Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 38

Continuing my commentary on the 10th paragraph of Peter Staudenmaier's Anthroposophy and Ecofascism.

In another amazing claim, Peter Staudenmaier writes: "Students in Waldorf schools are taught, for example, that good spirits live inside of candles and demons live inside of fluorescent light bulbs." It is not clear if this is to apply to all Waldorf students in all such schools worldwide, or if it is an anecdote, or even a joke Peter Staudenmaier heard once. As usual he has indicated no source, so we cannot determine what has caused Mr. Peter Staudenmaier to form this conclusion. Read one way, this statement is incredibly broad. Does Peter Staudenmaier really mean to claim that all Waldorf students everywhere are taught this, or only just a few? I have interviewed dozens of current and former Waldorf students, and none of them recall ever hearing about the good spirits of candles and the demons in florescent lights. Further, I was not able to find any reference to the spiritual characteristics of various lighting sources in the Waldorf Teacher Training materials or any of Rudolf Steiner's indications on pedagogy.

While an anti-technological bias is not unheard of in circles around anthroposophical initiatives and Waldorf schools, it is more a reflection of preexisting biases than something caused by Steiner's views. Steiner was emphatically pro-technology and saw it as a necessary development of the current stage of human consciousness. He did express reservations about the misuses of technology, but he stated explicitly and repeatedly that the fault did not lie in technology, but in how human beings used it. His concerns were quite forward looking, and anticipated the ecological awareness that arose broadly in the 1960's.