Why Greens in particular should call out and denounce Anthroposophical organisations.

Over the past few years I have written a number of pieces on this blog, some very long, some short, on the influence of the far-right racist ideology of Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy and how support for the many ‘green’ Anthroposophical organisations helps to fund a highly dangerous quasi political sect that hides its agenda behind a mask of faux-spirituality that has white supremacy at its heart.

I have never claimed that individuals involved in Anthroposophical organisations are necessarily racists or are even aware that they are expanding and supporting a multi-national racist power-base worth many billions of pounds. But once individuals know what’s going on, continuing to support Steiner organisations is a racist act. And there’s only shame in that situation if one chooses to do nothing about it.

As an individual alone, I can not possibly make a huge difference to that state of affairs but, as a collective group of left-of-centre environmentalists, including Green Party members, Labour Party members, sceptics, Humanists, scientists, anti-racism campaigners, Steiner/Waldorf parents, Anthroposophical workers and as regular citizens we should and can make a difference.

Why is this important?

Steiner’s racial hierarchy is at the centre of his ‘teaching’ and everything he believed was in service to the idea that humans come of age by continually re-incarnating to white Aryan ‘perfection’. His spiritual education (Steiner/Waldorf), his agriculture (Biodynamics), his version of Christianity (Steiner Christian Community) are but three of the mechanisms used to further his cause of racial progression towards white supremacy. Since Steiner’s death, huge numbers of organisations have been founded to support his cause, from manufacturing to banking and from ‘medicine’ to care homes – the network world-wide is simply vast.

For most of us, Steiner’s writing is almost unreadable, even when translated into English, because it is so full of internal inconsistencies and esoteric mysticism – indeed most of it makes no sense at all – but those in charge of Anthroposophy are believers. Not only do they control vast wealth but they steer a growing list of powerful organisations.

It’s important because, with right-wing nationalism and white supremacy on the rise for the first time in decades, people of colour, minorities and othered groups are ever more at risk from attack. Brexit, Trump, UKIP and the rise of the right world-wide is a perfect environment for hard-core Anthroposophists; they believe Steiner was infallible – in short they refuse to denounce Steiner’s core belief and often even refute it is racist.

It is pointless for me here to re-write the vast amount of analysis, criticism, research, blogs, vlogs, polemics and complaints about Steiner so I’ll simply provide the following selected links.

For Background:

http://social-ecology.org/wp/2009/01/anthroposophy-and-ecofascism-2/

For Opinion and Information:

http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2012/07/the-insidious-pervasiveness-of-the-cult-of-rudolf-steiner.html

http://www.dcscience.net/2010/10/06/the-true-nature-of-steiner-waldorf-education-mystical-barmpottery-at-taxpayers-expense-part-1/

For information:

https://ukanthroposophy.wordpress.com/recorded-uk-organisations/

For Steiner material:

http://www.rsarchive.org/

There are also several of my pieces related to the subject here on my blog:

https://nicknakorn.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/mystic-shadows-of-colour/

https://nicknakorn.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/mystic-shadows-of-colour-2nd-part/

https://nicknakorn.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/the-bbcs-enchantment-with-woo/

https://nicknakorn.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/racist-steiner-schools-bbcs-robert-peston-gets-it-almost-right/

https://nicknakorn.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/can-we-trust-the-soil-association/

https://nicknakorn.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/more-support-for-rosy-racism-from-the-bbc/

Racism and Institutional racism:

https://nicknakorn.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/everyone-is-racist/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/30/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race

It is important that Green party members in particular tackle this problem because the Green Party is still very, very close to Anthroposophy and many prominent Green Party members and green activists, locally, nationally and internationally support Anthroposophical organisations, such as this tiny selection from a huge pool.

A few of the many influential greens who support Anthroposophy

Molly Scott-Cato

https://biodynamiclandtrust.org.uk/oakbrook-farm-welcomes-molly-scott-cato/

Kat Boettge

https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2014/05/06/kat-boettge-co-operative-groups-farms-firesale-is-disgraceful/

Patrick Holden

http://www.stellanatura.com/sample_08.html

Steven Agnew

http://www.glencraig.org.uk/~camphill/cms/uploads/Camphill_News_Web_low.pdf

Denise Craghill

https://york.greenparty.org.uk/people/denise-craghill.html

Clause Sproll

http://camphillspecialschool.org/staff/claus-sproll/

http://thecenterforsocialresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/fromculturalmvmt.pdf

Various Green supporters of Anthroposophy:

http://www.leicestersocialists.org.uk/?p=2513

If you search for similar links you will find hundreds more; whole books have been written of the founding, by Anthroposophists, of various Green Parties around the world but I don’t intend to do all your research for you, it’s not up to people of colour to do all the work to convince white people to be anti-racist – how can we, we are outnumbered within predominantly white societies and we spend enough time fighting racism as it is. If you have read a fraction of the material listed here, itself a tiny fraction of the material available, and you are still not convinced then you haven’t been paying attention.

Finally, what to do? It’s simple; call out Anthroposophical organisations for what they are. Don’t choose to buy their products, don’t chose to work with their organisations, make your views concerning the unacceptable nature of the cult known. If, for example, you wanted to learn to play the piano, would you learn from a known racist piano teacher or from another person equally as good at teaching piano? It’s very simple. All the things Anthroposophical organisations do are available elsewhere; there are alternatives that do not provide support for spreading the gospel of the karmic racist hierarchy – that abomination is about the only unique aspect in Steiner’s so-called philosophy.

I have in the past sent similar lists of links and explanatory letters to senior and local Greens and not once had a cogent reply, it’s as if non-white people are simply not worth the trouble as far as Greens are concerned and I now support Labour. But it will be white Greens that other white Greens will take seriously. Just like in the rest of life, brown anti-racists are thought of as trouble makers with chips on their shoulders, taking everything too seriously, not being fair to white people, while white anti-racists are treated as heroes. Now is your chance to shine.

 

12^th March 2018

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