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Hi John,

I can't speak to the "how" part of your question, but I have an idea about the "why". As Nicole pointed out, Steiner conceived of Waldorf education as a framework for guiding the progressive incarnation of each child through the successive stages: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and finally the 'I'. According to anthroposophy, these stages of incarnation occur in seven-year cycles, such that each person is fully incarnated around age 21. For this reason, Anonymous's hunch is very wide of the mark:

"I would hazzard a guess that he may have meant reincarnation is aided by environments supportive of spiritual development. This would aid an unborn soul but for a child already here I wonder what aid it would be at that point? The incarnation would have already happened it seems."

For anthroposophists, incarnation has most definitely not "already happened" at birth. Since Steiner was very clear on the matter, a number of contemporary German Waldorf leaders say straightforwardly that one of the chief functions of Waldorf teachers is to "aid in the incarnation process" of their pupils.

This idea also plays a important role for North American anthroposophists. Here is a quote from Stewart Easton's 1975 book Man and World in the Light of Anthroposophy (Easton was the secretary general of the Anthroposophical Society in America) describing Waldorf:

"This education is essentially grounded on the recognition of the child as a spiritual being, with a varying number of incarnations behind him, who is returning at birth into the physical world, into a body that will be slowly moulded into a usable instrument by the soul-spiritual forces he brings with
him. He has chosen his parents for himself because of what they can provide for him that he needs in order to fulfill his karma, and, conversely, they too need their relationship with him in order to fulfill their own karma." (p. 38

I hope this gives a fuller sense of how anthroposophists understand the role of Waldorf pedagogy in the unfolding of incarnation.

Peter Staudenmaier

Anonymous writes:

"It might be helpful to keep the terminology clear. The subject of this tread of discussion is reincarnation. Incarnation is not the same as reincarnation as I see it. Reincarnation implies living again whereas incarnation does not have such a requirement. A person may not believe in reincarnation but he could consider incarnation a meaningful concept. My understanding of the theory of reincarnation is that it is typically an event defined at birth. Incarnation is the unfolding process (of becoming) over time."

It would be decidedly unhelpful to pretend that anthroposophy distinguishes between these two things. Every time anthroposophists talk about incarnation, they are also talking about reincarnation, because the two are unseparable in Steiner's theory. Steiner repeatedly emphasized the importance of his theory of (re)incarnation to Waldorf pedagogy, raising the issue again and again in his conferences with the first generation of Waldorf teachers.

Steiner taught, for instance, that when an incarnating soul hesitates at the moment of entering the physical body, it results in "idiocy" (Steiner's term). A similar view prevails within at least parts of the Waldorf movement today. Here is a passage from Eugene Schwartz, one of the more prominent mentors of US Waldorf teachers:

"Before the moment of earthly conception, the yet-to-be-born soul approaches the Gate of Birth, and there views a tableau of the life to come. In previous times, souls would immediately descend after witnessing this picture of their karmically-determined future. In our time, in which the
world has grown so materialistic and life has become so difficult, more and more souls hesitate for a moment, reluctant to face their destiny. When they do choose to incarnate, they are a little late, and cannot "mesh" their
higher members with their lower bodies. So a moment of hesitation, a little lateness, leads to an incomplete intertwining of body and soul, and this in turn can be a prime factor in those learning difficulties and emotional problems that will appear in childhood."

(Eugene Schwartz, The Waldorf Teacher's Survival Guide. Rudolf Steiner College Press, 1992, p. 23)

This view is by no means peculiar to US Waldorf leaders. You can find a thorough discussion of "Karma and Reincarnation for Waldorf Teachers" at the website of a Waldorf teacher training college in New Zealand:

www.taruna.gen.nz/index.php?pid=28

The notion that Waldorf education is merely based on "the unfolding of the whole person in childhood" entirely misses the distinctive nature of Waldorf and its anthroposophical underpinnings.

Peter Staudenmaier