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Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss…
AND WHAT ABOUT THE STUDENTS?
Spiritual beings govern every aspect of the developing person; children from 9 to 7 enjoy the love and protection of Moon Beings, the Angeloi. Mercury Beings, the Archangels, lead the 7- to 14-year-olds along their life-filled path of discovery. And the adolescent is under the pulchritudinous aegis of the Venus Brings – highest spirits of the Third Hierarchy, the Archai – also known as Spirits of Personality.
Personality, the main-thrust development of young people aged 14 to 21. Adults move forward yet again to the Second Hierarchy, to grow inwardly under the illuminated regency of the Sun Brings – up to 42 years.
Persona means ‘mask’, and that is just what the timorous teenager is creating – a supersensible mask of survival in the Piranha Pool of Life – the human community. An infant, a body-development being, can only be understood supersensible by viewing int in relation to the Birth (body) Sign. Little children reveal the mysteries of the creative forces of the 12-fold Zodiac in a purer way than at any other time of life.
This importance diminishes in the next 7-year period, 7 to 14, as the Temperaments come online. These are based, not on Physical Body, or Zodiacal, principles, but on the Etheric or Life Body – the Mercury Spirit. Even as early as 10 years of age, the influence of the Temperaments Lessens; and by 14 they give over largely to the forces of the Astral, or Sentient Body. This expresses through the 7-fold planetary forces as Personality.
Indeed for many people, there is an important temperamental shift at puberty, from that which sustained the primary child, to a totally different temperament as an adolescent/adult. Say a child with blue eyes – indicating a dominant Astral Body, hence choleric temperament – retains that eye color through puberty, the temperament will change, from choleric to sanguine. In adults, the dominant ‘body’ of the sanguine temperament is the Astral. Conversely, the eye color might change after 14 from blue to grey. The grey eye is evidence of Ego dominance, the dominant body of the choleric adult. The eyes changed, but not the temperament.
Such temperamental concerns are put aside in grappling with the mysteries of Personality, with its 7-fold planetary distinctions – alas the complexity increases. Is the teenager a Moon personality? A Sun? Or a Venus soul even? Indeed all adolescents, as mentioned earlier, are in essence Venus souls – the individual overlay – Sun, Saturn, etc. – is that which creates the individualized Personality.
Again, Zodiacal considerations in understanding the teenager are minimal, the Temperament less so. Yet even this Personality dominance of the teen years pales at 21 as the seminal adult embarks on the quest to develop Character – the essence of the Ego. As we, you and me, were given the key to the door, we took the first step on the seeming endless journey in search of moral and spiritual values.
If the adult eschews this high challenge to consciously work on Character development, perhaps reluctant to remove the mask of Personality, he may remain a teenager for life; fretting about how many parties he gets invited to! This earth existence can become one long, and sadly meaningless, rage.
If development for our backsliding adult stopped before 14, he might function more through Temperament, his conduct in life will appear more childlike. If his temperament is choleric, he will be subject to frequent bouts of temper; if melancholic, he’ll get the sulks to a pathological degree. Surely you’ve seen adults who are at the child-like mercy of a sanguine temperament – or phlegmatic? ‘Stop being childish!’ may have deeper meaning than we think!
Of course if the adult operates continually under the tyranny of infancy development, expressing Zodiacal qualities above all others, he finds it impossible to function in society at all. For instance the person might be expressing his 0 to 7 Cancerian provenance, like King Midas he would wander around irresistibly touching everything – and everyone; just like a four-year-old! – touch is connected to Cancer.
So a high school teacher employs this Ego/Character faculty to both understand and educate the Astral/Personality of the adolescent. A child-like teenager becomes a comprehensible when we realize that this Personality factor is somewhat late in arriving. Some 15-year-olds may still want to build cubbies with the primary kinds at the bottom of the garden! Knowledge will imbue our efforts with effectiveness, helping us remove obstacles from the path of the developmental laggard. There is actually nothing we can do to propel the process, a mystery linked with karma.
And what of the apparent early emergence of adult-like Character? Again armed with knowledge of human nature, we are not as easily led to believe that the sophistication of some adolescents is true Character – rather a particularly well-crafted ‘mask’. A mask comprising elements born, not from the person’s (that word again) inner life, as true Character is, but like a Bower Bird, picked up from the environment – home, school, the media, whatever.
Precocity is any age of development serves the individual poorly; as does soul-retardation of one kind or another. We compound the problem if we, say, in general, relate to teenagers through the fast-fading Temperaments, treating these young people like children ‘You will all form a straight line!!’
Treating them like adults is equally erroneous, foolhardy even.
To acknowledge the emerging flower-like Personality of the young is to dwell and work in reality – soul reality. As such we can more readily understand the increasingly complex being before us. Above all things, teenagers want to be understood.
The author’s own two senior high school students, Stephen and Aanya Whitehead.
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