(Continued from here.)

The following is based on an analysis of the introduction by Mr. Staudenmaier to his first article as solo writer on anthroposophy, "Anthroposophy and Ecofascism" in 2000. It compares what he has written with the source he refers to, and documents repeated discussion by the undersigned and others with Mr. Staudenmaier on the Internet, and personal correspondence with him about it.

The main allegations in English on the Internet of anti-Semitism and racism in anthroposophy can be found in a number of articles by Peter Staudenmaier since 2000. They are published by the small vocal anti-waldorf fringe group "PLANS Inc." in San Francisco at its web site and at other places on the Internet.

No evidence readily available on the Internet, nor any information given by Mr. Staudenmaier himself in discussions, indicates that he (as of the beginning of 2006) has even a basic academic degree in any subject.

Despite this, Mr. Staudenmaier, who writes eloquently and with an air of scholarship, has the habit of directly and indirectly referring to his work as "scholarship" and to himself as "historical scholar", as something seemingly to himself self-evident.

Only after for many years having claimed "scholarship", Mr. Staudenmaier revealed in discussions in 2004 that he would begin a graduate history program at a university in the fall of 2004. He has since registered as a student at Cornell University.

A few of the elementary criteria for historical scholarship, as for all scholarship, are:

1. Truthfulness in describing the primary documentary sources upon which one founds one's judgments, meaning:
   a. telling the truth about what is actually stated in the primary sources that do exist, as described by the authors of the primary sources,
   b. telling the whole truth about the actual argumentation of the primary sources you say you use, and
   c. not adding untruths about non-existent primary documentary sources.
    
2. Demonstrating that one has understood the basic concepts of the subjects one discusses, also as they are understood and used by the authors, whose works you use as primary sources.
    
3. Demonstrating some reasonable balance in the judgment one comes to on the basis of the truthful description of the primary sources, the demonstrated understanding of the basic concepts discussed as well as a general overview of the subject one discusses.

However, scratching somewhat the surface of his eloquently formulated writing shows that Mr. Staudenmaier fails on all three points on the subject of anthroposophy, in terms of reliability and scholarship.

It also shows that what he writes in public discussions repeatedly turns out to be untruthful, and that he resorts to demagoguery and various word and mind games, in trying to conceal his actual lack of truthfulness, when it is documented to him.

There are two main works by Rudolf Steiner, cited by Mr. Staudenmaier, alleging to demonstrate Steiner's "racism" and "anti-Semitism".

One is Cosmic Memory found online on the Internet at rsarchive.org, published as a series of articles by Rudolf Steiner in 1904-1908 and later in book form. They were written during a period, from 1902 up to 1912, when Steiner was the General Secretary of the German section of the Theosophical Society at the time, and have the character of clarifying descriptions on the main issues discussed by Helena Blavatski in her "The Secret Doctrine", first published in 1888, as viewed by Steiner.

Already in these articles and increasingly in 1909-1912, during the end of the period in question, Steiner, while at first having partly connected to and used the concepts and terms of the Theosophical tradition at the time when addressing theosophical audiences, increasingly distanced himself from some of the concepts in question.

In 1909, he commented on one of these concepts, namely, the simplified way of using the concept of "races" in the theosophical tradition to describe human spiritual and cultural evolution in a mechanical way. Steiner argued that the concept of "race" was basically and increasingly irrelevant in describing human evolution since the last glacial ages.

The prevalent concept regarding "races" in human contexts from the end of the 18th century up to the middle of the 20th century was that there existed "five main races of humanity". The view was rooted in the view expressed in 1795 by the father of physical anthropology, Blumenbach, as part of the developing theory of evolution, then formulated in one form by Charles Darwin in 1859.

In Steiner's view the "five main races of mankind" (as understood at his time) had arisen before the last glacial ages, but in general began to lose their reality as a differentiation of humanity with the end of the last glacial ages, and will cease to exist as we know them in a number of thousand years, though he at one time described them as developing qualities up to the Middle Ages.

For more on this, see here.

Instead of using the no longer relevant term "race" to describe the pattern of human evolution since the last glacial ages, Steiner argued that our development since then follows a pattern of a sequential cultural epochs, which up to the Middle Ages develop especially in different cultural areas and which in the main are reflected by classical history as the cultures of Ancient India, Ancient Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and other cultures of the Fertile Crescent, classical Greece and classical Rome.

While he focused on the geographical pattern of their development, it seems clear that they developed simultaneously and in a partly similar way also in other parts of the world than the areas he pointed to as their focal areas of development, and mentioned as such in classical history.

Since the Middle Ages, and especially since the globalization of the world during the 20th century, the development of human culture in Steiner's view takes place on an ever more global scale, ever less bound to a specific geographical area or ethnic group.

In 1917, during the period in Europe when thinking of people in terms of "race" dominated all political thinking, Rudolf Steiner pointed to the ideals of race and nation as decaying impulses of humanity, expressing the opinion that nothing would bring humanity more into decay, than if the ideals of races, nations and blood were to continue.

The other main source referred to by Mr. Staudenmaier in his allegation that Steiner was racist and anti-Semitic is the lecture series The Mission of Folk Souls by Rudolf Steiner, held in June 1910 in Oslo.

For Mr. Staudenmaier's first untruthful story about the lecture series, in 2000, continue here.