no sune, i’m not ‘dr speculation’
Sune, The Bee, has apparently got it into his head that I post on the Philosophy of Freedom-blog under the pseudonym ‘Dr. Speculation, and that I posted this reference and these quotes from my blog’. That’s an absolutely ridiculous idea. I did no such thing. I’m going to repost my comments on PoF on this blog, because I am quite furious at this idiocy. [Note: Update, 2010-08-10: See comment.]
One:
_____________
the ‘background’!?!?!
I have had nothing to do with this, Sune Nordwall! Absolutely NOTHING. I did not post this. I have never registered on this forum before today, and have no idea who posted the stuff from my website, and have not been asked for permission. Thus, I vehemently deny being ‘Dr. Speculation’. I don’t post on the internet other than as Zooey or under my real name. So, I don’t quote from my own blog post in that post on this forum. In addition, my translation of the French quote (I hadn’t posted the whole quote that is featured here) wasn’t a machine translation.
The website Sune/TheBee links to in his post has nothing to do with me either. Excalibor is he, himself. That blog contains his speculations. I invite anybody who wish to communicate with me to visit my website/blog: http://zooey.wordpress.com. Or talk to me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/zzzooey. And no, I don’t refer to Mr Dog as ‘God’. I don’t believe in gods, I believe in dogs.
Be ashamed of yourself, Sune! You have my email address — why on earth didn’t you write to me and ask me about this post before you yourself turned into a ‘Dr Speculation’?
______________
Two:
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This: ‘For an introduction to what she has written about her background as scapegoat at a Waldorf in Stockholm during the 1980s, see Interview with Zooey, bitter former Waldorf pupil [nasty link excluded]‘ is Sune’s /TheBee’s work. It has nothing to do with me. And I am not bitter — I am angry, and I am justified in being angry. I got a shitty education, Sune! That’s what you have to deal with. You should not make me a scapegoat for the failings of the education system you defend.
And, Sune, you’re the one who’s doing this ‘full-time’. I’m not. You’re employed by the Swedish Waldorf Federation, who apparently support you in your spouting crap about people — including former waldorf students — all over the internet.
I was on the board of Plans for a very short period of time. I support waldorf criticism, but I’m not going to be engaged in organized waldorf criticism. It’s a good cause, but I can’t do it. And you know that. Also, you know very well I don’t defame Steiner — I do much less to hurt him than you do.
I have to say, Sune, you certainly do your best to piss people off.
______________
(Many thanks to the person who sent me a notification.)
Spread the word about canineosophy!
Update, 2010-08-10: See comment.
Why why why Sune, would I call myself Dr Speculation? It makes no sense whatsoever!
Worth pointing out again: the Swedish Waldorf Federation employs Sune part-time to monitor criticism of waldorf pedagogy on the internet. You wonder what could possibly lead them to such a moronic decision!? Beats me!
I’m sure they’ll be pleased to see he’s finally making the dangerous (because the inherent truths) spiritual science of canineosophy a major priority. And that he’s monitoring people whose identity he’s completely mistaken about. Well well! Congratulations!
With such astonishing mendaciousness, one can only speculate on the special kind of spirituality displayed by Sune, which in turn begs one to question his employer the Swedish Waldorf Federation, who must surely be aware and condone it. This is perturbing, but illuminating, for it shines a light on the movement as a whole; do they allow the shabby spiteful personal attacks, because their cause is more precious than human individuals? And this is the movement which champions education of children and care of people with special needs.
Not only is Sune wrong once again, (someone should maybe publish a list of his mistakes and accusations; if they could be bothered, which I doubt) he also illustrates how nasty those defending anthroposophy can be.
One can only assume this is an irksome at of self sabotage of someone who has no defence, no discussion, and no arguments in favour of their “religion”.
Shame on him.
I subscribe my name to Cathy’s comment above.
In addition: following @Zooey at this blog and at Twitter givs a clear picture of her – what she does and what she does not. She keeps to Zooey (or zzzooey, as zooey was already taken at Twitter) only, in addition to providing her real name, as far as I know. Also, I am in direct email contact with her, and the impression I get from our email conversations is entirely in agreement with the impression I get from Zooey/Alicia’s blog and tweets.
Zooey/Alicia does not lie,
but
The Swedish Waldorf Movement is filled with lies.
‘someone should maybe publish a list of his mistakes and accusations’ — that would be a very long list of mistakes. For all the efforts he seems to put into it, he doesn’t come up with anything particularly interesting — and rarely, if ever, with anything that is correct. It’s that connection with reality that seems to be permanently lacking.
As I wrote on Twitter, the mistake would have been more understandable, had the person called him-/herself Dr Dog. But ‘Dr Speculation’? why oh why?
Sune may remember that once I called myself Ahriman on MN. But he also knows I identified myself practically at once. ‘Zooey’ was taken, and I had been banned (because of Sune) as ‘zzzooey’.
I may not tell everybody everything I do all the time, and not tell Sune everything I do, but I’m hell of a lot more honest than him. I have no reason in the world to use another name than zooey or my own at PoF. Why would I? I have nothing against people finding my blog or me. Sune, on the other hand, has a very long history of deceiving people about who he is. He registered at MN (mumsnet) as Eva, clearly because this would lead at least somebody to think he was a parent, a mother or just to instill confidence — which he couldn’t do by appearing as his regular self. And this happens all the time with him. He doesn’t want people to connect his different Twitter-accounts and websites to each other and to him.
I fully agree with what Cathy writes:
‘With such astonishing mendaciousness, one can only speculate on the special kind of spirituality displayed by Sune, which in turn begs one to question his employer the Swedish Waldorf Federation, who must surely be aware and condone it. This is perturbing, but illuminating, for it shines a light on the movement as a whole; do they allow the shabby spiteful personal attacks, because their cause is more precious than human individuals?’
One does wonder, actually. These actions don’t cast a more favourable light on the anthroposophic movement. Perhaps it’s time for them to stop focusing so much on the enemies ‘without’ — and turn to those within. As the knight in shining armour riding to the defence of anthroposophy, Sune does quite a terrible job.
I find the reason, for Sune Nordwall appearing under different names all the time, quite clear: to readers, for example parents seeking information in order to decide on their children’s enrollment in waldorf/steiner schools, it appears as if ten different people have positive opinion, if SN posts under ten different names. Sune Nordwall and the Swedish Waldorf Federation in the background cheat – it is organized cheating.
Well, absolutely, that’s one reason, probably the most important.
There’s nothing wrong about wanting or needing to change one’s alias — there are good reasons for it. Especially for people who’ve been made the object of Sune’s attention. However, he doesn’t have any good reasons.
And the important thing is that I am not ‘dr Speculation’ — and I can’t help but suspect he knew this all along. He was simply delighted to be handed a reason to throw crap in my direction. He didn’t actually care if I was that person or not — but he used the opportunity. It’s very typical. Look at the content of his comment at PoF. It’s irrelevant, nasty and nothing but another example of his advertising his crappy websites/blogs.
So — where is he? Why doesn’t he come here and tell me he’s sorry he made a mistake (whether it was a mistake or a ‘mistake’)? It’s because he doesn’t give a fuck. He’s had his opportunity to do what he does, and in this he doesn’t include dealing with the consequences of his actions.
And if you continue to avoid reacting to this, Sune, I think the minimally decent thing would be for you to remove that nasty comment on PoF. It’s not OK. I’m actually not such a horrible person that I can’t excuse people for being wrong. But would it kill you to acknowledge it?
Well, @Zooey, if somebody changes h* alias in order to avoid persecution, then *he wouldn’t use BOTH the new and the old alias, wouldn’t *he?
The many aliases of Sune Nordwall are meant to make the impression that there are many who share the opinions he pushes forward. That’s it.
The most important for us, the steiner/waldorf critics, is helping the newcomers, be it parents seeking information before possible enrollment of their children in a waldorf/steiner school, or be it refugees who got burned withing the anthro/steiner/waldorf system. In either case, presumptive parents or refugees, it is crutial to be able judging real proportions of for/against, and to understand that they are not alone.
True! And such a person wouldn’t go about it in the way Sune does at all. It was just a case of me feeling I had to clarify my position in order to avoid somebody misunderstanding me and thinking I said it’s never justified, when in fact it often is.
And when it comes to proportions:
go to http://www.waldorf.se/ (The Swedish Waldorf Federation)
choose “Medarbetare.se” , there comes the list of “Teacher at waldorf sch wanted” ;
in the upper part of this list, click on “Medarbetare finnes” ,
there comes an other list, “Teacher seeking appointment”
Compare those two lists: (red) teacher needed and (blue) teacher available.
In Sweden, tomorrow the staff shall be on place at schools (at many schools, the staff was back by August 2).
Pupils start August 18 +/- few days.
In Sweden, the holiday-month is July.
At the regular job-advertising sites (for regular teachers), waldorf school positions are not advertized at all (this Spring). I have checked Stockholm only, but probably it is the same in all Sweden.
So, there will be “the neighbor’s neighbor” appointed, as usual. This is NOT because of the new school legislation, it has been that way previously, too.
On leaving the waldorf school I have been part of for a while, the pupils in grade 9 counted somewhere between 20 and 30 “teachers” they had since start of first grade.
One of the Waldorf/Steiners “selling argument” is: “same teacher grade 1-8.”
Oh wow. Huge difference. There’s one eurythmist, a chef and a janitor available though. Not one teacher among them. Well, the eurythmist, but that’s a far-stretch. If one looks at the wanted ads, they need teachers, real teachers.
The same teacher for those 8 years is not ‘only’ a selling argument, it is supposed to be one of the defining characteristics of waldorf education — it is truly important for spiritual reasons, in the whole scheme of child development according to anthroposophy and Steiner. It’s as important as block teaching and eurythmy.
Dr Speculation doesn’t lack talent though. What about this master-piece:
http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/node/4032
Are Gnomes Causing the Crop Circles?
Well, yes, that seems likely. I understand how one could reach such a conclusion. It’s certainly more plausible than aliens, even though I cherish the space-ship theory too.
I can’t make it out; is the Philosophy of Freedom site a spoof? Is it serious? Who is or who are the people behind the site? In ‘about’ no names are mentioned.
Best wishes,
Nick
No, it’s not a spoof as far as I know. It’s serious. I know the name of one person, but I’m not sure if it’s pseudonym or a real name.
‘Dr Speculation’ seems to be on the humorous side, however. I haven’t checked the site out in any detail, but it seems to me that anyone can register and write comments and you get like a ‘my journal’-tab which I assume allows you to post your own posts as well.
@Nick:
you can check using whois, I did. Rather secret.
Zooey,
Since you are registered on Tom Last’s PoF site now, you should be able to view this profile of the real Dr. Speculation.
http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/user/1533
He is a PhD living in Spring Valley, NY, which is the oldest settlement of anthroposophy in the USA. There you find institutions like the Green Meadow Waldorf School, the only full-4-year Eurythmy School in the US, Sunbridge College and the Fellowship Community, which is a geriatric care facility and hospice.
———–
@Nick
The PoF site is very serious indeed, but is free enough not to take itself so seriously. It was created by Tom Last, who lives in the same Sacramento, CA suburb where Rudolf Steiner College is located (Fair Oaks). However, Tom Last is very adamant about rejecting all of Steiner’s clairvoyant anthroposophy after Steiner’s “come to Jesus” moment in 1900, known as the “Mystery of Golgotha.”
Tom’s focus is to develop the kind of sense-free thinking that Steiner championed in his main philosophical work, Philosophy of Freedom, which was published in 1893.
I encourage you to look through the site because it is an earnest attempt not only to “de-Christianize” (or even “pre-Christianize”) Steiner, but also more importantly to appreciate Steiner’s work during what Peter Staudenmaier points out historically as “Steiner’s atheist phase.”
Yes, that’s true, @alfa-omega. The name I have coincides with one of the first members (they’re numbered) on the website. It may be that this person isn’t the registered owner, but it is the person who created and who runs the site.
@ Tom — yup. I did. Seems like a real, actual person to me, not a sock-puppet or anything strange in any way or form. But theoretically the name could be a pseudonym (I mean, from the limited knowledge I have of this at the moment). It doesn’t much matter, I think.
I very much like the description of Last’s intentions the way you describe them to Nick.
It is all for the best that Sune has this full-time position with the Steiner Whozit Federation of Wherever. The damage he is doing them (this federation that is, apparently, actually paying him cold hard cash to do what he does), Waldorf, and anthroposophy is untold. He’s of tremendous use to critics in this new role. He repeatedly makes them (waldorf, steiner, anthroposophy) look not merely mendacious etc., but like complete incompetent idiots. He can barely open his mouth online anymore without saying something ridiculous. This is a good thing – think about it.
Diana http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/no-sune-im-not-dr-speculation/#comment-3740 :
Yes.
In addition, the Swedish Waldorf SCHOOL Federation appointed a PR-agency to help them achieving a successful public image. In the meantime, there is disorder within the Waldorf Schools.
@ Hollywood Tomfortas,
thanks for that clarification Tom, it puts another perspective on the different strands of thought within the Steiner movement.
Nick
PS:
Since yesterday evening, the list “Medarbetare sökes” at the Swedish Waldorf School Federation appears to have been edited. In addition, an ad for a position at Örjanskola (up to year 12 in Järna) has appeared at a regular job-advertisements site (Platsbanken), dated August 7, what ever the reason may be.
Alfa-omega, what is the ‘whois’ function?
“Whois” reveales who owns/maintains particular domain, for example companyname.com
http://www.whois.com/
In this particular case, the domain philosophyoffreedom.com has not been booked directly by the owner, but by an internet provider, Godaddy
Checking at Godaddy,
http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=philosophyoffreedom.com&prog_id=godaddy
(you can use directly the link above, thus taking the step 2 of what I have done),
you will get information starting “Registrant: Domains by Proxy, Inc.”
further down on the page.
Nothing to do with @Zooey as far as I can see.
The sum:
The Swedish Waldorf School Federation is concerned with creation of a positive public image (Sune Nordwall, however, can hardly be associated with “positive”) instead of taking care of the disorder within the waldorf schools.
Diana wrote:
‘It is all for the best that Sune has this full-time position with the Steiner Whozit Federation of Wherever. The damage he is doing them (this federation that is, apparently, actually paying him cold hard cash to do what he does), Waldorf, and anthroposophy is untold. He’s of tremendous use to critics in this new role. He repeatedly makes them (waldorf, steiner, anthroposophy) look not merely mendacious etc., but like complete incompetent idiots. He can barely open his mouth online anymore without saying something ridiculous. This is a good thing – think about it.’
Indeed. The most damning for them is that they don’t seem to realize this. It’s like they are detached from reality. Oh, wait, that’s exactly what they are.
I don’t know which scenario is the worst, in the sense that it tells people something rather revolting about the movement: that/if they endorse what he’s doing or that/if they remain ignorant about it. Obviously, one of these options (or a combination, possibly) has to reflect reality.
And, I just remembered what I thought about this morning, what originally happened is not so much the issue here. It’s not like I can’t accept that Sune made a mistake — it’s not really a big thing at all. But he doesn’t have the guts to say something about it. When I objected to this ‘mistake’ of his, it would have been an easy thing for him to read through the other posts made by ‘Dr Speculation’, and that it wasn’t me should have been an obvious conclusion.
It’s not that he hasn’t been on the internet — he has. But he’s happy to throw out these idiotic ideas and not consider, for even one minute, the consequences. Why is it so impossible to simply drop a line and explain whatever needs explaining? And, since Sune is now monitoring waldorf criticism on behalf of the Federation, what is their opinion? What do they think about this? Do they honestly think Sune’s ‘monitoring’ is going to help them at all? If they do, they’re beyond rescue. They must be deluded. In fact, they would get better updates on what happens in waldorf criticism by following me directly. I’m trying to wrap my mind around the fact that they must actually believe he offers them something helpful.
Why don’t they take a few hours on the internet and inform themselves?!
Sune suffers from a debilitating ailment — an absolute lack of a sense of humour. Which also comes through in that comment of his on PoF. Dr Speculation, however, clearly does have a sense of humour. Thus, to Sune, he must be an anemy of anthroposophy. Which means that a critic must have registered in order to ‘heckle’, as Sune puts it, anthroposophy. And even in the case he doesn’t believe this himself, he wants other people to believe it. He can’t bear that people think anthroposophists aren thoroughly serious all the time. He is deadly serious.
Of course, he may think my post about canineosophy was ‘heckling’. In fact, though, I thought Steiner’s utterances, if correctly reported, were hughly endearing. I like dogs, remember? I had come up with the idea of a canineosophy on my own, and was pleasantly surprised to find Steiner had too.
I am much pleased to learn that Sune has indeed posted in the PoF thread:
http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/node/4071#comment-9177
I hadn’t seen his comment when I wrote my comment above this one.
I copy my reply here.
***
Thank you The Bee / Sune! And you’re quite right that there is a connection between thinking and smelling — mr Dog verifies this. As well as willing and smelling. Actually, I think Steiner’s idea of a ‘World as Will and Smell’ is brilliant. It’s not at all off the point, not even in the real world outside of anthroposophy.
And I happily take credit for inspiring the post about canineosophy, so there’s nothing to understand there. It’s just that I’m not Dr Speculation. And that’s a rather important distinction. I have enjoyed some posts by Dr Speculation though — perhaps in particular the one about gnomes and crop circles.
***
I am very glad to see that canineosophy has a wider following than I & the Mrs Dogs first thought. It will be a blow for the Ms Cats who will have to kill even more small furry animals than before & leave them dismembered about the house in an expression of disgust, one which will be ignored by those superior canine beings only interested in rabbits.
I agree, it’s very pleasing to see. Mr Dog does actually take an interest in small furry animals, in the absence of bunnies, but goes about it in a more sophisticated way than a cat would ever be capable of.
I do wonder what this little incident says about the state of humour in the anthroposophic movement. If someone jokes, it must be me? Not that I did. Canineosophy is, of course, a deadly serious worldview, also called truth.
Gnomes behind the crop circles? Nah. Neither Tom nor you seem to have read your Faust … The poodle cousin of Mr God makes them. Didn’t Mr God tell you … ;-/)
I assume that’s Goethe not Marlowe. Marlowe’s Faustus I have read: ‘but that was in another country;/ And besides, the gnome is dead. …’
Oh, my Dog, that’s blasphemy! Spelling Dog backwards. Really. Very. Bad.
Not good for your karma, Sune. In addition, you may incur the wrath of Dog already in this life. Watch out, the earthly messengers of Dog are all over town.
Well, the poodle I knew was pretty neurotic, I can vividly imagining her making crop circles. But this doesn’t get the gnomes off the hook. They may be contributing too. Although, this must be admitted, it seems far more likely that they’re making subterranean ducts and cavities. If this is the case, the mighty nose of a local mr/mrs Dog may follow the trail, as it were, and cause the crop circle patterns in the fields. Which really, if you think about it, explains the intricate patterns. They’re the ‘imprints’ of gnome architecture (they’re good at it), even if not directly manufactured by the gnomes personally.
I think it’s all figured out now.
(Changing name again? For people who don’t know Sune, which by now can’t be that many, he’s The Bee who speculated about Dr Speculation.)
Any more gnomes sent on their final journey to drown in the pool, Thetis? My theory (backed up with lots of sound reasoning, see above comment) indicates you’re doing the crops and the fields a big service by ridding the environment of gnomes. (All gnomes will move to biodynamic fields because they assume you won’t be vacationing anywhere near these.)
I don’t see any evidence of biodynamics hereabouts and they should be safe for now if they burrow in an opposite direction to me. There were a few gnomes in Barcelona, working their way up La Sagrada Familia with their little pick-axes, but I was able to knock them off from a distance with the power of my abstract intellect & thus prevent them infesting Gaudi’s vision with tiny motifs visible only to the initiated, or birds. It was another matter with the Dali, before which they quailed in horror and then actually melted! This may be the answer. I knew there was a point to surrealism.
It’s almost like psychic warfare?
Now… if we recruit guys like this http://cuteoverload.com/2010/08/11/celebriqte/ to canineosophy… canineosophy will soon have more celebrity supporters than Sune, The3Bee, ‘Robert’/WaldorfAnswers could ever come up with!!! And a whole lot cuter!
Zooey,
Over the course of my 34 years as an anthroposophist, I have amassed a storehouse of carnal experience, observations, knowledge and gossip all now ripened into mature carnal and incarnal wisdom, affording me trenchant insight into the curious mating habits and eccentric mating rituals of the hominid species, Homo Anthroposophicanus, most notably those specimens in the age range of middle-aged to elderly males. (it takes one to know one, you know.)
Thus I feel it is incumbent upon me to share this incarnal (perhaps even incarnational) wisdom with you, as you are being continuously hounded (Hi, Mr. Dog!) and harassed by the obsessive-compulsive mating habits of that notorious Swedish serial Cyber-Stalker, Sune the Sullen Bee.
One only need ask why Sune calls himself “The Bee,” and then read the first 2 of the “9 lectures on Bees” given by Rudolf Steiner in 1923 for the answer. Here are some relevant quotes:
9 Lectures on Bees
Lecture 1, February 3, 1923 in Dornach, GA 351
(this lecture is actually listed in GA 348 in German, but GA 351 in English)
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA351/English/SGP1975/19230203p01.html
“In the life of the bee, everything that in other creatures expresses itself as sexual life is, in the case of the bees, suppressed [repressed], very remarkably suppressed [repressed]; it is very much driven into the background.
For you see, in the case of the bees, reproduction is limited to quite a few exceptional female individuals — the Queen Bees — to a very few chosen individuals, for in the others the sexual life is more or less suppressed [withdrawn].
But it is love that is present in the life of sex, and love belongs to the realm of the soul; and further, through the fact that certain organs of the body are worked upon by forces of the soul, these organs become able to reveal, to express love.
———————————
(Here I must interrupt to intersperse my own translation, as the RS Archive version is somewhat muddled.)
———————–
RS ARCHIVE: Thus, because all this is driven into the background in the nature of the bees, and reserved for the Queen Bee alone, the whole otherwise sexual life of the colony is transformed into those activities which the bees develop among themselves.
————————-
TOM TRANSLATION: And the bees, by actually pushing [the forces of] their love life back and on to the solitary Queen Bee, manage everywhere else throughout the colony to transform [the forces of] their sexual life into all the activities that they develop with and among themselves.
—————–
ORIGINAL: Und indem bei den Bienen das Liebesleben zurückgedrängt wird, eigentlich nur auf die einzige Bienenkönigin, wird das Geschlechtsleben sonst im Bienenstock verwandelt zu all diesem Treiben, das die Bienen untereinander entwickeln.
——————–
The next sentence comes a paragraph later, but was also poorly translated:
———————-
RS ARCHIVE: With the exception of the Queen, the bees are actually beings which, as I would like to put it, say to themselves “We will renounce the individual sexual life that we make ourselves ‘bearers of love.’”
————————–
TOM TRANSLATION: With the exception of the Queen, the bees are actually beings which, I’d like to say, tell themselves: ‘We wish to forego the sex life of the individual [in order to] make ourselves ‘bearers of the love life’ [of the collective].”
————————
ORIGINAL: Die Biene ist tatsächlich, mit Ausnahme der Bienenkönigin, eigentlich dasjenige Wesen, das, ich möchte sagen, sich sagt: Wir wollen auf das einzelne Geschlechtsleben verzichten und uns selber zu einem Träger des Liebeslebens machen.
================================
So there you have it, Zooey, you are the officially designated Swedish Queen Bee target for Sune the Sullen Bee who, like those bees described by Steiner above, has steadfastly repressed the individual fructificatory forces at the center of his anthroposophical libido in order to have them rebound or reflect, as it were, to encompass your being in a collective love-embrace from the periphery. Thus is he cyber-stalking you, not for centripetally selfish sexual gratification, but for peripherally altruistic universal love, which will bring you “up to speed” as it were, along the path into your glorious future human evolution.
(If you like, I can explain this better by tutoring you in some basics of Projective Geometry. But for now, please wait for the next comment which will touch upon Sune’s obsession with your, er, ah, how shall I say this delicately? Your. . . . fecundity. Yes, that’s it: your fecundity.)
Imker Tom
Zooey,
Before addressing the fecundity issue, I would like to post this excerpt from Steiner because it shows exactly why Sune calls himself The Bee. You see, according to Steiner the bees right now already possess a consciousness which we will attain during the future Venus Existence of our Earth. But that “existence” is way the hell off — in fact, since we are now in the “Earth Existence”, we will have to go through the entire “Jupiter Existence” before we get to the next reincarnation and transformation of the earth called the Venus Existence. But that’s where Sune’s consciousness is now — or at least that’s his ideal. One last note on jargon. You’ll see the phrase “kama-sexuality.” Kama is Sanskrit for “desire” (Think Kama Loka and Kama Sutra) and Steiner uses it to refer to the natural erotic forces — or in a word “astrality.”
Foundations of Esotericism
Lecture 4 given September 29, 1905 in Berlin, GA 93a
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/FoundEsoter/19050929p01.html
In the way a beehive functions we experience something which is outside our earthly existence, something which is not found anywhere else on earth. What takes place on the other planets cannot be discovered merely by thinking. You cannot, for example, experience what is taking place on the Sun or Venus if you are unable to transfer your consciousness into the life and functioning of a colony of bees.
The bee has not gone through the whole course of evolution as we have. From the outset it has not been connected with the same evolutionary sequence as the other animals and man. The consciousness of the beehive, not of the single bee, is immensely lofty. The wisdom of this consciousness will only be attained by man in the Venus existence. Then he will have the consciousness which is necessary in order to build with a substance which he creates out of his own being.
The ants build the ant heap out of all sorts of things, but as yet build no cells. The building of cells is on higher planes something absolutely different. Through transferring your consciousness into the beehive, through taking on the Venus consciousness, you learn something entirely different from anything else on earth, the complete recession of the element of sex.
With the bees what is sexual is vested only in the one queen. The kama-sexuality [astrality] is almost entirely eliminated; the drones are killed. Here we have the prototype of something which will actually be accomplished in a future humanity, when work is the highest principle. It is only through the impulse of the spirit that you gain the faculty of transferring yourself into the community of the bees.
More nonsense from you, Tom, this time obsessed with sex, or as you write “carnal experience”.
I chose Thebee as acronym, long ago, because it is a social insect, that transforms something out of nature into nourishment also for us humans, as honey. This is what anthroposophy does, transform what you can learn out of a developed scientific approach to nature into soul and spiritual nourishment for the human being.
http://thebee.se/SCIENCE/Science.htm
@Hollywood Tomfortas
“fecundity”
Do you know Zooey so well you can use that concept here?
Otherwise I think it is not so sensitive to do so.
Jan,
Tom knows me well enough, I would think, to know that I take what he writes with a grain of salt ;-)
In this case, as Sune’s reaction had me falling off my chair in laughter, it was definitely worth it!
And, I forgot to say, it’s nice to see you back here, Jan!
“And, I forgot to say, it’s nice to see you back here, Jan!”
is this a lunatic asylum? Then of course you should welcome “sensitive” Jan, the real “Geisteswissenschaftler” ; )
Bye bye, ‘Janet’! You’re not welcome here and you know it. Further comments from you will be deleted.
Ps. I wonder what Janet Mills and Joshua Smith have done to be associated with this crap. Perhaps nothing, which makes it all even worse.
far funnier and arguably more plausible than Freud. Possibly a hint of DH Lawrence. And why not? One could pay a great deal for this kind of analysis but Sune is getting it for free and in public, just like one of his many celebrities for whom nothing would be more horrible than being ignored.
The way to avoid this attention would be to leave zooey alone, at least to address her arguments only & not get personal and certainly not abusive, which quite frankly Sune you often have been, and in a way which imo justifies Tom’s theorising.
While nice in between, intelligent and girlish, Zooey’s background and obsessive prattle contradicts that it would be possible to have a meaningful public, calm, reasoning and thoughtful discussion with her.
Sorry: generally nice.
@ thetis — It certainly justifies joking about it. There’s not much else to do, is there? And Sune has done worse things than mistaking me for ‘Dr Speculation’. (That little mistake provided some entertainment, at least ;-))
(@ random passers-by — To avoid potential misunderstandings, ‘Janet’ (and ‘Joshua’, whose comment was deleted but may have been read by some before it was) is not the work of Sune. Just sayin’. )
@ Sune — well. Have you considered your own role in this?
This…
… is the person who claims I ‘obsessive[ly] prattle’* and who requests ‘meaningful public, calm, reasoning and thoughtful discussion’. (Those tweets were posted a few hours ago by ‘excalibor’.) It’s not even ‘nice in between’ — is it? It’s crap all through.
And, I wonder, does the Swedish Waldorf Federation support this talking about “Dr Staudenmaier” — as if he wasn’t actually getting a PhD or as if is name wasn’t really Staudenmaier?
Does the Federation support Sune/excalibor in comparing the (very well-written and well-referenced, at that) website of a former waldorf student to an anti-semitic organisation?
If the Waldorf Federation supports this, they’re disgusting in a way I have great difficulty imagining. It’s below them, way below. Wouldn’t it be nice if anyone else from the Federation, except Sune, would make a statement? I think it would. It’s pretty easy — either you endorse this crap, or you don’t.
[* what about the retweeting between @mycroftii, @the3bee and @waldorfanswers -- all twitter-accounts operated by Sune -- that's what I call obsessive. You tweet the same thing over and over again. Then your different accounts RT each other. Over and over again. Obsessive? Yes, I think so.]
I have read Staidenmaier and a number of the sources he has claimed to describe.
He doesn’t deserve “niceness”.
Oh, he most certainly does. And that is your problem Sune. You’re so stuck you can’t acknowledge your own errors, much less be nice when someone’s serious work you perceive as threatening to your much cherished beliefs.
I have read a number of the sources he has claimed to describe. You clearly haven’t.
Oh, cheesus. This is the billionth time for this. Your reading is fraught with weaknesses. You’re frequently in error. I haven’t really find that to be the case with Peter. I’ve seen your arguments about this. They’re simply screwed up; fact and fiction, cause and effect, and so forth, it’s all a big jumble, much of which is unintelligible. Neither do you have the historical context figured out.
You’re an anthroposophist. Research on the history of the anthroposophic movement isn’t threatening your beliefs — keep them.
Sune – girlish prattle? Which century are you in?
If only zooey would put down those macaroons* and succumb to the vapours.
*Ibsen. Please keep up there at the back!
Your argumentation wrt Staudenmaier: pure wordsoup.
Wordsoup? Well, Sune, I think you’ve found the perfect word to describe your websites!!
LOL!
@ thetis — we’ll need macaroons if we’re to survive this. Possibly pop-corn as well. And a drink. But I assume you have that part covered where you are. Well, I have too, but it would mean having to get up from the sofa.
Sune: your dispute is with Cornell University. In awarding Staudenmaier his Phd (for which he shared a prize with another candidate) his supervisors have endorsed his scholarship. It is principally their reputation, not his, that is at stake.
Then you must take your case up with his present employers, and any other university or publisher who choses (out of all the academic competition) to recognise the quality of his work. Your task will be arduous.
PhD? So has David Irving. Says what?
That’s plain nasty, Sune. You keep stuff like that to your own websites, this isn’t the place for it.
As always, I encourage everybody to join the waldorf critics list, where Peter is a frequent contributor. (Link in the side-bar.) And read his articles.
I couldn’t agree more with what Thetis writes. Either you deal with reality, Sune, or you continue to make a fool of yourself.
Coward.
Coward? You call me a coward for expecting you to uphold some minimum level of decency, like not comparing Peter to holocaust denier? Well, yes, then I’ll proudly be a coward.
By the way, it would be interesting to know if the Swedish Waldorf Federation supports your views on this Sune? Does this reflect their opinions on academic achievements? I would be pleased to give much attention and blog-space to an admission by them that they agree with you, Sune!
Deflection
“Coward” refers to your cowardice in refusing to actually read a number of the Steiner sources that Staudenmaier has referred to in his writings, and compare them with what he writes about them, nothing else.
Why don’t we suggest that readers who are interested in finding out whose account is more credible consult one of the numerous texts where Peter S has explained and replied to your very often confused statements and outright gibberish? What is it now — at least 10 years? The waldorf critics list archives (available from beginning at wwwwaldorfcritics.org) contain lots of evidence that, in fact, Peter has done his very best to reply to you, explaining in great detail and with detailed references where your errors lie. But, apparently, it’s like talking to a wall.
More deflection. First you think I don’t treat Staudenmaier with enough respect. When I tell you the reason I don’t think he deserves niceties, and tell why, you chicken out and deflect.
Coward stands.
Anyone interested in him can do a simple search on his name at Google. It tells everything about his Janus Face as “historian”.
In case someone has forgotten his first name, its “Peter”
Respect? I didn’t talk about respect. I think normal decency would be just fine. (Comparing people to David Irving doesn’t belong in that category.)
You haven’t told me any ‘reasons’ I haven’t heard hundreds of times before. As I wrote in this comment — http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/no-sune-im-not-dr-speculation/#comment-3834 — your ‘reasons’ have been met with well-referenced and convincing arguments every time. But you keep harping on. Not many find it very funny to engage in yet another round with your ‘reasons’. You could do us a favour and rename them unreasons.
And, Sune, let’s put this straight — the reason you tell people to google is that you have spent the past 10 years producing nasty websiteas about Peter. You know that if people google his name, they’ll end up at your websites. When you ‘defeat’ people — as in the google or wikipedia ‘wars’ — it’s because of your fanaticism.
Peter has contributed to the critics list — use the archives. In addition, people can ask at their library for Peter’s article in Nova Religio. (Or they could ask him — I’m sure he’d be happy to send it to them.) Some other articles by him are available here: http://www.social-ecology.org/author/peter-staudenmaier/.
‘In case someone has forgotten his first name, its “Peter”’
No, it is, actually, Peter. Are you operating under some delusion that he isn’t really named Peter Staudenmaier? If so, that would be a novel addition to the old delusions.
Maybe you think other people invent phony names and identities to the same extent and frequency as you do?
Sune,
I find it quite fascinating that you would impugn Peter Staudenmaier with the demonized being of David Irving. Now, aside from your insane jealousy and bitter envy of Peter’s academic achievements — (you do know that a PhD from Cornell is equivalent to any from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, even Oxford & Cambridge in the UK) — the citing of David Irving is a form of your “protesting too much” because of a “guilty conscience.”
You see, Sune, it is clear from his pro-German writings and lecturing about World War I that Rudolf Steiner — if he were alive today — would most assuredly be in the camp of so-called “Holocaust-deniers.” You need only look at the comprehensively anthroposophical work of Gennady Bondarev (as published in German on the Willi Lochmann site), or in English by the research of Robert Mason, to see that their work is a direct and logical extension of the ideas and ideals that Rudolf Steiner held about German national politics on the world stage when Steiner lectured back then. Deep down in your anthroposophical heart, Sune, you know that and of course you feel guilty about it, but you can’t tolerate that in your soul, and so you seek to purge it, to expunge it, as if you suffer from a sort of “spiritual bulemia,” as it were..
Thus the invocation of David Irving is the attempt on your part to exorcise the “demon of Peter Staudenmaier” that possesses your own mind and soul. Otherwise, you might have to face even the possibility that Peter Staudenmaier might be right about something related to the history of World War I with Steiner, and of course you know the focus of his PhD dissertation is how anthroposophy developed in Germany and Italy between the two world wars. And much of what I have read of his thesis on the WC Yahoo group explains to me why Bondarev and Robert Mason are so “anthroposophically correct,” as it were, about the sinister spiritual/conspiratorial causes of WW II and the Holocaust. Rudolf Steiner would be right there with them today!
Sune wrote:
“While nice in between, intelligent and girlish, Zooey …”
You really don’t know how inappropriate this comment is, do you?
“And, I wonder, does the Swedish Waldorf Federation support this talking about “Dr Staudenmaier” — as if he wasn’t actually getting a PhD or as if is name wasn’t really Staudenmaier?”
Newsflash – he’s finished the PhD. Sorry Sune, you can remove the quotes.
“No, it is, actually, Peter. Are you operating under some delusion that he isn’t really named Peter Staudenmaier? If so, that would be a novel addition to the old delusions.”
I suppose Sune is working hard coming up with new angles. For about 10 years now, the main point of attack has been: Staudenmaier doesn’t have any advanced degrees, he is a “self-described historian,” he is just a “bookstore clerk,” he’s “only” got a B.A. in (I forget what, German literature I think). For SEVERAL YEARS, Sune insinuated online wherever he could, that maybe Peter didn’t really even have a B.A., that he was lying about that. He even contacted Cornell University to try to convince people in Peter’s department that Peter was a con artist!
Now, unfortunately, he has completed a PhD from Cornell, so Sune’s line of attack is going to have to change, fairly radically. So: maybe Peter isn’t a “con artist” “pretending” to be a scholar. Maybe he isn’t even actually who he says he is!
I have an idea Sune, why don’t you start asking Peter for his birth certificate?
I have already checked a number of his writings against the sources he refers to as basis for what he writes.
He’s a repeatedly untruthful mind and word manipulator in his descriptions of the published sources he says he refers to.
His problem is that wrt Steiner anyone with a computer and internet connection can check his claimed sources.
After some time, you get tired of checking him as his truthfulness is so erratic.
Smart? Very.
Consistently truthful? Completely unpredictable.
And, Sune, he has replied to your allegations and accusations and mostly rather incomprehensible arguments — and, frankly, I don’t think there’s any doubt who makes more sense.
You’re miffed that someone takes an interest in anthroposophy for the wrong reasons — i e, not wanting to be an anthroposophist. You can’t bear seeing anthroposophy treated as an object of historical study. By someone who doesn’t covet Steiner the way you do.
‘I have an idea Sune, why don’t you start asking Peter for his birth certificate?’
LOL! We could experience our own little birthers / truthers (or what are they called?) hysteria in the world of anthroposophy!
Here’s info on that prize Thetis mentioned:
‘Peter Staudenmaier has been awarded the Messenger Chalmers Graduate Prize of $1,500 for best dissertation on human progress and the evolution of civilization for 2010.’
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/history/news.php
In any case, people may want to read these articles (which I highly recommend instead of Sune’s babble):
http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/nr.2008.11.3.4?journalCode=nr (This one was also awarded a prize, I believe)
http://ehq.sagepub.com/content/39/1/47.abstract
‘You really don’t know how inappropriate this comment is, do you?’
I don’t think he does. But, considering some of what’s been written earlier in this thread, it’s a rather interesting comment.
At thebee.se and americans4waldorf.org I have addressed his varying “responses” to my comments on his article “Anthroposophy and ecofascism”.
I’m not miffed that someone takes an interest in anthroposophy without wanting to be an anthroposophist. I’m miffed about his repeated untruthfulness in his descriptions of published historical sources.
In parenthesis: You ask what the Swedish Federation of Waldorf schools thinks about what I write.
My relation to the Federation is purely informational. I’m hired half-time to inform about what is published in different media related to Waldorf education, nothing else.
What I write on the net is something I do outside my work for the Federation. I do it purely as a private person. They don’t pay me to do it and have no responsibility for it, as I don’t do it as representative for anyone else than myself.
I can’t remember ever having written anything on the net as representative of anyone else than myself, except at Waldorfanswers.org and americans4waldorf.org that are group productions.
If/When you promote any other view, it is untrue.
Well, Sune, I wouldn’t call it addressing.
‘I can’t remember ever having written anything on the net as representative of anyone else than myself’
What about your numerous bogus identities you use?
Nevertheless — you keep your roles apart, is that what you want to say? Well, that’s interesting. I think, however, the Federation ought to take a look at what you write as well. I think it severely compromises your ability to effectively monitor anything on the internet in a way that would be useful to them. What you write provides ample evidence that your perception of what goes on is severely flawed.
When you write not so nice things about people or harrass former waldorf parents and academics you do this as a hobby. I do think the Federation ought to hire someone to monitor you. That’s what they really need.
Also, Sune, you’ve been reluctant to admit you work for them at all — why this sudden admission combined with a distancing of them from you?
And why do you claim the Federation doesn’t support what you write on your websites — I thought these websites were the reason they hired you rather than somebody else. I’m actually going to assume they support what you written on these 3 websites (one of them claiming to provide ‘answers’ on waldorf education) and your blog. If they don’t, I can’t see any sense at all in them hiring you, to be honest. And I would be very intrigued to here where their viewpoints differ from yours, if at all they do.
“Well, Sune, I wouldn’t call it addressing.”
You’re right. Address is a too weak word. At thebee.se and americans4waldorf.org I have documented his varying ways of trying to wriggle out of the easily documented untruths that he has laid as the basis for all his later writings on Steiner and anthroposophy, and analyzed them in relation to the sources he refers to, that I also document.
They are easily found using google.
It in full reveals his light-hearted relation to the importance of truthfulness in describing published historical sources.
After having analyzed his writings and comments on the documentation of his untruthfulness in describing published historical sources, I completely lost all trust in anything he has continued to give as descriptions of published historical sources related to anthroposophy, until I have checked the original source down to the last comma.
Since then, and based on these analysis’, my default question in reading anything he has continued to write is: how does he fool people this time, just for fun, to see what he can get away with? He loves to play mind and word games.
He should have stayed with the subject that earned him his basic academic degree – a B.A. – German literature. He clearly loves and is VERY good at telling stories.
Correction:
“how does he fool people this time, just for fun, or some other purpose, to see what he can get away with?”
Too weak? No Sune, the opposite. Your problem is that you can’t wriggle yourself out of your own mind. And your connection to reality is rather tenuous. There’s nothing ‘documented’ in your numerous websites — often you haven’t even understood what it is you’re attempting to refute. It doesn’t actually take much effort to see this. There are several anthroposophists who manage to do this, so I don’t think that the state of incomprehension on your part is solely a question of anthroposophic commitment. It’s that you’ve go stuck, unable to wriggle out, as it were, even when the facts smile at you.
Clearly, you have no idea what literature studies at a uni involve, if you think academic literature scholars occupy themselves with ‘telling stories’. Does this, if I may ask, reflect the opinions of the waldorf movement — is this how they percieve higher education in humanities? No wonder we can’t trust them to educate children for a future in higher education. They can’t even figure out what higher education is!
I think you ought to discontinue your baseless allegations. Your websites are full of them — you keep that shit there. Doesn’t belong here. Say something interesting instead — something we haven’t heard hunderds of times before.
Languages (including three foreign) were my best subjects at school. On ‘telling stories’: you don’t understand elementary polemic right under your nose.
It isn’t just the Swedish Waldorf Federation that harnesses Sune’s sites. You can get to them via US and UK sites re Waldorf Education. This is a clear indication that either people haven’t done their homework or are really very dim indeed. Or worse, that they don’t care.
Back to Peter Staudenmaier for a moment – the lies and distortions he’s supposedly guilty of: Tom is correct that the reputation of Cornell University is significant, it is on this that we must rely. I’m not able to read the sources Peter uses in the original German, I haven’t looked into the archives, my study of the period (whilst not entirely insignificant) is not specific or detailed enough to pass judgement. I can only have a layman’s opinion. I am reliant on the History Department of Cornell University, on the reputations of the academics therein, on the quality of their assessment. I suspect they’re more than capable of noticing the kind of significant errors and omissions Sune is shouting about, and have no doubt that if they had felt Peter’s scholarship was poor or his conclusions spurious they wouldn’t have passed him. In fact they would have come to this conclusion a while ago. That’s why PhD candidates have supervisors.
As for David Irving: Sune, can you give us some details please, about his PhD? University, subject matter?… this might not be easy …
@ Sune — Mine too, Sune. I took 5 foreign languages at school, and German at university many years ago, if it makes any difference at all. I’m 33 and you’re 60. Maybe it’s a little bit too late to brag about what we did in school, huh? If we wish to judge your language skills — your reading and writing — we have your websites and don’t need to consult your high school grades. I’m sure they were fine, but what you’ve done since matters more.
And, yes, I do know polemics, even if it isn’t under my nose. That’s why I can detect the differences between Peter’s polemical writings and his academic writings. A difference which seems to entirely elude you.
@ Thetis — Thank you. You said what I wanted to say.
Of course there are people who have earned PhDs and who are also bat-shit crazy. Or evil. Or whatever. Sometimes people earn a degree in their youth only to go bonkers later in life. There are all sorts. Sometimes there wasn’t anything wrong with their dissertation, they went astray afterwards. Sometimes the dissertation wasn’t very good in the first place, and they barely passed the muster.
Clearly, Peter is not among those people. I’d say it would make Sune appear more reasonable (more, it’s certainly relative) if he’d acknowledge this.
“Clearly, you have no idea what literature studies at a uni involve …”
I have studied five academic subject at three universities. I think I have a hunch what studies at universities involve.
But, oh dear, why? Name change? Did ‘Excalibor’ fly out of the window suddenly?
Apparently you don’t have a hunch, if you think literature studies consist of ‘telling stories’, Sune. Not many uni courses and programs are about ‘telling stories’ — with the exception of creative writing courses, in the case these are even to be found at uni level. And, of course, the waldorf teacher training program.
“Nevertheless — you keep your roles apart, is that what you want to say? ”
Rather iffy ethically; but “ethics” as understood by anthroposophy is frequently not the way the rest of us understand it.
“His problem is that wrt Steiner anyone with a computer and internet connection can check his claimed sources.”
Really, if that’s the problem, what are you all over the Net freaking out about? Everyone would just check them out and everything would be fine. You kinda act like it’s a wee bit bigger problem than this.
“how does he fool people this time, ”
How does he do it. This question will plague you till your dying day I think.
By the way, Sune, you might want to revisit Tom Last’s PoF site and the entry about Canineosophy here
http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/node/4071
There I have officially informed Tom Last about your scurrilous cyber-stalking ways and that it would be up to his judgment as site owner to determine whether your posting has violated any TOS (Terms of Service) for slandering new members of his blog, namely Zooey.
I also urged him to leave your posts intact, so that when we contact the Swedish Waldorf Federation, the proof of your malfeasance will be right there online.
Also, I hope you appreciate the new epithet I’ve given you, Sune the Sullen, which I think captures your brooding and surly melancholic temperament. Also, it give great alliteration with “Swedish serial cyber-stalker!”
‘You kinda act like it’s a wee bit bigger problem than this.’
All this fuss, enormous amounts of fuss over many years, for something everybody could just find out for themselves on the internet?
Also, since Sune apparently fails to convince people with his numerous websites (apparently detailing stuff people could find for themselves on the internet, albeit in a truly unique form), one wonders if he will ever consider the possibility that his arguments (and, mostly, non-arguments) aren’t very convincing? Probably not — but the lack of success, having put so much effort into it, would make you think there’s either something wrong with the arguments themselves or with the presentation or strategy. But apparently not.
‘Sune the Sullen’
In Swedish, there’s an expression: ‘angry like a bee’. Used to describe a person who gets all wound up and raging over something that isn’t really such a big thing. Or like a 3-year old screaming his lungs out because he’s dropped his new lollipop in the sand.
‘I also urged him to leave your posts intact’
I completely agree with this. It’s the only right way. In fact, I’m going to comment to this effect over at PoF. As well as saving the page in question.
I commented:
***
Submitted by zooey on Fri, 08/13/2010 – 6:18pm.
Tom the Imker wrote:
‘However, whatever you decide, I would urge you not to delete his posting, but rather leave it up for all to read. Sune has been hired by the Swedish Federation of Waldorf Schools to monitor the Internet and try to bring good publicity instead of bad to Waldorf education in Sweden.’
I am in complete agreement with this. It is actually better that the comment is left intact. He’s guessing and speculating about the identities of waldorf critics all the time (which necessitates the stalking — he’s behaved worse toward others than to me) with the aim of making people feel uncomfortable. Most of the time — if not all the time — he’s reaching in the dark, but still able to do much damage. Spectacular behaviour for someone who works for the waldorf movement. Rarely are his errors illustrated as neatly and straightforwardly as they have been here. Besides, this turned out to be comedy gold, despite my initial anger.
***
“There’s nothing ‘documented’ in your numerous websites ”
Whenever I’ve asked him to document something questionable on one of his web sites, he just takes it down.
“Languages (including three foreign) were my best subjects at school. ”
Have you told somewhere online where you got your degrees?
“if they had felt Peter’s scholarship was poor or his conclusions spurious they wouldn’t have passed him.”
They wouldn’t have even admitted him. Not only would they have noticed at some point in the approximately 6 years he spent there, they would have noticed *before* that. He had published quite a few things before he entered the PhD program there. It’s one of the best universities in the world and they really don’t admit “con artists” and they would be very unlikely to admit someone who didn’t have both an undergraduate degree (as Sune alleged for years) as well as a demonstrated impressive academic potential.
Sune:
“I have studied five academic subject at three universities.”
Which ones granted you degrees?
‘Sune:
“I have studied five academic subject at three universities.”
Which ones granted you degrees?’
This is a can of worms I don’t think Sune wishes to re-open. I remember a discussion on the Swedish Skeptics Socitey’s webforum. Oh oh.
“he’s behaved worse toward others than to me”
I don’t know about that. I’ve certainly seen him freak quite a few people out over the years – almost always women – but I think your case is truly unique. The really hard to believe part about it is that he doesn’t see (even when he’s told) how transparently disturbed this behavior appears to outsiders.
Before you it was Cathy, earlier he pursued Sharon Lombard all around the net, and years ago he focused on me though not quite as single mindedly as he has with you. His targeted women definitely get younger.
“This is a can of worms I don’t think Sune wishes to re-open.”
I don’t see why, it’s a simple question. Which university/universities granted you degree(s), Sune? And what degree(s), in what subject(s)?
I always felt he was much worse with Cathy in particular. He’s still referring people to that website he made about her. I think he was onto my ‘case’ for a while, then replaced me with Cathy. These days he has somewhat refocused on me while still not entirely forgetting about Cathy. I think it was worse in her case because he knew she had children. He was asked to lay off certain things, but he didn’t. (I refer to this old comment: http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/07/23/pseudoscience-is-not-a-valid-educational-choice/#comment-56619.)
‘I don’t see why, it’s a simple question.’
You would think so… but no.
(What transpired, eventually, was that there was no degree. There were a few courses, one/some of which lacked official records. Had supposedly happened, but informally, and there is but one witness — I think the course had been formally cancelled because there were too few students enrolled. The essay he wrote during this alleged course is the one you can read on his website (about anthroposophy and science). The university in question has never recorded any information about the course credits or any credits for the essay. Somebody even called the university and asked, because the story sounded so weird. That wasn’t me, though, I can’t say I cared.)
@Diana http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/no-sune-im-not-dr-speculation/#comment-3874 :
“His targeted women definitely get younger.”
Often the case when the man gets older ;)
@All:
look at this thread’s very first post http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/no-sune-im-not-dr-speculation/#comment-3703
Sune Nordwall only needed to admit a mistake and to apologize.
Now, he – and the Swedish Waldorf School Federation – has a thread with 109 comments, and an other site is involved as well.
‘Often the case when the man gets older ;)’
Indeed ;-) Often his targets have been mothers who have become critical of waldorf education. Mothers tend to be around a certain age, to which Sune was much closer when he first got online.
And, well, let’s congratulate the Waldorf School Federation and hope they read it (they should)!
“What transpired, eventually, was that there was no degree. There were a few courses, one/some of which lacked official records.”
This is, of course, what has been obvious for years. The irony, Sune … the irony.
“Often his targets have been mothers who have become critical of waldorf education. Mothers tend to be around a certain age, to which Sune was much closer when he first got online.”
I’m not sure when Sune first got online, but I do recall that when he first started pestering me, he made a point to inquire about my age.
One thing that’s interesting about it is that he believes we’re all sort of lone-wolf renegades. He focuses on one person at a time, telling himself (and anyone who will listen) that this person is single-handedly attacking anthroposophy on the Net. Each one of us is a sort of one-person operation. We become inflated in his mind to larger than life, capable (you would think) of personally annihilating the life and work of Rudolf Steiner and its legacy for posterity.
Then another woman comes along saying the same stuff happened to her or her children, and he forgets all the others, and refocuses on the new woman. He’s serially monogamous in his obsessions.
‘Each one of us is a sort of one-person operation. ‘
With a group soul that always magically seems to be centered around San Fransisco.
@Diana: “He’s serially monogamous in his obsessions.”
Well, there is only one Queen Bee at time in the beehive ;)
And Rudolf Steiner explains it all.
(Thanks, Tom, for http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/no-sune-im-not-dr-speculation/#comment-3797 and http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/no-sune-im-not-dr-speculation/#comment-3798 )
‘We become inflated in his mind to larger than life, capable (you would think) of personally annihilating the life and work of Rudolf Steiner and its legacy for posterity.’
I’ve noticed. I’m not entirely sure why he figures we’re this important and influential. Also, if anyone or anything is bringing Steiner down and sends anthroposophy permanently to the grave, it will be the anthroposophists themselves.
‘we’re all sort of lone-wolf renegades’
Or alfa she-wolves. He actually said that once. Clearly the implication is exactly the same. An alfa wolf is not like a drone among many in a bee-hive. See social bee comment above.
The alfa she-wolf apparently poses a threat to the bee-hive and — as a consequence — to the queen bee.
(This is what I’d call Zoology!)
@ alfa-omega — exactly!
(By now, there are 117 comments for the Swedish Waldorf School Federation to read ;) )
Of course, we can’t forget Pete Karaiskos. If there’s anyone he’s treated worse than Zooey, it’s Pete. Whole different set of neuroses in play there.
Oh, yes. Pete. What I’ve been able comprehend* about that is, well, yeah, uh.
*I wasn’t around back then, have only read stuff much later. In earlier times, Sune was on the critics list. And then there was the whole wikipedia thing. Plus probably a hundred more things I’m either forgetting or unaware of.
‘(By now, there are 117 comments for the Swedish Waldorf School Federation to read ;) )’
And when they’re done, I have other posts and threads to recommend :D
Zooey, (and to all other female targets of Sune the Sullen)
I would like to reveal to you one of the most occult secrets of men who absorb themselves in anthroposophy for decades or more. It’s literally a self-hypnotic enchanted and entranced phase of development that I went through myself in the 1980’s but I did manage to outgrow it. However, other men, notably Sune the Sullen, have not yet awakened themselves from this deep enchantment.
In short, the phenomenon is this: a young man who takes up anthroposophy in his early adulthood (as I did at age 28 and Sune ca. age 20), invariably identifies himself so deeply and completely with the being and personality of Rudolf Steiner, that he begins to believe himself to be the actual karmically-ordained reincarnation of Rudolf Steiner himself.
Among other things, what this means, is that the man idealizes Steiner as his God the Father love object to the point of megalomania, that is the inflation or expansion of self image far beyond the boundaries of normal human social interaction. But by living consciously in this “ivory tower castle in the air,” the reality of the dark side, what Jung calls the Shadow, or what Steiner calls the Double, has to be purged from one’s castle and projected onto others deemed as enemies outside the gates of one’s own self-absorption.
In the case of any male hero worship, the young man simply takes on all the dark, negative aspects of that hero as a human being, and projects all those personality quirks, deficiencies, hostilities, etc. on other people outside. In the case of Steiner as hero, though, the projection takes on a special kind of nastiness because the hostile purging is directed more at women than men. I’m not sure that’s true of all male heroes worshiped by young males, but it’s definitely true of Steiner. I did so myself, and I can clearly recognize the phenomenon in other men like Sune.
Now 13 years ago, a woman by the name of Catherine MacCoun, wrote an amazing essay on Rudolf Steiner’s behavior during the “infamous Dornach sex scandal of 1915.” Well OK, there was no real sex involved, but there was definitely a dynamic of psychic sado-masochism going on that Catherine astutely recognized and pointed out.
The scandal was precipitated because in 1914, Steiner decided to finally marry Marie Steiner in order that she not be deported back to her native Russia as the First World war was just breaking out. A woman named Alice Sprengel who was deeply in love with Steiner, came unglued at this because she felt that she and Steiner were destined to marry.
I urge you all to read the essay in its entirety as Catherine herself is a professional novelist and ghost-writer. I must thank Joel Wendt as I found the only copy of the essay on his website. Then I quote a relevant passage where I put in brackets the relevant identifications today, i.e. Sune for Steiner and Alicia for Alice.
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/ktmc1.html
The shadow is a Jungian concept, for which the simplest definition is: everything that the self wishes not to be. The characteristics Steiner [Sune] attributes to Alice [Alicia] in his various public remarks — vanity, grandiosity, illogic, melancholy, over-solidified imagination and sexual repression — are a description of what Steiner [Sune] wanted very much not to be.
The ferocity with which he abuses her suggests a sadomasochistic dimension to their relationship of which neither seems to be aware. Please don’t take that in what Steiner [Sune] would call a “smutty” way, for I am not implying repressed sexual anything. On a psychic level, sadomasochism is a state of polarization in which one partner takes a path of descent, the other a path of ascent.
As the submissive goes down into the dark, irrational, death-oriented underground of the subconscious, the dominant ascends to blazing heights of clarity, precision and control. The temporary objectification or casting-out of the inferior element fills him with vitality and strength. It’s called “dominant euphoria.”
I didn’t think you could produce more nonsense, Tom. Clearly you can.
But you’re still the undefeated champion, Sune. Not to worry! Nobody is threatening your position in the very top of the nonsense league!
The MacCoun essay is brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And the Steiner quotes are hilarious. He’s very funny (although perhaps not very nice for those who were involved…). I wrote about it once, somewhere, but I think it was in Swedish.
I urge everyone to obey Tom’s recommendation and read it at once.
TheBee wrote:
I didn’t think you could produce more nonsense, Tom. Clearly you can.
Well, Sune, as they say:
“One man’s nonsense is another man’s supersense.”
So I thank you for your compliment. I know when you give this reaction that I have provided you with a truth you are not yet able to bear. But give it time, my dear brother, Sune, if I can awaken from the Lucie-Goosie-Anthro-enchantment, so can you.
To gain any ability to detach from anthroposophy, especially for someone with a decades- or even life-long involvement, I think a prerequisite would be some capacity for self-knowledge or introspection, and some rudimentary understanding of a few psychological concepts such as “projection.” A person who isn’t familiar with these ideas – with the idea that something like projection is even possible – because Rudolf Steiner didn’t talk about it – probably can’t ever examine their own relationship to anthroposophy. All you’ll ever get back from such a person, if you try to give them a hint, is “You talk some nonsense.”
Anthroposophists in my experience are very un-self-aware people and lack knowledge about basic human psychology. Their theories of child development, in particular, are a horror. Their lack of ability to reflect on their own psychology often leads them to behave either very badly or very comically, acting out inner conflicts and confusion in really blatant ways, and then to have absolutely no idea why other people are appalled at their behavior (or laughing at them).
Diana’s comments (in all threads) are for the Department of Education to be read.
I wrote:
“I didn’t think you could produce more nonsense, Tom. Clearly you can.”
My comment refers to your “explanation” that I think that I am “the actual karmically-ordained reincarnation of Rudolf Steiner himself.”
I don’t.
But much of the rest of what you write about me is nonsense too and sound like a projection.
I have written what I have about Alicia, as she has described herself here at this blog, and what she writes about herself at present, not because I’m infatuated with her but to make her understandable.
I have done it as she is the one in Europe who most of all in English unrelentingly in all sorts of forums and at blogs since some years supports, promotes and spreads the majority of the defamation and badmouthing she can find on the net about or related to Waldorf education or anthroposophy.
‘I have written what I have about Alicia, as she has described herself here at this blog, and what she writes about herself at present, not because I’m infatuated with her but to make her understandable.’
Oh, you moron. You have not written about me ‘as [I] describe myself’ or made me ‘understandable’. You have made a fool of yourself, but that is certainly a most different matter, Sune. And in the course of making a fool of yourself, you’re successfully making an even bigger fool of the Swedish Waldorf Federation. If they had any fucking guts at all they’d publish a plain and complete repudiation of the utter crap you’re producing about me and other critics. But they don’t have any guts, do they?!!?
I have not defamed waldorf education and anthroposophy. Waldorf education and anthroposophy are not human beings, they are not people, they cannot be defamed. (You treat them as they were — which is a marvellous substantiation of the point Tom is making.) And as far as Steiner is concerned, I maintain my earlier expressed opinion that I do less to ruin the reputation of him and his movement than you do.
130 comments for the Waldorf School Federation to read, considering especially the last sentence in @Zooey’s comment above: who is doing harm to their interests?
Diana’s comment (http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/no-sune-im-not-dr-speculation/#comment-3909) is right on the mark. There’s a stark contrast between Sune’s verbose style as he scolds other people for all sorts of things (forgery, defamation, and so forth) or speculate wildly about who they are and why they do what they do, but usually when the attention is redirected towards him, the replies become unusually lapidary. (‘You talk some nonsense’ is actually quite typical. When, actually, what has been claimed is often less ‘nonsensical’ than the stuff he writes about others.)
@ alfa-omega — yep. It’s epic.
Let’s remind the Waldorf Federation, if they read, which I hope they will eventually, that the signatures ‘excalibor’ and ‘thebee’ both belong to Sune, their employee, who is monitoring the thread in his professional capacity, and writing in it during his sparetime.
I asked Sune on August 13 to tell us which degrees he has obtained from which universities, in which subjects. It’s now August 15 and despite other replies on other topics, he hasn’t answered this one.
Why, Sune?
Sune, how do you explain your preoccupation with other people’s university degrees, and strange silence when asked about your own?
Are you time-travelling, Diana? Or have I been left alone on August 14 while the rest of the world has moved on? ;-)
Not that it changes anything, it’s true that he has been here and he has posted but he has not replied. Instead he posted more junk supposedly ‘about’ other people.
Well, Diana, isn’t it what projection is about?
Whoops, yeah, it isn’t August 15! Still, he has come and gone at least once since I asked him these questions, and pointedly ignored them. They aren’t hard questions to answer or something he needs to research. If he has university degrees, he knows where he got them, yeah Sune?
Any chance, Sune, of a factual answer to a pertinent question?
How about if you just answer that simple question, Sune, and we’ll leave off psychoanalyzing why you want to know about other people’s degrees so badly but don’t want to discuss your own.
What degree(s)? Which university(ies)? Which subject(s)?
Misrepresentation of one’s credentials and accomplishments does happen in academia. There’s never been any evidence hinting that Peter Staudenmaier has ever misrepresented himself in any way; his academic degrees are easily verifiable, his dissertation is now on record and will probably eventually be published in book form. The awards he’s received have been announced publicly and are verifiable.
Yet this one individual (Sune Nordwall) has insinuated repeatedly, in dozens of fora on the Internet for many years, that Peter Staudenmaier is a con artist.
This same individual is silent, publicly, when asked about his own academic credentials.
Till now, maybe? C’mon, Sune, put the facts out there.
Maybe he’s busy searching in the akashic records. These are the only records which may hold any notations at all about his credentials. On the other hand, I wouldn’t recommend anyone to trust information handed down from the higher worlds.
Sune has, indeed, been visiting and commenting on the blog today as well as numerous times yesterday. Calling someone else a ‘con artist’ comes easy, as does professing to ‘describe’ my ‘background’ (which he has claimed to be doing in this thread and elsewhere, e g, PoF) — but he’s suspiciously uninterested in illuminating his own background.
How come?
Until recently he hasn’t even conceded that he’s hired by the Waldorf Federation.
he’s very busy twittering, though, see http://twitter.com/the3bee, http://twitter.com/mycroftii and http://twitter.com/waldorfanswers. I have reminded him of your question via twitter, Diana. Not that he hasn’t seen it, I’m sure, but he may need some gentle persuasion to stick his nose out of the beehive.
Particularly important reminder, I think, since he’s twittering links to his accounts of ‘Who is Peter Staudenmaier’.
They should come with a disclaimer: ‘Not based on a true story.’
Anyway, the hilarious news of today is that the3Bee has attracted the attention of a porn tweeter. But no, wait, it was actually the other way around. The porn tweeter tweeted about Steiner and bees and ants (still can’t figure out why), and this caught Sune’s attention. And mr Porn reciprocated. Only on rare occasions does he recieve compliments like this:
‘Nice to discover ur Twitter account @the3bee .. People like you are an oasis of knowledge & hope in the parched desert of greed & ignorance.’
He (the porn tweeter) is following @the3bee, too, and he has RT the3bee: “Helsinki Times: Farming by the rhythms of nature, Exploring the world of #biodynamic farming. ”
He tells us, too: “I was an #Organic / #Biodynamic farmer most of my life @the3bee .Not an IDIOT farmer like the Global Farm #Corporation’s @5Raphaels @zzzooey ”
So, now, Sune Nordwall got a company in his fight.
Interestingly, that piece of news was originally tweeted by me (well, not originally perhaps, it’s certainly possible someone else had tweeted it — but he tweeted it after I had). It is my impression that the3bee / mycroftii regularly ‘retweets’ me, although never ever properly or with an attribution. He never addresses me or talks about me using ‘@zzzooey’ either, because this would make it possible for his readers to find me easily and address me directly. He uses the same methods with @5raphaels and @thetismercurio and probably others too.
Also, I was thinking of asking him (porn guy)* if he farmed organically or truly biodynamically. Some people don’t seem to differentiate between the two. On the other hand, he was the one who brought up the topic of bees and ants and Steiner.
* but decided against it.
“Particularly important reminder, I think, since he’s twittering links to his accounts of ‘Who is Peter Staudenmaier’.”
I know that Peter S. does not actually like people to talk about the question of people’s academic degrees (feeling that it detracts from the issues, and whether someone has a particular degree doesn’t determine the truth or usefulness of what they’re saying). All true but I also feel that when an individual makes an issue out of someone else’s degrees – uses the issue to attempt to discredit them – the hypocrisy of this individual, who apparently doesn’t have degrees himself, and won’t even answer a straightforward question about them, needs to be pointed out.
Doesn’t the irony of it ever get to you, Sune? Do you ever just stop to think, wait a minute, he’s got a bunch of degrees that I don’t have, what the heck am I doing?
I couldn’t agree with you more, Diana. In Sune’s case, it’s his arguments and reasoning that are strange/mistaken/deluded; the absence of academic credentials on his part is really beside the point when it comes to evaluate what he writes. This wouldn’t even be an issue if it weren’t for Sune’s very own actions in regard to other people and their degrees, and his avoidance of any questions relating to his own. It’s the hypocrisy, Sune!
I think it’s the ability to assess information partly by the endorsement of others you trust that is the point. There is so much information there has to be some way of discriminating.
Personally there are two reasons why I am inclined to trust Peter Staudenmaier’s veracity & the quality of his work: he writes very well, which is far from easy or common and he explores the complexity of his subjects and their ideas, their actions and inter-relationships. That would be most like the truth, and least like the work of a con-artist.
Anyone who reads and/or writes well, basically, can tell that Peter’s scholarship is sound. He writes well, he constructs logical arguments, he presents evidence for his claims and assesses counterclaims and explains clearly whether they hold up or not, based on historical evidence. He gives substantial background for his claims about Steiner and documents his sources meticulously. There are very few (in fact, I can’t think of any) anthroposophists who have contributed to online discussions about anthroposophy who can say the same.
Furthermore, he has a scholarly attitude toward the evaluation of historical sources, which infuriates anthroposophists because he treats anthroposophical sources with appropriate skepticism, knowing that proponents of a movement often can’t evaluate it objectively.
Frankly, much of that comes with good schooling. It’s true that one doesn’t need a degree to understand what he writes and he didn’t need an advanced, or necessarily any, degree to write it. Most of what he’s written on anthroposophy, exclusive of the dissertation, was written before he went back to school. He could well have kept on doing what he was doing without any degree other than the sad litle B.A. in German literature (said tongue in cheek; this is Sune’s view, not mine).
Still, while an advanced degree is not the only thing that gives a person credibility to write on a topic and to be trusted, it certainly doesn’t hurt. It’s only one criterion but it’s a very useful one. It’s one way we can know whether a person has any kind of background in the topic they’re writing about, or has had any training in evaluating sources and constructing arguments to make a point. You really can’t get a PhD in modern European history and not know some modern European history, and that’s a pretty good context for making a case about Rudolf Steiner and various racist movements of the 20th century, of which he was part and to which he made some ignominious contributions.
Again right on spot, Diana. Thetis, too. I can’t even think of anything to add.
I have only begun reading the dissertation, but so far I’d say it’s a masterpiece of clarity in reasoning and style. Not that I would have expected anything else from him. And everything is thoroughly referenced, as should be in a work of this nature of course.
It’s a world apart from Sune’s tirades. Which, I guess, is partly due to lack of education and partly due to muddled thinking in general. Muddled thinking isn’t a good starting point, even if one procedes to get an education.
Just read Stuart Smith on the BD-hoax blog:
‘I’ve seen with this blog that it is mostly the Biodynamic supporters who will not respond to direct questions, can’t keep on topic, wing off into outer space over some obscure and ancient individual and then end up calling someone a name.’
Too long to tweet, but then I thought the quote fits so well here… !
http://biodynamicshoax.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/is-sulfur-an-organic-chemical-if-it-comes-from-an-oil-refinery/#comment-585
Here we go again. It’s a daily occurance. Several times daily, in fact. Sunday morning at 9. Wake up, begin spouting crap about other people. Glorious. I suppose, since it’s Sunday morning, he’s not working on behalf of the Swedish Waldorf Federation.
Alicia,
You complain that Sune is “spouting crap about other people”- not like you, of course, about Rudolf Steiner and his life work.
You really take the biscuit. Really. I just had to respond. Not “LOL” or anysuch, but I’m just gobsmacked, floored.
“Hey! where’s that biscuit I put down there a second ago?!”
“Alicia’s gone and taken it!”
Victor.
Victor – Steiner is dead. Dead as a dodo. He has fallen off his perch, he’s pushing up the daisies, he’s gone to join the choir invisible. He is an ex-esotericist. He’s not gone quiet because he’s concentrating on his knitting or pining for the fjords. We need not tiptoe round his sleeping form. He couldn’t care less.
His life’s work is open to analysis, frankly zooey is generous to him. Most people recoil in disbelief from his extraordinary… style before they reach the content of his oeuvre.
Steiner is of course an important figure within 20th century western esotericism, not philosophy or science. The whole subject is fascinating as a historical phenomenon.
Anyway, if I were Rudolf Steiner I would rather be here on zooey’s blog than have Sune as my spokesperson. You have to be glad your hero’s not around to face that humiliation.
And, in addition, I’m not spouting crap like Sune does. I don’t walk around claiming Steiner was a ‘Dr’ or a ‘con artist’ or calling him all sorts of names — despite the fact that there are relevant objections to be raised in connection to Steiner’s academic degree.
Mercuryrules is a pretty naïve fan of Sune — he believes, among other things, that the post Sune claims to be about me, really is about me.
As far as Sune’s delusions are concerned, we can actually take him to task for them, and we can take the Swedish Waldorf Federation to task for hiring him to do the dirty work for them. Steiner is, as Thetis said, dead and gone. And were he here today, I seriously doubt I would have the same objections towards him as towards his fanatical followers. Sure, I wouldn’t agree with his ideas, but that’s ok. The problem with Sune is not that he’s an anthroposophist and that I don’t share his worldview — the problem with Sune is how he acts towards others.
Mercury, sir/m’am, a person isn’t “spouting crap” if what they say is true.
This seems like a diversion from the discussion we were (trying to) have about/with Sune (though Sune doesn’t seem interested). He’s the one who “spouts” all over the Web that Peter Staudenmaier “isn’t who he says he is,” and implies he doesn’t have the degrees he says he has (putting “Dr. Staudenmaier” in quotes etc.)
Who’s spouting crap, again? The stuff Sune says *isn’t true*. Did you miss that detail?
What has Zooey posted about Steiner that isn’t true?
thetis wrote:
“Anyway, if I were Rudolf Steiner I would rather be here on zooey’s blog than have Sune as my spokesperson.”
That’s the ironic truth.
Keep stirring that cauldron, ladies!
Oh, that’s a mature reply! Obviously, you are the type of person Sune is targeting.
So Mercury, maybe you know where Sune got his degrees? Can you tell us?
Question 2 (if you are able to contribute something on the topic rather than generic sexist insults):
Do you think Peter Staudenmaier is a liar, forgerer and con man? Do you think Sune’s insinuations that he forged documents and hasn’t really recently completed a PhD are true?
But if you can’t answer that, feel free to just answer the simple one: Which university are Sune’s degrees from?
Diana:
‘This seems like a diversion from the discussion’
That’s the whole idea, as far as I can tell. It’s not the first time, neither here nor elsewhere. Mercuryrules regularly exhibits the behaviour described by Stuart S in that quote I posted:
http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/no-sune-im-not-dr-speculation/#comment-3949
there’s an irony to comparing us to (Macbeth’s) three witches (fair is foul & foul is fair) since they are the characters with the supposed clairvoyant powers (re tree-camoflage in warfare and the medieval caesarian). The others stumble about in terror like beasts in the dark. I would say thank you, were it not for you standing there dripping with misogyny, Victor, an unattractive trait even in the most spiritually advanced.
“an unattractive trait even in the most spiritually advanced.”
Yet not an uncommon trait in the so-called spiritually advanced.
Absolutely. Look at the Catholic Church. Or isn’t that spiritual enough for Steineristas? To put it another way: is the Pope a Catholic?
The *fake* pope is a catholic, I’m sure, can’t expect much canineosophical ethics from such prime speciment of a master con-man (concealing his cat-nature even!?!). The *real* pope is anticat. Naturally. /mr Dog.
163 comments for the Swedish Waldorf School Federation to read. (They may have to employ someone ;) )
@fronkensteiner’s latest http://www.myartspace.dk/www/Art/ShowArt.asp?artid=16640&sorting=1
Now there’s a chance for Sune, they could hire him full-time! Although that could cause the Waldorf federation to appear to be a fullblown incarnation of monstrosophic delirium. Not the pretty versions Frank paints, but really scary… like a eurythmy beast emerging from a boiling acid swamp.
Oh Dog, now I will have nightmares.
My daughter drew a picture of a man in a bee-suit with ‘Sune’ across its tummy. Underneath she wrote ‘this is what he will be doing in 10 years time’. Performing in a circus, presumably, or as the public face/bee of international Waldorf education. Or multi-tasking as both. Is she psychic?
Yes, of course. It comes with the understanding of canineosophy, which is partly intuitive and partly spiritual work.
Did the picture include The Bee in a collar attached to a leash, held at the other end by a personification of the Swedish Waldorf Federation, desperately attempting to prevent the striped flyer to disappear out into the stratosphere and beyond?
Who do you think she is, Picasso? Of course. Except the Swedish Waldorf Federation is a sort of blur, indistinct apart from the felt IKEA sign.
But they are a blur. Even to themselves.
In advanced clairvoyancy, blurry objects and events are described, because the more earthly aspects of consciousness have stopped trying to make sense of blurry realities, thus depicting them as they are rather than trying to correct them. Like in real life: when in real life when we see a combination of letters such as ‘cnine’ and immediately know, because it is closer to the paws, tails and nose, that what it really says is ‘canine’. In the higher realms and via true clairvoyancy, mistakes remain mistakes (they were meant to be too). So you see, she was actually seeing the reality of the Federation. A blurred entity with a buzzing bee echoing gibberish. Echo-buzz frequently contributes to blurr, as well.
Well Sune? How come you haven’t answered my questions?
(Now it really is August 15 LOL.)
Oh, shoot, now it’s the 16th on Zooey’s blog (still the 15th where I live, honest!!
I reminded him again yesterday. But it’s like he’s just disappeared from the blog — reading it but refusing to write. Neither, it seems, has he changed his mind about the tweet on the 15th in which he described Peter Staudenmaier ‘as [a] master intellectual con artist’. He did, however, retweet this quote ‘If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening my axe’ (Abraham Lincoln) recently. I guess one possible interpretation is that he’s still sharpening is axe, as it were. We’re still waiting for your reply, Sune! And our expectations rise every day, since we figure you’re working really hard to accomplish an absolutely mind-blowing comment detailing the academic adventures!
Still, a straight, short answer, even if it’s just a line or two, will be preferred to no answer at all.
Again, it’s not as though he isn’t there. He’s been twittering from all his three accounts this morning.
(I cannot understand why the Twitter account of Waldorf Answers has the name Robert Mays on it. It clearly isn’t Robert Mays who’s using it.)
I believe he and Robert Mays collaborated on that site. I don’t know if Robert Mays still has anything to do with it, but Sune just switches names to make it look like all the stuff he posts online isn’t actually all coming from him.
(Anonymous above is me, btw. I’m not sure how I did that.)
Yep, that seems to be the idea.
(I figured it was you. I could edit it and put your name on it though. Well, I’ll do that.)
Thanks. I think it happened when I cleared cookies off that computer and it lost all my usual preset log-ins.
Sounds likely. (It does happen occasionally anyway, for no apparent reason, i e, a reason that isn’t apparent to me, but probably entirely obvious to people who know more computer stuff or who are guided by the higher worlds.)
There’s one other thing going on here as well. Sune has updated one of his blog pages he claims are about me. This time, he’s included trivia on my academic achievements, as he percieves them. One could certainly wonder why he’s taking these steps in his persecution — my education has nothing to do with Steiner, anthroposophy or waldorf. But clearly, detailing the specifics of it is — I believe — once again an attempt to make me feel uncomfortable. As in, ‘I have my eyes on you and everything you do’. As a service to other potential stalkers, he provides them with a translation of the title of my final essay, and botches it. But the main point is — it doesn’t have anything to do with anything. It’s just detailing of personal information — with the intent of harassment. And no, Sune, I didn’t actually write that essay in Autumn 2009. The date is the date the final draft was approved and I was awarded my degree in law (translation for your perusual, Sune: ‘Swedish Master of Laws Degree ‘, shortened LL.M.). Not that those details are any of Sune’s business. He apparently doesn’t think his degrees are any of our business, so his taking interest in mine is somewhat bizarre, isn’t it? Have you been harassing the uni to have them revoke my degree, Sune? Why do you even think this stuff is even relevant to the (few I imagine) readers of your blog?
But maybe, after all, we ought to talk a bit about my degree. It is the fact that I have been pursuing the possibility of writing a doctoral thesis in criminal law. It was not to be though. I applied, I had amazing support from the professor who was going to be my supervisor, I had highest possible grades in those law subjects which were relevant to the topic I planned to write about (as well as in several others), among the electable courses within the law program I had chosen those relevant to criminal law, I had written my master’s thesis in criminal law… (for which I was, believe it or not, praised!). Also, I know several languages which one would assume weighed in my favour, including German which I have studied at the uni. Evidently, the faculty’s research committee found no difficulty in making a swift decision. In fact, I got the rejection via the postal service (snail mail!), about two weeks before it was due.
Also, yes, there were — to my knowledge — no other applicants this year in my chosen field (criminal law).
Oddly enough… and, no, I’m not going down that line of reasoning. I have promised myself to leave this behind and not dwell on it. Suffice to say I happened upon a few bits and pieces of information that made me lose hope just a few days before handing in the application.
(In the same post I’m talking about above, he’s now accusing me of posting comments on other blogs to drive traffic to my blog. It’s true that I occasionally comment on other blogs, but it actually isn’t often. I have never ever done it to drive traffic to my blog, though. But most importantly — I definitely don’t comment on all blogs I read. I don’t even comment on 2% of them, Sune!)
So, indeed, given Sune’s interest in other people’s degrees — adding to this: I never ever claimed my degree was relevant to the topic of anthroposophy/waldorf/steiner, while Sune readily makes such references to his scant academic experience many decades ago — he’s surprisingly reluctant to come clean about his own.
Conclusion, I may have a degree but not much of a future. And I think that’s more relevant for Sune. Why doesn’t he simply remove all references to this and tell people I’m basically junk? Because that’s actually the impression conveyed by that blog post anyway. Here’s a guy keeping track on all the irrelevant details of an irrelevant life. Including the fact I wrote I hate babies who scream. Yes Sune, I do hate babies who scream. You can also include the fact I’m utterly discusted by babies who burp, vomit, poop, eat poop, and so forth. Be my guest.
I really need to focus on getting supper ready. But what I want to say is that Sune finds it somehow reprehensible that I heckle. What the fuck does he think I ought to do instead? Mocking it or ignoring. Can’t think of anything else. He deserves to be mocked, and so does the the Waldorf Federation.
And, for those brain-deprived people possibly around, the reason Sune picks a quote about me hating the screams of babies isn’t that it has any remote relevance to the issues he’s ‘addressing’, i e, my waldorf criticism.* It’s not actually relevant to anything at all. The fact that this quote is chosen, and put in the context of ‘addressing’ me as a waldorf critic, is apparently the idea that it will make me appear like completly awful person. Another thing is, if a man had written that he didn’t like baby screams, Sune wouldn’t have reacted. Sune is a sexist and thinks men are allowed to hate babies. It’s all the more reason for people like me to continue saying we do hate babies. To get sexist bastards used to the idea.
[*He doesn't actually address anything that has to do with my waldorf criticism in that article. It's nothing but an attempt at character assasination.]
What Nordwall does must be some of the nastiest things I’ve witnessed on the internet; this is character assassination. But he is worthless. Ignore him.
It’s true, he deserves to be ignore. Hopefully the Swedish Waldorf Federation will one day wake up and realize that they, unlike us, are not in a position where they are ethically allowed to ignore his ‘work’.
To continue… I have actually not talked or written much about my education; hardly at all, in fact. In Sune’s post, which is purportedly about me, it’s definitely irrelevant. Big time irrelevant.
I realize that I should have detailed every aspect of my life, in order to not leave any gaps open for him to fill in or fantasize about.
I should have told people what the title of my master’s thesis was, to avoid him spoling it in translation. It was ‘Madness and responsibility — the capacity for responsibility in criminal law’. ‘Tillräknelighet’ is basically a ‘basic capacity for bearing responsibility.’ which translates as ‘Zurechnungsfähigkeit’ in German. ‘Accountability’ (or in Sune’s version ‘acountability’) doesn’t do the trick. It would have been more accurate, in my opinion, to repeat the word ‘responsibility’. I should have told everybody every detail of this because apparently what I wrote about in law school totally influences my ability to express myself on the topics waldorf, steiner and anthroposophy. It seems to be of uttermost importance to Sune, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.
I suppose I have to write about exactly everything I do, because it’s the only thing that will prevent Sune to write these crappy pieces. He’s a sucker for the irrelevant. Makes you wonder what use the W Federation could actually have for him really — apart from him destroying their reputation — when all he does is collect junk information and then he makes stuff up about people.
So is there another post coming up Sune? Maybe one where you publically lament all my irrelevant failings while privately rejoicing in them. That would suit you! And I will continue to point out how big a fool the Waldorf Federation is for trusting in your capacities and judgment. Junk and lies are what they trust. And that’s going to be the downfall of waldorf education. Funnily, huh!? There’s not one jot critics can really do that will destroy waldorf education as effectively as waldorf ruins itself.
I am incensed.
Is any of this stuff in English, Alicia?
Honestly I think you need a lawyer yourself; you should really put a stop to this. He has no notion of boundaries. I don’t think he’s physically dangerous, but he is a disturbed person who is not creating anything productive or useful in the world, but expending his energies propping up a badly behaved religious cult, and damaging individuals without a scruple. We let him off too easy laughing at him as if he were just a dork.
To some – limited – extent, I understand Peter S.’s attitude which is to ignore most of what Sune says about him, and only on rare occasion laugh gently at him or make a brief snide reply (it will usually be joke Sune doesn’t even get). But I also think over the years critics have in this fashion enabled this disturbed individual to think that it is acceptable and appropriate to behave this way.
Someone needs to drag his ass into court and get huge monetary damages awarded, for libel, harassment, and cyberstalking. It is not normal to set up web sites detailing the personal lives of people who disagree with you online, or criticize a religious cult you happen to be employed by. It would be nice to get this man to understand how the rest of the world sees this ugly behavior and I think legal repercussions are the only thing that would do it.
He’s definitely not dangerous in the classical, physical way; if he were, I would have been assaulted already, given that he’s basically just minutes away from me.
The update is on his blog — excalibor, hosted on wordpress, and the post is from September 2008, but updated a few days ago. It’s about the bitter former waldorf student he thinks bears some resemblance to me.
My present course of action is to make the Swedish Waldorf Federation feel utterly ashamed about hiring him. I think a reaction by them is way overdue. Lots and lots of people had had problems with Sune, yet they hired him. I think one day they will have to wake up to this reality.
As for the legal route, that’s not an option for the stuff he’s done to me. (I think the case is vastly different for Peter S, although I agree with his approach to it.) And unlike him, I don’t believe in threatening lawsuits ;-)
‘get huge monetary damages’
Around 5 000 to 10 000 $ is the standard sum awarded in damages in Sweden. If someone kills your 5-year old kid. I could hardly even buy an iPod with the monetary damages I could possibly, if all went well, get from Sune. He could possibly be fined too, if found responsible, but he wouldn’t exactly go to prison… So, ok, it’s not about the money, but about taking a stand. The question is if that matters; Sune would never concede he’s wrong anyway. And the question of the outcome of a courtcase is highly hypothetical. Also, unfortunately, I strongly believe in the idiot’s right to be an idiot and express himself as idiotically as may be. That said, I’m more than willing to call the idiot an idiot, repeatedly if necessary.
The Waldorf Federation should feel some guilt about their moral support of him, though. It’s beyond belief.
(The higher sum is if your kid was intentionally killed and sexually molested before death occurred. The numbers aren’t exact, but you’ll get a picture of the differences between Sweden and the US.)
‘But I also think over the years critics have in this fashion enabled this disturbed individual to think that it is acceptable and appropriate to behave this way.’
To some extent perhaps. But I do think this is a case of someone being so fanatically hell-bent on his cause that nothing could have stopped him in his tracks. Not even early on. These tendencies were probably there before the internet existed. It’s simply that more people are affected by such a person’s actions when they’re moved online. Had it not been for the internet, I doubt he would have even found most of us. He would have pestered some local politician instead. Or perhaps the librarian. Or his neighbour. Who knows. It seems to me like a personality trait that isn’t necessarily associated with his anthroposophical beliefs — although they, apparently, provide a perfect venue for acting out.
I’ve reported both Sune Nordwall and the Swedish Waldorf Federation to the authorities here in the UK.
It will be interesting to see what happens next…
They like fame, so it’s only right they should have some! Let the world know about the Swedish Waldorf Federation!
You know, I remember reading those lists on Die Waldorfs — lists of more or less famous or infamous people who went to waldorf at some time or other in their lives — the names of a couple of clowns who had reached a certain level of fame. Now that’s an idea…
I commented on Joel Wendt’s comment on PoF.
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‘participants (Zooey and Sune) were they to meet face to face would probably find a way to mutual comprehension and understanding, but in the cyber-world this is impossible’
This is absolutely ridiculous. It’s not a question about disagreements. It’s not about Sune’s beliefs, or about him being an anthroposophist or anything like that. It’s about Sune’s behaviour. It’s about him stalking people like me and posting vile crap. It’s about anthroposophical organizations — in this case the Swedish Waldorf School Federation — endorsing his behaviour. Indeed — the only way to deal with Sune and remain sane is to laugh about it. Or you would actually be crying. And he’s simply not worth it.
You can’t have mutual comprehension and understanding with someone who’s sole aim is to have you shut up.
‘Tom the Mocker adds nothing to the conversation of value, and actually makes matters worse.’
Yes, it does add something, and no it doesn’t make matters worse. I’m sick and tired of all the passive anthroposophists who believe they’d better not object to Sune’s actions. It’s just not enough to say ‘blessed are the peacemakers’ — that’s what I’d call self-satisfying gibberish. It’s the kind of excuse of a lazy coward who wants to sit back and watch people get hurt and still congratulate himself for being a good human being. It’s that self-congratulatory stuck-upped-ness so characteristic for some segments of the anthropsophical movement, actually. It’s a comfortable attitude for people like Sune and those of his friends who hired himto ‘monitor’ (a euphemism, clearly, for his real mission) former students and parents, as well as for all of his supporters — they think they’re such blessed peacemakers for not getting involved. For not telling the bastard he’s a bastard. If you see someone, even if it’s just a complete stranger, getting beaten up by a thug, it’s not really the moment for walking away, humming happily ‘blessed are the peacemakers’.
As far as Sune is concerned, I feel there’s absolutely nothing more one can do, except mock him relentlessly and make the Swedish Waldorf Federation feel ashamed of their utter stupidity. But I bet they’re sitting around patting themselves on their backs saying ‘blessed are the peacemakers’, thinking that Sune is helping us nasty critics pay off our karmic debts.
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Joel Wendt’s comment on PoF, ‘participants (Zooey and Sune) were they to meet face to face would probably find a way to mutual comprehension and understanding, but in the cyber-world this is impossible’, as mentioned in Zooey’s comment above, http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/no-sune-im-not-dr-speculation/#comment-4025
I think, too, it’s ridiculous. I wholeheartedly agree with Zooey’s explanation why.
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Also, I wholeheartedly support what Cathy has written in
http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/no-sune-im-not-dr-speculation/#comment-3709
“… it shines a light on the movement as a whole; do they allow the shabby spiteful personal attacks, because their cause is more precious than human individuals?”
In other threads and repeatedly, I have pointed out that the anthro/steiner/waldorf do consider themselves superiour.
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And I agree with Thetis, too
http://zooey.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/no-sune-im-not-dr-speculation/#comment-3956 :
“Anyway, if I were Rudolf Steiner I would rather be here on zooey’s blog than have Sune as my spokesperson.”
Thank you, @alfa-omega!
I tell you, if Sune tried to give me any of his usual crap face to face, he should certainly not expect me to say ‘blessed are the peacemakers’. If I were in a generous and kind mood, I’d stop at telling him to stick the Christ-Impulse up his bum.
He’s now busy promoting his nasty blog post ‘about me’ — supposedly to give people ‘the background’ — over at PoF. I told him:
‘I don’t know what drives you to behave like this Sune / TheBee. You go stick that Christ-Impulse up your arse for a final grand enlightenment. And inform your employer that they should do the same.’
Which surely will get me booted, but I don’t care about it. This guy is paid to behave like an utter moron. When will the W Federation stop taking his word for it? Will they ever understand what he’s doing to people, and why this is completely inappropriate?
Indirectly, the Swedish tax-payers are funding this demented fuck-wit whose only mission is to make disappointed and angry waldorf parents/students regret they ever said anything about the things that were wrong. This is not sound. It should not be like this.