Rudolf Steiner, Founder of Waldorf Education
The esoteric persuasions of Rudolf Steiner the Austrian mystagogue who died in 1925 survive and influence contemporary occult experience in America. They are perpetuated through a schismatic branch of Theosophy which Steiner expanded to accommodate his worldview and entitled Anthroposophy. The most successful vehicle for the dissemination of Anthroposophy is the network of Waldorf Schools established in accordance with the founders precepts though many parents have little, if any, historic understanding of Steiner or his religion, Anthroposophy. The Waldorf School Movement is superficially perceived as a trendy, alternative education system because it is promoted as nonsectarian, art based, multicultural, scientific, new education. Critical investigation, however, reveals to the contrary that these schools are instead centers of occult initiation modern mystery schools where every aspect of the curriculum is rooted in Anthroposophy and its incorporated magic and rituals. Steiner saw Anthroposophy as a spiritually complete Rosicrucian path which will guide pupils to higher worlds through an esoteric training, and although this principle of initiation is adhered to by Waldorf Schools, it is accomplished, often without participants' understanding or sanction.

Born on 27 February 1861, in Croatia, Steiner grew up in Neudforfl near the Austro-Hungarian border where his father worked as a telegraph operator for the Austrian Railway. As a child, Rudolf Steiner believed he saw the apparition of an aunt who had committed suicide walk through a door, into the middle of a room, make some odd gestures and say, Try now and in later life to help me as much as you can, before vanishing into the stove (Wilson, 1987, p. 170). As a grown man he disclosed that after seeing this ghost he was clairvoyant, able to see the spirit world and communicate with the dead. While a student, Steiner published philosophical studies and edited Goethes works. These especially Goethes mystical writings remained influential throughout his life. He believed that Goethe had come into contact with a Rosicrucian source and had experienced a lofty Initiation (Steiner, 1981b, p. 9). Similarly, he was to embrace the mysticism associated with the Rosicrucian tradition for all of his adult life, eventually promoting Anthroposophy as a spiritually complete Rosicrucianism. In 1884, Steiner became tutor to the four sons of Pauline and Ladislas Specht in Vienna: one of the children suffered from hydrocephalus or water on the brain. Steiner lived with this family for six years and experimented with ways of teaching, claiming that the sick child’s concentration and learning ability could be improved if the boy were prepared to receive the instruction (Washington, 1995, p. 150).

Steiner was an active participant in the pan-German movement during the 1880s. In the late 1880s, early in his career as esoteric evangelist, he wrote that it was not possible to go public with his occult convictions at that time saying, In all this, the public display of esoteric ideas was out of the question. And the spiritual forces standing behind me gave me only one piece of advice: Everything in the guise of Idealistic philosophy (Steiner & von Sievers, 1988, p. 11). In 1897 he moved to Berlin where he edited The Magazine Fur Literatur, claiming to have brought a spiritual current to bear on literature by guiding the magazine into esoteric paths:
Gently and slowly I guided it into esoteric paths, carefully but clearly, by writing an essay for the 150th anniversary of Goethes birth: 'Goethes Secret Revelation," which merely repeated what I had already indicated in a public lecture in Vienna about Goethe’s fairy-tale "The Green Snake and the beautiful Lilly." (Steiner & von Sievers, 1988, p. 14) He married Anna Eunicke in 1899 and the following year he was asked to give lectures to the members of the Berlin Theosophical Society. Confidently, at the age of forty, he presented himself as a Master, in accordance with his occult beliefs that teaching at a younger age was in error. Steiner met Annie Besant while attending the Theosophical Congress of 1902 in London. On October 20, 1902, Steiner became General Secretary of Madame Blavatskys Theosophical Society, which was at that time under the leadership of Col. Henry Olcott as Blavatsky had died. Steiner led the German and Austrian branches of Theosophy for ten years. (Annie Besant was to replace Olcott in 1907). Collin Wilson commented on the emergence of this prominent Theosophical leader in his book Afterlife: An Investigation of the Evidence for Life After Death:

And then it seemed to happen overnight Dr. Steiner had become head of the Berlin Lodge of the Theosophical Society, and was being accepted by an increasing number of people as a kind of Messiah. Its membership increased remarkably. Mrs. Besant had met Steiner, and been impressed. She had seemed a little concerned about the strange, mystical Christianity preached by Steiner, but then, Madam Blavatsky had taught that all religions are roads to the same truth, so that was no cause for alarm. Steiner certainly seemed to accept Madame Blavatskys basic teaching that the present human race is the fifth root race (the fourth were the inhabitants of Atlantis) and that we all go through many reincarnations ... [He] talked with staggering authority about the childhood of Christ and the various spiritual movements in Western history. (Wilson, 1987, pp. 167-168) In 1904 the Master moved out of Anna Eunickes house and into the Berlin Theosophical headquarters where the occultist Marie von Sievers lived. She became Steiner’s adoring and devoted disciple, helping him organize his life and attending his lectures. His wife Anna Eunicke died in 1911, and Steiner eventually married Marie von Sievers in 1914.

All his adult life Steiner participated in various secret societies and magical orders, establishing some of his own. For example, he joined the Masonic rite led by Heinrich Klein and Franz Hartman, who initiated Steiner into the Brothers of Light and the Rosicrucian Illuminati (King, 1970, p. 206). He also bought a membership in Memphis-Misraim from Theodore Reuss in 1905 (Koenig, http://www.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/steiner.htm paragraph 8), and used that ritual as a basis for his Mizraim Aeterna, which he hoped would restore the Eleusinian mysteries. Rituals of Mystica Aeterna were celebrated only in the presence of Rudolf Steiner and by members of the Theosophical Society (Koenig, paragraph 17). The mystagogue created an Esoteric School that held closed meetings and utilized some Masonic rituals. In 1921 the Esoteric School was transformed into the Free University for Hermeticism (Koenig, paragraph 39). Steiner borrowed extensively from Blavatsky’s doctrine and took from the French occulist Eliphas Levis Dogma and Ritual of High Magic (Koenig, paragraph 45). Steiner’s Apocalyptic Seals are almost identical to Levis seals pictured in the book. Steiner inspired others, like Max Heindel, to found the Rosicrucian Fellowship in Oceanside, California (Jenkins, 2000, pp. 82-83), and L. Ron Hubbard of the Church of Scientology.

Steiner told followers of his clairvoyant abilities and other psychic powers, claiming to read the Akashic record to obtain information and channel Zarathustra. The Akashic Record is believed to be an invisible chronicle that records every word spoken and deed performed by mankind since the beginning of time. Occult believers say this record can be found in the ether and read by clairvoyants. Steiner taught believers how to read to the dead and to meditate on the deceased handwriting in order to communicate with those that have died. He lectured profusely on topics such as reincarnation, hypnotism, occult science, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, mystery centers of the middle ages, astral bodies, gnomes as life forms, angels, karma, Christian mysticism, how to see spiritual beings, modern initiation, Atlantis, Lemuria, etc. Steiner’s sermons, setting out his occult teachings, were recorded by his disciples and published in more than 350 volumes. In a paper such as this, it is only possible to scratch the surface of the vast body of tenets that he imparted to his followers.

During his time as General Secretary of the Theosophical Society, Steiner built Rosicrucian Temples. One lay beneath the Stuttgart House, although many of his followers who met upstairs knew nothing of its existence. In 1912, after a doctrinal rift with Annie Besant over her claim that Jiddu Krishnamurti was a reincarnation of Christ, the charismatic prophet instigated a schism in the Theosophical Society. Steiner took most of the German and Austrian believers with him to establish his own esoteric religion, Anthroposophy, in order to be free from Besants theological restraints and impositions. Steiner and some followers moved to Dornach, Switzerland, to build their utopia which included an enormous mystical temple known as the Goetheanum. The original intricately carved and painted wooden building burned down during Steiner’s day but was replaced by a subsequent temple designed by Steiner and constructed out of concrete. The second Goetheanum remains the world headquarters and spiritual center for Anthroposophy today.

Steiner also developed a spiritual medicine system based on his Spiritual Science which incorporates alchemical, astrological, Cabalistic, and other magical concepts. His views on illness are unorthodox when compared to contemporary scientific medicine, but they are still upheld and promoted by his followers. For example, Steiner viewed certain bacilli as nothing else than physically embodied demons generated by lies, (Steiner, 1981b, p. 69) and he claimed that certain children with learning disabilities are not really human but inhabited by beings that do not belong to the human race:
The girl L.K. in class 1...is one of those cases that are occurring more and more frequently where children are born and human forms exist which actually, with regard to the highest member the ego, are not human at all but are inhabited by beings who do not belong to the human race...They are very different from human beings where spiritual matters are concerned. For instance they can never memorise sentences, only words. I do not like speaking about these things, as there is considerable opposition about this. Just imagine what people would say if they heard that we are talking about human beings who are not human beings. Nevertheless these are facts. Furthermore, there would not be such a decline of culture if there were a strong enough feeling for the fact that some people, the ones who are particularly ruthless, are not human beings at all but demons in human form. But do not let us broadcast this. There is enough opposition already. Things like this give people a terrible shock. People were frightfully shocked when I had to say that a quite famous university professor with a great reputation had had a very short period between death and re-birth and was a re-incarnated negro scientist. But dont let us publicize these things. (Steiner, 1986, pp. 36-37)

Errors resulting from devotion to the dark god, Ahriman, will be punished in the form of diseases in a following lifetime. Too much sex and desire for sensual pleasure in a past life will be paid back with a case of pneumonia in the next life. Karma will punish selfishness with malaria. Developing healing forces and overcoming diseases enables the human to evolve onwards and upwards on Steiner’s evolutionary path, towards his prophetic future. Vaccines are frowned upon by many Anthroposophists because they interfere with karmic compensation:
... Let us assume that many epidemics, communal causes of illness, can be traced to the fact that victims are seeking to remove what they have karmically fostered within themselves. This is the case, for instance, with smallpox which is the organ of unlovingness. Although we may be in a position to remove the possibility of this disease, the cause of unlovingness would still remain, and the souls in question would then be forced to seek another way for karmic compensation either in this or in another incarnation. (Steiner, 1995a, p. 144)

Steiner taught that before the age of nine children, generally, should be broken of left handedness. Some Waldorf teachers attempt to change children’s dominant hand in order to help them in future incarnations:
The phenomenon of left-handedness is clearly karmic, and, in connection with karma, it is one of karmic weakness. Allow me to give an example: A person who was overworked in their previous life, so that they did too much, not only physically or intellectually, but in general, spiritually, within their soul or feeling, will enter the succeeding life with an intense weakness (Steiner, 1923 lecture, http://www.bobnancy.com/ retrieved March 3, 2003. Click on Waldorf then developing child, then Left-handed Cross-dominance, scroll to May 25, 1923 lecture).

Steiner’s alchemy attempts to heal all the members comprising the human being, which includes his concept of man as having an astral, etheric, I and physical body. An important component of his healing art is Curative Eurythmy. It is a magic based system of angelic communication incorporating Cabalism, astrology, zodiac, numerology, sigils, gestures, the alphabet, copper wands, color, and more, that supposedly connect the participant to Steiner’s spiritual world invoking various spiritual beings healing powers.

Yet another of Steiner’s contributions to humanity is Biodynamic Farming, an Anthroposophic based farming practice in which organic methods are imbued with magical/spiritual components. For example, cows are sacrificed at certain times of the year and their body parts used for magical purposes. Primary Moon forces (beings) are believed to come to rest in horns. In one ritual fresh dung is stuffed into cow horns and buried in the ground in autumn to attract various beings in the cosmos for better crop fertility.