CultNEWS101 Articles: 2/25/2022 (Adnan Oktar, Turkey, Tinder Swindler, Waldorf Schools, Anthroposophist)

Adnan Oktar, Turkey, Tinder Swindler, Waldorf Schools, Anthroposophist

NY Post: Inside TV preacher's 'kitten' sex cult as survivor says she was made to have a nose job without anesthetic

"A survivor of a TV preacher's brutal sex cult says she was made to have a nose job operation without an anesthetic.

Turkish televangelist Adnan Oktar, 64, was jailed for 1,075 years for a series of horrific crimes.

He had built up a devoted band of brainwashed followers over decades while living a life of luxury surrounded by glamorous women he called his "kittens" while his young male followers were his "lions".

He was eventually found guilty of ten separate charges including leading a criminal gang, sexual abuse of minors, sexual abuse and engaging in political or military espionage."

The Jerusalem Post: Netflix is creating cult numbers from con artists - opinion

'The Tinder Swindler' is a new Netflix documentary telling the story of an Israeli con man.

"Social media has exploded this month with posts, jokes and memes about Simon Leviev, the Israeli scammer who conned his victims out of an estimated $10 million. Though Leviev's story initially broke a few years ago, he's making international headlines again after his crimes were the focus of a Netflix special. The Tinder Swindler documented his elaborate schemes and featured interviews with many of his victims. It was a big hit for the streaming service, amassing over 45,800,000 hours of watch time around the world in only a week.

Despite the shocking story of widespread theft and lies that devastated the lives of multiple girlfriends he conned, a quick search on Instagram will give you no shortage of fan accounts for Leviev - yes, fan accounts. The sudden fame has worked in his favor, in a way.

Leviev, whose real last name is Hayut and is originally from Bnei Brak, took on the last name of a billionaire and pretended to be his son in order to lure women on Tinder. After his victims were in an established relationship with him, he would spin tales of enemies who were after him, even staging fake photos of being attacked, in order to borrow money and open credit cards in their names – money he would use to finance the luxurious lifestyle he was simultaneously leading with multiple girlfriends.

The Netflix special is part of a recent trend of shocking true stories on con men (and women), including The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman and Inventing Anna. The public can't seem to get enough, but is it a good idea to give narcissistic sociopaths more attention and money?"

Exberliner: How Germany's favourite cult took over everything from schools to supermarkets

"Waldorf schools have a hippy image, but are they in fact Germany's equivalent to Scientology?

There are over 250 Waldorf schools in Germany. The private institutions give off a hippy image: students stage elaborate theatre productions and learn to dance their names in a practice called Eurythmy. In the press, they are described as  "progressive" or "left-leaning." 

But as you look closer, the vibe gets stranger and stranger. It's more than just that the buildings have rounded edges and all the toys are all made of wood. Students are educated according to their "seven-year life cycles" and judged according to their "four temperaments" (do you feel more "phlegmatic" or "sanguine"?).

As one former teacher reported to Süddeutsche Zeitung, when teachers were discussing why a particular student was jumpy, it was decided they must have experienced trauma between their previous life and this one. 

Waldorf Schools are run according to the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. To understand Steiner, imagine a German version of L. Ron Hubbard. Both men spread esoteric ideas at times when science was all the rage, so they claimed they explored the spiritual realm according to scientific principles. Both considered themselves experts on every imaginable topic, from music to botany to how to wash your car.  Their constant lectures — 5,965, in Steiner's case — were preserved as the ultimate wisdom on everything.

Both Steiner and Hubbard have been frequently accused of racism. But while Hubbard embodied an American ideal of the 1950s, with rugged individuals pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and whatnot, Steiner was a product of imperial Germany with its ethno-nationalist pulse. So while Hubbard based his teachings on the Marcab Confederacy in distant galaxies, Steiner was more interested in Atlantis beneath the waves.

Steiner's Anthroposophy is every bit as complex and weird as Hubbard's Scientology — the former calls itself "the science of knowledge," while the latter is "the wisdom of the human being." To any outside observer, both seem like ravings of delusional narcissists. 

Scientology, while it gets lots of coverage in the tabloids, is limited to a few Hollywood actors and the downtown of Clearwater, Florida. Steiner's followers are less well-known, but far more powerful. Supermarkets sell fruit from Demeter, which is presented as organic, but in fact follows the principles of Steiner's "biodynamic agriculture." Besides avoiding pesticides, this calls for a cow horn to be buried in the field to harness astral and ethereal energy. The cosmetics manufacturer Weleda uses water prepared in Steinerian rituals. Retailers like dm-drogerie and Alnatura are run by anthroposophists. Otto Schilly, Germany's Interior Minister from 1998 to 2005, even belongs to the cult."

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CultNEWS101 Articles: 2/15/2022 (Conspiracy Theorist, Definitions of term "Cult", Anthroposophy, Familia Spiritualis Opus, Abuse)

Conspiracy Theorist, Definitions of term "Cult", Anthroposophy, Familia Spiritualis Opus, Abuse

HuffPost: My Gentle, Intelligent Brother Is Now A Conspiracy Theorist And His Beliefs Are Shocking

" ... My brother is a modern conspiracy theorist.

He calls himself an "Evolutionary Linguist-Spiritual Warrior Fighting for Human Free Will on Earth" on his TikTok account, which has 12,500 followers. He uses hashtags like #zombe #apocolypse #weare #freedom and #1111. The latter, as far as I can tell from doing a little Googling, is a symbol that often represents interconnectedness and synchronicity, and that inspires individuals to attempt to manifest their intentions and take action to turn their visions into reality. On the surface, this sounds sedate, even inspiring — especially as we come out of COVID isolation. None of us seem to want to "go back to normal" because normal didn't serve us.

Last April, my sister-in-law texted me to warn me that my brother was heading, unannounced, to my doorstep in Idaho, where I care for our elderly father. I knew he believed "everyone on the planet who received the vaccine will be dead in a few years," but I had no idea of the depth of his fantastical beliefs.

Our evening together started with him mansplaining why cryptocurrencies are our only hope and how he had the idea for Amazon before Jeff Bezos did and how he would be the richest man in the world if not for some bad breaks along the way. Although he wasn't physically at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., he referred to the Jan. 6 rioters as "we."

Later that night, my brother announced, "The real reason I'm here is I've come to warn you that over the next two weeks, a lot of shit is going to come out about what's been going on for the past 50 years, 100 years, 4,000 years. It is going to shock you to your core. All the conspiracy theories ― everyone you ever heard from politics to Big Oil to wars in Afghanistan to Biden not being president ― this pulls it all together." At this point, I excused myself to go to the restroom, turned on the Voice Memos app on my iPhone, and tucked it in my back pocket in case he divulged any plans for violence, which, thankfully, he did not. The following is a transcribed summary of the main points he "knows with certainty" that 'the media won't tell us about.'"

ICSA Today: What Is a Cult?: Definitional Preface

"There are many definitions of cult, but for our purpose ICSA utilizes this one: "an ideological organization held together by charismatic relations and demanding total commitment."  This definition is compatible with some definitions of new religious movements (NRMs), but cult can also refer to nonreligious organizations. As defined here, cults (on the high-demand/high-control end of the social influence spectrum—see below) are at risk of abusing members, but do not necessarily do so.

Although cultic groups vary a great deal, a huge body of clinical evidence and a growing body of empirical research indicate that some groups harm some people sometimes, and that some groups may be more likely to harm people than other groups."

The Guardian: Ginger root and meteorite dust: the Steiner 'Covid cures' offered in Germany

" ... Best known outside Germany for the left-leaning schools focused on self-directed play with wooden toys, Steinerism started out as a multi-disciplinary spiritualist philosophy in the late 19th century.

Born in 1861 as a citizen of the Austrian empire, Steiner claimed to have access to higher spiritual planes that gave him insights into reincarnation, links between cosmic bodies and plant growth, and evolutionary history, including the years of Jesus's life not covered by the Bible and the sunken continent of Atlantis.

By the time of his death in 1925, Steiner had applied his philosophy to a wide array of subjects, including education, architecture, agriculture, dance and medicine.

In the 21st century, anthroposophy remains a minority movement, albeit one that enjoys a high level of social acceptance and institutional support in German-speaking countries. In Germany, there are more than 200 schools, more than 500 nurseries and 263 institutions for people with mental disabilities that follow Steiner's philosophy. The country's highest grossing drugstore chain, dm-drogerie markt, and second-largest chain of organic supermarkets, Alnatura, are both run by self-professed anthroposophists, and cosmetic products made by Steiner-devoted brands like Weleda and Dr Hauschka are not only for sale in German pharmacies but are also enjoying a global boom.

While the number of employees working at these institutions and businesses who take Steiner's philosophy at face value is likely to be low and dwindling, the movement has carved out a steady presence in German public life.

"In some ways anthroposophy is a German success story", said Helmut Zander, a historian of religion who has written books critical of the Steiner movement. "It hits a nerve that our society has for a long time ignored. Organic farming has gone mainstream over the last decade – Steinerists have done it since the 1960s."

Steiner's belief in illnesses as rites of passage that are necessary to purge spiritual imbalances is starkly at odds with the basic foundations of modern science. And yet anthroposophy has made considerable inroads into a public-private healthcare system that puts stress on consumer choice.

There are no fewer than 10 Steiner hospitals in Germany, and anthroposophic medicine is tolerated by German law as a "special therapeutic form", meaning remedies can be approved for use without external proof of their effectiveness. As recently as 2019, the conservative health minister Jens Spahn chose not to remove homeopathic remedies prescribed by Steiner clinics from the list of treatments covered by public health insurers.

But the pandemic is testing the German tolerance of Steiner esotericism in more ways than one. "Anthroposophy claims to have access to secret, higher knowledge," said Zander. 'There's a proximity to the mindset of conspiracy theorists, even if the number of Steinerists who are that way inclined is probably small'."

Catholic News Service: Safer spaces: Protecting the dignity of consecrated people

" ... Reisinger, a survivor of abuse inflicted when she was a consecrated member of Familia Spiritualis Opus, also known as The Spiritual Family "The Work," is one of several people highlighting the need to protect the rights and dignity of consecrated women and men.

"People who live together, who promise poverty, chastity and obedience under the guidance of one superior or founder have no enforceable rights," she said. "This is so dangerous" because it is a situation "where cult-like communities can grow."

All members of every Catholic community must know their rights — that "you don't have to put up with everything" — and those rights must be enforceable, she said from Germany, where she is a research assistant at Goethe University in Frankfurt. She and others spoke to Catholic News Service by phone Feb. 1.

A Catholic expert in the psychology of religion and "deviations in the Catholic world" said it is easier for warped teachings or practices to develop in communities that are smaller and have an "excessive veneration" of the founder.

Raffaella Di Marzio is the director of the Center for Studies on the Freedom of Religion, Belief and Conscience and has taught at pontifical universities in Rome. She said it is natural members would feel different from other Catholics because of their more radical, evangelical way of life and committed vows to be more Christ-like.

But when this leads to a sense of superiority and "being closer to Jesus than others, then the charism becomes a charism of power, that is, the human temptation to be able to make others do what you want now takes over," she said.

This dynamic between a strong charismatic leader and faithful follower is "a two-way street" in that the leader wields a power that a follower is searching for and willingly submits to, and, if left unchecked, it can lead to even stronger ties to the leader, a fear of persecution and a rejection of dialogue or cooperation with "the outside," Di Marzio said.

"In this situation, anything can happen in that community," she said."

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Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

Ginger root and meteorite dust: the Steiner ‘Covid cures’ offered in Germany

The movement best known for its schools is firmly entrenched within the German health sector


Rudolf Steiner’s followers practise a therapeutic exercise called Eurythmy in 1931.



Philip Oltermann in Berlin
Guardian
January 1, 2021


In a pandemic where global leaders have peddled quack treatments and miracle cures, Germany has often stood out as a shining beacon for science.

It is the country that developed the first diagnostic test to detect the coronavirus, and the first vaccine approved in the west to shield people against the disease. It is a country whose physicist chancellor told parliament she passionately believes “there are scientific findings that are real and should be followed.”

But Germany is also a country where some people who fall severely ill with Covid-19 can find themselves taken to hospitals where they are treated, under sedation and without a formalised opt-in procedure, with ginger-soaked chest compresses and homeopathic pellets containing highly diluted particles of iron supposedly harvested from shooting stars that have landed on earth.

Followers of the “spiritual scientist” and self-proclaimed clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner advocate such therapies to fight the coronavirus because of a supposed “anxiety-relieving effect on the soul and the body” and ability to “strengthen the inner relationship to light”.

There are no peer-reviewed studies or clinical trials proving the effectiveness of these remedies, and they are not included in the official treatment guidelines issued by Germany’s leading intensive care associations.

Yet in Germany some of these therapies have been given to critically ill patients throughout the pandemic at Steiner hospitals such as Gemeinschaftskrankenhaus Havelhöhe, one of a network of 16 clinics in Berlin offering intensive care to Covid-19 patients under the oversight of the prestigious Charité university hospital.

The country’s public health insurance companies, which are part-financed by German taxpayers, have duly picked up the tab via flat-rate payments for hospital treatment of coronavirus patients.

However, public acceptance of the movement and its philosophies is facing renewed scrutiny after a year in which Germans have seen followers of the Steiner philosophy march alongside anti-vaxxers and the far right in protest at the government’s measures against coronavirus.

Best known outside Germany for the left-leaning schools focused on self-directed play with wooden toys, Steinerism started out as a multi-disciplinary spiritualist philosophy in the late 19th century.

Born in 1861 as a citizen of the Austrian empire, Steiner claimed to have access to higher spiritual planes that gave him insights into reincarnation, links between cosmic bodies and plant growth, and evolutionary history, including the years of Jesus’s life not covered by the Bible and the sunken continent of Atlantis.

By the time of his death in 1925, Steiner had applied his philosophy to a wide array of subjects, including education, architecture, agriculture, dance and medicine.

In the 21st century, anthroposophy remains a minority movement, albeit one that enjoys a high level of social acceptance and institutional support in German-speaking countries. In Germany, there are more than 200 schools, more than 500 nurseries and 263 institutions for people with mental disabilities that follow Steiner’s philosophy. The country’s highest grossing drugstore chain, dm-drogerie markt, and second-largest chain of organic supermarkets, Alnatura, are both run by self-professed anthroposophists, and cosmetic products made by Steiner-devoted brands like Weleda and Dr Hauschka are not only for sale in German pharmacies but are also enjoying a global boom.

While the number of employees working at these institutions and businesses who take Steiner’s philosophy at face value is likely to be low and dwindling, the movement has carved out a steady presence in German public life.

“In some ways anthroposophy is a German success story”, said Helmut Zander, a historian of religion who has written books critical of the Steiner movement. “It hits a nerve that our society has for a long time ignored. Organic farming has gone mainstream over the last decade – Steinerists have done it since the 1960s.”

Steiner’s belief in illnesses as rites of passage that are necessary to purge spiritual imbalances is starkly at odds with the basic foundations of modern science. And yet anthroposophy has made considerable inroads into a public-private healthcare system that puts stress on consumer choice.

There are no fewer than 10 Steiner hospitals in Germany, and anthroposophic medicine is tolerated by German law as a “special therapeutic form”, meaning remedies can be approved for use without external proof of their effectiveness. As recently as 2019, the conservative health minister Jens Spahn chose not to remove homeopathic remedies prescribed by Steiner clinics from the list of treatments covered by public heath insurers.

But the pandemic is testing the German tolerance of Steiner esotericism in more ways than one. “Anthroposophy claims to have access to secret, higher knowledge,” said Zander. “There’s a proximity to the mindset of conspiracy theorists, even if the number of Steinerists who are that way inclined is probably small”.

Oliver Rautenberg, whose critical blog on the subject has found a wider readership in the pandemic, agrees: “There is a widespread conspiracy mindset in the Steiner community. Anthroposophy has long been one of the most influential esoteric movements in Germany. But most people know surprisingly little about it”.

The application of anthroposophic remedies on sedated coronavirus patients has also stretched the definition of alternative treatments as a matter of personal choice.

Berlin’s Charité university hospital, which is in charge of allocating people with severe coronavirus infections around the city, said it was in most cases “not able to offer intensive care patients the freedom of choice” of where they are being treated.

When asked how the hospital obtained patients’ consent for alternative adjunct therapies when they were sedated or in a serious condition, a spokesperson for Havelhöhe hospital said: “Relatives are informed of the therapeutic methods.”

The hospital did not reply after being asked on three separate occasions to explain in writing how its opt-in procedure worked or whether patients were made aware of the lack of proof of the treatment’s effectiveness.

The clinic insisted that the alternative remedies it used were “adjunct therapies” that complement conventional treatments. Common remedies used at the three German Steiner hospitals that have treated coronavirus patients over the last year – Havelhöhe, Stuttgart’s Filderklinik and Herdecke in the Ruhr valley – were first advocated in a March article in the medical journal published by the Steiner movement’s global centre in Dornach, Switzerland, an expressionist congress hall with not a single right angle.

They include moist chest compresses with powdered ginger root, mustard flour or yarrow tea, as well as “potentized phosphorus and correspondingly potentized meteoritic iron” in the form of homeopathic pellets. Wala, a manufacturer based in Germany, told the Observer its pellets, which have also been widely prescribed as a preventative for Covid-19 at Steiner care homes for disabled people, contain ground-down remnants of meteorites that haven’t fully burnt up after entering the earth’s atmosphere.

A Havelhöhe spokesperson said there were no scientific studies proving that these remedies worked, and there had not been enough time to carry out trials. “But we noticed that they do the people good.”

The author of the article advocating the remedies, Georg Soldner, a Munich paediatrician, said field reports on the effect of meteoric iron had been published in the Vadecum of Anthroposophic Medicines, a handbook that is also published by the Dornach centre.

Edzard Ernst, a former professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, told the Observer when shown a list of remedies used at Steiner hospitals: “None of the remedies listed have been shown to be effective for any condition. Most are highly diluted and therefore utterly implausible. Postulating that any of them are effective against Covid-19 is, in my view, highly irresponsible.”

German Steiner hospitals have been transparent about their use of alternative therapies in the fight against the pandemic. In an October 2020 interview with the anthroposophic magazine Erziehungskunst, Havelhöhe’s clinical director, Harald Matthes, claimed that his hospital’s approach had been so successful that no patients with Covid-19 had died on its ward so far.

Havelhöhe reiterated the claim to the Observer in an email, stating that the clinic had seen a 12.4% fatality rate for patients with Covid-19, almost half of the national German average of 24%. Out of 145 patients, the hospital said on 10 December 2020, 88 had recovered and 18 died.

Such boasts are met with irritation within Germany’s medical community. Berlin’s Charité stresses that “the most severe cases” of coronavirus infections in the city are being treated in its own hospital – a fact that is more likely to explain Havelhöhe’s low fatality rate than its use of alternative remedies.

“To make such claims in the middle of a pandemic is highly unprofessional and risks causing uncertainty among patients,” said Stefan Kluge, director of intensive care medicine at Hamburg’s University Medical Centre. “The case fatality rate in any individual hospital is always dependent on the seriousness of patients’ conditions when they arrive there”.

Kluge urged Havelhöhe to carry out clinical trials proving the efficiency of their methods, such as his own hospital had managed to do between March and December last year.

Some historians are not surprised by the Steiner movement’s self-assertive stance in the midst of a pandemic. Robert Jütte, a historian of medicine, likened the current situation to the cholera epidemic of the 1830s that gave rise to the homeopathy movement.

“Throughout history, we can detect a pattern”, he said. “Whenever academic medicine is poking around in the dark, alternative therapies rise to the top”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/10/ginger-root-and-meteorite-dust-the-steiner-covid-cures-offered-in-germany

CultNEWS101 Articles: 10/1/2019

Film, Former Extremist, Waldorf School, Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy

Deadline: Director Zaida Bergroth On Cult Drama 'Maria's Paradise': "The Idea Was To Concentrate On The Love And Power" - Toronto Studio

"There were quite a few films about cults at this year's TIFF, and one of the more provocative meditations on human manipulation came from Finland. Titled Maria's Paradise, Zaida Bergroth's film was inspired by the true story of Maria Åkerblom, who ran a cult in rural Finland that caused a major scandal back in the 1920s.

'I got extremely intrigued by this main character, Maria Åkerblom," Bergroth told us when she came to the Deadline studio with her cast. "She lived in Finland in [the] 1920s, she was a leader of a Christian cult, and she was extremely charismatic, but she had a very dark side to her. After that, we started to write the script and explore her character, and then we came up with a story about Maria and her favorite girl follower, Salome, a young teenager who absolutely adored her, and didn't see anything negative about her actions. It was their relationship that really intrigued me.'"

The Atlantic: The Former Extremists Trying to Fight Extremism

" ... Deradicalization and counter-extremism programs, especially those involving former extremists, are relatively new in the United States, but they have a longer history in Europe, according to Lorenzo Vidino, the director of the Program on Extremism, who helped recruit Morton to work there as a researcher. The U.K.'s Quilliam—which describes itself as "the world's first counter-extremism organization"—was founded as a think tank in 2007 by three British former radical Islamists.

The Obama administration launched its own "countering violent extremism" initiative in 2011, with a variety of programs aimed at helping local law enforcement share information, do community outreach, and try to prevent attacks. The program was always a target for criticism, ranging from complaints about underfunding to accusations that it unfairly focused on and stigmatized Muslim communities. Right-wing extremism, moreover, was not a top priority then, and one organization dedicated to countering it got some funding under Obama but saw it lapse under Trump.

But there wasn't a systematic effort to recruit formers into that project early on. Vidino had observed the European experience and thought such a strategy might be useful in the United States, though he told me he was aware of 'some of the issues.'"

NDR: SWR-Doku: Author's proximity to Waldorf schools

(Google Translation)

Too close to the Waldorf school world?

" ... Because Esther Saoub was the author of a contribution in the Tagesthemen, which dedicated itself to the 100-year existence of the first Waldorf schools in Germany.  She is also the author of the 45-minute SWR documentary "Waldorf global - a school goes around the world", which is still in the ARD-Mediathekto see is . And: Esther Saoub was a Waldorf student herself, her children attend a Waldorf school, she is a board member of the school association of the "Waldorf School Uhlandshöhe", she appears on podiums of the Waldorf school celebrations and she was supposed to moderate the festive event last weekend. In short: Ms. Saoub seems to be closely associated with the Waldorf world. Should someone write reports on the topic for public media?

Is surprised that Esther Saoub has made the documentary about Waldorf schools: Volker Lilienthal, Professor of "Practice of quality journalism" at the University of Hamburg.

"No," says Professor Volker Lilienthal, the chair of the "Practice of Quality Journalism" at the University of Hamburg: "The fact that Esther Saoub herself appears as a writer, I'm very surprised." The author Saoub is indeed socialized in public service broadcasting, she knows the professional standards, she would have had to do without herself. " The contribution in the Tagesthemen was "an advertisement for the Waldorf schools," wrote the Humanistic Press Service (HPD).

Criticism of the Waldorf schools in 45 minutes documentation? None. Of course, there would be a lot of criticism about Rudolf Steiner, the founder of reform education. His statements on racial issues and Judaism have been widely criticized. Sure, such racial stereotypes were prevalent in their day, but they did not show up in 45 minutes of filming. A subordinate sentence in the film touches on this criticism marginally: "The Waldorf schools explicitly distanced themselves from its partly nationalist positions in the Stuttgart Declaration in 2007". More criticism is not found in Saoub's films."

BBC: Why are Steiner schools so controversial?

" ... Rudolf Steiner, the intellectual father of Steiner schools.

The Austrian-born #occultist, who died in 1925, left a vast body of work covering everything from biodynamic farming to alternative medicine.

It is known, collectively, as "anthroposophy".

The SWSF's guidelines from 2011 said that schools using the #Steiner name were obliged to prove "an anthroposophical impulse lies at the heart of planning for the school".

Since 2013, this has been made vaguer: they now need a commitment to "the fundamental principles of Waldorf education".

Those ideas are based in a belief in reincarnation.

Pupils may not have been sold this creed, but Steiner was very strict that teachers were not supposed to pass them on to children - just to act on them.

So, for example, the Steiner curriculum's focus on a late start to learning is driven by the pace at which souls incarnate.

An odd rationale, but not a very worrying result. Other consequences, however, are potentially more troubling.

For example, Steiner himself believed illnesses in our current lives could be explained by problems in the previous ones.

And in overcoming illnesses with a root in a previous life, individuals could gain "reinforced power" and improve their "karma".

Vaccination, in effect, gets in the way.

'Unvaccinated populations'

That may help explain the Steiner school attitude to vaccination.

The schools state that they have no formal policies and parents must choose for themselves.

But children in Steiner schools are less likely to get their jabs.

The Health Protection Agency - before its recent abolition - used to note that Steiner schools ought to be considered "unvaccinated populations" for measles.

Related ideas of the benefits of overcoming adversity emerge elsewhere.

The DfE memos report a complaint that a teacher allowed violence among children for karmic reasons, and cites teacher training resources that are sympathetic to this idea.

This karmic belief set also has a racial element.

As we reported last week, Steiner was, by any modern definition, a racist.

'Hierarchy in races'

He thought black people were distinguished by an "instinctual life", as opposed to Caucasians' "intellectual life".

He believed each race had a geographical location where they should live - black people in Europe were "a nuisance".

There was also a hierarchy in races; a soul with good karma could hope to be reincarnated into a race which is higher up in the hierarchy, Steiner argued.

The SWSF says: "While the superficial reading of a handful of Steiner's voluminous, extensive lectures present statements that appear racist in modern terms, none of these occur in his educational writings."

But some of these ideas have polluted some Steiner schools.

The SWSF was "horrified" by our report on a diversity training day at a private Steiner school, which had been triggered by a real issue around racism.

Four white teachers, asked to tick a box giving their ethnicity, ticked every box.

They believed that they had ascended through all the races.

Some Steiner schools also teach about the lost continent of Atlantis - a myth that, to Steiner, explained the origins of the hierarchy of the races."

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