Rudolf Steiner and Race by Sherry Wildfeuer
At this time, especially in the United States, many people are working to identify long-standing racial biases and consequent injustices that have imposed enormous suffering on those born into what are often labeled as minority races, as well as inculcating unconscious habits of thought and action in the people born into what is considered the majority race. This climate of self-examination and intentional course-correction has led to a closer look at the treatment of race in anthroposophy. One finds seeming contradictions in Rudolf Steiner’s work.
Steiner’s Early Work
In his early descriptions of evolution, Steiner adopted the language of his first audience, the Theosophists, who identified the sequential stages of human development as “root races,” culminating in our time in the “Aryan” race. Because of the use of this word by the Nazis, who came to full power well after Rudolf Steiner’s death in 1925, one can only cringe at the claim of the Aryans as the superior race. History shows how the travesties of European colonialism against indigenous people worldwide were also justified in the minds of the perpetrators by this idea of racial superiority.
By 1909, Rudolf Steiner was already distancing himself from the Theosophical Society’s narrative and creating his own language for evolution in his book Occult Science[1], and he dropped the use of the word Aryan after that. In the same year he said:
“.…the anthroposophical movement…must cast aside the division into races. It must seek to unite people of all races and nations and to bridge the divisions and differences between various people. The old point of view of race has a physical character, but what will prevail in the future will have a more spiritual character.…Of course, any movement has its childhood illnesses, so to speak. …However, we must get beyond the illness of childhood and understand clearly that the concept of race has ceased to have any meaning for our time.”[2]
This quote indicates that race has no defining bearing on a person’s essential humanity, but of course we know that both race and skin color have a tremendous effect upon one’s biography and experience of life.
Fourteen years after Steiner’s death, articles he wrote in 1904 when he was still using the terminology of the Theosophical Society, were collected and published in Germany in a volume that we know under the title Cosmic Memory. This book was recently re-published in English without mention of the author’s shift away from the racial terminology five years after the articles appeared. Many of the statements that people have found offensive have come from this book which, in his own words, contains expressions of the “childhood illness” of the anthroposophical movement.
The Evolution of Humanity
There is another category of statements that offend today’s sensibilities. These relate to the idea of “progressive” evolution and cultures that are “lagging behind.” To put these statements in context, one has to know that the anthroposophical picture of the evolution of the earth and of human consciousness goes back into pre-historic time when the earth’s continents were differently configured, the surface of the earth was less stable and hardened than our current conditions, and human beings themselves were still emerging towards their present form and capacities. In those times, different geographical areas strongly influenced the bodily constitution of humanity, and from an originally unified humanity different races evolved. However, a great deluge and flood, which is recalled in many religious and spiritual traditions, caused the death of much of humanity and affected the continental configuration we experience today. Different peoples migrated to the new areas. Steiner stated that after this, race no longer played a strong role in the development of humanity.
Over thousands of years, there was a gradual shift of inner identity from group consciousness, relating to tribes and clans, families and ancestors, toward individuation. However, after death, the human soul was released from bodily constraints to become united with a collective consciousness once more. During the body-free condition after death, individual human spirits vividly experience their deeds’ effects on others and, with the help of angelic beings, form intentions to create conditions for a next life on earth in which to evolve further and compensate for the suffering caused to others. The eternal, individual spirit accumulates experiences and has opportunities to develop morally over many lifetimes. Thus, through reincarnation and karma, each human spirit has the opportunity to experience living over time in different gendered bodies, in different races and cultures, in different parts of the world.
Human beings in ancient times had a dream-like clairvoyance that beheld the spiritual nature of beings and phenomena. This visionary consciousness, which was held within tribes and clans, was gradually lost and was superseded by the capacity for intellectual thinking, and attention was focused on physical appearance gained through the senses. Knowledge of the spirit was then recalled through myths, stories, and tradition. Rudolf Steiner referred to this loss of direct and natural experience of the spirit as a necessary development in order for human beings to awaken to the core of their own spirit within themselves, to recognize the spiritual core in others and in the forms of the natural world, and to reconnect with the spirit through the activity of their own will. Over the millennia, there have been individuals and cultures who have maintained or sought to cultivate the earlier clairvoyant consciousness in order to preserve a relation to the spirit. Thus, various states of consciousness have existed side-by-side over thousands of years all over the earth, each with its own task in the larger development of humanity.
The Context of European Culture
The impulse of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science was brought into the context of European culture, where the connection with the spirit was retained mostly in the form of tradition and religious dogma, and where materialism – the conviction that only matter has reality and that spirit either doesn’t exist or cannot be known – was the dominant worldview. He showed a way to regain spiritual consciousness by developing the potential that lies dormant within the faculty of thinking. He demonstrated a way to lift ourselves through several stages of consciousness without having to abdicate the gains we have made through individuation, independent thinking, and clear, precise observation through our senses.
Rudolf Steiner’s mission was to awaken a sense of responsibility, especially among the people who were most distant from an awareness of the spiritual world. He saw how the impulse of materialism had spread and would continue to spread globally and he spoke often of the attendant dangers in this dark time of estrangement from the very spiritual beings who created us. He gave multiple forms of exercises and ways for self-transformation, stressing always that this must be freely chosen because only through freedom can we come to the highest potential of our humanity: Love. The impulse to differentiate humanity into different races was initially one of separation, but it is now the task of humanity to overcome these divisions through love.
The Interweaving of Human Destiny
He described three goals for the future: 1) Mutuality, in which we will work to provide for the needs of others out of the impulse of service rather than self-interest; 2) seeing the divinity in every human being; and 3) reconnecting with the spirit through the transformation of our thinking.
These goals will play themselves out on a societal scale: 1) in the economic realm, where Steiner recommended replacing the motive of competition with mutual support through associations composed of producers, distributors and consumers; 2) in the political realm, in which each person has equal rights; and 3) in the cultural life, in which each person has the opportunity to develop their potential in freedom.
With this large trajectory in mind, he referred -- counter-intuitively for a spiritual teacher – to the descent of consciousness from our original clairvoyance as “progressive” (meaning necessary for the future), and the cultivation of the original state of natural wisdom as “older.” Yet he valued the beauty and wisdom of such older cultures. In his ideas for a threefold social ordering, he sought to ensure the protection of equality for all, and freedom for each individual.
There is yet a third category of statements about race in Rudolf Steiner’s work – a handful of occasions during lectures in which he characterized races as they currently exist. I personally find them enigmatic and challenging to relate to because they appear to contradict the statement above that “race has ceased to have any meaning for our time.” What I have come to see is an interweaving of three different impulses of destiny. First, the gradual transformation of humanity as a whole, from ancient group-soul clairvoyant consciousness based on heredity, through the power of transformed thinking, to a new consciousness of the spirit. Second, the evolution of the beings of the races themselves, some of which are younger and more vigorous, and others of which are older and in a gradual process of decline. And third, the development in freedom of each individual human being towards freedom and love over time through the meaningful experience of reincarnation in different races.[3]
The Value of Steiner’s Work
It would be tragic if the spiritual insights achieved by Rudolf Steiner, which are so needed in this time of deep materialism, would be dismissed because of the accusation of racism. The very people seeking a way of overcoming the grip of materialism will, of course, be morally committed to overcoming racial prejudice and the suffering and inequality it engenders. Mere denial or defensiveness on the part of anthroposophists is neither convincing nor helpful, especially because the problematic statements have been circulated out of context and do in fact seem to contradict Steiner’s fundamental approach to morality.
To conclude, it is important for us to put these statements in a chronological context and cease to use the terminology of races that Rudolf Steiner himself stopped using in relation to evolution. His references to "progressive " and "older " cultures should be seen in light of his overall view of the evolution of human consciousness away from direct vision of the spiritual world, and the need for a new way of relating to the spirit. These references should not be interpreted as value statements to discredit any culture. Rather, he put forward social ideas which were specifically aimed at enabling a multiplicity of cultures to live harmoniously together, side by side. Because these perspectives are not immediately obvious to current readers, it is essential for people more familiar with anthroposophy to become involved in conversation with those who bring up the question of racism.
Rudolf Steiner’s life unfolded over 100 years ago in Europe. He was continually developing his word choices and ways of communication. It is important that we continue that effort. When questions about race are raised now in the United States, I hope students of anthroposophy will be sensitive to and participate in the issues that are currently alive. While it is right to take the long view of evolution and strive toward the goal of universal humanity as is done in anthroposophy, we must realize that this goal will only be achieved if we all have the courage to address the hindrances within the circumstances of our own lives.
[1] Rudolf Steiner, Occult Science: An Outline, tr. George Adams (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2013).
[2] Rudolf Steiner, The Universal Human, “Individuality and the Group Soul,” December 4, 1909. Ed. Sabine Seiler, tr. Gilbert Church. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/UniHuman/19091204p02.html
[3] Rudolf Steiner, The Mission of Folk Souls, Lecture Five, June 11, 1910. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA121/English/APC1929/19100611p01.html
