USD $20.00
*The Family *Sex Education, Past & Present *Physiology of Sex *Sex as Allegory *Cycle of Life *Art of Sex *Morality of Sex *Heritage of Sex *A Sex Saga *Sex as Spirit *Sex in Evolution *Sex and Babies *A Sex Syllabus *The Under-7s *Funny Side of Sex *Angels of Sex *Tragedy of Sex *Sex and Teachers *Home Birth *Death of a Child *Panning Pornography *Tributes to my Mother and Father
Note: This book has been edited and updated by Mosi Mandil, LMSW. It largely remains the same as Alan’s ideas were very progressive for his time. Additional second edition resources include video resources as well as website and organizational references.
Read more about the Spiritual Syllabus/Golden Beetle Books and Alan Whitehead HERE.
At Waldorf Books we are so excited to have taken on this project – the comeback of Golden Beetle Books!
This is a public service project from Waldorf Books and is not profit driven. Read below for how you can get involved!
Alan Whitehead’s books were the first Waldorf curriculum guides available to the general public starting in the 1980s. He guided so many families through their Waldorf homeschooling experience. He was also prominent in helping teachers and schools develop programs in Australia and abroad.
Alan Whitehead enjoyed a career in Steiner Education for over four decades. He received his teacher-education at Glenaeon School under the tutelage of Miss Sylvia Brose. There he was privileged, in 1967, to be one of the founding teachers of Australia’s first Steiner High School, where he was a Class Guardian and Specialist Art Teacher.
He was also a principal founder, and pioneer teacher (of both the Primary and High Schools) of Australia’s second Steiner school, Lorien Novalis, in Dural, Sydney. He was Chairman of the school from its 1971 inception, until he left in 1985.
As well, he founded and was the Director of the first full-time Steiner teacher-training facility in Australia, the Lorien Novalis College of Teacher Education. He was also the convenor of Rudolf Steiner Schools of Australia – An Association, the first and still current national body of Steiner Education, framing the initial policies and principles.
Alan Whitehead now works, with his wife Susan, as an author, social commentator and consultant on Spiritual Science in general, and Rudolf Steiner Education in particular.
When I first read one of his books over 30 years ago I felt like I had “come home” to what education should be like. Not only had he studied under a direct student of Steiner, but he represented Waldorf education in a culturally diverse manner that allowed each parent and teacher to bring their own culture into the curriculum – just as Steiner intended!
After reading all of that, you can probably see why, we jumped at the chance, when 30-years later, he offered Waldorf Books the copyright and ownership of his collection upon his retirement.
We ended up paying him an undisclosed large sum for his collection, as well as paying thousands of additional dollars to have each of the books typed in to a digital platform (as they were only in print form and had never seen a computer before!). In addition, we spent countless hours putting every one of his books into an online platform that can be searched by grade and topic (something that was never available before!)
We knew that we would probably never earn back what we had invested (as of January 2025 we have earned back only 10% of our investment after 6 years) but we wanted to see his work continue on a strong platform and we believe in supporting a strong Waldorf community, even if it is not always profitable. Our goal is to be able to cover the expenses incurred during the project so we can afford to pay our editors and staff that are working so hard to bring this alive in so many ways!
As a commitment to this belief we have kept the prices of his books much lower than other books that are similar to his, and very close to their original price he charged back in early 2000. You can find the collection here.
We have even created a package that includes all of his collection at a great discount. If you purchased all the books at their regular discounted price you would pay $1,140.00. The discounted collection we created costs only $625.00.
There is still a lot of work ahead for this collection. Although we have already paid editors to do two strong edits of the books, we want to do one more final edit of all the books for a third digital edition, as well as hiring a layout specialist to make physical books available again in the future.
We appreciate your support in helping us keep his work alive! We believe his work is one of of the most important Waldorf resources available on the planet!
Thank you for your support! Your purchase of his books supports this ongoing community service project!
Love,
Waldorf Books
Before we took on the project of managing WaldorfBooks.com I did not realize a lot of the facts on the list below. I purchased my books from Amazon, not realizing the damage it was doing to the book economy and small authors and publishers. I had never sold any retail items before, so I didn’t have a lot of insight. I also didn’t take time to think about how the experience itself shaped my purchase. I would like to share some important things that I have learned since managing Waldorf Books. This experience has changed the way I buy my own books and has made me even more passionate about supporting small booksellers.
Small, Family Owned Bookstore: WaldorfBooks.com has been a small, family owned bookstore since it was first opened by Bob and Nancy over 25 years ago. Angela Guzzo carried on this tradition with her family, and now I carry on this tradition with my family. These kinds of traditions are being lost in our modern society of ‘factory farms’ and ‘online retail warehouses,’ so it feels good to be able to keep this tradition going. It is traditions like this that give a community its heart and soul.
Small Bookstores Nurture the Heart: When Angela first approached us about the bookstore the financial part of the decision did not make a lot of sense. Bookstores are not big income-generators on a small scale, and they take a lot of management. But there is something about carrying on a tradition that has been part of the Waldorf community for so many years that captured our hearts. Not our minds or logic – but our hearts. There is a beauty in carrying on a tradition, and doing the simple work of stocking shelves, touching books, and lovingly wrapping them to send off that just feels
Our Books Carry Positive ‘Emotional Residue’: Emotional residue refers to the belief that emotions experienced by one person in a particular physical environment (or object) leave a trace in that environment (or object) that can affect the emotions of a new person entering that environment (or touching that object), even if that person is unaware of the emotions experienced there previously (Savani, Kumar, Naidu, & Dweck, 2011). Some of you will immediately know what I’m talking about. Have you ever gotten rid of an object because you didn’t want the memories that were ‘attached’ to it? Did you ever get scared watching a horror film about a haunted doll or house.
Many cultures will openly admit this belief. Studies have found, however, that although Americans do not openly admit they believe in ‘emotional residue,’ they often act in ways that show they do. In an article written in Scientific American, the idea of ‘emotional residue’ was explored and was found to have an impact on the feelings of people who lived in a space or interacted with an object (Grewal). We purchase our books directly from the authors or publishers who love them. We do not drop-ship them from another location. And once they arrive, they are lovingly put on shelves that we have set up as a place of beauty. We could have purchased cheap plastic shelves to keep the books on in a closet or storage area but we chose to purchase more expensive and beautiful shelves and make them a daily and beautiful part of the space we work in.
We Support Small Publishers: Most of the publishers we order from are small publishers or the authors themselves. We have had our own experience with publishing through some of our own books, and I can share with you that we make almost nothing when our books are sold on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, or by other large booksellers. When you purchase directly from us, we can make a small profit on the books we have so lovingly written and published. When you purchase from Amazon, we receive an e-mail from a robot that says something like, ‘your Amazon book funds are being deposited today.’ When we check on the deposit, we find out they are often giving us only 7-15 cents per book on a book that actually has a profit margin of at least $10.00. So where did all that extra money go? I have to admit I am very happy when writing checks to pay for our orders, knowing that the money we send out is going to the actual authors or small publishers themselves.
We Provide a Place for Hard-to-Distribute Titles: Recently we made an order from a small publisher/author/teacher who had a delay in shipping the order to us of about two months. When we asked why, they shared with us that they had actually stopped publishing their books because they no longer had a place where they could sell them! So by purchasing their books again, we were able to keep these books alive.
Each Book is Shipped with Love: We personally ship each book. Some booksellers dropship from Amazon or other locations. When we have ordered from them in the past, the books arrive as if someone has just tossed the book into an envelope and thrown it on a conveyor belt somewhere. The books often arrive damaged or bent. Even when they don’t arrive damaged, the energy I feel when opening the package is one of ‘let’s just get this over with and get to the book.’ When you receive a book from us it is lovingly wrapped, with a free bookmark, and an appropriately sized box is carefully selected depending on the size of your order. We never use padded (soft and bendable) envelopes to ship books.
We Use 100% Recyclable Materials: All of the materials we use are 100% recyclable. We even use paper tape and go to the extra effort of ‘old-school’ dampening to get it to stick to the box just so we can avoid adding more plastic tape into the environment. If you ever receive a box that has bubble wrap in it, it is wrap we have recycled from packages we received and we ask you to continue with the recycling chain.
Good Karma Comes from Happy Workers: We love our books and are happy to send them to you. We smile when we see them and we smile thinking about all the happy homes they are going to. We do this work as a way to nurture our hearts. We love looking at them, reading many of them, and feel a connection with all of them. We take care when placing them on the shelves and when taking them off the shelves. For us the process is like a meditation. In Heroides’ Ovid, Breseis says to Achilles, “A few of these lines are blurred by falling tears, Tears which are as heavy as my words.” When we send a book, we hope that its lines are filled with clarity and joy from our smiles.
You are Supporting a Small Business: The benefits of supporting a small business are many. When you purchase from a small business you are supporting innovation, community well-being, entrepreneurship, environmental sustainability, and product diversity.
Our Profits Go to Good Places: Did you ever think about where the money you spend goes once it leaves your hands? Are you paying for a company CEO to sail their yacht into the Caribbean or are you paying for someone to give that money to a local farmer or worker to feed their family? At Waldorf Books our money goes back to other independent business owners, co-workers who are paid $15.00 an hour, and even the local farmer’s market to support small farms.
Savani, K., Kumar, S., Naidu, N. V. R., & Dweck, C. S. (2011). Beliefs about emotional residue: The idea that emotions leave a trace in the physical environment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 684-701. doi:10.1037/a0024102
Grewal, Daisy (2011). Exploring the Science of Emotions. Scientific American
Email Mosi at customerservice@thebearthinstitute.com to either request a USPS tracking number or request an unsent order be canceled. Include “Waldorf Books” and the request you’re making in the title of your email. To locate your order and process your request we need either your order number and/or the email address the ordered was made with.
Print titles from Waldorf Books cannot be returned or refunded once they’re shipped as we do not sell used books. The books in our Imperfect Books section are ones that have sustained minor damage in their journey to us from publishers, distributors, and printers. We are only able to cancel print book orders if our staff receives and processes a request before the order has been sent to you.
Shipping insurance comes automatically with priority mail or orders $100 and up. International orders from a number of countries include duties and tariffs that will be due on arrival. Estimated arrival is provided from USPS and calculated from date of shipping.
Waldorf Books does not offer refunds for any of our electronic materials. The agreements we have with our authors, teachers, and publishers require that all materials that are accessible be paid for. We are not able to run a system where items can be accessed and potentially downloaded without being paid for. Once you have received your direct download link and/or login information your order becomes available to you in full and it becomes impossible to return the digital items.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any other Waldorf Books questions!
To know exactly how much your shipping charges will be, add your items to the shopping cart and make sure to add your postal code and country on the Cart page. The system will then give you all of the available shipping rates as you shop, adjusting automatically as you add or delete items from your cart. Our rates are based on weight and provided by the United States Post Office. Some of the available options include:
Continental USA, HI, AK and APO, and US Protectorates:
Media Mail: always $6.45 flat rate on any size order
First Class Mail:
Less than 7 oz: $3.95
7.1 oz – 13 oz: $6.95
Priority Mail:
Less than 1 lb: $9.95
1.1 lbs – 6 lbs: $13.95
6 lbs or more: $24.95
Express Mail: Available at USPS price, calculated by weight.
International Shipping:
All International orders are shipped via USPS. The rates you see on the cart and checkout pages are the live rates provided by USPS. You are charged the same rate as we pay.
Please be sure to choose the correct shipping speed for your situation. Approximate shipping times from the date of shipment are as follows:
Domestic Shipping:
Media Mail: 7-10 business days
Priority Mail: 2-3 business days
Priority Express: 1-2 business days
First Class Mail: 1-3 business days (Only available for packages less than 13 oz.)
International Shipping:
First Class International: 7-21 business days
Priority International: 6-10 business days
Priority International Express: 3-5 business days
