Anthroposophy and Ecofascism IV

Continuing my analysis of the first paragraph of Peter Staudenmaier'sAnthroposophy and Ecofascism.

In his book "The Mission of the Individual Folk Souls" the only thing Steiner might appear guilty of is making generalizations about the different races. Throughout the book he is careful to reiterate that there is no basis for claiming the superiority of one race over another. And even Steiner's generalizations seem value-free. For example, we hear:

"If we state that the negro race was born of the cooperation between the normal Spirits of Form and the abnormal Spirits of Form centered in Mercury, then from an occult standpoint we are perfectly correct in describing the Negro race as the Mercury race"
(Rudolf Steiner. The Mission of the Individual Folk Souls in relation to Teutonic Mythology. London 1970, page 101. Lecture of June 12th, 1910.) The German original is Rudolf Steiner. Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen im Zusammenhange mit der germanisch-nordischen Mythologie. Dornach 1962, page 104 and reads:
"Wenn wir den Punkt, den wir vor einigen Tagen in unseren Darstellungen 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 entsteht, so bezeichnen wir okkult ganz richtig das, was in der schwarzen Rasse herauskommt, als die Merkur-Rasse."

Lest the reader think that the reference to the working of the abnormal Spirits of Form is unique to the negro race and therefore constitutes a denigration of that race, I should point out that in the previous pages Steiner had just finished describing how all races are caused by the combined work of normal and abnormal spirits of form. The reader can verify this statement by reading the whole lecture, which I have posted online.

Europeans are described as the "Jupiter Race" - the Europeans, not the Aryans, not the Germans and not the Scandinavians). An unsympathetic critic with no understanding of Steiner's spiritual science might call the whole idea silly, but it hardly constitutes a doctrine of Aryan superiority. And it is flatly counter to the claim that Steiner's teaching promotes genocide when Steiner specifically points out that all ethnic groups, no matter how small, have an important role to play in the evolution of humanity. This will not be the last time that Staudenmaier finds himself being flatly contradicted by his source material.

Note that Staudenmaier's footnote, which one would expect to indicate the source of his claims - perhaps a page number or the date of the lecture from which his summary is derived - instead informs us that a later student of Steiner continued to be fascinated by the concepts of the book, offering as proof the title of a book published in 1966. The book is titled "Concerning the Spirit of the North". I should point out that passing judgment on a book on the basis of its title is hardly the mark of serious scholarship.