Talk:Marie Steiner-von Sivers

Notability

Per the waldorf education and related arbcomm restrictions on references, I think editors are going to struggle to find enough references to show notability for Ms. Steiner-von Sivers. A real cursory google search on her name came up with lots of book stores selling things she either wrote or edited. Nothing that seemed to be written about her. --Rocksanddirt 20:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

How does the article look to you now? --EPadmirateur 07:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's fine. I also think that if the "Anti-Stiener" folks take a look they will complain that the references are not independed but instead are Anthroposiphist whitewashes of the subject. It is madness, I know, but here we are. --Rocksanddirt 15:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Au contraire, the two references are published by recognized, independent publishers. The Tummer biography is quite interesting in presentation and accurate as far as I can see. --EPadmirateur 15:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. Though I had thought Henry Goulden Ltd. published mostly anthroposophical work (maybe that's just a perception though, we get lots of mailings and catalogs from publishers and they run together sometimes). --Rocksanddirt 16:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The Hemleben Steiner biography was originally published in German by Rowohlt Verlag. --EPadmirateur 21:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Heading

Well-educated? And still she was taken in by this crap. Eurythmy a renewal of the performing arts? And, really, how does one "contribute to the development of Anthroposophy", since A is just the invention of Rudolf Steiner. References please. 83.248.135.85 (talk) 14:35, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The references have been cited in the article. Do you have a specific question about them? --EPadmirateur (talk) 17:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes I do. What are your ties to anthroposophty User:EPadmirateur? And I still need to know if Rudolf and Marie ever engaged in the sexy-time. 62.88.171.35 (talk) 11:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC) (another IP for the bee to chew on)

Please comment on content, not on contributors. and honestly, everybody gotsta get down. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 23:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

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Dispute

See User talk:Pjmpjm#February 2023 for a content dispute. The facts are: they are of the opinion that Marie Steiner-von Sivers is getting libeled, but personal opinions of editors never trump WP:RS, in this case a PhD thesis from Cornell University which has been later print-published by the Royal Brill Publishers, which is a very reputable publishing house inside the academic field of religion studies. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:41, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

She's been dead far too long for there to be any serious assertion that its libel. You can not libel the dead. There is conflict between jurisdictions about whether a libel action begun before death survives the death of the plaintiff, but presuming there hasn't been a pending libel action for 80 years this should be solely based on 'Pedia policy like WP:RS and WP:DUE. To that end, it would be helpful so show due weight here if there were additional sources covering this. The thesis, especially because its been published in book form by an academic publisher, seems like a RS but I'd like to see further sources illustrating that this was important. --(loopback) ping/whereis 08:27, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

As I have replied at WP:FTN:

Their reply is at [1]. Anyway, the article now uses WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV so it is not even claiming it in the voice of Wikipedia.

Seen what is written at Rudolf Steiner#Attacks, illness, and death, it is highly probable that she was a Nazi sympathizer, because her husband and mentor had similar ideas to Nazism. She probably did not know that the Nazis were going to perform the Holocaust, so she cannot be blamed about that. The essential difference between Steiner and the Nazis, is that Steiner was basically a humanitarian, while the Nazi regime was bloodthirsty. For the rest, he pontificated about racial purity, esoteric medicine and biodynamic agriculture, which were endorsed by Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler, if not Hitler.

Source: Wieringa, Tommy (8 May 2021). "Groene vingers". NRC (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 7 February 2023. Het was een ontmoeting van oude bekenden: nazi-kopstukken als Rudolf Hess en Heinrich Himmler herkenden in Rudolf Steiner al een geestverwant, met zijn theorieën over raszuiverheid, esoterische geneeskunst en biologisch-dynamische landbouw. — It was a meeting of old acquaintances: Nazi leaders such as Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler already recognized a kindred spirit in Rudolf Steiner, with his theories about racial purity, esoteric medicine and biodynamic agriculture.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)

And disgruntled and elderly and embittered man are arguments pro domo sua, simply because WP:FRINGE cults do not love rational criticism. It is a democratic right to disagree with the mainstream academic view, but it is sheer inanity to completely ignore how the academic mainstream views one's cult.

In fact, what do you expect? Anthroposophists believe Steiner's "historical" reports of the life from Atlantis and Lemuria, which count as rank pseudohistory in the academia. He even advised them that it is bad for their development to learn mainstream history. In the end, there are quite many sources which show that Steiner posited a hierarchy of human races, and was full of craps in respect to empirical science and history. Too many to be all shot down as unreliable. E.g. when talking to a Romanian Anthroposophist, he considered that reading Die Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg is solid food in the meaning of 1 Corinthians 3:2, only to be read after one attains good knowledge of Anthroposophy. tgeorgescu (talk) 09:36, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate that, but I said To that end, it would be helpful so show due weight here if there were additional sources covering this. The thesis, especially because its been published in book form by an academic publisher, seems like a RS but I'd like to see further sources illustrating that this was important and you didn't really respond to it. Is there sourcing that shows this was important to the subject and her work. As an example there's academic discussion of HP Lovecraft's white supremacy- the extent its both visible in his fiction and that its needed to fully understand that fiction. So is this an aspect that's important to understanding the subject and are there sources for that? If it's just background trivia I'm not sure it satisfies WP:DUE. If the only source is a PhD thesis then I'm not saying it's wrong at all, but its probably not required for an encyclopedic understanding of the subject. --(loopback) ping/whereis 09:53, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

It's a PhD thesis from the Ivy League, later print-published by the Royal Brill Publishers, a distinguished publishing house for religion studies.

Her attitude was probably cruel to Jewish Anthroposophists, but it certainly saved the ass of many Gentile Anthroposophists from Nazi Germany and countries occupied by it. As utilitarianism says: the greater good for the greater number of people (and she could not save Jews even if she wished). tgeorgescu (talk) 10:21, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

It's a PhD thesis from the Ivy League, later print-published by the Royal Brill Publishers, a distinguished publishing house for religion studies. Indeed. I'm not arguing the source. My earlier comment says as much: "The thesis, especially because its been published in book form by an academic publisher, seems like a RS". Statements like Her attitude was probably cruel to Jewish Anthroposophists, but it certainly saved the ass of many Anthroposophists from Nazi Germany and countries occupied by it would be a great example of my request for something demonstrating that this is due weight, but you're phrasing it as OR. Sourcing that in article text to demonstrate her nazi sympathies weren't just opinions and had an effect on her life and work would put you on solid ground in my eyes. --(loopback) ping/whereis 10:24, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

@127(point)0(point)0(point)1: Obliged. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:40, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

When Rudolf Hess defected to UK I don't think "defected" is the right word, but I don't know what is. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:29, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Brill book by Staudenmaier

The paragraph about Nazi affiliations was removed [2] by an IP editor. Brill Publishers seems to be reliable. Is there any reason to excise this paragraph? —DIYeditor (talk) 15:06, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

@DIYeditor: Yup, Brill is one of the foremost academic publishers in Western esotericism. It published a PhD thesis from the Ivy League. If that isn't reliable, then nothing is.

And we're not even saying that what she did was exceedingly bad. It saved the lives of tens of thousands of esotericists, who otherwise would have shared the fate of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

And even if the other three books are of lesser prestige, WP:PARITY does apply. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:28, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, because the statement about being "completely pro Nazi" is factually incorrect. There are letters strongly criticizing Hitler and national socialism, and she went out of her way to help Jewish Anthroposophists-- Eurythmists and members of her drama group-- escape Germany and find new homes in Europe and America. I don't have the correspondence handy, but I will find it.

Was she a collaborator because she felt it was the only way to save Anthroposophy? Yes. Was she racist? Not entirely, but some of her statements on record certainly read that way. "Completely pro Nazi"? Absolutely not. I'll find the sources and link them as soon as I can. Thanks! 2600:4041:525F:A200:60B3:548B:7D75:5BFA (talk) 04:37, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Was she a collaborator because she felt it was the only way to save Anthroposophy?—not quite: the initial admiration of the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society for the Nazi regime was genuine. The Anthroposophists and the Nazis shared a worldview (ontology) based upon race. The difference was that Anthroposophists were humanitarians, while the Nazis were bloodthirsty. People from the 21st century tend to think that it was obvious from the very beginning what Nazis wanted. But, that wasn't the case for many millions of people who lived then. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:41, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Have you read her correspondence where she speaks of these matters directly? I will try to find these documents and get back to you, because she literally makes her views plain when speaking with her colleagues. Marie Steiner was absolutely not "completely pro-Nazi" and IMO this is the main sentence that needs removing. 2600:4041:524D:CE00:B1D6:95F1:F5DD:4D76 (talk) 19:19, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

We don't say it was a fact that she was "completely pro-Nazi". We use WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. So, it's a tad more complicated than she was so vs. she wasn't so (an either-or choice). Stated otherwise, the claim that she was "completely pro-Nazi" is neither a truth, nor a lie, but a perspective. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:18, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Point taken, but I don't think this kind of hearsay is appropriate or warranted in a one-page bio of a historical figure given that there is AMPLE evidence that this person's perspective is demonstrably wrong when you examine the writings of the figure herself. Will you remove it when I link the evidence in the form of Marie Steiner's letters to colleagues that 100% prove she was not "completely pro-Nazi"? I can't see why off-the-cuff gossip from a third party should be more authoritative than multiple documents containing literal statements by the figure herself re. her views of Hitler and National Socialism.

Also, consider the broader context in which these allegations were made: please understand that there was a massive amount of controversy regarding Marie Steiner in the Anthroposophical community dating all the way back to the Alice Sprengel/Heinrich Goesch controversy of 1915 which almost tore the community apart, as well as the expulsion of Ita Wegman from the Christmas Foundation Vorstand in 1935. In other words, Marie Steiner was an extremely polarizing figure for reasons that had nothing to do with her views on National Socialism--or even her views on race--and unsubstantiated mud-slinging and careless allegations were absolutely par for the course during this time period. It's worth considering, IMO. 2600:4041:525F:A200:6DA8:31E3:3057:63D5 (talk) 02:23, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't affiliated with the Anthroposophical Society (either of its wings). And were are not WP:ACTIVISTs seeking to influence its elections. We simply record mainstream WP:SCHOLARSHIP for what it is. And if those letters were published by a non-mainstream publisher, that makes them unusable for Wikipedia. See WP:GEVAL. I.e. if edited by gullible believers, that makes them unusable. Pretty much as Lenin's works published under Stalin were severely censored. When a mainstream biographer leaves the unpalatable stuff out, they get lambasted by responsible intellectuals. When Anthroposophists leave out the unpalatable stuff about their own, they earn the approval of other Anthroposophists. They don't like to wash their dirty laundry in public. Whether they censored her letters remains to be seen, but there is no guarantee to reliability if her letters were published in-house. Same as the adepts of Osho Rajneesh can't be trusted to report objectively about Osho Rajneesh—many times the facts they mention are true, but there is no guarantee to reliability. And the same applies to Büchenbacher: his book is not WP:RS, but Staudenmaier's is. That's why Büchenbacher's book does not appear in the list of references.

So, Wikipedia has no business telling Anthroposophists who they should appoint as their leaders, such very thought is utterly preposterous, it sounds like a conspiracy theory. But Wikipedia does report Ivy League WP:SCHOLARSHIP for what it is.

According to Wieringa (cited above), among Anthroposophists "Your ears ached with all the quatsch about the superiority of the white race, the influence of etheric and astral bodies on our development, and the biodynamic diet that spoke only a joyless kind of sadism." tgeorgescu (talk) 07:09, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

In academic literature, Primary source letters clearly stating an opinion should be taken as authoritative over hearsay from an outsider every single time. You latched onto a statement you want to be true instead of actually reading the letters of Marie Steiner herself to see that the claim is false.

When the letters are produced and you insist on keeping a false claim front-and-center in a historical biography, you will be shown as neither acting objectively nor are in keeping with the Wikipedia editors code of conduct. 2607:FB91:2138:D10B:5DBA:7C4:ED89:C7B5 (talk) 14:35, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

In academic literature, Primary source letters clearly stating an opinion should be taken as authoritative over hearsay from an outsider every single time—the problem with that is that we are not writing academic literature, but simply taking it for granted. Here we do not act as historians performing original research, we merely WP:CITE mainstream historians.

"I don't have the luxury of simply picking up Ehrman or Taylor and quoting their opinion and allowing that to be it. As a historian, I have to look at a hundred sources and determine to what extent what Ehrman and Taylor have to say is valid or convincing. This is a fine statement of purpose in every day life, but on Wikipedia, it is a textbook example of original research. It seems like what you're talking about would be better suited to more of an academic context. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 03:44, 26 March 2023 (UTC)"

"DennisRoddyy, if you are consistently arguing to reject modern scholarship like books authored by academics and published by academic outlets like the Oxford University Press, in favor of 1900 year old religious tracts, then that itself becomes a behavioral issue. This is a neutrally written encyclopedia that favors modern scolarship, not an outlet for promulgating orthodox religious dogma. There are countless websites where that sort of thing is welcomed, but not here. Cullen328 (talk) 06:20, 13 August 2023 (UTC)"

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 15:00, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Staudenmeier himself says the source he got the quote from is flawed. Citation here: "Hans Büchenbacher, “Erinnerungen 1933–1947,” 34 page typescript, copy in my possession.

The text is currently being prepared for publication. Büchenbacher’s memoirs, written in the

final decade of his life, are marked by conspiracist assumptions but offer a telling internal perspective on anthroposophical affairs in the Nazi period". In other words, the conspiricist assumptions found in an unpublished manuscript by a bitter 90+ year old partisan are absolutely nowhere near authoritative as the published primary source letters of the subject in question as to her opinion of Nazism. Have you even bothered to read what Hitler himself said about Rudolf Steiner in 1921? Claiming Marie Steiner was "completely pro-Nazi" is patently, demonstrably false. 2600:4041:525F:A200:6DA8:31E3:3057:63D5 (talk) 05:51, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Staudenmeier himself says the source he got the quote from is flawed. Citation here: "Hans Büchenbacher, “Erinnerungen 1933–1947,” 34 page typescript, copy in my possession.

The text is currently being prepared for publication. Büchenbacher’s memoirs, written in the

final decade of his life, are marked by conspiracist assumptions but offer a telling internal perspective on anthroposophical affairs in the Nazi period". In other words, the "conspiricist assumptions" found in an unpublished manuscript by a 90+ year old partisan are absolutely nowhere near authoritative as the published primary source letters of the subject in question as to her opinion of Nazism. Has anyone even bothered to read what Hitler himself said about Rudolf Steiner in 1921? Claiming Marie Steiner was "completely pro-Nazi" is patently, demonstrably false. This sentence should be removed. 2600:4041:525F:A200:6DA8:31E3:3057:63D5 (talk) 06:04, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

As I have already said, Wikipedia makes no use of Büchenbacher's book. We WP:CITE Ivy League WP:SCHOLARSHIP. If you have a problem with that, we cannot solve your problem. This discussion should be closed. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:49, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Primefac: Sorry for my gauche closing. They keep repeating the argument that Büchenbacher's memoirs is not WP:RS. Which is a straw man: nobody claimed here that it were WP:RS. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:26, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your honesty and humility here, I appreciate it. With respect, please pause for a moment and think about what's at stake here: you're heading a section about someone's personal political views based on a third-party opinion from a flawed unpublished source containing "conspiracy theories" (Peter Staudenmeier's words) that directly contradicts the published track record of the subject themselves, in both her letters and her direct actions. Just because it's mentioned in a reputable Brill-approved source--an academic who specifically identified this quote as coming from a biased source, per Staudenmeier's own words himself-- doesn't mean it meets the criteria for being a responsible way to lead a section of a Wikipedia article.

Marie Steiner von Sivers helped Jewish colleagues escape Germany, and was well aware that Hitler himself falsely referred to her husband as being Jewish, and contemporary extracts from the Völkische Beobachter (the Nazi’s house journal) reveal the viciousness and hatred directed toward Steiner and Anthroposophy by the Nazis. For this reason, the claim that Steiner von Sivers being "completely pro-Nazi" is demonstrably false.

The opinion of some 90-year-old third party prone to conspiracy theories (per Staudenmeier's own evaluation of him) doesn't belong as the opening statement in a section of Wikipedia article wherever it came from. Context matters, truth matters, and at the end of the day this is just Staudenmeier quoting an opinion from a flawed conspiracy theory-containing source. There's no point in digging in to defend something that's factually wrong, which this is. Find some other factual source that proves your point and delete this--as I'm sure you'll agree, the hearsay opinion of conspiracy theorists should have no place on Wikipedia, whether they're quoted by real academics or not. Your other edits are rational and sound, so let's be rigorous here as well. 2600:4041:524D:CE00:F075:A99D:421:9F36 (talk) 16:47, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Do not WP:EDITWAR. —DIYeditor (talk) 01:57, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Yup, a partisan and inaccurate statement. "Though anthroposophists complained regularly about negative publicity, Steiner’s movement received remarkably positive press coverage in the Nazi era, including outspokenly supportive pieces in the Völkischer Beobachter.¹⁰⁸ Anthroposophist authors generally encountered few difficulties in publishing their work,¹⁰⁹ SD specialists on occult groups made suppression of anthroposophist publications a priority, but met with relatively little success. They argued that misuse of terms such as “race, nation, community, Germanness” by non-Nazi authors, even if sincere and well-meaning, “must be regarded as an attack on the National Socialist worldview.”¹¹⁰ Criticizing “materialist misinterpretations” of Nazi racial theory, they contended that the Nazi conception of race united the biological with the spiritual, the physical with the soul, into one comprehensive synthesis. The SD was especially wary of spiritual groups claiming that Nazism had “adopted” some of their own ideas or that their teachings had all along been in concert with National Socialist precepts. Movements like anthroposophy, from this point of view, represented unwelcome competition."

And you have to change your tune: second guessing Büchenbacher doesn't do. It is a straw man repeated ad nauseam. I would never WP:CITE Büchenbacher's book, I have cited Staudenmaier's. Staudenmaier is the academic authority making such claims, not Büchenbacher. tgeorgescu (talk) 08:35, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Marie Steiner-von Sivers. tgeorgescu (talk) 08:43, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

A lot of people were "completely pro-Nazi" at one point and changed their tune when they realized that the Nazis were not as sympathetic to their views as they thought. It was the same the other way around. That's just the nature of the beast. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 09:30, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

According to Hitler (de:Aktion gegen Geheimlehren und sogenannte Geheimwissenschaften), all esotericists were manipulated by Jews, and their place was the concentration camp. From a Nazi POV, it would have seemed more "logical" to spare the Ariosophists and doom the Anthroposophists, but the opposite has happened. Yup, they were extremely lucky.

Staudenmaier's book says that the Nazis were not quarreling among themselves if the philosophies of Nazism and Anthroposophy do overlap, but they were quarreling if such overlap is "good" or "bad". He also points out that the Anthroposophists from some cities were discretely investigated by the Gestapo, and their conclusion was that the Anthroposophists were trustworthy citizens of the Third Reich (i.e. neither leftists, nor controlled by Jews). tgeorgescu (talk) 08:04, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion has been archived, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 412#Marie Steiner-von Sivers.

And I have also WP:CITED a book by Dan McKanan, published at University of California Press.

Apologetics published by Rudolf Steiner Press does not amount to WP:RS.

And the person complaining about my schizophrenia at r/WikipediaVandalism should have been taking heed from what I wrote on my talk page, namely If you think that having schizophrenia is bad, needing to be taught lessons in objective knowledge, critical thinking, logic, and rationality by a person having schizophrenia is even worse. So, don't pity me. Pity all who are more irrational than me. I had to oppose people who are more hateful, spiteful, fanatical, extremist, and paranoid than this schizophrenic.

They have claimed I believe it is crucial to uphold ethical standards in every respect and avoid hearsay in favor of primary sources. Nope, if you know anything about Wikipedia is that concocting your own historical research based upon WP:PRIMARY sources is banned by website policy (WP:OR). And citing Staudenmaier and McKanan does not amount to hearsay. That person was seeking to put the axe at the root of Wikipedia, namely its WP:RS guideline.

And at a website critical of Wikipedia they wrote that one of my opponents sought to whitewash anthroposophy of being racist, and there was something about hallucinations, but, counterintuitively, they were not accusing me (a schizophrenic) of hallucinating. So, yes, it turns out that the defenders of anthroposophy at Wikipedia were more irrational, more vitriolic, and more libelous than me (the libel happened off-wiki, so it does not concern any of their Wikipedia edits, and technically even stating true facts could amount to defamation—Dutch smaad, not laster). This is not WP:OUTING: no rule prevents me from seeking information about myself, posted upon the internet. And I'm not saying that I know the Wikipedia account which made such allegations about me, but they were certainly meaning my edits and this article. I was not doxxing them, I was doxxing my own username, and there is no rule against it. I do not profess to know which account it was, since there were several anthroposophists having Wikipedia accounts, who all of them attacked my edits.

Yes, I do have a large Wikipedic record of writing about cults and gurus, but I do not ventilate my own musings about them, I always seek to render the mainstream academic view about them. Or, at least, the mainstream press view about them.

And being a schizophrenic is no reason for being ashamed, on the contrary, I am proud of what I have achieved in terms of rationality, objective knowledge and academic learning despite my mental illness.

Why am I allowed to publish here inconvenient but objective historical facts about a dead person? See WP:CENSOR. This does not make me a troll, but only a Wikipedian who abides by the WP:RULES. If you want other WP:RULES, create your own encyclopedia, having the rules devised by yourself. I repeat: stating accurate but for some people undesirable historical facts is not trolling in any way, shape, or form. We are all past the kindergarten, so we should all drop habits characteristic of the children from the kindergarten. We cannot deny objective facts just because some people do not like them. WP:NOTKINDERGARTEN.

Claiming of being of Jewish-German descent and offended by my edits gives them no special editing rights, and no leverage upon edits which are in full conformity with WP:RULES. If they think that I'm libeling a dead person, learn that these are not my own claims, but the claims explicitly made by Staudenmaier and McKanan, and if they have a problem with such claims, they should sue Staudenmaier and McKanan.

Here, at Wikipedia, mainstream history rulez. And the anthroposophists were told by Steiner (as pointed out by Staudenmaier) that even studying mainstream history is nefarious for their spiritual development. So, obviously, Wikipedia and anthroposophists are not upon the same page, and I got scapegoated/vilified for this conflict. Wikipedia and the Anthroposophical Society have purposes which are at odds with each other. Wikipedia thinks that mainstream history is the best, the Anthroposophical Society thinks that mainstream history should be avoided and stifled. This makes me think that there can be no peace between Wikipedia and the Anthroposophical Society: anthroposophists will always attack Wikipedians who render the mainstream academic view about their cult. I render mainstream history simply because that's what Wikipedians do. I oppose quackery and pseudoscience simply because that's what Wikipedians do. We render mainstream WP:SCHOLARSHIP, we are not a PR venue for new religious movements.

If journalists and historians would be prohibited from reporting nasty facts, the biggest chunk of world history would get erased.

The books from Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Temple Lodge, and Rudolf Steiner Press are, simply put, hagiography. We are not seeking cheap arguments, either for or against anthroposophy, but we are seeking to render a factual account of the past. Which is a matter of WP:IS rather than WP:ACTIVISM. So, yes, I love to expose cults, but not to the extent that I'm willing to play fast and loose with the facts.

As shown at Talk:Anthroposophy#Evidence, anthroposophists do seek to team their accounts against me. So, it's not like I'm being paranoid about collusion: I know for a fact that they seek to WP:GAME the system, as evidenced by a posting inside an anthroposophical Facebook group, and in a now deleted (but still readable) Reddit post, all calling me a vandal, a liar, and a troll, the Facebook post calling anthroposophists to unite in deleting my edits, and all calling for removing me from Wikipedia. They simply don't have WP:CIR to understand that I abide by the WP:RULES, and they don't. They are simply inept to understand why my edits stay, and theirs get reverted (and they get reverted by other experienced Wikipedians, too).

Anthroposophists who are willing to sink to the abject depths of such vicious attacks are not protecting the public image of Anthroposophy, quite on the contrary. They think that behaving like school bullies would trump citing WP:RS. That ship has sailed long ago. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:03, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

References