Author Archives: Jeremy Smith

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About Jeremy Smith

I’m currently organising a programme of talks and workshops on a part-time freelance basis for Emerson College in Forest Row, East Sussex in the UK. I’ve worked in various branches of education since 1986, in both employed and self-employed roles. Before that, I was the arts and entertainments officer for one of the London boroughs and before that I trained as an actor at the Mountview Theatre School. I’ve had an interest in the work of Rudolf Steiner for many years and have spent several years as the education facilitator in a Steiner school. I’ve also been the trustee of another Steiner school, have worked as a member of the executive group of the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship and have been a lay inspector for Ofsted inspections of Steiner schools. Biodynamic agriculture, another of Steiner’s initiatives, is a huge interest of mine and I’m a shareholder of the Tablehurst & Plaw Hatch Farms Co-op in Forest Row, East Sussex. I’m also an executive director of Tablehurst Farm and have a part-time role as registered manager for the farm's care home.
September 27, 2014 · 11:43 am

Why some atheists like anthroposophy

“The common man is a mystic. Mysticism is only a transcendent form of common sense. Mysticism and common sense alike consist in a sense of the dominance of certain truths and tendencies which cannot be formally demonstrated or even formally named. Mysticism and common sense are like appeals to realities that we all know to be real, but which have no place in argument except as postulates.” (G K Chesterton)

Chesterton, writing in the early 20th century, clearly felt that most people have a kind of natural sense that the spiritual world exists, even though many of us have no means of rationalising why we feel that way.

Others, such as Rudolf Steiner (although some people believe he had an atheistical period in his younger days), came to characterise atheism as a kind of disability or disease.  Lecturing in 1919, Steiner said : “Only those human beings…are atheists in whose organism something is organically disturbed. To be sure, this may lie in very delicate structural conditions, but it is a fact that atheism is in reality a disease…For, if our organism is completely healthy, the harmonious functioning of its various members will bring it about that we ourselves sense our origin from the Divine – ex deo nascimur (from God we are born).”

So there you are, Richard Dawkins et al – instead of having reached your view of a godless universe through the power of your intellect, you are actually just suffering from the effects of a disturbed physical organism. 🙂

Today, in the age of the consciousness soul, there are many people who have lost their natural connection with the divine. In Steiner’s view, humanity is going through a period which started in the 15th century and won’t conclude until the 35th, in which we have gradually lost an atavistic form of clairvoyance. This is a necessary but very dangerous step in the evolution of humankind. It is necessary because as humans we have the unique privilege of developing freewill, which could only happen by entering an age in which our connection with the divine-spiritual beings and their will for our future appeared to be severed. And it is dangerous because this apparent severance from spirit existence has given the oppositional powers the opportunity they didn’t have before, which is to convince human beings through our science and technology that physical, material reality is the only reality and thus to thwart our true destiny as spiritual beings. For all of the shortcomings and difficulties caused us by this present stage, Steiner tells us that materialism remains the vehicle for the initial development of human freedom. It was the task of materialistic science to lead us away from the overwhelming dominance of theology and theocracy in human affairs, and from the unfreedom that had for so long been associated with them. And, as Steiner repeatedly asserts, it is in our relationship as spiritual beings to the physical world that the possibility for human freedom first manifests itself. Put differently, materialism for all its faults and limitations had a very important task to perform, and it needed time to complete it – and it’s still got another 250 years or so to run its course.

In the meantime, we have to find ways of coping with the difficulties of our present age. In Owen Barfield’s words, “Living in the consciousness soul man experiences isolation, loneliness, materialism, loss of faith in the spiritual world, above all, uncertainty. The soul has to make up its mind and to act in a positive way on its own unsupported initiative. And it finds great difficulty in doing so. For it is too much in the dark to be able to see any clear reason why it should, and it no longer feels the old (instinctive) promptings of the spirit within.”

I rather like these concepts and find they bring a savour and a spice to life – human reality is much more exciting and inspiring than anything in science fiction! Many other people, of course, think this is all nonsense and take up the position of agnosticism or atheism. ‘Skeptics’ (as they call themselves) can be very dismissive about anthroposophical endeavours, which are of course based upon the presumption of the reality of the spiritual world. If these skeptics are also parents in Steiner schools who feel that they have had a bad experience, or if they believe that the school has not been open with them about anthroposophy, then their anger and contempt can be awesome to behold – and in this online world, they make sure as many other people as possible get to hear about it. I’m sure schools do get things wrong from time to time and I’m certainly not trying to belittle those parents who have had less than satisfactory experiences. When you have invested such hope (and hard cash) in a school for your children, it is shattering if it then all seems to go wrong. Steiner Waldorf schools, which have such high aspirations, can cause huge anger if they turn out to have feet of clay. I shall be writing in a later posting more about this unfortunate phenomenon and some possible reasons for it.

There are other sorts of skeptic parents, for example those who regard anthroposophy as a bit of a joke but still value the education Steiner schools provide for their children. I came across a good example of this latter type on an Australian blog, Good Reason. In a post entitled: “A Rational Look at Steiner Schools”, Daniel Midgley comments on an article he has read in the magazine, Australian Rationalist. After going through the various criticisms made of Steiner schools in the article, Daniel concludes:

“If there is a saving grace for Waldorf education, it’s that, in my experience, very few of the rank and file parents believe the hype. You do get a core of Steiner believers, including the teachers, but almost no one else takes Anthroposophy seriously. Many parents roll their eyes at Eurythmy and such. The kids are usually pretty down to earth about it, too. At a recent Winter Festival, some parents were trying to foster a reverent attitude during the bonfire, but the kids were chanting “More kerosene! More kerosene!” They keep it real.

I also think that the teaching of religion is handled well, as I’ve mentioned before. Many world religions are represented, and I think this has an inoculating influence on kids. They’re more likely to fall for religion in adulthood if it hasn’t been presented to them before, and the Christian myth is presented at school along with all the other myths.

If you’re a rationalist, and you’re considering Steiner education, or if (like me) you’re already in and you’re only just becoming more of a critical thinker, it’s not impossible for it to work. My kids enjoy their school, and it’s been pretty positive. …The greatest danger from Steiner schooling is to the rationalist parent, not the child; you may go insane from exposure to crackpottery, or you may eventually bite through your tongue.”

In the Steiner school I know best, I certainly came across atheist parents who nevertheless valued the education, even if they thought some aspects of it were screwy – so I’m sure Daniel is on to something in his article.

But although it is quite easy for atheists to be dismissive of Steiner schools (even if some of them like the results), it’s not quite so easy to dismiss something as nonsense when the evidence of your own senses is telling you the exact opposite. It’s indeed an irony, given many anthropops’ ambivalent attitudes to alcohol, that biodynamically produced wine is leading the way in changing attitudes to biodynamic agriculture. Take for example this post by Cory Cartwright: “An Atheist’s Defence of Biodynamics”:

“…I do believe some biodynamic vignerons are amongst the very best in the world. I’ve drank hundreds of these wines, from wines that tout a Demeter certification on their label to wines that I didn’t know were biodynamic for years. In fact many of the producers consider marketing the wine as “bio” to be just that, marketing, so they let the wine do the talking. Despite my skepticism around some of the principal tenets and practices of Steiner’s agricultural followers, I simply don’t care if they are being used.

The resurgence in biodynamics, like modern organics, the Slow Food movement, fukuoka farming, locavores, and natural winemaking was a conscious rejection of the big industrial food supply chain that twisted our view of food, wrecked economies, and wrecked our health. The tenets of modernization, control, simplification, mass production, “big solutions.” When people saw what we had done to one of our most basic of needs they were aghast, and set out to find alternatives that would stop the pollution of both of the soil and of our bodies.

The scientific based winemaking at UC Davis and elsewhere is one that sees a straightforward path between the beginning and the end of winemaking, and deviation is dealt with as harshly as possible. Shouldn’t plant vines there? Irrigation will fix that. Weeds? Monsanto has you covered (which heavily funds UC Davis. Go Aggies!). Vines not doing so well? Chemical fertilizers. Mildew? Bring on the helicopters. Of course this is all very scientific so skepticism about the ultimate problems should be shelved for now while we continue spraying. Aren’t these the questions we should be asking when it comes to winemaking? What price are we paying for this wine when everything is tallied?

I am beginning to work with a young couple in the south of France who have 14 acres of vineyards and olives that are all farmed biodynamically. We toured their vineyards, and they showed us several planting techniques they were experimenting with, from planting density to different cover crops and mixed use vineyards. As we walked through we were struck by the difference between their vineyards and others. They had some bio-culture in their vineyards, the vines looked good, their old growth was healthy. The nearby neighbors had created a moonscape vineyard, dead, except for the vines, and even then the old growth was mostly gone despite being planted at the same time.

When we asked them about the biodynamic treatments they treated us to skeptical laughs. They said it was working, with a wave of a hand towards the vines, and even if the treatments were doing nothing, so what? Practicing biodynamics was getting them out and into the vineyards, with the plants and rocks, getting their hands dirty and teaching them to recognize things that they would never get if they were in a tractor all day, or if they simply killed off all the life.”

The whole article is well worth reading and the photos contrasting the biodynamic vineyard with the conventionally-farmed vineyard are very telling.

The anthropopper can live with being ridiculed by skeptics, as long as others are beginning to see that in applied anthroposophy there really is something rather special that works, and which holds hope for the future – and in such a mad, bad and dangerous world, we all need to believe that humanity can find ways to pull through its present crises. Anyway, as human evolution continues, and once we’re all through the age of the consciousness soul (unfortunately there’s about another 1500 years to go), I like to think that we will be discovering new and much more objective clairvoyant abilities in ourselves; and the reality of the spiritual world will be glaringly obvious to all of us, skeptics, anthropops and the common man and woman alike.

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September 16, 2014 · 2:18 pm

Karma and the Steiner Waldorf teacher

Mark Hayes of the Steiner’s Mirror blog has asked me a question: ““What role and purpose, if any, does karma have in Steiner education?”

I think it’s fair to say that Mark’s blog is not friendly towards Steiner schools and his question has a hostile intent behind it. However, it seems to me that Mark is asking a genuine question in a civil manner so I’m going to do my best to answer him.

I should state right from the outset that, although I have worked in and around Steiner schools for many years, I am not a teacher nor have I been through Steiner teacher training. What I have done, however, is spend considerable amounts of time with Steiner teachers, in teacher meetings and College of Teacher meetings. I have also helped to recruit and interview teachers (and on occasion have also had to engage in teacher disciplinary and capability panels).   My response to Mark’s question is based on my experience of what happens in a typical Steiner Waldorf school.

Rudolf Steiner considered it his main life task to increase people’s understanding of the laws of karma and reincarnation and their operation in our lives. I call them ‘laws’ because they operate as inevitably as any other law of nature such as gravity or action/reaction.

What is karma? Stated very simply, karma is the cosmic law of cause and effect. I see it as an extension of the physical law of action/reaction because it ensures that each of us receives back the exact results of our actions. The idea didn’t originate with Steiner, of course. According to Wikipedia, it has its origins in ancient India and is a key concept in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, Shintoism, Ching Hai and others. And although most traces of it have been eliminated from exoteric Christianity, even there you can still find references to it, such as from St Paul, who said: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

So karma is not some weird, occult notion dreamed up by Steiner but is part of the belief system of millions of people across the world. It is of course closely associated with two of the other great cosmic laws, ie reincarnation or the law of rebirth; and the law of opportunity, which ensures that the reincarnating soul is drawn to the circumstances that will bring opportunities to pay off old debts and acquire the knowledge and experience that it seeks.

To come to Mark’s question: “what role and purpose, if any, does karma have in Steiner education?” Perhaps the first thing to say is that not every teacher in a Steiner school is an anthroposophist. I would guess that most class teachers are but probably not so many subject teachers. One would hope that, if they are teaching in a Steiner school, then they would at least have an interest in anthroposophy and be open to finding out more about it, but it’s not a requirement and during my time they were not asked about it at interview. I never knew for sure how many people in the school would describe themselves as anthroposophists and I never asked.

But let’s assume that the teacher is an anthroposophist and works with the notion that karma and reincarnation are active in the lives of all of us. What effect does that have on their teaching practice? From my perspective, it has the most wonderful and enlivening effect, which can be summed up in this quotation from Steiner: “Receive the children in reverence, educate them with love, send them forth in freedom.”

“Receive the children in reverence.” The teacher receives the child in trust from its parents but also with the understanding that the child was in the heavenly world until its recent birth and therefore comes, in Wordsworth’s phrase, “trailing clouds of glory.”

“Educate them with love.” The teacher will assume that there is some kind of link between his or her own karma and that of the children and that they are therefore there to learn from and to help one another.

“Send them forth in freedom.” The teacher does not seek to impart his or her own beliefs to the children but rather to teach them to think for themselves so that in their future lives they can operate as free men and women, able to fulfil their destinies.

A Steiner teacher doesn’t ask: “What do I need to teach this child so that she will get through the SATS test?” or “How can I ensure that this child’s exam results won’t drag down the school’s overall rating in the league tables?” or even “What can I teach this child so that he will become an efficient member of the workforce?” (And by no means do I blame state schoolteachers for the intolerable political pressures put upon them.) Instead, a Steiner teacher will ask something like: “What does this child need in order to develop into an effective member of society who is well balanced and happy?”

In all the teacher meetings I have attended over the years, I have never heard a teacher say anything that would seem to indicate that they know what a child’s past life had been or how its karma would unfold in the future. Indeed, unless you are a great initiate or at least a clairvoyant of prodigious insight, how could anyone make such a statement without inviting derision? If ever anything like this has happened in a Steiner school, then I condemn it as utterly inappropriate and wrong. What I have heard, on the other hand, is some really insightful discussion in child study sessions, in which teachers will focus on a particular child and share their particular experiences and observations made during lessons.

Nor do I recognise the allegation that Steiner teachers ignore incidents of bullying because of some misplaced sense that, if a child is being bullied, it must be something to do with its karma. In the schools I know about, bullying is dealt with quickly and effectively and any incidents of bullying are notified to all the teachers so that they can keep an eye open in case of any further outbreaks. If there is a Steiner teacher anywhere in the world who believes that they should not intervene in cases of bullying, they are not only very wrong but also completely misunderstand the concept of karma. In my old school any such idiocy would have led straight to a disciplinary hearing for that teacher.

Visit Steiner schools and you will find there is a friendly and relaxed relationship between teachers and pupils. There is also a notable quality of warmth that one does not always feel in other schools, where it’s all too easy for teachers to become classroom managers and for pupils to be seen as examination statistics.

All of the above will seem like nonsense and delusion to some, or to use the skeptics’ favourite imported terms, “woo” and “wibble”. (What’s wrong with our homegrown British terms of abuse, I’d like to know.)

In the UK at least, you have plenty of choice of schools and if the ideas outlined here don’t appeal to you, then please put your child in a different system. After all, as Steiner observed somewhere, belief in the spiritual realities is a matter of karma and if you don’t like these concepts, then they’re clearly not in your script for this lifetime (which you probably believe is the only one you’ve got).

As I’ve already mentioned some of the cosmic laws, I will touch here on another one – the law of balance and equilibrium. This law shows itself throughout nature in phenomena such as day and night, heat and cold, expansion and contraction, acid and alkali etc. It’s a fundamental law regarding the human mind and body because it acts as a safeguard, ensuring that extremism can only be taken so far before reaction sets in and pulls us back towards the place of balance. Over successive incarnations it causes the soul to swing between poles, for example between introversion and extroversion, until a more balanced expression of being is reached. It may cause a soul that has been fanatical in one incarnation to be just as fanatical in the opposite direction in another lifetime, so as to adjust the soul’s equilibrium. Therefore, although I’m not clairvoyant, I can predict with complete confidence that Richard Dawkins’ next life will be as an Islamic fundamentalist; that Dan Dugan will be general secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America; and that Pete Karaiskos will come back as a kindly little old lady whose characteristic phrases will be: “If you can’t say something nice, then it’s better to say nothing at all” and “Oh well, mustn’t grumble.” 🙂

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September 15, 2014 · 11:54 am

Marilyn Monroe and Rudolf Steiner

Hard on the heels of the Daily Mail’s re-hashing of a salacious story about Marilyn Monroe from sixty years ago as if it were the latest sensation, the anthropopper will not be outdone in recycling old news and is proud to reveal that … Marilyn Monroe was an anthroposophist!

images

Photo courtesy of Harpers Bazaar

Intriguingly, this does appear to be a true story. The following quotation is taken from a biography of Marilyn Monroe called “Norma Jean: the Life of Marilyn Monroe” by Fred Lawrence Guiles, published by McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York in 1969. It appears on pages 331-332 of the 333-page book.

 “Some years before her death (in Dec. ’64), Dame Edith (Sitwell) had spent a winter in Hollywood. A meeting between the poet and Marilyn was arranged by a monthly magazine. It was thought their ‘opposite’ personalities would throw off some journalistic sparks. No one could have foreseen that they would become immediate friends, nor could anyone have known that their deaths would be marked in an almost identical way — while their legends were growing in their lifetimes, they had been taken seriously by too few, too late.

“By the time she met Dame Edith, Marilyn had come a long way. If she had not been moving in an atmosphere — much of it self-created — so removed from her beginning, they might have had nothing in common. But when the introductions were over, these new and unlikely friends were left alone and began talking of Rudolf Steiner, whose personal history, “The Course of My Life”, Marilyn was reading at the time. Dame Edith was to remark later on Marilyn’s ‘extreme intelligence'”

In Dame Edith Sitwell’s autobiography Taken Care Of, she tells of her meeting with ‘Miss Marilyn Monroe’, who she describes as quiet, with great natural dignity and extremely intelligent. She was also, she said, extremely sensitive. Dame Edith tells of a magazine article that she was commissioned to write about her visit to Hollywood and this included a face-to-face encounter with Miss Monroe, who she suspected the magazine moguls thought would hate one another on sight. They were mistaken.

‘On the occasion of our meeting she wore a green dress and, with her yellow hair, looked like a daffodil. We talked mainly, as far as I remember, about Rudolf Steiner, whose works she had just been reading. In repose her face was at moments strangely, prophetically tragic, like the face of a beautiful ghost – a little spring-ghost, an innocent fertility daemon, the vegetation spirit that was Ophelia.’

(Source: http://www.webcitation.org/5wozS1ofx)

Monroe and Sitwell

Edith Sitwell and Marilyn Monroe, 1953 Photograph by George Silk/LIFE © Time Inc.

Tom Mellett, a former Steiner teacher in the USA, has added the following comments:

“While living in Spring Valley in 1980, I had the good fortune of meeting the person who had sent Marilyn that copy of Steiner’s autobiography as well as a number of other Steiner books and lecture cycles that Marilyn requested over a ten year period from the Anthroposophical Library, then located at 211 Madison Avenue in New York City. I speak of the late Agnes Macbeth, wife of the late Norman Macbeth (author of “Darwin Retried”). Agnes worked for the library during the 1950’s, handling book requests and she vividly remembers the letters Marilyn posted asking for various lecture cycles. And although Marilyn had a reputation for tardiness and irresponsibility on her movie sets, Agnes assured me that Marilyn was very conscientious and punctual with her returns of the books.

Marilyn Monroe was introduced to Steiner’s writings and lectures by her favou rite drama teacher, Michael Chekhov (1890-1955), nephew of the playwright Anton, and fellow director with Stanislavsky in the Moscow Art Theatre early in the 20th century. Marilyn was introduced to Chekhov in 1951 by one of his devoted students, the American character actor Jack Palance. Marilyn opened herself like a sponge to water to Chekhov’s approach to theatre, which was so deeply influenced by Steiner that Chekhov left Stanislavsky’s method behind. And Marilyn opened herself very deeply to anthroposophy, not because she felt it would please her teacher, but Chekhov felt that it was one of the only times in her life that Marilyn did something out of her own free inner being.

The tragedy of Marilyn Monroe is that she opened herself up too much and became a slave, not only of the studio bosses, but also the expectations of a world that focused on her as such a fantasy object. Yet deep inside her inner being, which no one in the media and our popular culture even believed she possessed, she spent the last 10 or 11 years of her tortured life cultivating the delicate plant of anthroposophy.”

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September 11, 2014 · 10:54 am

The internet, the critics and Steiner Waldorf schools

It is ironical that the internet, which is connecting people throughout the world, is also isolating us from real human interactions. An additional irony is that the isolating technology of the internet has the ability to bring together so many new groups of people online , who then tend to polarise into factions. We have Darwinists versus creationists, secular humanists versus religious believers, neo-con right versus liberal left and so on.

The internet has turned us all into self-publishing writers and that factor, combined with the near-ubiquity of Twitter, has put many of us into broadcast rather than receive mode. We are no longer good at listening to one another and prefer instead to promote our views, or the prejudices of our favoured factions, to anyone we can persuade to click on the link. Even at our most solipsistic, however, some traditional media practices remain useful, such as targeting suitable individuals or organisations for hate campaigns and going after them without mercy. Inventing heretics and then sending in the attack dogs is great sport for everyone – we can all agree on that.

Steiner Waldorf schools have certainly come in for more than their fair share of online abuse and attack. The people working in these schools, however, have tended to stand aside from such polarised online arguments, despite the critics’ best efforts to get them to rise to the bait with some truly ferocious onslaughts. Perhaps that’s because the schools’ traditional response to criticism has always been to ignore it, keep their heads down and get on with their work. I recall one critic who was amazed and frustrated that whatever she said about the schools, however extreme or libelous, never resulted in any public response.

Nonetheless, if you’re an anthroposophist and you spend any time online, you can’t help but be disturbed by some of the vehemently anti-Steiner critics out there, only too happy to pour buckets of bile and scorn over our heads.

I used to work for a Steiner school and my younger self tended to get quite upset by the sheer malice and ill will that the online critics manifested towards the education. I would dearly love to offer these critics and their readers a more balanced view, one which is based on my own, mainly positive, experience of Steiner schools. However, despite my wish for interaction and dialogue, I’ve reluctantly concluded that there is little to be gained by joining discussion with the critics. After several bruising online encounters, it became clear that many of them are really not interested in reasoned discussion. No, what they want is to destroy Steiner Waldorf education. I wish I had read the following advice from Steiner before getting involved:

“Observe the opponents, indeed in our anthroposophical circles it would be most advisable to study our opponents carefully. They renounce attacking the truths, and lay chief stress on personal attacks, personal insinuations, personal insults, personal calumnies. They think that truth cannot be touched, yet it is to be driven out of the world, and they believe that this can be done by personal defamation. The nature of such an opposition shows how well the leading opponents know how to proceed in order to gain the victory, at least for the time being.

But this is something which anthroposophists above all should know; for there are still many anthroposophists who think that something may be reached by direct discussion with the opponent…people do not hate us because we say something that is not true, but because we say the truth. And the more we succeed in proving that we say the truth, the more they will hate us.
Of course this cannot prevent us from stating the truth. But it can prevent us from being so naïve as to think that it is possible to progress by discussion.” 1

Steiner here was clearly referring to opponents who went about their business by way of ad hominem attacks, distortions and lies – the kind of behaviour, in fact, which the internet with its anonymity and distancing effect seems to encourage. Taking his advice, I won’t be getting into any more online exchanges with critics who behave in the ways he described. I might, however, respond to what seem to be genuine questions or genuine concerns, because I am interested in real discussion and dialogue – and also because I think that in the long run the critics are doing Steiner schools a favour by shining their critical spotlight on the education.

A point I have often made in talks with teachers is that our best, perhaps our only defence is to be excellent at what we do. If we are consistently providing an excellent all-round education for our pupils, then the critics will have very few arguments left. However, the weakness of the leadership and management arrangements in some of the independent Steiner schools has meant that achieving necessary change can be very difficult. I shall have more to say about this subject in a future posting but for now I will simply observe that, to the extent we are able to rise successfully to this challenge, the critics will have helped Steiner schools into becoming an accepted and valued part of the educational culture of this country – and this might even come to be reflected in what is said about us on the internet.

1 From “Knowledge Pervaded with the Experience of Love”, GA 221, Dornach, 18th February 1923

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September 4, 2014 · 11:32 pm

Rudolf Steiner visits Margaret McMillan

Ever since I first heard about her work with poor children and their education and physical welfare, I have been a great admirer of the pioneer of nursery education, Margaret McMillan, who with her sister Rachel made huge efforts to improve the lives of slum-dwelling children in Deptford, London and Bradford in Yorkshire during the 1890s and early years of the 20th century. (I am indebted to the Electric Scotland website for much of the biographical information and the photos of the McMillan sisters in this posting.)

In London in the late 1880s, Rachel and Margaret attended socialist meetings where they met William Morris, H. M. Hyndman, Peter Kropotkin, William Stead and Ben Tillet. They also began contributing to the magazine Christian Socialist and gave free evening lessons to working class girls in London. Margaret later wrote: “I taught them singing, or rather I talked to them while they jeered at me.” It was at this time that the two sisters became aware of the connection between the workers’ physical environment and their intellectual development.

The sisters continued to be involved in spreading the word of Christian Socialism to industrial workers and in 1892 it was suggested that their efforts would be appreciated in Bradford.

 Although for the next few years they were based in Bradford, Rachel and Margaret toured the industrial regions speaking at meetings and visiting the homes of the poor. As well as attending Christian Socialist meetings, the sisters joined the Fabian Society, the Labour Church, the Social Democratic Federation and the newly formed Independent Labour Party.

Margaret and Rachel’s work in Bradford convinced them that they should concentrate on trying to improve the physical and intellectual welfare of very poor children. In 1892 Margaret joined Dr. James Kerr, Bradford’s school medical officer, to carry out the first medical inspection of elementary school children in Britain. Kerr and McMillan published a report on the medical problems that they found and began a campaign to improve the health of children by arguing that local authorities should install bathrooms, improve ventilation and supply free school meals.

Rachel McMillan

Rachel McMillan

 

In 1902 Margaret joined Rachel McMillan in London. The sisters joined the recently formed Labour Party and worked closely with leaders of the movement including James Keir Hardie and George Lansbury. Margaret continued to write books on health and education. In 1904 she published her most important book, Education Through the Imagination (1904) and followed this with The Economic Aspects of Child Labour and Education (1905).

Margaret McMillan

Margaret McMillan

The two sisters led the campaign for school meals and eventually the House of Commons became convinced that hungry children cannot learn and passed the 1906 Provision of School Meals Act. The legislation accepted the argument put forward by the McMillan sisters that if the state insisted on 
compulsory education for all children it must also take responsibility for the proper nourishment of school children.

In 1908 Rachel and Margaret McMillan opened the country’s first school clinic in Bow. This was followed by the Deptford Clinic in 1910 that served a number of schools in the area. The clinic provided dental help, surgical aid and lessons in breathing and posture. The sisters also established a Night Camp where slum children could wash and wear clean nightclothes.

In 1914 the sisters decided to start an Open-Air Nursery School & Training Centre in Peckham. Within a few weeks there were thirty children at the school ranging in age from eighteen months to seven years. Rachel, who was mainly responsible for the kindergarten, proudly pointed out that in the first six months there was only one case of illness and, because of precautions that she took, this case of measles did not spread to the other children.

Rachel McMillan, who had long suffered from poor health, died on 25th March, 1917. Although devastated by the loss of her sister, Margaret continued to run the Peckham Nursery. She also served on the London County Council and wrote a series of influential books that included The Nursery School (1919) and Nursery Schools: A Practical Handbook (1920).

I knew that Margaret and her sister were heroines and pioneers of nursery education in this country. What I didn’t know about Margaret, however, is that she was visited by Rudolf Steiner during a visit to Britain in 1923 and he was also mightily impressed by her, according to this fascinating post on the Transpontine blog.

Rudolf Steiner in 1923, the year in which he met Margaret McMillan

Rudolf Steiner in 1923, the year in which he met Margaret McMillan

As a small but poignant footnote to this, while I was looking into the history of the Steiner school established by Miss Margaret Cross at Kings Langley in the 1920s (the only Steiner school in England visited by Rudolf Steiner), I came across in the school library an early edition of Margaret McMillan’s book Education Through the Imagination. Inside on the flyleaf Margaret McMillan herself had written a very warm dedication to “dear Miss Cross”. It’s good to think that a founder of Steiner education in this country was originally associated with an educationist of the greatness of soul and generosity of spirit such as Margaret McMillan.

In her later years Margaret McMillan became interested in the subject of nursing. With the financial help of Lloyds of London, she established a new college to train nurses and teachers. Named after her beloved sister, the Rachel McMillan College was opened in Deptford on 8th May 1930.

 Margaret McMillan died on 29 March 1931. Afterwards her friend Walter Cresswell wrote in a memoir of the McMillan sisters: “Such persons, single-minded, pure in heart, blazing with selfless love, are the jewels of our species. There is more essential Christianity in them than in a multitude of bishops.”

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August 30, 2014 · 4:27 pm

Am I Reasonable or Unreasonable?

One of the things that impresses me about anthroposophy is the effect it can have on certain people when they seek to apply it in practical activities. It’s as though once these individuals get a glimpse of the true nature of what it is to be a human and an understanding of the role of human beings in the larger scheme of things, it somehow frees them to go out into the world without fear and to get on with their life’s work.

Look at the people who work on biodynamic farms, for example. There they are, toiling away for often just the minimum wage, producing wonderful food bursting with flavour and full of life-force, for those of us privileged enough to be near an outlet that sells it.

Why do they do it? What motivates them to forsake the normal aspirations of society, such as being able to afford to buy their own home, have a good car and get their share of the other consumer benefits most of us take for granted? Are they being reasonable?

Perhaps it’s because they simply can’t bear what is going on in conventional agriculture right now. They want the rest of us to wake up to what is happening in mainstream farming. These are individuals who feel that they have to do right by the land, by the animals and by the plants within their care because not to do so would crush them as human beings.

Or what about co-workers in Camphill village communities, who have chosen to live and work with people who have intellectual and developmental disabilities? Could it be that they feel impelled to live and work in an environment in which each person and every aspect of the natural world is valued and respected, because not to do so would be unbearable?

Or take the group of Arab and Jewish parents who founded the Ein Bustan (literally “Spring in the Garden”) kindergarten, the first Jewish/Arab Waldorf kindergarten in Israel. These founders share a vision of a society in which Jews and Arabs live peacefully together in equality and understanding. The children (half of them Arab and half Jewish) learn and speak each other’s language and discover each other’s culture and inner world. In the midst of all the hatred and horrors of Jewish/Arab conflict, these people are doing what is the obvious and necessary thing to do, that is building bridges of understanding between the children who will grow up to become the next generation of decision-makers and opinion-formers in Israel. They are reviled and derided by many on both sides for what they do.

Compare and contrast individuals like this with, say, political activists or media commentators. Such people can talk up a storm about what needs to be done to meet this crisis or that problem. They are well known, they are wheeled out as pundits on TV and radio and online, they make a good living out of what they do, and they are above all reasonable men and women. However, their tally of contributing to actual change or improvement for their fellow human beings may be less than impressive.

Reasonable people are adaptable, sensible, can tack with the prevailing winds. The Vicar of Bray was undoubtedly a reasonable man. Unreasonable people can at times be a pain to deal with and are often seen as their own worst enemies.

Was Karl Konig, who founded Camphill, a reasonable man?

Are the Ein Bustan founders reasonable to carry on in the face of all the opposition coming their way?

Was Rudolf Steiner, as someone who has had a huge impact in fields as diverse as agriculture, architecture, the arts, economics, education, medicine, a reasonable man?

Here is a favourite quotation of mine, from George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Exactly so.

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August 22, 2014 · 3:23 pm

The Monstering of Glenn Hoddle

In an excellent talk given to the ASGB 2014 Summer Conference by Alan Swindell (principal of the Steiner Academy Exeter), he reminded us of what had happened to Glenn Hoddle when he expressed in an interview some thoughts on karma and reincarnation.

Those of you who are football fans (and even many who are not) will undoubtedly remember the sad fate of Glenn Hoddle. Hoddle had had a distinguished playing career at Tottenham, AS Monaco and as an England international and he followed this with considerable success as a manager at Swindon Town, as a player-manager at Chelsea and finally as the England manager from 1996 to 1999.

Glenn Hoddle with the faith healer Eileen Drewery. (Photo courtesy of The Sun.)

Glenn Hoddle with the faith healer Eileen Drewery. (Photo courtesy of The Sun.)

Hoddle, like all England managers, had his critics. One of the areas for criticism was his employment of a faith healer, Eileen Drewery, as part of the England coaching staff, something which led the tabloids to dub the England team “the Hod Squad”. On 30th January 1999, with England preparing for Euro 2000, Hoddle gave an interview to Matt Dickinson of The Times newspaper, in which he attempted to defend himself and his beliefs. He said:

 “My beliefs have evolved in the last eight or nine years, that the spirit has to come back again, that is nothing new, that has been around for thousands of years. You have to come back to learn and face some of the things you have done, good and bad. There are too many injustices around.”

“You and I have been physically given two hands and two legs and half-decent brains. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The karma is working from another lifetime. I have nothing to hide about that. It is not only people with disabilities. What you sow, you have to reap.”

“You have to look at things that happened in your life and ask why. It comes around.”

This was of course a gift not only to rent-a-mouth politicians such as the sports minister Tony Banks, head of the Football Task Force David Mellor and prime minister Tony Blair, who immediately criticised his remarks but also to journalists who sensing an opportunity for a media witchhunt, called for Hoddle’s dismissal as England manager. The Football Association sacked Hoddle just three days later and this was welcomed by representatives of disabled groups, despite the work Hoddle had been doing on behalf of organisations helping disabled people. The BBC reported the sacking as ”More Bad Karma for Glenn Hoddle”.

So the lesson for anyone in public life was clear. The materialists have the monopoly on spiritual truth. It’s best not to have any beliefs other than atheism but if you must have, confine them to the conventional religions. Even with those, don’t embarrass yourself or others by speaking about them in public. And whatever you do, don’t mention karma or reincarnation – or your career will be over and you will face monstering by media.

In such a climate of opinion, those of us who think that anthroposophy has something to offer could be forgiven for keeping our heads below the parapet. Our views are seen as heretical in the prevailing orthodoxy.

However, I think that Glenn Hoddle was articulating something, however clumsily, that many people know instinctively and have a great need to express. At the same ASGB conference at which Alan Swindell spoke, I was leading a workshop on the theme: “Anthroposophy – Never An Ideology”, during the course of which I quoted from something Tarjei Straume had posted on his website:

 “Anthroposophy…is not really comparable to religious doctrines but more to scientific doctrines, say like the doctrine of heliocentrism that was introduced by Copernicus and Galileo in the 16th and 17th centuries – a theory that was officially prohibited by the Church in 1616 but is now so absorbed and widespread that anything that contradicts it is heresy. Thus it may be argued that the anthroposophical worldview is a relatively new heretical theory that may replace Copernicanism, Newtonianism, Darwinism and Einsteinism in the future.”

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August 22, 2014 · 1:06 pm

Why am I starting this blog?

Anthroposophy, a name that is used to describe the body of knowledge and the practical fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s extraordinarily polymathic activities and teachings in the first quarter of the 20th century, is an unfortunate word. It means something like “human wisdom”. The Germans seem to have no problems in stringing together two or more words to make up these clumsy portmanteau words; but to the English speaker a word such as anthroposophy is not only awkward to pronounce but also sounds cult-like. It’s almost guaranteed to get normal human beings to walk in the opposite direction as soon as they hear it.

Steiner himself said that he would like to change the word every week but unluckily for us, he stuck with it. It is equally unfortunate that other terms used to describe Steiner’s work, such as “spiritual science” are just as bad. “Spiritual science” appears to be a particularly poor translation of the German term “geisteswissenschaft”, which could more accurately be called “the spiritual humanities” in English.

Image courtesy of RS Archive

A rare photo of Rudolf Steiner with the hint of a smile – Image courtesy of RS Archive

So if we are of the view that Steiner has a huge contribution to make in helping us to understand what it is to be a human being and how to live better lives, it’s a pity that we start off with something of a communications problem.

That’s why I was very encouraged at the 2014 summer conference of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain (ASGB) that the recently appointed general secretary, Marjatta van Boeschoten, announced that the ASGB Council was seriously considering a name change for the society. I was even more encouraged that the members present seemed to be overwhelmingly in favour of such a change and wanted the society to play a much more active, outwardly-facing role in the world. Hurrah! That’s what I’m interested in – not just talking, but doing – helping to get to grips with some of the massive problems facing us all.

But in the meantime we’re still stuck with this term “anthroposophy”. What is it? I like this pithy description from an old Norwegian acquaintance of mine, Tarjei Straume:

 “Anthroposophy is nothing but a path to the Spirit available to everyone and basically compatible with any cultural or religious background, including secular humanism. As a matter of fact, humanism is the basis, the point of departure, for the epistemology that is the backdrop of anthroposophy and therefore also its backbone.”

Yes, there’s that troublesome word again, “Spirit”. Steiner’s own description is: “Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the Spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the universe. It arises in humans as a need of the heart, of the life of feeling; and it can be justified only inasmuch as it can satisfy this inner need.”

Steiner knew with absolute certainty that we human beings are not just physical creatures in a material world but in fact we are spiritual beings who are currently having human experiences in a physical body – and that we are subject to constant cycles of life, death and rebirth.

How does that sit with you? Do those ideas resonate somewhere inside you or do they seem to be absolute nonsense and delusion? If the latter, then why not apply to join the British Humanist Association, whose slogan is: “For The One Life We Have.”

But if you feel there may be rather more to life than just one lifetime, then you could find it worthwhile to find out more about Steiner.

This blog will reflect my own journey of discovery, my comments on the state of anthroposophy today and some hopes for the future. It will be a great pleasure and privilege to share some of all this with you.

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