Frank:

>he hasn't had the same experiences, hasn't gotten under Christianity's >skin. I
was trying to say something similar about anthroposophy. A >materialist can have
read every word Steiner and others wrote or said, >but his conclusions about the
essence (a word destined to annoy here) >of anthroposophy will inevitably be
distorted by his prejudices and >lack of the necessary *experience*.


One problem with this assertion regarding critics is that anthroposophists
(including yourself on numerous occasions, Frank) frequently assert the
opposite, and the opposite is more accurate. Can't have this both ways. The
actual problem is that so many critics *do* get it from the inside - and I mean
"get it" in just the way you're describing. How come we're so often told we're
"secretly in love" with anthroposophy etc.? This is closer to the truth. I
actually agree with you it would be very difficult to criticize it accurately
and meaningfully for someone who truly had no internal sympathy or experiential
connection to what anthroposophy teaches.

There are sometimes, over the years, people writing here about anthroposophy who
are "off" on the basic gist of anthroposophy, seeing merely (understandably so)
things anthroposophists do in action that confound or enrage them (most often,
unkind behavior to children). (It is rarely worth trying to correct the small
misconceptions or misunderstandings these people express about anthroposophy.)

I understand anthroposophy from "under the skin" sometimes so well I scare
myself. It is *exactly* because I know just what anthroposophists are on about
that I can say anything about it at all. I know exactly what they mean 95% of
the time - I just reject it. *That* is what gets anthroposophists really mad -
not people who "don't get it." People who don't get it usually just go away
-often angry about weird shit that happened to their children, but they dust
themselves off and move on, and proceed to ignore anthroposophy for the rest of
their lives.

Those people are not a problem for anthroposophy, as there are always more of
them where they came from, willing to sign up their children based on misleading
PR and quaint notions like "preserving childhood" or to avoid standardized
testing or because they think there will be less bullying in a Waldorf school.

The people who *get it and reject it* are where your problem lies, Frank - they
are the people who make a problem for the anthroposophy movement.