Daniel Hindes

Peter Staudenmaier writes in Paragraph 16 of Anthroposophy and Ecofascism:

The affinities with Nazi discourse are unmistakable. Wolfgang Treher makes a convincing case that Steiner's racial theories, especially the repeated scheme of a small minority evolving further while a large mass declines, bear striking similarities even in detail to Hitler's own theories. He concludes: "Concentration camps, slave labor and the murder of Jews constitute a praxis whose key is perhaps to be found in the 'theories' of Rudolf Steiner." (Wolfgang Treher, Hitler Steiner Schreber, Emmingden 1966, p. 70)

Wolfgang Treher's “important” work was considered so scholarly that it was unable to find a publisher, so it was self-published by the author. That Peter Staudenmaier finds it so compelling is an indication of the degree of critical thinking he brings to his investigation. Treher's thesis is that both Steiner and Hitler suffered from schizophrenia, and that a mania - a physiological disturbance - was at the root of both of their worldviews. Like Peter Staudenmaier, Treher admits he is uninterested in understanding Steiner's views; they are sufficiently odd to him to automatically indicate mental illness. According to Treher, the onset of Steiner's psychosis started already when Steiner wrote his Ph.D. thesis in philosophy. Steiner tackled one of the oldest problems in philosophy: epistemology, or how the thinking mind comes to terms with outer reality. Treher takes this as evidence of schizophrenia – a split in Steiner's mind between reality and delusion. This conclusion, by someone who admittedly never read the work in question, is mind-bogglingly moronic. Perhaps this is the reason why no publisher would touch it. Further "evidence" is demonstrated by a statement by a friend of Steiner's that once Steiner started lecturing on Theosophy, he was "changed" and no longer had time for old friends. This supposedly proves that Steiner was a full-blown schizophrenic the moment he started lecturing on esoteric subjects. If Peter Staudenmaier can find Treher "incisive" this can only be because he is either so predisposed to believing anything negative that he finds about Steiner as to completely overlook Treher's considerable problems, or he knows of this book only by reputation among anti-anthroposophist writers, and has not actually read it himself. I suspect the latter, since none of Treher's points are mentioned in the biographical overview of Steiner offered by Peter Staudenmaier.

Peter Staudenmaier writes in Paragraph 15 of Anthroposophy and Ecofascism:

Anthroposophy's promotion of this ridiculous doctrine is disturbing enough. But it is compounded by Steiner's further claim that—in yet another remarkable coincidence—the most advanced group within the Aryan root race is currently the nordic-germanic sub-race. Above all, Anthroposophy's conception of spiritual development is inextricable from its evolutionary narrative of racial decline and racial advance: a select few enlightened members evolve into a new "race" while their spiritually inferior neighbors degenerate. Anthroposophy is structured around a hierarchy of biological and psychological as well as "spiritual" capacities and characteristics, all of them correlated to race.

So first it is claimed that Anthroposophy promotes the discredited idea of an Aryan race. This turns out to be untrue – based on a misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the source material combined with a willful ignorance of the historical context. Now it is claimed anthroposophists believe the nordic-germanic sub-race to be the most advanced within the Aryan root race. This cannot even be called a misunderstanding; Steiner has not combined the words “nordic” or “germanic” with “sub-race” anywhere. I repeat, there is no such phrase in as the “nordic-germanic sub-race“ anywhere in Steiner's complete works. There are a few references to nordic-germanic mythology, and a few to nordic-germanic peoples, but nowhere is there such a sub-race.(Steiner had long since discarded the use of the term 'sub-race'; it is nowhere in the book Peter Staudenmaier cites.) Nor does such a sub-race exist anywhere in Blavatsky's work. This then culminates in Peter Staudenmaier's claim that anthroposophists believe in some sort of nordic-germanic superiority. Given that the nordic-germanic sub-race doesn't exist, it is not surprising that this, too, is nowhere present in any of Steiner’s work. And it certainly is not in Steiner's book The Mission of the Individual Folk Souls, where we hear him praise the importance of all races in human development and tell his listeners that they will reincarnate in every race. The description in the above paragraph can only be characterized as a complete fabrication. And this is the only way to make a racist out of Steiner: to fabricate quotes.

Thus the "narrative" of racial decline and advance is actually a description of cultural progression. Mr. Peter Staudenmaier has completely misunderstood his source material, or more likely limited himself to a very narrow range of secondary material that misrepresents the source material, and this, combined with a bit of imagination and a determination to prove his polemical point at all costs has resulted in this unrecognizable presentation of Steiner and Anthroposophy. The claim that all Anthroposophy is structured around a biological hierarchy correlated to so-called spiritual capacities and characteristics, and that this is correlated to race, is simply indefensible. Indeed, it can only be made by making up racist beliefs, beliefs nowhere evident in any of Steiner's work. And of course Peter Staudenmaier makes the claim without any sort of support in the form of citations from primary source material.

Since I wrote this five years ago, Peter Staudenmaier has since modified ever so slightly his original version of Anthroposophy and Ecofascism. This revised version he sometimes pulls out to indicate that, wonder of wonders, he never claimed that there was such a thing as a nordic-germanic sub-race. When it was pointed out to him that several versions of the original are still to be found online, he subsequently refused to contact webmasters and provide the updated version! claiming that it wasn't his business to do so.

Stating that anthroposophists use the term “Aryan race” to this day is mistaken, and reveals an utter ignorance of all subsequent anthroposophical literature and a complete lack of familiarity with current anthroposophical discourse. Anthroposophy was barely three years old when Steiner dropped the use of the term "Aryan" as misleading, and the number of anthroposophists at that point was small. Since that time it has been universally referred to as the Post-Atlantean Epoch. The smaller epochs are named after the culture (culture, not race) that is considered most prominent during that era. However, it is explicitly clear that these are not the only cultures of importance during that era. As Steiner was quoted as saying above, every culture is an important part of the whole, just as every individual is an important part of the whole of humanity. The present 5th Post-Atlantean Cultural Epoch is most frequently referred to only as “the 5th Post-Atlantean Cultural Epoch.”* It has also been called, in numerous places, the Anglo-Germanic, after the dominant cultural trends of our time. I have not found a single reference to it being called the “nordic-germanic sub-race” in Steiner's works or in subsequent literature. In fact Peter Staudenmaier has not listed any reference for this alleged fact; it is stands as a fabrication. Indeed, this demonstrates that it is necessary to fabricate source material to make a case against Anthroposophy, a thoroughly cosmopolitan and progressively humanistic philosophy.

Peter Staudenmaier is clearly well versed in the literature of race and European racism. His explanation of race as a social construct is commonly accepted, and whether race has any scientific meaning has also been debated at quite some length, and the debate itself summarized numerous times. The history of "the Aryan Race" as an idea has been researched quite thoroughly (See among others Mosse, George. Toward the Final Solution: A History of European racism. New York: Howard Fertig, 1978, especially pages 39-45.)and Peter Staudenmaier has cited several excellent books on the subject. What he has failed to do is properly understand Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy before painting them racist with broad strokes.

* Among literally thousands of examples:
"We know that since the great Atlantean catastrophe… there have been five great epochs of civilization. We designate these as the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, the Greco-Latin, and the epoch we presently live in."
Steiner, Rudolf. The Universal Human: The Evolution of Individuality. New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1990. Page 7.

So although Rudolf Steiner did employ the term 'Root Race' as a technical designation for periods of time well know to Theosophical audiences in a few of his earlier works, Steiner did not share the Theosophical understanding of the meaning of the term, and specifically rejected it in favor of a more appropriate term.

Why did Blavatsky name the current Root Race “Aryan”? The word "Aryan" was originally a linguistic term for all languages in the Indo-European family. (For a concise overview, see: Mosse, George. Toward the Final Solution: A History of European racism. New York: Howard Fertig, 1978, especially pages 39-40.) It has nothing to do with racial characteristics. The term was borrowed by racists in the 19th Century, and by the end of the Nazi era had completely lost its original linguistic meaning, such that even linguists no longer use it. By 1906 Steiner had renamed the Theosophical "Aryan" epoch (which is described as lasting 15,120 years and starting about 10,000 years ago) the "Post-Atlantean," as he noticed that the word "Aryan" bore less and less its original meaning. Only in older documents (such as Cosmic Memory, from 1904) will you find that term “Aryan” used, and it is good to keep the historical context and the changing meaning of linguistic terms in mind. I think it is historically ignorant to call all 19th Century linguists who used the term racist; and likewise its use in much early Theosophical literature was not intended racially.

Continuing my commentary on the 14th paragraph of Peter Staudenmaier's Anthroposophy and Ecofascism.

Already as early as 1906, just four years after starting his work as an independent teacher in the context of the Theosophical Society, Rudolf Steiner stated publicly the term ' Root Race' was a misnomer.* By the time he had come to this conclusion, Steiner had already written a number of articles and given numerous lectures employing the term, and to this day they are republished with the term 'Root Race' unaltered. Most editions have an introductory note about the possibly confusing issue of inconsistent terminology. Steiner did rework some of his earlier texts and changed the terms, but he did not update all his writing this way. (One prominent example is the book Cosmic Memory, which is a collection of Rudolf Steiner's early writings on Atlantis and Lemuria, initially published in serial form in the periodical "Lucifer". Theosophical terminology, including the term 'Root Race' is present throughout, and Steiner never revised the volume during his lifetime, and it wasn't published as a book until 10 years after his death.) Most scholars of Steiner consider his thought and the development of his concepts to be consistent even as the terminology changed. In fact Steiner deliberately and continually employed varying terms in order to force his listeners to focus on his concepts rather than his terminology.

* Explaining the issue at length in 1909, when he was still the General Secretary of the German section of the Theosophical Society in Germany, Steiner said:

”If we go back beyond the Atlantean catastrophe, we see how human races were prepared. In the ancient Atlantean age, human beings were grouped according to external bodily characteristics even more so than in our time. The races we distinguish today are merely vestiges of these significant differences between human beings in ancient Atlantis. The concept of races is only fully applicable to Atlantis. Because we are dealing with the real evolution of humanity, we [theosophists] have therefore never used this concept of race in its original meaning. Thus, we do not speak of an Indian race, a Persian race, and so on, because it is no longer true or proper to do so. Instead, we speak of an Indian, a Persian, and other periods of civilization. And it would make no sense at all to say that in our time a sixth "race" is being prepared. Though remnants of ancient Atlantean differences, of ancient Atlantean group-soulness, still exist and the division into races is still in effect, what is being prepared for the sixth epoch is precisely the stripping away of race. That is essentially what is happening.

Therefore, in its fundamental nature, the anthroposophical movement, which is to prepare the sixth period, must cast aside the division into races. It must seek to unite people of all races and nations, and to bridge the divisions and differences between various groups of people. The old point of view of race has physical character, but what will prevail in the future will have a more spiritual character.

That is why it is absolutely essential to understand that our anthroposophical movement is a spiritual one. It looks to the spirit and overcomes the effects of physical differences through the force of being a spiritual movement. Of course, any movement has its childhood illnesses, so to speak. Consequently, in the beginning of the theosophical movement the earth was divided into seven periods of time, one for each of the seven root races, and each of these root races was divided into seven sub-races. These seven periods were said to repeat in a cycle so that one could always speak of seven races and seven sub-races. However, we must get beyond the illness of childhood and clearly understand that the concept of race has ceased to have any meaning in our time."

Rudolf Steiner. The Universal Human: The Evolution of Individuality. New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1990. Pages 12-13. Lecture of December 4 th, 1909.

Continuing my commentary on the 14th paragraph of Peter Staudenmaier's Anthroposophy and Ecofascism.

In addition, Rudolf Steiner's conception of “Root Races” differed in a number of important ways, particularly concerning of the nature of the time period that comprises the present 'Root Race' and its constituent 'Sub-Races'. Whereas Blavatsky really did consider the racial aspects of the time-division to be of importance, Steiner saw the defining characteristics of these time periods of time to be the cultural phenomenon that occurred and the cultural achievements of the people's living in them. Thus to Steiner, calling the time periods and their cultural achievements 'Root Races' and 'Sub-Races' appeared to be mistaken. Steiner said :

“For this reason we speak of ages of culture in contra-distinction to races. All that is connected with the idea of race is still a relic of the epoch preceding our own, namely the Atlantean. We are now living in the period of cultural ages ... Today the idea of culture has superseded the idea of race. Hence we speak of the ancient Indian culture, of which the culture announced to us in the Vedas is only an echo. The ancient and sacred Indian culture was the first dawn of post-Atlantean civilization; it followed immediately upon the Atlantean epoch.”

Steiner, Rudolf. The Apocalypse of St John (GA 104), London 1977, lecture of 20 June 1908.

The words “Root Races” (Würzelrassen) in Steiner's very early theosophical work aren't actually about race in the racial sense at all. When Rudolf Steiner was searching for an audience around turn of the century the only group he found that was in anyway interested in hearing in depth about the spirit and about spiritual matters were members of the Theosophical Society.* As a consequence, when speaking to these Theosophists Rudolf Steiner would employ terms familiar to them in order to convey the results of his own spiritual research.** Rudolf Steiner, who was an eminent scholar and thoroughly familiar with many areas of inquiry, had also read Blavatsky and was quite familiar with her work. His was not an uncritical take, and he once wrote privately that Blavatsky's work contained the highest spiritual truths mixed with the greatest nonsense***. Steiner of course admired certain aspects of Blavatsky's character and some of the things she was able to accomplish****, but his was not an uncritical admiration nor was he in complete agreement with all of her thoughts and views. But Steiner did use the terminology that Blavatsky had established in his early esoteric works. As his own work matured Rudolf Steiner moved away from more and more of Blavatsky's terminology, preferring to coin his own terms in German. The very first term that Steiner decided was inappropriate was the term 'Root Race'.*****

* "If I may once again introduce a personal note. I had to find a suitable opportunity on which to build. One could not simply crash in on our civilization with the spiritual world." Rudolf Steiner. The Anthroposophic Movement. Bristol, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993. Page 22.
" There was now no longer any reason why I should not bring forward this spiritual knowledge in my own way before the theosophical public, which was at first the only audience that entered without restriction into a knowledge of the spirit."
Steiner, Rudolf. The Course of My Life. New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1951. Pages 297-298.

** “My first work of lecturing within the circles which grew out of the Theosophical Movement had to he planned according to the temper of mind of the groups. Theosophical literature had been read there, and people were used to certain forms of expression. I had to retain these if I wished to be understood. But with the lapse of time and the progress of the work I was able gradually to pursue my own course, even in the forms of expression used.” Rudolf Steiner. The Story of My Life. London: Anthroposophical Publishing Co., 1928. Page 313.

*** Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner. Correspondence and Documents: 1901-1925. New York: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1988. Pages 17-18. He repeated this characterization publicly 20 years later in a lecture on June 10 th, 1923:
"In short, Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine is a peculiar book: great truths side by side with terrible rubbish." Rudolf Steiner. The Anthroposophic Movement. Bristol, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993. Page 23.

**** For an example of the high regard that Steiner nonetheless had for Blavatsky, see pages 61 to 63 of Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner. Correspondence and Documents: 1901-1925. New York: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1988.

***** In 1908 Steiner said:
“When people speak of races today they do so in a way that is no longer quite correct; in theosophical literature, too, great mistakes are made on this subject ... Even in regard to present humanity, for example, it no longer makes sense to speak simply of the development of races. In the true sense of the word this development of the races applies only to the Atlantean epoch ... thus everything that exists today in connection with the [different] races are relics of the differentiation that took place in Atlantean times. We can still speak of races, but only in the sense that the real concept of race is losing its validity."
Steiner, Rudolf. Universe, Earth and Man(GA 105), London 1987, lecture of 16 August 1908.

Peter Staudenmaier writes in Paragraph 14 of Anthroposophy and Ecofascism:

Steiner asserted that root races follow one another in chronological succession over epochs lasting hundreds of thousands of years, and each root race is further divided into sub-races which are also arranged hierarchically. By chance, as it were, the root race which happened to be paramount at the time Steiner made these momentous discoveries was the Aryan race, a term which anthroposophists use to this day. All racial categories are purely social constructs lacking any scientific meaning, but the notion of an Aryan race is an especially preposterous invention. A favorite of reactionaries in the early years of the twentieth century, the Aryan concept was based on a conflation of linguistic and biological terminology backed up by spurious "research." In other words, it was a complete fabrication which served only to provide a pseudo-scholarly veneer to racist fantasies.

Aside from the fact that in the anthroposophical world-conception the periods of time described by the term "root races" are tens of thousands of years, and not hundreds of thousands of years, and that time is linear and not, as Peter Staudenmaier conceives, hierarchical, there are several further and more significant errors in his presentation. There is simply no talk of any Aryan race among anthroposophists today or during Steiner's time, and Steiner did not talk of an Aryan race either. Peter Staudenmaier's derision for the very notion of an Aryan race is clearly evident, but his indignation towards anthroposophists is simply misplaced. It is rather sad to see the vehemence with which he denounces so-called Aryan superiority directed against a philosophy that inherently opposes it.

Continuing my commentary on the 13th paragraph of Peter Staudenmaier's Anthroposophy and Ecofascism.

We have already heard Steiner's comments on how little he “built” on any of Theosophy's “postulates.” (“No one was left in uncertainty of the fact that I would bring forward in the Theosophical Society only the results of my own research through perception.” (Rudolf Steiner, The Course of My Life, New York 1951, page 297 ). The claim that Steiner and his disciples tied racial classifications to spiritual advancement is really a two-part claim. I have not studied the works of every last person who claims Steiner as an inspiration, so I cannot say with certainty that no disciple has ever done this. However, I am familiar with Steiner's work, so I will object to that part.

Steiner's “systematic racial classification” is hardly elaborate. Steiner considers there to be 5 races. Or rather, there were five races. Today racial characteristics are, in Steiner's view, unimportant and gradually disappearing. This he considers a natural development in the course of human evolution. Steiner explained that there can be no talk of racial purity; everyone is mixed to one degree or another, and this is natural. This is contained in the book Peter Staudenmaier has cited in the first paragraph: "The Mission of the Individual Folk Souls in relation to Teutonic Mythology" so he ought to be familiar with it. How it came about that there are five races, and what their purpose might have been 20,000 years ago may be elaborate, but to Steiner, racial characteristics in the individual today are unimportant.

Once again we have here a paragraph that is factually inaccurate, partisan and without specific citations. Where, if anywhere, Steiner directly tied spiritual advancement to racial classification cannot be determined from the footnote.

Paragraph 13of Peter Staudenmaier's Anthroposophy and Ecofascism:

Anthroposophy's Racialist Ideology

Building on Theosophy's postulate of root races, Steiner and his anthroposophist disciples elaborated a systematic racial classification system for human beings and tied it directly to their paradigm of spiritual advancement. The particulars of this racial theory are so bizarre that it is difficult for non-anthroposophists to take it seriously, but it is important to understand the pernicious and lasting effects the doctrine has had on anthroposophists and those they've influenced. [Footnote: Steiner's racial teachings, a crucial element of the anthroposophic worldview, are spread throughout his work. The most concentrated and most chilling presentation is to be found in volume 349 of his collected works, published by the International Anthroposophic Society in Dornach, Switzerland. For a concise overview in English see Janet Biehl's section on Steiner in Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier, Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience, San Francisco 1995, pp. 42-43.]

A minor point is that Peter Staudenmaier cites the wrong publisher (which is actually the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung in Dornach) and misnames the General Anthroposophical Society, also located in Dornach (accuracy in details, I find, is the mark of serious scholarship).

This paragraph better describes Alfred Rosenberg than Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy. Here and in the paragraph following Peter Staudenmaier fails to cite any sources. His footnote actually cites Steiner's collected works of 349 volumes (actually, the numbering goes to 354 volumes, and because of gaps there are only really about 330 - new ones come out from time to time) of some 90,000 pages. Is this to indicate that Peter Staudenmaier has read all of them? I suspect not, as he has cited the wrong publisher. The "International Anthroposophical Society" in Dornach does not publish Steiner's complete works; the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassvervaltung is the publisher. Steiner set up a separate foundation to hold his copyrights after his death, and this foundation is a separate legal entity from the General Anthroposophical Society. I know that these are really just little nitpicking details, but getting the nitpicking details correct is the mark of serious scholarship. [For an overview of Steiner's complete works, in English and German, see: www.rudolfsteinerweb.com). The volume numbers go from 1 to 354; however there are a number of gaps, as well as a few numbers that cover multiple volumes (for example volume 300 is actually 3 books: 300a, 300b and 300c). New volumes come out occasionally, so the total number of books is not yet fixed.]