Black and white magic, lefties and righties, and ostensibly brainless nonsense.
The Waldorf Critics List is a part of the PLANS effort not only to remove Waldorf education from publically funded schools in America, but to discredit and destroy the entire Anthroposophical Movement worldwide. With this end in mind, anything goes at the appropriately entitled "WC list."
Personally, I have terminated my participation on this list after spending a total of ten months there, and I have chosen to ignore the arguments continually featured by the so-called "Waldorf Critics" who are more obsessed with Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophy than any anthroposophist I have ever encountered. The only exception to this policy of mine is when texts written by myself are quoted and misused, which is the case at hand here.
Diana Winters is one of these Waldorf critics. In a post Mar 28, 2002, she quotes a section of my article about Ron Hubbard and Rudolf Steiner (a comparison) and twists it in a manner charcteristic of critics on the WC list:
Diana Winters, Mar 28, 2002 06:00 PST
Left-handedness and black magic
Here is some possible insight into why Waldorf teachers, unlike any others today, continue to feel left-handed children need to be forced to write with their right hands. This is from Uncle Taz's (Tarjei Straume's) page:
http://www.uncletaz.com/hubbstein.html
A brief summary if you don't wish to read the whole excerpt:
Right-handedness is associated with white magic, left-handed with black magic. With right-handedness, we have moral purity, advanced moral and spiritual development, selflessness, patience, endurance, and association with the "Christ impulse." With left-handedness, you have . . . the opposite of all that. The right-handed initiate has spent many lifetimes getting there, so I guess it seems actually charitable to try to help lefties along a bit on their spiritual path by switching their handedness.
Here's what Uncle Taz has to say:
'Left-handed' and 'right-handed' are technical terms borrowed from Western occultism . . .
Western occult tradition speaks of a right-handed and a left-handed occultism, which means, strictly speaking, white and black magic. The right-handed path, which it is called, is an extremely difficult and time-consuming approach, requiring enormous patience and endurance. It is based upon the moral purification of body, soul and spirit and the cultivation of total harmlessness and unconditional selfless love toward all living creatures. Because of the very lofty and difficult demands the candidate must make upon himself, it takes many life-times, or incarnations, to develop such spiritual-moral capacities to the point of intitiation, or modern clairvoyance.
All religions and idealistic philosophies that foster and encourage qualities of this kind, contribute to the preparation for a right-handed initiatory development.
According to Rudolf Steiner, such a right-handed occult development, or initiatory path, is entirely dependent upon the Christ-impulse . . .
. . . I have ponted out that Western occult tradition speaks of a right-handed and a left-handed occultism, which is equivalent to white and black magic. I also explained that the right-handed path is based upon very demanding and time-consuming moral purification of body, soul and spirit and the cultivation of total harmlessness and unconditional selfless love toward all living creatures.
Throughout Rudolf Steiner's life and work, it becomes clear that this was the path and the method which he himself had chosen. But 'der Doktor' also gave some very interesting descriptions of left-handed occultism, or black magic . . .
A right-handed occultist, who is cultivating the power of selfless love for all creatures, . . .
The black magician, or the left-handed occultist, seeks to strengthen the power of egoism. <etc.>
The section quoted by Diana Winters can be accessed through this link. When she writes above:
"A brief summary if you don't wish to read the whole excerpt: Right-handedness is associated with white magic, left-handed with black magic. With right-handedness, we have moral purity....."
This is an outright lie. Right- and left-handedness is not associated with white and black magic. I make it crystal clear that we are dealing with a technical expression used by occultism concerning white and black magic, not with being right-handed or left-handed.
This is a lie, not an innocent error. It's as ridiculous as suggesting e.g. that political left-wingers are all left-handed. (In that case, most anthroposophists would indeed be left-handed.) The reason why it is a lie (i.e. the critics know the truth but choose deliberately to distort it) is that they wish to combat what is perceived to be "the Waldorf policy" of converting lefties to righties at a young age among children. Apart from the fact that the reasons this was done in the past, by Waldorf schools and other schools as well, have nothing whatsoever to do with this topic of magic or good vs. evil. In other words, this is a classic example of "playing dirty" to get the Anthroposophists and their ideas at any cost and with any means, where anything goes.
Research has shown that the practice of converting lefties into righties among young children is not to be recommended. Michaela Glöckler, head of the medical section at the Goetheanum, has strongly distanced herself and anthroposophy from such practices. Contrary to notions cherished by critics, this is not Waldorf policy.
Tarjei Straume
P.S. For further amusement as well as an unequivocal exposure of the venomous twisting of facts pursued by the witch hunters on the Waldorf Critics list, Diana Winters really took off after seeing this page. Her gibberish can be read at the following URL:
Here is a real pearl: "Walden" even has the unmitigated gall to ask:
"Diana, were you asked permission by this fellow, Tarjei, to put your name and words on his web site?"
Well, nobody asked MY permission to put MY name and words on the PLANS website, but that obviously doesn't count for those people, so they question my right to comment what is being published about me and my articles!
Here is another comment by a "critic":
"Yesterday I visited Tarjei's (Uncle Taz's) site after Peter mentioned it, and I had a great read. Lots of laughs, what a guy Targei is! (In my opinion, the best thing PLANS has going for it!)
Another set of words I am probably supposed to ask permission to repeat? It's nice to know that total strangers appear to know what kind of guy I am for the simple reason that they disagree with my spiritual philosophy.
These "critics" are also very good at inventing things you have not said or written. "Sharon," for instance, writes:
I was fascinated to learn from Tarjei that Hubbard read Steiner...makes total sense.
For the record, she learned no such thing from me. Frankly, I don't know if LRH read RS. But "Sharon" apparently knows, because she "learned" it from me - typically failing to see the obvious, namely that I am speculating upon a theory of mine.
To top all this off, the critics proceed to sidetrack the issue by addressing a topic that has never concerned me whatsoever, namely, about left-handed vs right-handed children and pedagogical practice in this regard. What I DID address was the fact that it is a LIE to claim that black and white magic is related to children being left-or right-handed. This PROVES that these "critics" know NOTHING about occultism, that they twist the truth on purpose, and that they go off the handle with never-ending nonsensical diatribes and discussions when caught red-handed.
(As any observant reader will have noticed, my article, and my additional comment here, have nothing to do with being right- or left-handed or with converting lefties into righties, but Diana Winters and others proceed to "discuss" the topic as though it did. This is one among many examples of how they write endless, useless, and pointless discussions on that list that have nothing to do with reality.)
Diana, who, after reading this page, went on and on with the one and only subject with which she and her clan is obsessed day and night: Anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner.
As for the rest of us, we have other concerns and interests - not just one.
See also:
Anthroposophy, Critics, and Controversy
"The worst readers are those who proceed like plundering soldiers: they pick up a few things they use, soil and confuse the rest, and blaspheme the whole."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Mixed Opinions and Maxims
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