Thanks Kokanje.

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- Finn

Finn,?

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an interesting theory, but it’s the first I hear about it, so I can’t help you out with other sources.

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It does ring a little bell. In my anthroposophical years, I’ve met several anthroposophists who are very skilled in letting you come to conclusions that are exactly the opposite of the scientific consensus. E.g. the heart is not a pump, humans did not evolve from apes, the sun is not the centre of our solar system, our will does not stem from our mind… With hindsight I can see these are all based on rethorical trickery. It is no surprise to me that some anthroposophists react to accusations of anti semitism and racism in the same way. They have a lot of experience in this field.

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And when I further think about it, they’re just copying the master, Rudolf Steiner. Aren’t most of Steiners’ lectures ways to show that what the audience believes is wrong and the thruth is just the opposite (or at least very different).

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So I think there might certainly be a convergence in rethorical trickery. The goals however could be different. But it’s definitely an interesting way to look at anthroposophical argumentation (and also broader current events).

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greetings,

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Kokanje

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Hi all,

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I'm happy to hear so much news from you again since the beginning of the year, but the reports about the fires in California are shocking.

Unfortunately, I don't take much time for discussions, and my poor English often prevents me from doing so.

But there is one topic that has become very important to me and I would like to know whether this topic is also being discussed in other countries.

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Here it is:

The German-Swiss Sylvia Sasse wrote a book in 2023 in which she describes a political phenomenon that she calls “reversal into the opposite” ("Verkehrung ins Gegenteil"). Well-known examples of these reversals are the war attack against Ukraine, which Putin justified with the lie of fighting Nazis, and Trump's tricks in the election campaign.

Sasse's book is largely compiled from articles that can be read online.

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I find Sasse's work very helpful in the context of anthroposophical apology. For example on the website “anthroposophy-against-racism”. Ansgar Martin has already pointed out in an article for a German skeptic magazine that Wolfgang Müller uses reversal (or inversion? I'm not sure what's the best word for "Verkehrung" oder "Umkehrung" in English) to equate criticism of anti-Semitism with anti-Semitism itself on the AGiD-Webside (skeptiker, 2/2023, p. 66-71). I see potential for reversals everywhere on this website, because it is much more about criticism of criticism of racism than criticism of racism itself. It is worth noting that the authors of the websites repeatedly cite increased criticism of Rudolf Steiner's and anthroposophy's racism during the coronavirus pandemic as the cause of their initiative. It is therefore not a selfless initiative against racism, as the name of the domain suggests (“Anthroposophy against Racism”), otherwise the murder of George Floyd by a policeman would have been an obvious reason to launch such an initiative.

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So much for my reason for presenting Sylvia Sasse's work in this forum for anthroposophical criticism. I think Sasse's thoughts are also very helpful beyond that. I wonder, for example, if Wouter J. Hanegraaff made such a reversal on Facebook when he compared Trump's re-election in November to the French Revolution, not mentioning the obscurantism Trump used to win the election. (posted on November 9, 2024)

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...

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For those who want to delve much deeper into the subject of reversals, I have something very special from my own repertoire. An important basis for Sylvia Sasse is her work on Michael Bachtin. I only knew Bakhtin through my own research on Hellboy-comics, which I started in connection with my research on esotericism. An American researcher has written an apologetic study on stereotypes in the Hellboy story “The Crooked Man”. He uses Bakhtin to argue that these stereotypes are satirical in Bakhtin's sense. I've been reading these comics for 20 years and I doubt their author had such sophisticated thoughts when writing his comics. I suspect that these stereotypes are in the comics because the author adopted them uncritically, or perhaps simply knew nothing about them. I'm not an expert, and in case of Hellboy-comics I have to battle my own tendency to be apologetic. Anyone who would like to know more about my thoughts on this is welcome to read about this on my blog.

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Greetings

Finn

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Meanwhile, the Westside Waldorf School in Pacific Palisades, located 25 miles Southwest of the Pasadena Waldorf School,? has published this notice about the destruction of their school.

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The Pasadena Waldorf School, located in Alta Dena, has burned to the ground in what is called the Eaton Fire.

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I find it quite haunting that the top message on their homepage is:??

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Applications Due January 10, 2025

Thanks for sharing, Finn!

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This is scary, and coming from an academic who knows the Hungarian context.

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The thing is: hardly anybody realizes these symbolic changes, because they are unfamiliar with anthroposophy and the broader esoteric scene from the 19th century.

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Old dragons are creeping from their dragon’s den… It might be wise to put a statue of Saint Michael in front of one’s house. Just in case ;-)

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Greetings,

Kokanje

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"Hungary: The dream of Eurasia

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In 2014, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared that he was turning away from Western values and towards the East: “The new state we are building is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state. It does not deny the basic values of liberalism, such as freedom, and I could add a few more, but it does not make this ideology the central element of statehood, but instead contains a specific, national approach that deviates from it.“1

At the same time, he named eastern states such as Singapore, China, India, Russia and Turkey as examples for Hungary to follow with regard to its new state organization principle. The media reported that the prime minister had heralded the illiberal turn, was imitating Putin and had declared a cultural war on liberal democracy.

However, an analytical approach would have to go further and ask where the signs of Orbán's illiberalism declared in 2014 and the turn to the East were already perceptible earlier. And here we have to look back to 1994, because this was roughly the time when Orbán's Fidesz party turned its back on the liberal democracy it had previously represented and turned to 'Christian-national' conservatism.

The historian and companion of Orbán, Miklós Szabó, explained Orbán's about-turn with regard to his world view with psychological and socio-psychological moments in which the origins of the founding members of Fidesz from the village milieu and the associated feelings of inferiority towards big city intellectuals were able to play a role. However, the 'Christian-national' conservatism favored from then on had always been the decided opposite of liberal democracy in Hungary. In reference to the interwar period and further back to the 19th century, it was rather determined by the revival of the specifically Hungarian 'mythology of three thousand years'.

So it is not a question of Orbán imitating Putin, but rather of reflexes from the earlier past that have remained unreflected in authoritarian real socialism coming to life again in the last thirty years. As the democratic conflict is read as chaos, esotericism with its fantasies of redemption is a spiritual orientation for many.

Among the ideological role models of Hungarian conservatism, Szabó referred to the views of the fascist cultural philosopher and Mussolini advisor Giulio Evola as well as those of the German philosopher Carl Schmitt. He could also have mentioned the anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner, who was born in the Austrian Empire (now Croatia) and whose traces are clearly visible in cultural policy.?

In addition, there is the myth of the 'Holy Hungarian Crown', which supposedly establishes a connection between the religious community of 'Magyarism' and the cosmic 'astral realm' (an expression from theosophy/anthroposophy) and provides the national believers (as conservatives call themselves) with superhuman powers. The most important message of this 'crown myth', today known as the
'historical constitution' in the preamble to the Basic Law (2012), contains the Far Eastern-Eurasian, primordial (Turanian, Scythian) ancestry myth of the 'Magyar people' and the 'sacred world order', called 'astrality'.

Although the above-mentioned moments continue to be propagated as 'Christian-national' in the communication of the Hungarian government, they also signify the decided opposite of Christian universalism, as they also interpret Christ - in the sense of the anthroposophical interpretation - as a prophet of (cosmic) light and as an 'Aryan'.

All of the individual elements listed above, which the Orbán government is drawing on today, can be summarized under the heading of esotericism. What is now called Eurasianism or New Eurasianism has its roots in 19th century esotericism.?

Hungary was both part of the Habsburg Empire, or monarchy, and later, in the interwar period, an active member of the Europe-wide esoteric movement. This movement was also active under real socialism, only underground, and was therefore able to live out its missionary fantasies of salvation unhindered after the fall of communism in 1989. The young democracy was incapable of democratically countering the popular pressure, so that esotericism was able to infiltrate society and even became a state principle with the second Orbán government in 2010.

The basis of folk esotericism in Hungary is the anti-individualistic idea of the post-Enlightenment period about the existence of homogeneous ethnic communities, or even species or racial communities, which exist side by side and can act in the sense of a transcendental 'sacred geography', which also legitimizes revisionism and hegemonistic, imperial ideas.?

The view that the 'racial Magyars' were entitled to hegemony in the Carpathian Basin was held in Hungary from around the end of the 19th century and today forms the basis of the Orbán government's 'revisionism'.?

Spiritist movements such as occult-mystical theosophy, anthroposophy and ariosophy found more and more followers in Hungary from the end of the 19th century. A closed (hermetic) world view developed from them. Its foundations are anti-theses: it is anti-individualistic, anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-enlightenment, anti- and counter-modern, anti-emancipatory, anti-human, anti-Western, male-hierarchical, misogynistic. It is also anti-Christian, as it does not recognize universal Christian grace and charity. Source-oriented science, such as the theory of evolution and rational thinking, are also suspect to this world view.?

It is oriented towards myths, metaphysics and idealism, because supposedly only these can awaken empathy. It criticizes 'materialistic pragmatism', which is equated with a lack of empathy.

This hermetic world view is also apocalyptic: in it, the (paranoid) fear of the 'downfall of civilization' is so great that people prefer to long for destruction (e.g. through war) in order to finally be 'redeemed'. But redemption means 'redemption from enemies unworthy of life', i.e. from the supposed evil that stands in the way of the hermetic tradition. Depending on how these enemies are defined, this redemption conceived in the hermetic sense can therefore lead to genocide.

On the other hand, the supposedly good person who belongs to the religious community and thus contributes to the preservation of the national community is promoted.

The Treaty of Trianon/ Versailles (1920), which was experienced as a national trauma and after which Hungary - on the losing side in the First World War - had to cede two thirds of its territories to neighboring countries, led to the rapid spread of spiritualist schools of thought in Hungary in the 1920s and 1930s. Even then, there were efforts to 'enlighten' the nation and the world and to create a 'new world order'. In the intellectually hopeless 1960s, during real socialism, esotericism was even integrated - albeit as an underground movement - into the resistance against the Soviet occupying power.

The most important esoteric was the philosophically oriented librarian Béla Hamvas, who dreamed of a 'Golden Age' (meaning the astral realm). After the fall of communism, the 'Magyar Artistic Academy' (MMA) was founded in 1992, whose director, the anthroposophical architect Imre Makovecz, saw Viktor Orbán as the politician who could prevent the return of evil, namely that of 'the communists' (understood as 'Judeo-Bolsheviks'), as early as the second half of the 1980s. Orbán also saw him as one of his 'masters'. It is no coincidence that today it is said that Makovecz “had the ability to call forth the Golden Age described by Hamvas ”2

During Orbán's first term of office in 2000, the 'Holy Hungarian Crown' was ceremoniously transferred from the National Museum to Parliament and placed in the central position under the dome. The sacralization of the nation thus also symbolically became the guiding principle of statehood. Also in 2000, with the opening of Béla Hamvas' “Institute for Cultural Research”, the cultivation of Hamvas' intellectual heritage was institutionalized. And in the fall of 2002, after Fidesz lost the elections, 11,300 (folk-esoteric) so-called citizens' circles were founded in response to Orbán's call, in which strategies for 'national resistance' against the 'returned communists' were worked out.?

That was the time when Fidesz consciously applied the cultural hegemonization of society (from the right). This topic is Orbán's specialty, as he had written his thesis in 1988 on the theories of Antonio Gramsci. In the years that followed, a sophisticated strategy led to the gradual establishment of media close to Fidesz, which broadcast both the guidelines from the party headquarters and the discussions of the nationalist 'grassroots movement'.

As early as 2006, there was talk of Orbán being the “spiritual leader” of the Hungarian right, who could not be voted out of office as he had fought for this role for himself.3

From 2008, it was also clear that in the event of an election victory, the new Orbán government wanted to replace the existing constitution with a new one centered on the 'Holy Hungarian Crown'. As the government at the time did nothing to counter the massive ethno-esoteric pressure from the opposition conservatives, the conservatives led by Viktor Orbán were able to achieve a phenomenal election victory in 2010.

Today, the Orbán government argues that Magyarism is a people of the 'pagan East of Eurasia' that has strayed from the sacred path, but should once again be imbued with cosmic, Eastern spirituality. The 'astral religion of cosmic Christianity' can be seen everywhere in cultural and educational policy.

It should first be mentioned that the basic law passed by the Orbán government, entitled 'National Creed' (poem by a Hungarian theosophist, 1920) and subtitled 'God Bless the Magyars' (from the national anthem, 1823), refers to the 'historical constitution' in its preamble.

The symbolism is not an empty shell, because Art. R para. 3 states: “The provisions of the Basic Law shall be interpreted in accordance with its objectives, with the national commitment it contains and with the achievements of the historical constitution”.4

The mention of the 'Holy Crown' in the preamble legitimizes revisionism, because it refers to areas of the neighbouring countries that used to belong to the crown land of Hungary. And the mention of the 'Carpathian Basin' not only points to the 'mythology of three thousand years' with the Eurasian descent thesis, but also to the transcendental 'sacred geography' that legitimizes the cultural hegemonization of these parts of the country from the 'motherland' Hungary.

The esoteric tendency can also be seen in the work of the Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA), which is constitutionally anchored in the Basic Law and is today the most important promoter of the nationalist, even esoteric art scene. Its aim is to push back the democratic-emancipatory tendencies defamed as “communist”, “internationalist” and “cosmopolitan” (using anti-Semitic codes) with the help of nationalist-patriotic ideology.

The primordial (Eurasian) origin is also the most important topic of the genealogy institute founded by the Orbán government in 2019, which welcomes the 'birth of light at the solstice celebration' and the astral-religious heritage of the ancestors of the Magyars on its official Facebook page.

As a manifestation of cultural hegemonization, countless streets and squares have been renamed over the past thirteen years, new days of celebration and commemoration have been introduced, monuments have been removed, new ones have been created, and public space has been redesigned in line with the irredentism of the interwar period. The mythical animal sculptures that can be seen in public spaces, such as the 'Turul Griffin' or the 'Wonder Deer', are also mentioned in the 'historical constitution'.

In monumental historical films, in the media, in exhibitions and in public spaces, the heroic past and the primordial origin of the Magyar people are suggested. State institutions communicate ideas about direct ethnogenetic Eurasian descent, e.g. from the Huns who migrated from Scythia.

Following the cultural, media and education policy guidelines laid down back in 2011, new, “patriotic” (esoteric) cultural policy guidelines were laid down for cultural and media policy as well as school and education policy. The respective workforces were gradually adjusted in terms of personnel, liberal attitudes were replaced by 'patriotic' ones. People with a new right-wing attitude, and in some cases former right-wing radicals, were appointed to management positions.?

In 2011, for example, the journalist and founding member of the far-right party Jobbik (2003), Dániel Papp, was appointed as the director responsible for news content at public television and as the general director of MTVA (state organization for media and communication). The National Cultural Council for the fields of theater, performing and visual arts, public collections and commemoration policy, traditional folk art and public education policy was established with pro-government department heads in leading positions.

School education is gradually being reorganized: The right-wing literary historian Mihály Takaró, for example, was appointed as the person in charge of the “patriotic transformation” of school content and the reshaping of teaching staff.?

Academic freedom was severely curtailed. On the grounds that gender theories negate biological descent, the subject of gender studies was banned at universities across the country. Behind this is the government's deeply rooted rejection of the social and cultural gender category of gender. This rejection led to the passing of a law in 2020 that stipulates the gender assigned at birth. The renowned Central European University, which is firmly committed to the values of an open society, was forced to leave the country and relocate to Vienna.

Cultural remembrance inspires the national victim myth and goes hand in hand with historical revisionism and Holocaust relativization. The commemoration policy was adapted to the 'patriotic' ideology. On the centenary of Trianon/Versailles, the government opened a Trianon memorial that clearly falsifies history. The topoi 'Trianon/Versailles' and 'Holocaust' are also placed in parallel, so that the 'Magyars' appear as innocent victims in a perpetrator-victim reversal.

The director of the government-funded VERITAS Institute for Historical Research, which opened in 2014, denies Hungarian responsibility in the Holocaust and the disenfranchisement of Jews in Hungary between the two world wars under the Reichsverweser5 and Hitler ally Nikolaus von Horthy.?

The internationally renowned critical institute for research into the 1956 revolution, on the other hand, was closed, as was the internationally famous Lukács Archive.

It is probably no coincidence that a standing sculpture of the Archangel Michael was placed on the outer front of the recently renovated Carmelite monastery in Buda Castle, which today houses the office of the Prime Minister - after all, in Rudolph Steiner's anthroposophy, the Archangel Michael is the administrator of cosmic intelligence.

In 2023, the “Day of Magyar Building Culture” was proclaimed and the transformation of the building landscape in the spirit of the anthroposophical Imre Makovecz was defined as a cultural policy guideline.?

Cultural and educational policies are identity politics (symbol politics), and the declared intention of the government is to spiritualize society and restore the 'arioheroic-sacral world order'. The swastika, a symbol of the primordial ethnogenetic, apocalyptic vision of redemption and the eugenic cult of ancestors, is also appearing more and more frequently. Since 2018, it has adorned a bench on the side of the Makovecz Foundation's public building.

The vision declared by the Orbán government in 2014 thus goes back to a tradition dating back to the 19th century. Today's turn to the East is a turn to the Eurasian cultural and economic system. The aim is to transform its own society, to reorganize Europe and the entire world.?

The Orbán government is a counter-enlightenment, counter-emancipatory, masculine-hierarchical, misanthropic and racializing position that advocates a transnational 'species community'. The repeatedly and obsessively invoked reference to Christianity does not mean the religion of charity, but is to be understood in the sense of an Ario-Christian, Eurasian ancestor cult, in which even Christ becomes the prophet of light. The Eurasian ancestor cult with the Scythian ancestry thesis is invoked, for example, in the book published in 2019 by MCC-Verlag and in 2021 in German translation by Springer Verlag entitled “Der ungarische Staat”, in which, among other things, Carl Schmitt's political theology is also approvingly received.

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• Quellen: in Ungarisch, aber eigene ?bersetzung durch die Autorin: , in Deutsch: und in Englisch: (Zugang 19.02.2024).

• Harmath-Gyetvay, Enik?: Az aranykor megteremtésér?l. Interjú Pénzes Ottóval (?ber die Erschaffung des Goldenen Zeitalters. Interview mit Otto Pénzes), in: Országépít?, 02/2022, 34-37 ( [Zugang 19.02.2024]).

• Infostart.hu: Orbán Viktor a jobboldal spirituális vezet?je” (Viktor Orbán ist der spirituelle Führer der Rechten), 22.05.2006: (Zugang 19.02.2024).

• Grundgesetz Ungarns, 25.04.2011, in kraft seit 01.01.2012: (Zugang 19.02.2024).

• Ein Reichsverweser vertritt einen Monarchen bei dessen l?ngere Abwesenheit.

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Hi all,

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Can milk be politisized? The answer clearly is: yes!

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Anti goverment ideas have taken such proportions that some people in California? WANT to drink raw milk contaminated with bird flu, because they think it will act as a natural vaccination. The more the state tells people it is unsafe, the more they believe the contrary. See this article:

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A quote from Gwynneth Paltrow from this article: “I drink raw farm dairy, and there are schools of thought that say drinking raw milk is better”

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Mmmh, which schools of thought might she be refering to? These ideas do not exist in a void.

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When you read the following piece from the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association (from 2010) you see where this is (in part) coming from. Biodynamics has been putting individual choices based on unproven theories ahead of public health for years.

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To me it’s the same reasoning as with the anti-vaxx ideas within anthroposophy: claiming the right to do potential harm to yourself and your loved ones, because you believe some scientifically unproven theory, be it about milk, vaccines, education, karma or whatever and selling it as common sense (or higher knowledge). Also, government interference for basic public safety is demonized.

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Here’s the text from the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association, (recovered through web.archive.org), it is no longer published on their web page. My emphasis.

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‘Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association

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Home > Biodynamics Journal > Raw Milk

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Marching for Raw Milk?

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by Robert Karp, BDA Executive Director

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For years I've been feeling that the alternative agriculture movement needs to march not with signs and placards, but with songs and prayers.

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We need small groups of us to walk the land and bear nonviolent witness to the devastation of the earth caused by industrial agriculture. Not to demonize farmers or corporations, but to let the earth feel our love and solidarity through the soles of our feet.

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We need a popular movement of eco-agricultural marching and, yes, perhaps even civil disobedience to complement the work on our farms and the work in our legislatures. Something like tree sitting for the sustainable agriculture movement.

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The logic of biodiversity, the flavor of local, the beauty of biodynamics, and the growth of organic simply may not be enough to tilt the scales of our society toward common sense. We may need to march.

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I have felt this impulse for years, and I think the time is getting ripe for action. Little did I expect it would come through raw milk....

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Let me be perfectly honest. I've been an advocate and community organizer around local, organic, and sustainable food and farming for almost two decades, but until the last year, I never really paid a lot of attention to the whole raw milk brouhaha.

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Mind you, I knew that the tragic state of cows in large, industrial dairies. And I've been aware of compelling research showing the benefits of unpasteurized and unhomogenized milk. And I've avoided the thin glue called conventional milk whenever possible.

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But the opportunity to actually drink raw milk on a regular basis had never presented itself to me, much less the experience of having that opportunity taken away by the state. There were plenty of other battles to fight in the food world, so I left this one to other people.

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Then a few years ago my family moved to East Troy, Wisconsin, a stone's throw away from Zinniker Farm, one of the oldest biodynamic farms in the country. We put our name on the waiting list and were thrilled six months later when we were told we could begin to pick up raw milk each week. We felt our lives immeasurably enriched by the addition of pure, unadulterated biodynamic milk.

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At least while it lasted....

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Whether you drink raw milk or not, whether you believe in its purported healing properties or not, whether you think it should be regulated or not I would like to suggest to you that raw milk matters!

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It's become an incredible battleground where the most basic of human rights, the right to choose the kind of food we can produce and distribute and consume, has been called into question.

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Of course, these rights have been steadily eroded for decades by a host of policies and economic practices that put small and mid-sized farmers at a huge disadvantage in the marketplace and that therefore limit the food choices of all but the most zealous or privileged of consumers.

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But apparently, the growth of the alternative food and farming movement is simply getting too out of hand for the powers that be.

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Consider all the people who are killed each day on the highways or through alcohol abuse. Why no law to ban driving or drinking? Apparently, however, the minuscule number of people who get ill from drinking raw milk is in unacceptable.

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Unfortunately, this is not an issue of regulation.

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As Mark Zinniker said to me recently, "if we were dealing with a benign state that simply wanted to insure that raw milk farmers were distributing a safe product, there would be no problem."

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At least in Wisconsin, it's very clear that we are not dealing with a benign interest in safeguarding human health. We are dealing rather with the desire to protect an industry and enhance the state's control over the food system.

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Fortunately, the board of the Biodynamic Association thinks this issue is important too and has completely supported getting involved in the Zinniker Farm situation and in helping set up Nourished by Nature, LLC, which we announced in the last issue of Biodynamics.

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One of the key goals of our emerging strategic plan is called "Shifting the Wider Paradigm." It calls for the Biodynamic Association to "work closely with groups and leaders in the wider world to shift conventional thinking about food and farming, to demonstrate new approaches to health and sustainability, and to increase the understanding and adoption of biodynamic and associative economic principles within the whole food system."

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Think about it. Biodynamics is not just a farming method. It's a profound and far-reaching impulse for social and agricultural transformation. Just as the influence of the moon doesn't stop at the ocean, so the influence of biodynamics doesn't stop and shouldn't stop at the farm gate. Can't we learn to stir the pot of the larger society with the same peaceful wisdom that we use to stir our preps?

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I wake up in the night now thinking of the thousands of gallons of pure, unadulterated biodynamic milk that Mark and Petra Zinniker are pouring into the earth, together with their life savings and their vocation, and I'm getting mad and sad as hell and wondering if it isn't time for a march.

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What do you think?’

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End of text.

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What do I think? I’m a farmers son. There’s no need to take the risk of drinking raw milk. Pasteurizing milk is just common sense, you avoid all kinds of nasty diseases, with a simple method. My parents and grandparents, all farmers, thaught me that. It was just common sense to them. But I also have to plead guilty. Under the influence of anthroposophy I forgot all this for years, just as I didn’t have my kids vaccinated. (Don’t worry, we’re all back to normal now).

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And there’s certainly no need to expose yourself or your loved ones to bird flu! That’s just plain dangerous!

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Greetings,

Kokanje

Hello,

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while looking for a place to put our plastic christmas tree in the attic, I stumbled upon a box containing some hand written notebook of one of my daughters’ Waldorf education. I thought I had thrown everything out that had to do with that Waldorf school, long ago, but it seems I was mistaken.

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The notebooks are from the 7th year in a Belgian Waldorf School. So the children are about 13 years old. Going through them, I found some remarkeble things:

- The 4 temperaments are thaught in detail! (I never realized, or didn’t pay enough attention at the time). They are linked to physical traits and described with pictures and apparently part of a subject on ‘communication’, at least the introduction is on the basic communication scheme.

- The 4 elements are also prominent. They were part of a school project my daughter did: she made up charachters based on these elements. They are also linked to the 4 temperaments.

- In the notebook on biology there’s a picture of a plant and a man standing upside down. In the text it says: ‘man is a plant upside down’. That doesn’t surprise me that much, because this was also thaught to me in my days in biodynamic farming school. But I find it amazing that this escapes parents’ attention.

- In the notebook on history it is mentioned that the ‘Aztecs waged war all of the time, because it was in their nature’.?

- And to be intellectually honest: there is mention of the heart being a pump (at least they got that right).

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Since most of this is in Dutch, I’ve chosen to add some pictures, that accompany the texts, so you have an idea.

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So, now I’m wondering if this corresponds to other peoples’ experiences.

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Also, it’s pretty obvious that parts of anthroposophy are actively thaught in this school. This was in 2019! The schools still exists and has been growing since I took my children out. There’s no indication that the curriculum has been altered since.

greetings, Kokanje

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Hi Finn,?

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a happy new year to you too!

Nice that someone contributes to this topic again.

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It seems the biodynamic liquor shop only exists in the parallell universe of German dubbed tv series, at least according to ChatGPT (see below). Must have been a translator with a particular sense of humor.

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greetings, Kokanje

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In the German-dubbed version of the Eerie, Indiana episode titled “ATM with a Heart of Gold” (Season 1, Episode 3), there is indeed a reference to a “biodynamischer Getr?nkeladen,”

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The inclusion of a biodynamic beverage shop in the German version may have been an adaptation choice by the translators to add a culturally relevant or humorous element for the German audience. Such changes are not uncommon in dubbing practices to make content more relatable to the target audience.

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According to the german translation of the third episode of Joe Dante's tv-show "Eerie, Indiana" there is a biodynamic Getr?nkeladen (liquor shop?) in the fictional town.

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- Finn

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"Hier habe ich analysiert, wie sich Steiners Rassenentwicklungslehre in sein Denken im Allgemeinen und seine Sicht der menschlichen Entwicklung im Besonderen einfügt - die Aufteilung der Menschheit in Rassen im Laufe der Zeit und ihre zukünftige Vereinigung auf nicht-rassischer Basis. Genauer gesagt, habe ich die Spannung in seiner Philosophie zwischen dem universellen Entwicklungsziel der Menschheit und den besonderen Merkmalen jeder Rasse und jedes Volkes untersucht, die mit der Erreichung dieses Ziels unvereinbar sind und es sogar behindern. Ich habe festgestellt, dass Steiners Lehre von der Rassenentwicklung und dem Rassenverfall durch eine direkte Frage beurteilt werden kann: Ist Steiners Theorie rassistisch? Eine bejahende Antwort wirft eine weitere Frage auf: Ist sie als Ganzes rassistisch oder nur teilweise?

Ich habe die von Steiners Anh?ngern aufgestellte Behauptung analysiert, er habe sich von seiner früheren Rassentheorie zugunsten der Sprache der kulturellen Differenzierung distanziert - eine Behauptung, die angeblich auf seine Abkehr vom Rassismus hinweist. Die von mir besprochenen Quellen zeigen, dass das Argument des Frankfurter Memorandums, Steiner habe sich sp?ter von der Terminologie der rassischen Weltanschauung losgesagt, die er zwischen 1905 und den 1910er Jahren angenommen hatte, nicht haltbar ist. Auch wenn Steiner die theosophischen Begriffe aufgab, hat er der rassischen Sprache nie abgeschworen. Sie wurde auch nicht zu einem marginalen Element innerhalb seines Denkens. Im Gefolge anderer habe ich auch gezeigt, dass die Behauptung, die meisten seiner rassischen ?u?erungen geh?rten in die frühe Periode seiner Karriere, unhaltbar ist, da solche ?u?erungen in den 1920er und 30er Jahren, also in der sp?teren Phase seines Lebens, nicht weniger h?ufig vorkommen.

Steiners Rassenentwicklungstheorie, die unterschiedliche Rassen-/Volksmerkmale beinhaltet, ist v?llig kongruent mit seinen Aussagen über die Sch?pfung, die Existenz und die 'Entwicklung' als Ganzes und ist eingebettet in die architektonische Struktur seiner Denkmuster und Entwicklungsprinzipien. Seine Ansichten zur ?Evolution“ - in deren Kontext er die Rassen- und Kultursprache verwendet - greifen ineinander und bilden ein Puzzle, dessen Teile zusammengesetzt werden müssen, um seine Aussagen und deren Bedeutung im Kontext vollst?ndig zu verstehen.

Der Behauptung, Steiner habe seine Rassenphilosophie seiner Umwelt entlehnt und sei somit nicht integraler Bestandteil seiner Lehre, wird entgegengehalten, dass er zwar (wie auch bei anderen Themen) von seiner Umgebung beeinflusst wurde, dieser Einfluss aber unter seine ?evolution?ren“ Theorien und Paradigmen subsumiert wird. Steiner als Produkt seiner Zeit darzustellen - wie es sowohl Steinerianer als auch Anthroposophen tun, wenn auch aus unterschiedlichen Gründen - ist daher irreführend und suggeriert, dass alle seine Zeitgenossen sich in gleicher Weise zu Rassenfragen ge?u?ert h?tten. Indem er auf Kritik an seinen Ansichten mit der Behauptung reagierte, eine Form von spirituellem Wissen und Autorit?t zu besitzen, die anderen nicht zugestanden wurde, erkl?rte er seine Unabh?ngigkeit von den zu seiner Zeit vorherrschenden Philosophien. Die Behauptung, dass zwar sowohl er als auch seine Lehre mit dem Rassismus seiner Zeit behaftet waren, sein Denken aber universeller Natur ist, ist daher unplausibel.

Die Schlussfolgerung der Autoren des Berichts der Baarda-Kommission und des Frankfurter Memorandums, dass ?von Rassismus in den Werken Rudolf Steiners grunds?tzlich nicht die Rede sein kann“, ist ebenfalls unbegründet. Seine üblichen (entwicklungsgeschichtlichen und allgemeinen) Denkmuster, die sich in seiner Rassenentwicklungs-/Eigenschaftstheorie niederschlagen, schlie?en es aus, seine rassistischen ?u?erungen als unglückliche Ausrutscher oder seine rassistischen Ansichten als nebens?chlich für seine gesamte Lehre anzusehen. Wir k?nnen auch nicht, wie einige seiner Anh?nger, behaupten, dass Steiner, wie alle Menschen, unter pers?nlichen Schw?chen litt, die nichts mit seiner Anthroposophie zu tun haben: Es kann keine Trennlinie zwischen seinen pers?nlichen Ansichten und der Rassenlehre gezogen werden, die er als objektives spirituelles Wissen pr?sentierte. Der Ton ist zwar sein eigener, aber der Inhalt ist in das Gefüge seiner Philosophie als Ganzes eingewoben. Seine Rassenlehre und alles, was sie mit sich bringt, bildet somit ein wesentliches Element seines Denkens und spielt eine zentrale Rolle in seiner Evolutionslehre, die eine der S?ulen seines gesamten Denkens darstellt.

Wenn Steiners Rassenentwicklungs-/Eigenschaftstheorie kein Randaspekt seines Denkens ist, welche Rolle spielt sie dann in seiner Philosophie an sich? Diese Diskussion zeigt, dass sie nicht von seinem gesamten Denken getrennt werden kann - auch nicht von seinen universalistischen Aspekten. Das Universelle und das Partikulare sind in seiner Evolutionstheorie miteinander verbunden - obwohl die Existenz der Rassen und ihre Beziehung zueinander ein Abstieg im Dienste des Aufstiegs (der universellen Verwirklichung des Ichs) ist. Das Partikul?r-Rassische und das Universell-Menschliche sind auch Teil von Steiners Prinzip eines kontinuierlichen Fadens, der sich bis zu der Zeit durchzieht, in der die Menschheit nach verschiedenen Linien strukturiert sein wird.

In seiner Behandlung von Rasse verwendet Steiner eine dichotome Sprache, obwohl er eine andere, vereinheitlichende Terminologie h?tte verwenden k?nnen, die die universellen Aspekte seines Denkens hervorhebt. In Anbetracht der Rassentheorien seiner Zeit ist seine Kombination von rassischer und kultureller Sprache und die Darstellung minderwertiger kultureller Produkte als abh?ngig von degenerierten rassischen Eigenschaften eindeutig ein radikaler Schritt, der nicht von den Umst?nden diktiert wurde.

Wie bereits erw?hnt, war Steiners Rassismus jedoch nie politisch. Er setzte ihn auch nie in Form von Diskriminierung oder Gewalt um, sondern ?u?erte lediglich seine Vorbehalte und Vorahnungen bezüglich der Rassenvermischung, die seiner Meinung nach zum Einfluss degenerierter Rassen auf das wei?e Europa führte. Gleichzeitig ist es schwierig, einige der oben zitierten Passagen nicht als Aufforderung zur Gewalt zu sehen - Steiner selbst r?umte ein, dass Gedanken nicht weniger zerst?rerisch wirken k?nnen als Taten.

W?hrend Steiners rassentheoretische Doktrin geordnet und koh?rent ist und seine scheinbar widersprüchlichen Behauptungen einer sinnvollen Vereinbarkeit zug?nglich sind, ist die Dualit?t, mit der er rassische und rassistische Ansichten verbreitet und ablehnt, r?tselhaft. Diese ?Duplizit?t“ mag aus einem Widerspruch in seinem eigenen Ich à la Faust herrühren: ?Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach, in meiner Brust; und jede würde von der andern geschieden werden; die eine h?lt sich fest, in starker Liebeslust, mit klammernden Organen an die Welt; die andre erhebt sich stark aus der Finsternis, zu hohen Feldern alten Erbes."

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Greetings!

Finn

Hi all,?

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we’ve talked about AI and Steiner before, using AI to understand Steiner, confront him, impersonate him and even make fun of him (pleading guilty).

The recent post by new member Samira has shown me that there are anthroposophists thinking about these themes (man - robot relations) and incorporating them into anthroposophy.

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Geoffrey has mentionned Andrew Linnell here once before. I found one of his Mys-tech lecures in 2 parts very interesting: as can be expected Steiner foresaw the whole thing and his views are even compared to those of Ray Kurzweil (the well known futurist).

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Linnell calls upon anthroposophists to cast away their fears and loathing of modern technology and embrace it as a way of ‘training their souls’ for what is to come. The whole anthroposophical timescale is explained very diligently, and the place of Ahrimanic technology herein.

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I’m wondering about his influence in anthroposophical milieus and potential trickle down effects on Waldorf Schools and possibly beyond.?

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Here are the youtube video’s (from 2016 already).

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Part 1

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Part 2

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Greetings, Kokanje

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Hi all,

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not a lot of enthusiasm for this topic, apparently.

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That’s okay. I did find a nice article that ties into it. The bottom line: Big Tech executives are just people and as susceptible to irrational ideas (like not vaccinating your children) as the next person. So don’t listen to them when they’re talking about things they have no expertise in, like let’s say: education or public spending…

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My summary probably isn’t as good as ChatGPT’s, so here’s the article. It discusses the technology-shunning Waldorf schools in and around Silicon Valley and some more:

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greetings,

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Kokanje

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Hi Samira,

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this video was very thought provoking. So thanks again for sharing!

As I said, personally, I don’t think anthroposophy is going to take over the world.

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But the guy who made the video is onto something: there are people out there in Silicon Valley mixing anthroposophy into TESCREAL-beliefs, how incredible this might seem at first. No idea how succesfull this might be, but it’s good to keep an eye out for it.

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Greetings,

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Kokanje

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Hi, Samira,

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if you want to dive deep, this surely is the place. Have a look at the archive. People have been discussing Waldorf education and anthroposophy here for decades. You can browse through the forum in different ways.

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Personally, I don’t think anthroposophy is pushed on people on a large scale (except for children in Waldorf schools, unfortunately). It does keep on finding new audiences, even 100 years after Steiners death. The videos of Linnell’s lectures show a classic anthroposophical audience (you can tell by the average age of the people in the small room).

With Shanahan and the tech elite, who send their kids to Waldorf schools, we see that anthroposophy and other spiritual teachings have found their way into the heads of people with influence. I don’t want to exagerate their influence, but still, they could do damage, when put in positions of power.

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greetings,

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Kokanje

Hi,

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When I start to look into a topic, I tend to dig deep, so I search quite a bit and try to keep up with new content. I find lately there’s been an equal amount of push and exposure from both sides.?

It is quite interesting how this ideology has infiltrated so many areas of society on a subtle level. They create the problem then give you the solution. Seems like Anthroposophy is being pushed as one of the solutions.

Hi Samira,

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welcome!

That’s some youtube video! How did you come across it?

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I managed to watch the first hour so far.?

A lot of thoughts are going through my mind. Too many to share. I would like to say this: scary to see these irrational ideas get into the heads of the tech elite (Nicole Shanahan) and - who knows - into the heads of people in power.

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The connection with transhumanism is also new to me, as is the athroposophist Andrew Linnell. Curious where this is going.

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Thanks for sharing!

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Greetings,

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Kokanje