SOULS OF TERROR is a fast-paced, well-researched thriller with fascinating characters whose lives become strangely entwined as they unravel a frightening mystery. The surprising climax will leave you forever questioning the thin line between fact and fiction. In the beginning . . . A brilliant university student is brutally killed in New York as a young boy from an Oregon private school is whisked off to Switzerland. What is the connection and why is it so important to millions of people? Chris Thompson is ridden with guilt while searching for his son. Is young Michael the key to a deeply spiritual and terrifying mission? Michael’s attractive aunt Kate has a penchant for profanity and martial arts . . . and carries a heavy secret from her past. Dr. Paul Sung is an atheist and authority on the history of the New Age movement. His unfulfilling life in academia is about to change. Detective Mark Julian needs to solve a string of gruesome New York murders, so why was he sent to Europe? Karl Heisman and his Group of Forty-Eight are a covert sub-group of a spiritual movement known as Anthroposophy. Does their strange karma include links to Freemasonry and the dawning of a New Age? Are they racist terrorists or is there a method to their madness? And who was Rudolf Steiner?

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A revised and updated edition of the book, first published in the Eighties, that still remains the main critical work written from outside the movement. This engaging introduction to Anthroposophy is written from the unique point of view of the English-speaking outside world. Employing Anthroposophical and external sources alike, Ahern offers an unbiased look into one of the world’s most interesting mystical societies. Sun at Midnight guides the reader through Anthroposophy’s beginnings as an offshoot of Theosophy, the life of its founder, Rudolph Steiner, and the movement’s place in Western esoteric history while offering an accessible and incisive look into its deeper esoteric beliefs. Waldorf schools and bio-dynamics are woven together with the hardening of spirit into matter to create a fascinating image of Anthroposophy in all its facets.

“Ahern’s book is a general overview of the Steiner movement. He examines Steiner’s life, his cosmology and the influences that led to his supposedly Christian version of Gnosticism. Ahern also looks at Steiner spin-offs such as Biodynamic agriculture, Waldorf (Steiner) education, Camphill Homes and “Christian Community” churches, showing how they are all based on Steiner’s beliefs.” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Winter 2011
“Geoffrey Ahern’s ‘Sun at Midnight’ is a balanced and professional look at Rudolf Steiner and his cult ‘Anthroposophy.’ Among the thousands of books about Waldorf education and Anthroposophy, this is one of a very few written with an objective viewpoint from outside of the cult…Laced within Ahern’s comprehensive approach to this difficult subject are astute observations and wry comments such as ‘Anthroposophical science is not about applying “Occam’s razor”‘ in reference to Steiner’s elaborate pseudoscience…Anyone considering enrolling their child ina Waldorf School would do well to read Ahern’s book first, especially given the well-known lack of transparency of the Waldorf schools.” Dan Dugan, Secretary of PLANS, Inc., September 2011
“Ahern’s book is extremely informative – indeed, it is fascinating…SUN AT MIDNIGHT is inviting and accessible…nearly indispensable reading for anyone who wants a balanced, informative, and sensible…examination of Rudolf Steiner and his brainchildren.” Roger Rawlings, [more]

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Heiner Ullrich, Rudolf Steiner (London: Continuum, 2008). Ullrich is a major figure in German educational studies and an expert on the history of pedagogical reform movements. He has published many works on Steiner, anthroposophy, and Waldorf schools, including some of the best critical studies of Waldorf pedagogy available. Most of his work is in German, but the 2008 book provides a good overview of his research, and it is mostly focused on Waldorf education. Though I have various disagreements with Ullrich’s arguments, I recommend the book highly to everybody looking for perceptive scholarship on Waldorf schooling and anthroposophy. [-P.S.]

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A good history of how Anthroposophy came to be. Blavatsky, Besant, Krishnamurti, Steiner, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky; tales of all the characters. Well-researched and fun to read. New York: Schocken Books, 1995.

[Book jacket illustration; the face in the lower left corner is Annie Besant; the cartoon is of Darwin; the face on the globe is Rudolf Steiner. -dD-]

The New Age is not so new. Peter Washingingon traces it back to ideas that entered our cultural bloodstream just before the dawn of the twnetieth century, when a mysterious renegade Russian aristocrat named Madame Blavatsky appeared in America. Darwin was wrong, she claimed. Man was not descended from apes but from spirit beings. As a reminder, she kept a stuffed baboon in her parlor dressed in wing collar, tail-coat, and spectacles, and holding a copy of The Origin of Species in its hand.

Theosophy, the movement Madame Blavatsky founded, spawned competing gurus and sects which in the course of the century evolved into the New Age. Here is the incredible story of Rudolf Steiner and his breakaway anthroposophy, of the tyrannical and mysterious Gurdjieff with his Path, of Ouspensky, the rebel Gurdjieffian, and of Krishnamurti — a future “world leader” spotted in India as a boy by the pederast and grand panjandrum of Theosophy, Bishop (self-appointed, of his own church!) C. W. Ledbetter.

These gurus and the alternative religions they founded had a powerful appeal particularly for women, who found in them a role denied them by conventional religions. They also attracted some of the most influential intellects of the age — Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Frank Lloyd Wright, Katherine Mansfield, Aldous Huxley, and Christopher Isherwood — all searching for an alternative to Western materialism and notions of spirituality. Needless to say, these movements also attracted a host of colorful adventurers, uncertified lunatics, wealthy and lonely spinsters, charlatans, and lost souls.

Well-researched, thought-provoking, and often hilarious, Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon provides a fascinating and helpful perspective on the hopes and fears of our own day as well as those of a century ago.

PETER WASHINGTON lives in London, where he is the general editor of Everyman’s Library. Author of a number of books of intellectual history, he is a professor of English and European Literature at Middlesex University and a reviewer and critic for The London Evening Standard and The Independent.

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The most valuable part of this book is oberman’s study of the history of the Waldorf schools in Germany during the Nazi period. This hundred- page section comprises a quarter of the book. It’s ironic that Douglas Sloane’s foreword repeats some of the same myths that oberman refutes in the book itself. Her interviews with several eyewitnesses add previously unknown details. She acknowledges that the history published by the Waldorf movement is “hard to substantiate.” The different ways several schools dealt with National Socialist pressure are detailed. Berlin and Hamburg-Altona closed rather than compromise. Stuttgart made every attempt to compromise. Dresden and Hanover embraced National Socialism. On the issue of whether Jewish teachers were fired or, as Waldorf spokesperson Detlef Hardorp argued on waldorf-critics in March, 2008, left voluntarily to save the schools, oberman says they were “dismissed.” [-P.S.]

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This academic study examines the core issue of conflict between Steiner’s Anthroposophy and the real world. Epistemology is the study of knowledge; how is reliable knowledge obtained? Hammer holds Anthroposophy’s feet to the fire of modern philosophy.

“Since the central movement texts of anthroposophy are the writings of Rudolf Steiner, his views are authoritative. Nevertheless, both Steiner and his exegetes have emphasized that it is entirely feasible for others to reach the same results and verify his statements. …anthroposophical literature presents detailed methods of obtaining the requisite spiritual experience. However, there are, in fact, two counteracting strategies at work. First, no follower of Steiner has ever been deemed by the various local anthroposophical societies to have attained the same mastery of the methods of spiritual exploration. Secondly, specific elements in the path towards a knowledge of the ‘higher worlds’ are expressly aimed at making experience conform to dogma” [p. 340]

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A Cultural Anthropology thesis comparing two schools, academic and Waldorf. Good research, uninspired academic style. Skip chapter two, “A Symbolist and Postmodern Theory of Culture.”

“Just how well Waldorf students “do” in comparison with other schools is unclear. Few statistics or even qualitative reports are available, because the testing notion is antithetical to Waldorf ideals, and research on Waldorf schools that is not merely promotional writing is rare.” (p. 80)

(A Washington State University thesis.) Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corp. 1993.

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Hirsch supports his arguments with research results. At the end he has a glossary that deconstructs all the popular buzzwords of education. The buzzwords of Waldorf are found here. “Prospective teachers and members of the general public are bemused, bullied, and sometimes infected by seductive rhetorical flourishes like ‘child-centered schooling’ or bullying ones like the dismissive words ‘drill and kill.’ These terms and phrases pretend to more soundness, humaneness, substance, and scientific authority than they in fact possess.” New York: Doubleday, 1996.

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Nijkerk, Netherlands: Uitgeverij Intro, 1983.

The country’s leading authority on cults, Margaret Thaler Singer, calls on her nearly fifty years of expertise to write the definitive book on cults. Written with author and former cult member Janja Lalich, Singer’s first book is a shocking exposé that reveals what cults are and how they work. Cults in Our Midst offers vital information on how to help people escape cult entrapments and recover from the experience. This compelling book debunks commonly held myths and answers perplexing questions about cults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995.

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Written on the back cover:
Die Anthroposophie genießt weithin den Ruf, eine tolerante, hochgeistige Weltanschauung zu sein; die Waldorfpädagogik wird von vielen Eltern als Kreativität und Selbstwertgefühl fördernde Alternative zum Unterricht in einer Regelshule angesehen.  Zu Unrecht meinen die Journalisten Guido und Michael Grandt.
Die Autoren (deren Schwarzbuch Anthroposophie 1997 vom Markt geklagt wurde) vergleichen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit der Waldorf Connection anhand der Öffentlichkeitsarbeit der Anthroposophen, der Rezeption der Lehren Rudolf Steiners und anhand von Theorie und Praxis der Waldorfpädagogik.  Sie dokumentieren die okkulten und rassistischen Anteile an der Weltanschauung Steiners und gehen der Frage nach, inwiefern diese noch heute in der Anthroposophie nachwirken.  Sie setzen sich ausführlich mit dem pädagogischen Konzept und dem Unterricht der Waldorfshulen auseinander und erörtern den Einfluß der Anschauungen des »Meisters”.

Taschenbuch – 365 Seiten – 2., korr. Aufl. (1999) Alibri, Aschaffenburg

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