Today is Norway’s 4th of July–more accurately, it’s the “syttende mai” or the “nasjonaldag” (excuse the wrong-spelling…). Norway is, with a few exceptions (for example, its waldorf schools and Tarjei ;)), a very decent country. And there’s steinerkritikk.no; hooray!

(Unfortunately, the bow has too much white and too little red. We’ll do a more accurate Norway bow next year, if we remember. And make sure the blue Swarowski-crystal can actuallt be seen, it can’t know. (It’s blue and placed right at the middle of the bow.))
The spiritual tasks
As always, Rudolf Steiner himself had very important things to say about Norway. In fact, in 1910, he made a lecture trip to Norway–”The mission of folk souls in connection to the Nordic-Germanic mythology.” In November 1921 he returned, to talk about the future spiritual tasks of Norway and Sweden. (The wisdom related below comes from the Swedish edition of The future spiritual tasks of Norway and Sweden, Telleby, 1998.)
According to Rudolf, the hearts of himself and the Norwegians had found each other in the higher spiritual worlds. In the aftermath of the big catastrophe–WWI–he thinks it’s necessary to gain a deeper knowledge about the European folk souls, in order to deal with societal difficulties, and he scolds those who didn’t care about developing such a knowledge which could have avoided the misery of those past years.
Norway, he says, will have a special task in the future, because in the Norwegian corner of Europe there will exist people who take the true spiritual progress of humanity seriously. The Nordic spirit is particularly apt for spiritual insights, and can exert an inspirational influence on the rest of the western nations. But… “The earth has really become a cosmic mole hole for the human species,” he says, though humans are still related to the devine, spiritual forces in space! The problem is, humans lack knowledge of their true selves, they’ve lost themselves. They’re losing contact with the heavens. Things are bad, but anthroposophy is here to save us! To make us progress, instead of regress! Spirituality has to win over rationalism and intellectuality. Anthroposophy will have to help people experiencing themselves as heavenly beings with life between death and rebirth, rather than simple earthly creatures. The anthroposophical knowledge about the higher worlds has to be brought out in society, it has to be made known.
We’ve got to talk about what was before birth and before conception, says Rudolf, that which we bring with us to this earthly existance. That god rules the world is probably true, but we need to know how he rules the world in different nations–because it’s not a uniform heavenly government. There’s something enigmatic about the peninsula of Norway and Sweden, he says, something that not even all Swedes and Norwegians can understand (no shit!). But there’s also something incomprehensible, for the Nordic peoples, in the southern European characters, behaviours and desires.
On history, Steiner says that external history is not true–only history seen from, and interpreted through, anthroposophy can be true. Without it, the spiritual angle is lost, and truth too. For the anthroposophical observer, it’s been made increasingly clear that the spiritual disappears more and more from, or is paralized in, from the southerns European nations, while the spritual grows in the north. People in the north you see, are still capable of receiving the devine teachings, to know the gods–that is the higher spiritul hierarchies–are walking beside them. Therefore, he urges, we’ve got to take spiritual testimonies seriously.
Gods walked with Norwegians
This may come as a surprise, but according to Rudolf, it’s a fact, back when the gods walked on earth as the teachers of humanity, the nordic peoples still lived in a state of naïvety. This will mean one thing: the nordic peoples will be the teachers of humanity. The Norwegians (and the Swedes, but he seems particularly fond of the “western half of the peninsula”–perhaps because the talks were given in Oslo, or as it was called then, Kristiania) will teach the spiritually retarded peoples of the world, not what they (I would say we, but I can hardly count myself, unspiritual as I am) have learnt from other humans, but what they once learned from the gods!
The Norwegians are the conveyors of devine knowledge!–what’s that for “syttende mai,” pretty fab, right?
We also learn that geography is pretty important. Human beings don’t grow up from the earth, like asparagus, but are born down to the earth from above. It’s absolutely no fluke whether you’re born a Norwegian or a Swede. It’s the souls that strive to be either Norwegian or Swedish. Or any of those.
The nordic deeply influences other parts of the world–the spiritual impulses that spread from here, that is. The nordic gods are not geographically isolated, their powerful tentacles are striving to spread the impulses. (Please please, can they be stopped by armed intervention?)
There are people in the north too, who don’t bother to investigate the inner spiritual, but rather occupy themselves with the outer, empirical sciences (that really, according to Rudolf, are more abstract)–not good. The only way to not be egoistical is when you care about the spiritual.
Well, back to Norway. Back then, when the Norwegians learnt from the gods, the cosmic plan made them develop a special character. The Norwegians of today have to apply their spiritual capacities and extract their sprititual knowledge of the past, using their spiritual understanding. Their special character and capacities extend beyond death, it’s got to do with the eternal life of human beings. Humans have a mission of their own souls here on earth, but they also have a higher spiritual mission. The Norwegians, or their souls, might even have special tasks after their deaths. Those Norwegian souls that pass death’s door will possibly have a special task–because of their character and the specific constitution of their minds–of stimulating their fellow souls in the post-death world, they can give those souls something of the Norwegian folk character, something of the spiritual that they–or at least som of the Norwegians–have a rare access to.
Those who have rightly lived their lives as Norwegians, will inspire their co-existing souls after death, and they will be their teachers in regards to the nature secrets… Because in the spiritual realm, the souls have to be educated about the secrets of the earth, just as those on earth need to be educated on the secrets of the spiritual world.
And would you know, the Norwegians are superiour to the Swedes–when it comes to penetrating the secrets of nature! However, we will all die out if we fail grasping the spiritual.
Love your critics
The Norwegians have a mission. And I think that is the battle against Waldorf schools and the silly anthroposophists! Steiner was wrong, the Norwegians don’t need anthroposophy, neither does anyone else. Stupid rubbish, is what it is. Failure to grasp the spiritual is the first step towards progress, and real humanness. Steiner says that those who hate anthroposophy do so because they are too lazy, too convenient… but, the thing is, he’s a liar. He imagines people hate anthroposophy, when it’s apparent that sensible people simply see that anthroposophy, and Steiner, are wrong. He’s got a message to those who dislike us critics though: it’s shameful to be praised by critics, because if you are, then you know that the anthroposophical strivings have taken a wrong turn somewhere!
Thus, the defenders ought to be happy as long as we criticize them, and they ought not to go on about how horribly mean and what bullies we are–because if we praised you instead that would be much worse!







