Cults

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I just found a neat site today called Waldorf Watch where people out Waldorf schools and anthroposophy. Here is one article, though this is one of the longer ones:

Waldorf Watch - I Went to Waldorf (google.com)


I also learned that, yes, Bitter Winter has been outed as a Scientology front by Wikipedia, it's not just me thinking "man, this looks like CCHR but for religious rights."

CESNUR - Wikipedia


We could also study this site to learn all sorts of amazing things about cults since it's also a cult! Let us begin.

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Anyway, I don't want to promote Waldorf Watch or any other "anti-cult" site too heavily. One thing you will notice about these "anti-cult" sites is they are also largely just anti-religion sites, which I don't think is an equivalent issue. I happen to think the more normal versions of mainstream religions are essentially mostly correct and beneficial, but that's just my opinion. It should be clear that the Jesus most people believe in has nothing to do with Steiner's idea of the sun god incarnating on Earth.

Likewise, Waldorf Watch also states that they think there is definitively no such thing as clairvoyance in a very [citation needed] fashion. Most people believe that they and people they've known have premonitions, and aside from the fact I've looked into the evidence for that and thought it was fairly conclusive in favor of the idea, the belief in various forms of ESP itself has about as much to do with culty storefront psychics like Rudolf Steiner claiming to see undines in a room that's painted blue as normal Christianity has to do with the idea of worshipping a polytheistic sun god who promotes that children shouldn't be taught academic subjects because maturing their intellect cuts them off from the spirit realm.

I've observed many of these anti-cult sites are rather like, for example, r/RaisedByNarcissists, where they just take the underlying states of people that lead them to be narcissistically abused, which is a real problem, and don't actually deal with the cause itself and just become another form of abuse and indoctrination. People often try to solve cults with other cults when the issues that lead them to join a cult in the first place go unaddressed, and I think that's often worse than the cult they joined to begin with because it is more deceptive and insidious.

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

"Rudolf Steiner claiming to see undines in a room that's painted blue as normal Christianity has to do with the idea of worshipping a polytheistic sun god who promotes that children shouldn't be taught academic subjects because maturing their intellect cuts them off from the spirit realm."

The sun god may have been to specific for our liking but it's easy to find "faults" in science and education (it seems that they are two sides of the same coin).


Have you checked out Lyndon LaRouche? Could be seen as another anti-cult cultist who was apparently also a political figure. He was publishing the EIR and there was once an article about how "new age" education (mentions the 'human potentialities movement' fwiw) is being set up. All that with a super punchy title.

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"Rudolf Steiner claiming to see undines in a room that's painted blue as normal Christianity has to do with the idea of worshipping a polytheistic sun god who promotes that children shouldn't be taught academic subjects because maturing their intellect cuts them off from the spirit realm."

The sun god may have been to specific for our liking but it's easy to find "faults" in science and education (it seems that they are two sides of the same coin).


Have you checked out Lyndon LaRouche? Could be seen as another anti-cult cultist who was apparently also a political figure. He was publishing the EIR and there was once an article about how "new age" education (mentions the 'human potentialities movement' fwiw) is being set up. All that with a super punchy title.

There are many faults in education and how science is performed, since they are performed by people and people often have significant faults, however, I wouldn't recommend everyone go to a Waldorf school and learn Anthroposophy instead. I genuinely think science can and should study ESP and whatever, but Rudolf Steiner still isn't even referencing normal conceptions of ESP, he's referencing one specific to his cult. Just because people believe in premonitions, mind-to-mind communication, mind-over-matter, and what have you, does not mean they believe a blue room is part of a spirit realm related to water or the idea of suppressing the ego, or any other religious idea, because at the end of the day, for all its connotations, ESP isn't really a religious idea, just a jargon-y name to describe things that the majority of people think happen and which also get abused.

Regarding Waldorf schools specifically, if people want to read about alternative education, I'm sure John Dewey is the biggest name there. Additionally, Steiner got most of his methods from Goethe who also had some significant alternative education ideas. However, Steiner is using Goethe's method to teach one specific thing and that specific thing is Anthroposophy, and not something Goethe probably would've preferred such as optical physics.

I know you said you were helped by Weleda but I think that's a lot of the way these cults recruit. Scientology has the CCHR and the CCHR has many valid complaints and tries to help vulnerable people but they also take it too far. I've heard Anthroposophy called German Scientology so the comparison seems apt to me. Anti-cult people in my opinion are indeed often as cultish as cults themselves, but that's mostly a case of two wrongs not making a right in my opinion. I don't think everything "New Age" is all that cultist, eclectic spirituality and consumerism are both fairly normal behaviors even though I think the latter is harmful and I tend to agree with Veblen's analysis of conspicuous consumption.

Plenty of people would call some of the eclectic things I say "New Age," but that doesn't mean they are, any more than some Western Buddhist speaker like Alan Watts is "New Age" just because people associate hippie-ish talk with certain other things. The hippies got some things right in my opinion, but the consumerism was also a way for the feds to subvert parts of the movement. The hippies becoming the yuppies should not surprise anyone when what happened there seems to me to clearly have been that there were two strands behind hippie-ism, the whole eclectic spiritual aspect and the consumerist one, and when hippies became yuppies, that was simply the consumerism predominating rather than the spiritual aspect predominating.

Your article just says the CIA was involved in some aspects of "New Age" and the hippie movement and I actually would agree with that. Saying it's all bad sounds like throwing out the baby with the bathwater to me, but you still need to be careful when the feds are involved in things, and they are here.

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

" and I tend to agree with Veblen's analysis of conspicuous consumption."

I checked out his wiki. "Conspicuous" sounds funny as though he is saying "guys do whatever you wanna do, but please don't make it obvious".

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" and I tend to agree with Veblen's analysis of conspicuous consumption."

I checked out his wiki. "Conspicuous" sounds funny as though he is saying "guys do whatever you wanna do, but please don't make it obvious".

No, he's critical of consumption in general, he just thinks the purpose of most of the consumption is to show off. It is kind of funny when you put it that way though.