiner the racial differences lost their meaning).
But he was just one of the most principal Nazi fighters in the earliest stage, who never made
any concession. As the son of a Prussian General, he had distanced himself from his parental
85
Sigismund von Gleich, De Heilige Graal en de Nieuwe Tijd van Christus, de Zevenster, Driebergen, 1952, (2e
herziene druk met een inleiding van Clemens von Gleich, 1982) p. 7
86
Idem. p. 25
87
Idem
88
Dieter Brüll, De Nieuwe Reactionairen, p. 24
49
environment. Just once he acted as an officer, when the brown hordes came at his home for a
search for ‘that Jew’. There was a guest and the slim man stood resolute amongst these thugs
- Von Gleich: 'Was suchen Sie hier?’ He didn’t give way for a moment from their side until
they left without finding anything. He was also, on an evening, on the market in Nuremberg
where the agitated mass burnt books of Jewish writers. But in a lecture for fifty people he
quoted Heine, not necessarily for this lecture, but as a protest against this cultural disgrace.
And then, after a ban on anthroposophy in Germany he emigrated to Holland, he often tried
to warn the indifferent Dutch citizens for the brutality of the Nazis (but these were incidents?
And Hitler had overcome unemployment). When the occupation gets behind him, he as a
German, who lived of giving lectures, he had the choice: Kultur Kammer of KZ. He refused
to become a member. There followed a home search and all his manuscripts were confiscated.
Finally he was called to appear in front of the Gestapo. Again the choice Kultur Kammer or
KZ. ‘You see, I've already brought my suitcase’. Just after the liberation, he again fought
against racism. For an audience full of ‘Dutch Imperialists’ (original ‘Rijkseenheders’) and
other colonial types, he argued that the Netherlands were at a colonial war and that no
argument could be found, why the whites had the right to patronize the Indonesians so
heavily. And exactly this man should have written a racist oeuvre? Painful, Zondergeld. At the
very least apologies to the relatives of von Gleich should be appropriate’.89
Before discussing the arguments concerning Sigismund von Gleich, I would like to discuss
one other issue of this passage. That is Brüll’s remark between braces: ‘It is true that he
published on Steiner’s ‘racial teachings’ before the Christian period (after the Christian era in
the view of Steiner the racial differences lost their meaning)’. This short remark is the only
thing Brüll says in the article about Steiner’s own ideas about races (except for one general
remark in Steiner’s review on Homunkulus). Factually this is the one and only fragment he
discusses Steiner. Further he discusses just critics and defenders of anthroposophy, except in
the end. When he finished his argumentation he presents a kind of personal highlights of
quotes of Rudolf Steiner, which could be interpreted as ‘anti-racist’. In most cases he just
gives the year, not even a GA number. This to demonstrate how in his opinion Zondergeld
works (just mentioning some isolated quotes without context). It is also the method of
Lorenzo Ravagli who states the same about all critics of Steiner in Ravagli, Rudolf Steiner
und die Überwindung des Rassismus,90 but Ravagli’s article is much more extended and
above all much more refined (but also not sufficient). But in ‘De nieuwe Reactionairen’ Brüll
is just defending von Gleich and attacking some critics of the anthroposophy (Zondergeld, but
also prof. JD Immelman, who wrote a critical analysis of the education method of the Waldorf
Schools, but that has no relevance for this article). But his only statement/confession about
how he thinks Steiner’s ideas about races are, is this small remark. And I am afraid that this
statement: ‘after the Christian era in the view of Steiner the racial differences lost their
meaning’ is completely untrue, although these kind of assertions were also done by other
anthroposophists. Again the words of Helmut Zander: ‘Rassen seien ein Intermezzo der
Menschheitsgeschichte. »Die Rassen sind entstanden und werden einmal vergehen, werden
einmal nicht mehr da sein.« (GA 121,76 [1910]) Erneut artikulierte Steiner sein
89
Idem, p. 21
90
Lorenzo Ravagli, Rudolf Steiner und die Überwindung des Rassismus, Institut für Soziale Dreigliedung,
7-2003, see http://www.dreigliederung.de/essays/2003-07-003.html
50
antimaterialistisches Leitmotiv, aber bei näherem Hinsehen bleibt dies ein gänzlich
unpolitisches Argument. Die Rassenentstehung, die erst in der lemurischen Zeit begonnen
habe, werde in der sechsten und siebten »Entwickelungsepoche« verschwinden (ebd.), das
heißt: frühestens ungefähr im 9. Jahrtausend. Für eine politische Erledigung der Rassenfrage
und für die Geltung von Steiners Rassentheorien ist dies eine lange, eine zu lange Zeit’. 91
As seen before, we concluded that Zander is right. Think about the examples of the Native
Americans, described as a dying race, during the nineteenth century or other contemporary
situations. That the differences between races will disappear in Steiner’s view is correct, but
in the far future. So definitively we can conclude that Brüll is wrong.
The reason I spent so much attention to this minor detail is that in the Netherlands there are
some (more orthodox) anthroposophists who reject the van Baarda report (sixteen
discriminative passages were for them unacceptable, one of these anthroposophists called this
even ‘treason’) are always pointing at the article of Brüll as the best defence against
accusations of racism, whatever the arguments may be. In the Netherlands ‘De Nieuwe
Reactionairen’ became for this group a kind of a slogan; if you shout it loud enough you
immunized Steiner of all critic. I hope I finally argued that this article is not sufficient to
immunize Steiner of all critic on the issue of races. One suggestion for anthroposophists who
don’t have this opinion: republish the article of Brüll on the internet in different languages, so
everyone can find out (probably an idea for the editorial of Driegonaal).
As we have seen in Brüll’s article (and I have no reason for doubts in this particular case, so
concerning von Gleich’s attitude towards the Nazis I am willing to believe Brüll) Von Gleich
wasn’t a friend of the National Socialists and he even resisted in a very brave way. For this, he
earns without any doubt all admiration and honour. Also for his point of view concerning
Indonesia, because there were just a few people in the Netherlands who had the same insight
and history has proven that they were right.
There is one thing I think the Dieter Brüll apologetics should do (even principally), if they are
serious with Brüll’s mission to advocate or rehabilitate Sigismund von Gleich. That is
questioning why this principal dissident of the Nazis is used by a website/journal which
constantly tries to question the Holocaust and for their mission are seeking support with NeoNazis. Maybe these Dutch (and Belgian) anthroposophists have no idea who these David
Irving and Ernst Zündel really are. My suggestion is, please find out. I suppose one Google
search is sufficient.
Freies Geistesleben?
As we have seen in De Brug there are several places where has suggested that the Holocaust
is a lie (but ‘Freedom of Speech’) and that this magazine places even a link to the website of
David Irving, the most notorious revisionist in the world who became a main figure within the
international Neo Nazi Movement (the man has a strange history, from a respected academic
91
Helmut Zander, Anthroposophie in Deutschland; Theosophische Weltanschauung und gesellschaftliche Praxis
1884–1945, Göttingen, 2007, Band 1, p.665
51
to paria).92 But also other revisionists were mentioned, like Robert Faurisson and Ernst
Zündel, and some others. This is not just happening in de Brug. In the ‘environment’ of this
site are also other websites, which are even more extreme. While de Brug is concerning
‘anthroposophy’ there are some sister websites dealing with several subjects which are partly
related to anthroposophy. One of these sites is www.vrijgeestesleven.be (Freises
Geistesleben). And again, this site has nothing to do with the publisher of the works of Rudolf
Steiner in the Netherlands. You can even question if this site, unless this name, has something
to do with anthroposophy. If you enter this site you will find the following text:
www.vrijgeestesleven.be
neemt het op voor alle slachtoffers van lokale, federale of Europese SovjetOverheden :
- rokers
- negationisten
- vaccinatieweigeraars
Meerdere categorieën volgen nog ...
‘Vrij Geestesleven’, defends all the victims of local, Federal or European Soviet
Governments: smokers, negationists, refusers of vaccinations. More categories will follow’.
Except this, there are two links to two different sites. Left you have the link naar de map
"antroposofie" (means ‘towards the directory anthroposophy’), which leads to De Brug and
right a link naar de map "directe democratie" (means ‘towards the directory ‘Direct
Democracy’), which leads to a site of the political initiatives of Jos Verhulst (I will also
discuss some aspects of this site).
The link behind negationisten (means ‘revisionists’) leads to the website www.vho.org
announced as ‘The World’s largest website for Historical Revisionism! The Holocaust
Controversy – A Case for open Debate’.
92
I think it would be wise for everyone who concerns this subject (especially anthroposophists) to gather some
knowledge about this early academic historian and later Holocaust revisionist. The English Wikipedia page is
very extensive (much more than an average wiki and with a lot of links), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
David_Irving. Information about the Irving Lipstadt process, mentioned by Jos Verhulst can be found here http://
www.skepsis.nl/irving.html (in Dutch). At the site of De Brug there is already a link to his homepage, even the
only external link in the index of the articles (under the W of World War II, but again http://www.fpp.co.uk/
online/index.html). Also I can recommend a compelling documentary Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A.
Leuchter Jr. about Fred Leuchter, originally a ‘Gas-chamber expert’ from the US and inventor of the ‘injection
machine’, now common use for executions in the US. He gradually came more and more in Neo Nazi circuits
and was hired as an expert to prove that the gas-chambers of Auschwitz never existed. The story is quiet sick, but
nevertheless it is a brilliant documentary.
52
Even when you have the conviction that there is racism in the anthroposophy (which I
gradually have), that this racism is close related to national socialism (which I don’t), or that
some individual anthroposophists are sometimes ‘too sensitive’ for several pseudo scientific,
fantastic, wrong ideas (also morally), or just stupid (I have seen sometimes different examples
of these categories), this is something I think almost no one could expect. Because here an
anthroposophical magazine links itself explicitly and clearly to a neo Nazi website, although
this site pretends not to be. And this is not an incident. In the case of de Brug we have already
seen that they even recommended the website of David Irving (even mentioned in the index).
Although there are no Swastikas or other Nazi symbols to welcome you (for example, on the
site of David Irving you can buy pictures on poster format of Rudolf Hess), the content is,
without any mistake, of neo Nazi origin.
A few excerpts from the introduction:
‘Revisionists agree with establishment historians that the German National Socialist State
singled out the Jewish people for special and cruel treatment. In addition to viewing Jews in
the framework of traditional anti-Semitism, the National Socialists also saw them as being an
influential force behind international communism and behind the so-called international
"finance capital," which they held responsible for the worldwide economic crisis and for the
impoverishment of German workers. During World War II, Jews were considered to be
enemies of the German State and a potential danger to its war efforts, much like the Germans,
Italians, and Japanese were viewed in the U.S. Consequently, Jews were stripped of their
rights, forced to live in ghettos, conscripted for labor, deprived of their property, deported, and
otherwise mistreated. Many tragically perished. In contrast to establishment historians,
Revisionists claim that the German State had NO policy to exterminate the Jewish people (or
anyone else) in homicidal gas chambers or by killing them through abuse or neglect.
Revisionists also maintain that the figure of six million Jewish deaths is an irresponsible
exaggeration, and that no execution gas chambers existed in any camp in Europe which was
under German control. Fumigation gas chambers, both stationary and mobile, did exist to
delouse clothing and equipment to prevent disease at POW, labor, and concentration camps
and at the fighting front. It is highly likely that it was from this lifesaving procedure that the
myth of extermination gas chambers emerged’(..)
‘It is certain that if there had been "killing factories" in Poland murdering millions of
civilians, then the Red Cross, the Pope, humanitarian agencies, the Allied governments,
neutral governments, and prominent figures such as Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill,
Eisenhower, and many others would have known about it and would have often and
unambiguously mentioned it, and condemned it. They did not! The promoters admit that only
a tiny group of individuals believed the story at that time—many of whom were connected
either with Jewish or with Communist propaganda agencies. The rise of the Holocaust story
reads more like the success story of a PR campaign than anything else’ (..).
‘Only two monographs were written so far on the question of how many Jews lost their lives
during World War II. The first is a revisionist book concluding that some 300,000 perished.
The second is authored by several recognized historians claiming that some six million died.
Whereas the Revisionist book takes into consideration demographic changes of the Jewish
population in all countries, the mainstream book compiles its figures by simply subtracting
the number of Jews alive in Europe a few years after the war from those alive in Europe
53
several years before the war. It ignores that the Jewish population in America, Israel, and
other countries outside of Europe had increased by almost six million in this period of time, as
a result of a new Exodus. Thus, those who had left Europe were simply declared to be
Holocaust victims’(...)
‘Still, at camps such as Buchenwald, Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen tens of thousands of
relatively healthy internees were liberated. They were there in the camps when "The
Photographs" were taken. There are newsreels of these internees walking through the camp
streets laughing and talking. Others picture exuberant internees throwing their caps in the air
and cheering their liberators. It is only natural to ask why you haven’t seen those particular
films and photos while you’ve seen the others hundreds of times’(...)
If you wish to learn more about Holocaust revisionism, we recommend our free brochure with
answers to the most frequently asked questions and links to articles and entire books available
on this topic. Those wishing to verify the truthfulness of the statements made above, can visit
our vast Internet database at www.vho.org and download many scholarly articles and books
about this topic, including many references to primary sources, forensic research, and much
more.93
I think I showed enough of to show what kind of a website this is. Although these teksts are
much more cautious and tactical formulated (for example the texts about Ahriman and the
Holocaust in de Brug) I think everyone could see this is a real neo Nazi site.
The most important content of this site is the immense amount of downloads of literature.
You can find a lot of titles of the Holocaust revisionists who were discussed earlier, like
Irving, Faurisson, Zündel. But also of Norman Finkelstein, who is in my view misused by this
neo Nazi site. An overview of the more than thousand downloads can be found here http://
vho.org/search/d/search.php?
db=default&uid=default&ID=&Language=ENG&Type=Book&mh=20&sb=1&so=ascend&v
iew_records=View+Records
A catalogue of the bookshop of VHO can be found here: http://vho.org/store/
eBooksScreen.pdf. It is worth to have a general look on this, while questioning why an
anthroposophical website or magazine should be involved in these kind of things.
But this is not the only thing of this kind you could find on ‘vrijgeestesleven’. Behind the
link naar de map "directe democratie" (direct democracy) normally you find the site of the
political initiative of Jos Verhulst. At the moment they announced ‘closed because of
Holiday’. I have some reasons to doubt this. In I didn’t know that websites have also holidays
and second they placed the text of an old children song on the site, with the significant
passage (translated in English): ‘And for those who mock on us, finally they will
loose’ (original: ‘En zij die op ons kniezen, zullen gaan verliezen’). Probably they did this
because some people (myself and some others) paid some attention on this site a few weeks
ago.94
But before that time, when they were not on holiday, one of the first things you saw, after
entering this website was a banner ‘Free Ernst Zündel’. I am not the only one who saw this,
more people paid some attention on this interesting detail, see again the debate on the site of
93
http://vho.org/Intro/GB/Flyer.html
94
On the site of Ramon de Jonghe http://antroposofie.wordpress.com/2009/03/21/brugklasje-van-angry-man/.
See for the ‘holiday message’
54
Ramon de Jonghe.95 But perhaps, when they are back from holiday, they may want to explain
why they placed that specific banner. Till now, ‘Vrij Geestesleven.be’ is keeping silence.
Some parts of Jos Verhulst contributions are still online, especially where he fulminates
against political correctness (as against the Belgian writer Thom Lanoye, who appeared to be
a candidate for the Belgian Green party). Lanoye, who spoke himself repeatedly against
censorship, didn’t do this when a Belgian library banned a book of Robert Faurisson.
According to Jos Verhulst Lanoye is a hypocrite, because he supports the literature of Herman
Brusselmans (with to much sex in it, according to Jos Verhulst, he uses the word
‘zandbakseks’, means ‘sex in the sandpit’ and to be honest, there is a lot of sex, with a lot of
humour, but probably not the humour Verhulst likes) and Brusselmans proclaims sexual
freedom. But real freedom, Verhulst says, like legalizing the books of Faurisson, is something
Lanoye doesn’t want to defend’.96 This is one of the strangest reproaches I have ever seen.
The idea that you are angry with someone for defending Herman Brusselman, but refusing to
defend Robert Faurisson. But that’s what ‘s going on. Verhulst: ‘Freedom! Let’s have a look
at the freedom of thinking and speaking and reading and writing. Tom Lanoye ofcourse
supports the abuse of freedom by Brusselmans. Sandpit Freedom for piss and shitwriters is
not only harmless, but even serving the system, because they create the illusion of real
freedom. But what about the political freedom? Agalev (the Belgian Green Party, FS) for
which Lanoye is on a list for the elections, registered as an independent, but he does. What is
this, the censorship initiative Agalev in Gent? In this city, at the initiative of Agalev an
apparently dangerous book by Faurisson was removed from the library, that claims the
authenticity of the diary of Anne Frank is in serious doubt’.
You may question which is more an abuse of freedom: Brusselmans or Faurisson? And I am
afraid I strongly suggest that the last one is the most likely candidate, although I don’t say that
Faurisson necessarily needs to be censored or even banned from libraries (my personal
viewpoint is principally not so in a certain way I even agree with Verhulst especially on the
issue of removing a book from the library, but that is a different issue). And since when is the
literature of Brusselmans ‘low culture’ and the neo Nazi pulp of Faurisson ‘high art’? But
anyhow, this is typical for the entourage of de Brug, In the same article Verhulst claims that
the existence of the Belgian Waldorfschools is in great danger, because the state wants close
them, because in their view Steiner would be a racist. Well I think you will help the
acceptance of Rudolf Steiner the Waldorfschools seriously when you constantly promote an
amount of Holocaust deniers in Steiner’s name, especially when you do this in the same
article. As a parent who is not familiar with the Waldorfschool you could almost think the
children at school have to read Faurisson.
These are the issues www.vrijgeestesleven.be and de Brug want to be associated with. The
right of denying the Holocaust is the most fundamental human right de Brug is fighting for.
You may ask why. Because they really believe that the holocaust never took place? That it is a
myth, created by Ahriman, to destroy the Christian Impulse of Central Europe, necessarily for
the ‘spiritual revolution’, when the ‘real Christians finally can leave their catacombs?’ Maybe.
Probably they really believe they have to operate as an underground movement, as a new
spiritual elite that is to be prepared in secrecy, while the outside world is ruled or dominated
by occult fellowships, political correctness, sandpit sex and above all Ahriman. But till this
95
idem
96
See http://www.vrijgeestesleven.be/directe%20democratie/Archief/watispc.htm#correct
55
moment they have there place within the anthroposophical scene and everyone seems to agree
that their message is a part of the mainstream anthroposophy. There is no much reason for
such a martyrdom they fantasize about in their most of the time totally confused articles.
The silent majority?
Maybe it is not worth to discuss a medium as de Brug seriously. There are probably some
good reasons for. First most of these articles are completely over the top, extreme or confused,
that they cause no damage, except probably the anthroposophy itself. ‘Sandpit sex’, how
‘Ahrimanic’ this possibly could be, is not an issue to make a lot of fuzz about. Even the insane
statements about the connection of the increasing abortions and the imagined increase of
homosexuality, Ahriman and the Holocaust, or David Irving. You could see them as the jester
of the anthroposophy of Belgium and the Netherlands (although not everything is that funny).
But you could say that if the anthroposophists have some idiots amongst them, let them play
in their own obscure domain on the internet (also a kind of a sandpit). Second they apparently
suffer so heavily on their self declared martyrdom that there are good reasons to let them
believe they are like the Christians in the catacombs. In that position they are quiet harmless.
But in my view there are three reasons to spend this extensive attention on this medium. This
has everything to do with the quantity, the ‘quality’ and the interaction with the mainstream,
which already has a serious credibility problem. First the quantity: this by far the largest
anthroposophical website of Belgium and the Netherlands, so the largest anthroposophical
website in the Dutch language. It is larger than the major anthroposophical webportals as
Antrovista, the official websites of the Dutch and the Belgian anthroposophical society and
larger than any other site of the ‘serious’ anthroposophical media. If you search the internet on
information on anthroposophy in Dutch, this site is one of the first which pops up in for
example the google search engine (I found this website in this way). I think this is a problem,
or I should consider this as a problem if I were an anthroposophist who is active in whatever
organised way. If I were in that position I shouldn’t like the idea when people without any
knowledge of the anthroposophy and are searching the internet to gather some more
information which is available in Dutch this site is probably the first thing they would find.
So I think this is something to worry about. Because the ‘quality’ of these articles, which
leads to the second point.
Reading all these articles (some hundreds, probably more than thousand) a naïve reader could
easily assume that anthroposophy is severe anti-Semitic or even neo-Nazistic (see the remarks
about the Holocaust, the links to the site of David Irving, The VHO, etc.). I think this is
totally intolerable. And I am not saying that these articles have to be removed from the
internet, being censored, etc. but without any reaction, counter argument or whatsoever it is
not unreasonable that anthroposophy is racist and is even connected with national socialist
ideas (this is not my opinion, but in general this will give the appearance of this connection).
This leads to my second point; it looks like if these articles are even supported by subscribed
by the mainstream anthroposophy of both Belgium and the Netherlands. Because on every
anthroposophical main portal on the internet the Brug has recommended as
‘anthroposophical magazine’, together with Motief, Driegonaal, or international magazines as
Der Europaër, Flensburger Hefte, Erziehungskunst or Info3. In the Dutch anthroposophical
magazines the ‘different face’ of Jos Verhulst has a lot of positive attention, like in Motief, the
56
magazine of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society.97 His books, mainly dealing with evolution
and anthroposophy have serious reviews. Probably these books deserve this attention within
the anthroposophical context, but why accepting or being silent about the other things he is
also promoting on ‘vrijgeestesleven’ and de Brug (as the other authors and the two editors of
this magazine)? Because if Verhulst is considered as a contributor to anthroposophy in
Belgium and the Netherlands, you have to question him for this holocaust revisionism he
apparently likes to be involved with. But no-one does, or pretend is doesn’t exist, hoping the
outside world is not watching.
I don’t think that no-one in the mainstream is aware of what is going on in the environment of
de Brug, Vrijgeestesleven or Democratie nu. But why tolerating this without any protest or
even one critical remark? This is my third and most important point. It is true that the
anthroposophy had a traumatic period during the nineties, especially in the Netherlands.
During the eighties appeared the first publication about possible racism in the work of Rudolf
Steiner. These were followed by even more during the nineties, which got more and more
attention of the media (especially the affair of the parents Toos Jeurissen and Angelique
Opprinsen, who contacted the media). This followed by the dramatic interview on the radio
with the vice-president of the Dutch anthroposophical society. That became the final
apotheosis of a long lasting affair.
The Dutch anthroposophists tried to solve the issue with the van Baarda commission and the
report, although it was almost impossible because it was not general available or discussed in
public (I was lucky that I could get a copy). For me, and for some other critics this report was
not convincing. I discussed some aspects of this report above but it is too extensive to discuss
all of it for an article like this (the report is quiet voluminous, 720 pages). But I think there is
a structural racial doctrine in the work of Steiner and I don’t think it is easy to reject the
arguments of different critics. But probably the Dutch Anthroposophical Society has to make
this report public (they never did), so everyone has the opportunity to study this. The
Frankfurther Memorandum is even available on the internet, so why not the van Baarda
Report?
But something different is to keep silence when in the name of the philosophy you pretend to
represent, some, maybe marginal figures, think they can use this philosophy for spreading the
word of David Irving, Ernst Zündel cs. I think than it is time to act, for both the Belgian and
the Dutch anthroposophical communities. To make a public and convincing statement that
promoting racism, severe anti-Semitism, homophobia or Holocaust revisionism, is not a part
of what you represent, instead of promoting the medium which has itself structurally
committed to these excesses.
Because if you tolerate this without any reaction, the mantra of the Dutch Anthroposophical
Society and the commission report ‘Géén Sprake van Rassenleer’ (No racial teachings) has
lost every credibility. I don’t believe this must be hard. Unless my criticism and my
conviction that there is some racism I am still convinced, and I am probably not the only one,
that Neo Nazism or Holocaust revisionism have nothing to do with Rudolf Steiner. So why do
we have to read in an ‘anthroposophical medium’ that David Irving is telling the (possible)
truth or the ‘possibility’ that Robert Faurisson ‘proved’ the diary of Anne Frank is a
falsification? Show that this is serious, because when you don’t act responsible I believe that
97
Jos Verhulst and reactions of Wijbrand de Steur, Henk Verhoog en Ferdie Amons, Waarnemen en denken;
mens en dier in de evolutie, Motief nr. 43, Juli/augustus, 2001, http://www.antroposofie.nl/literatuur/
antroposofische_literatuur/artikelendatabase/ms/nws/df/motief43-5
57
you will severely harm the reputation of Steiner. Although I am not a ‘believer’ I still believe
that his general intentions were good, and promoting Neo-Nazism is definitively not in the
spirit nor letter of Rudolf Steiner and the Anthroposophy. But a convincing statement or
action is the very least the anthroposophical community can do. Because Neo-Nazism and
anthroposophy are not a happy marriage. Prove me that I am right. And closing your own eyes
doesn’t mean that nobody else could see.
Selected bibliography:
Th.A. van Baarda, E.A.P. de Clerq-Zubli, H.P. van Manen (ao), Antroposofie en het vraagstuk
van de rassen; eindrapport van de onderzoekscommissie, Antroposofische Vereniging in
Nederland, Zeist, 2000
Helena P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine; the Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy,
London, 1888, online version http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd-hp.htm
Peter Bierl, Wurzelrassen Erzengel und Volksgeister; die Anthroposophie Rudolf Steiners und
die Waldorpädagogik (Aktualisierte und erweiterte Neuausgabe), Konkret Literatur Verlag,
2005
Dieter Brüll, De Nieuwe reactionairen, met een bijzondere aandacht voor het verschijnsel
Zondergeld, in ‘Driegonaal’, 1986, no. 1
Ramon Brüll, Jens Heisterkamp, Frankfurt Memorandum: Rudolf Steiner and the subject of
racism, Info 3 Verlag, 2008, http://www.info3.de/ycms/download/memorandum_english.pdf
Sigismund von Gleich, De Heilige Graal en de Nieuwe Tijd van Christus, de Zevenster,
Driebergen, 1952, (second revised edition with an introduction of Clemens von Gleich, 1982)
Sigismund von Gleich, Der Mensch, der Eiszeit und Atlantis (original 1936, excerpt in Dutch
published in de Brug, http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/diabasis/b18chincul.htm)
Guido und Michael Grandt, Waldorf connection; Rudolf Steiner und die Anthroposophen,
Alibri Verlag, Aschaffenburg, 2001
Jana Husmann-Kastein, Schwarz-Weiß-Konstruktionen im Rassebild Rudolf Steiners, Berliner
Dialog 29 Juli 2006, http://www.religio.de/dialog/106/29_22-29.htm
Toos Jeurissen, Uit de Vrije School geklapt; antroposofie en racisme; een stellingname,
Baalproducties, Sittard, 1996 (published in English as Waldorf Salad with Aryan mayonaise,
http://www.waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/waldorf_salad.html )
Ramon de Jonghe, Focus op de Steinerschool; onderwijs op maat van wie?, Unibook, 2009
(see also http://antroposofie.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/schotschrift/)
58
Ludwig Kuhlenbeck, Der Occultismus der Nordamerikanischen Iindianer, Wilhelm Friedrich
Verlag, Leipzig, 1886
Henk van Oort, Antroposofie; een kennismaking, Vrij Geestesleven, Zeist, 2006
Bram Moerland, Rassenleer met charisma; over het racisme van Helena Blavatsky en Rudolf
Steiner, Haagse Academie voor Filosofie, 1989
Lorenzo Ravagli, Rudolf Steiner und die Überwindung des Rassismus, Institut für Soziale
Dreigliedung, 7-2003, see http://www.dreigliederung.de/essays/2003-07-003.html
August de Roode, Evert van der Tuin and Gjalt Zondergeld, Antroposofisch racisme, of: als
de Blonden uitsterven zullen de mensen steeds dommer worden, Nijmeegs Comite van
Waakzaamheid, 1984
Rudolf Steiner, Aus der Akasha Chronik, Gesammelte Artikel aus Luzifer Gnosis, 1906, GA
011, online version: http://www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/bib_steiner_ga_011.htm
Rudolf Steiner, Menschheits-entwickelung und Christus Erkenntnis; Theosophie und
Rosenkreuzertum; Das Johannes Evangelium, GA 100, 1907 (Verlag der Rudolf SteinerNachlassverwaltung, Dornach, 1967)
Rudolf Steiner, Die Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß, GA 013, 1909, online version http://
www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/bib_steiner_ga_013.htm
Rudolf Steiner, Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen im zusammenhange mit der Germanisch
Nordische Mythologie; Vortragzyklus gehalten in Christiana (Oslo) GA 121, 1910
(Nachlassverwaltung, im Selbstverlag, Dornach 1950), p. 80-81 (online version: http://
www.anthroposophie.net/steiner/ga/bib_steiner_ga_121.htm
Rudolf Steiner, Vom Leben des Menschen und der Erde; über da Wesen des Christentums,
(GA 349) 1923 (Rudolf Steiner Taschenbücher aus dem Gesamtwerk, Rudolf Steiner Verlag,
Dornach, 1993), online version: http://www.anthroposophieonline.net/index.php?
option=com_content&view=category&id=247:ga-349-vom-lebens-des-menschen-und-erde&Itemid=19
Helmut Zander, Anthroposophie in Deutschland; Theosophische Weltanschauung und
gesellschaftliche Praxis 1884–1945, Band 1&2, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2007
Gjalt Zondergeld, Goed en kwaad; vijftien opstellen, van fascisme tot pacifisme, van Rudolf
Steiner tot Colijn, Garant, Antwerpen/Apeldoorn, 2002
The several discussed articles of De Brug can be found on http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/
diabasis/index.html (homepage) or http://users.telenet.be/antroposofie/diabasis/inhaztot.html
(index) or at Vrij Geestesleven, http://www.vrijgeestesleven.be/
59
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