Why Waldorf Lies - The Short Answer

Author's Note: This is part of a larger work I am preparing... Stay tuned

Why Waldorf LIES 
Here's the one line answer: “They're on a MISSION to save humanity”.

"The task of Anthroposophy is not simply to replace a false view of the world with a correct one...The task is to raise the spirit-soul into the realm of the spiritual, so that the human being is no longer a thinking and feeling automaton...The human being is...in danger of drifting into the Ahrimanic world, in which case the spirit-soul will evaporate into the cosmos.” Rudolf Steiner

Waldorf schools are the missionary arm of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner's quasi-religious doctrine outlining an “impulse” for the development of society. Waldorf representatives are “missionaries”. Their mission is to spread the ideas of Rudolf Steiner and to convert as many people as they can to the new wisdom that will transform society, Anthroposophy. Rudolf Steiner paints a very dark picture of a world without Anthroposophy guiding human spiritual development.

As luck would have it, Waldorf teachers already have a personal spiritual connection to your child – according to Steiner. If you found Waldorf education, it was the child's karma that influenced you to find it. Once you have enrolled in a Waldorf school, your child becomes their child. They are doing what is best for the child, even over your objections if necessary. In a conflict, Waldorf representatives believe they are doing something that represents the greater good by lying to parents about their children. It's truthfully that simple.
In order to fulfill their missionary responsibility, in order to promote Anthroposophy to children, Waldorf representatives LIE to parents – for the sake of the child!

There is no getting around this – people representing Waldorf schools are universally dishonest with outsiders – and yes, that especially includes parents. This is a systemic problem traced to Steiner himself. Waldorf's founder direcly instructed Waldorf teachers to lie to outsiders.

"We have to remember that an institution like the Independent Waldorf School with its anthroposophical character, has goals that, of course, coincide with anthroposophical desires. At the moment, though, if that connection were made official, people would break the Waldorf School’s neck." Rudolf Steiner, Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner (Anthroposophic Press, 1998) p. 115

- Faculty Meetings is required reading in Waldorf teacher training

From the same book:
“I do not like to talk about such things since we have often been attacked even without them. Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings. Nevertheless, these are facts. Our culture would not be in such a decline if people felt more strongly that a number of people are going around who, because they are completely ruthless, have become something that is not human, but instead are demons in human form.

“Nevertheless, we do not want to shout that to the world. Our opposition is already large enough. Such things are really shocking to people. I caused enough shock when I needed to say that a very famous university professor, after a very short time between death and rebirth, was reincarnated as a black scientist. We do not want to shout such things out into the world.” Rudolf Steiner, Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner (Anthroposophic Press, 1998) pp. 649-650.

Steiner felt justified in lying to parents. After all, what are a few lies, when the over all scheme is to convert the world to Anthropsophy and thus saving humanity (quote repeated from above):

"The task of Anthroposophy is not simply to replace a false view of the world with a correct one...The task is to raise the spirit-soul into the realm of the spiritual, so that the human being is no longer a thinking and feeling automaton...The human being is...in danger of drifting into the Ahrimanic world, in which case the spirit-soul will evaporate into the cosmos.” Rudolf Steiner, Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner (Anthroposophic Press, 1998) p. 115

Steiner was aware that once students graduated Waldorf, they could go on to college. He realized that some of the nonsense he was teaching to adults (the workers in Dornach) wouldn't fly with college professors. He struggled to find ways to get Anthroposophy into the students without putting it into the content of the lessons.

“The students are about eighteen, and at that age it is best if they attain an overall understanding of history and art. We should give them an understanding of the spirit of literature, art, and history without, of course, teaching them about anthroposophy. We must try to bring them the spirit in those subjects, not only in the content but also in the way we present them. With the students, we should at least try to achieve what I have striven for with the workers in Dornach, pictures that make it clear that, for instance, an island like Great Britain swims in the sea and is held fast by the forces of the stars. In actuality, such islands do not sit directly upon a foundation; they swim and are held fast from outside. In general, the cosmos creates islands and continents, their forms and locations. That is certainly the case with firm land. Such things are the result of the cosmos, of the stars. The Earth is a reflection of the cosmos, not something caused from within. However, we need to avoid such things. We cannot tell them to the students because they would then need to tell them to their professors in the examinations, and we would acquire a terrible name. Nevertheless, that is actually what we should achieve in geography. FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 607.)”

Link to FACULTY MEETINGS

OK, so now we know Steiner wanted Waldorf representatives to lie, do we have evidence of them lying? Well, yes, LOTS... but that's going to be part of another blog post. For now, let's focus on one Waldorf representative who we can watch in action.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Trevor_Mepham"Trevor Mepham lives in Herefordshire with his wife. They have 4 children. After studying International Relations and European studies at Keele, Bruges and Aberystwyth, he trained to become a Steiner teacher. He worked as a class teacher at the South Devon Steiner School, Dartington, before joining the advisory team of the UK Steiner Schools movement – the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship (SWSF). He spent 12 years at the University of Plymouth, working in the Faculty of Education as Co-Director of the Steiner BA Programme. He served on the Executive Group of SWSF for 6 years, before taking up a new post, in September 2008, as Principal of the Steiner Academy Hereford - the first publicly-funded Steiner school in the UK. In 2009 he joined the Board of the European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education (ECSWE). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts." "While in Devon, he spent 12 years working in the Faculty of Education at the University of Plymouth, teaching on the Steiner BA Programme and the European Masters Programme. Trevor has served as a member of the Executive Group of the UK Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship (SWSF) and a member of the Board of the European Council for Steiner Waldorf (ECSWE). In September 2008, he became Principal at the Steiner Academy Hereford – the first publicly-funded Steiner school in the UK. Trevor is moving to Frome with Helen, his wife and looks forward to helping to plant a new school in the loam of Somerset."

OK, so he's been around a while, very involved in the Steiner/Waldorf movement.  That's why he was interviewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpOXitdxzk4

At 4:30 in this film, SWSF representative Trevor Mepham suggests Rudolf Steiner didn't believe in Reincarnation.

Of course he did – and that FACT is supported in ALL of his writings. Why would Trevor Mepham lie about it in an interview? Well, the interview was about to get a lot of exposure... and it's his job to make Waldorf sound benign to parents. He assumes most of the people watching the interview won't know he's lying. The interviewer, however, did know. The more she presses him, the more Mr. Mepham turns to time-proven Waldorf nonsense that tends to placate innocent mothers asking about this or that.

By 6:20 in the video, Mepham is having to explain away Steiner's racist theories. In the end, he suggest the famous “Steiner was a man of his time” dodge. Again, the interviewer isn't buying what he's selling. But wait, if Steiner didn't believe in reincarnation, what are his racist theories about? Aren't they dependent on the idea that people get to incarnate “up” to a better race when they reincarnate? Isn't that what makes them excusable to Anthroposophists?

By 8:30, he has tried to confuse the interviewer about the influence of Anthroposophy in Waldorf schools – and even suggests it's a “generic” term and will not even acknowledge, despite that the schools' own literature says so explicitly, that Anthroposophy is at the heart of Waldorf education.

Mepham is convinced Waldorf is the best thing for children.  He "would argue" that Waldorf does lots of science - something even Waldorf supporters agree is lacking in Waldorf.  Let's face it, he would argue ANYTHING that is critical of or even might be construed as critical of Waldorf education.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/may/25/steiner-state-funded-free-schools

Mepham says: "There are different ways of approaching science, aren't there? We would argue that we do lots of science, and we do it in a scientific way." … Mepham, who is moving from Herefordshire to be principal of the Frome school, is keen to advance the Steiner curriculum and legitimise the Steiner approach to science education. "That's one of the questions that we are exploring – how can we turn that unaccredited element [of science teaching] into something that has validity and recognition.
"The answer, ideally, is to get our curriculum accredited. It isn't at the moment, so we have to dovetail GCSEs with Steiner curriculum [and] that dovetailing is a compromise."