Yes, it is painful. Especially coming from a group that, as a matter of fact, is contributing to the diffusion of some aspects of Steiner's spiritual science. I agree, a lack of understanding of cognitive gradient is revealed - sadly - and an unscientific attachment to a constrained microcosm.
And even at the level of flat text analysis, there is an extraction of passages out of context, where meaning is lost.
For example, the passage from the 1912 booklet "The occult significance of blood" is telegraphically quoted in a way that impedes understanding (in color below). So it is concluded: "There’s this notion that races should be kept separate because some are further along in their evolution than others, and mixing could cause regression", which is blatantly untrue.
I have read through
the booklet. From the larger passage, it appears that Steiner does
not mean that races should be kept separate. On the contrary, exogamy - Steiner said - is the way in which humanity is to evolve, and is evolving - the way in which the older clairvoyance dissolves, and the modern intellectual capacity is built. It's only when an isolated people (in which exogamy has not at all happened) is forced through colonization to assimilate an already highly intellectualized and individualized people (already characterized by strong exogamy) that the cultural mix cannot succeed, because the gap is too large, and it doesn't work to "demand from blood more than it can endure". That's what Steiner said. It's very clear from the mere text, any conscientious reader can gather that. And yes, because of man's constitution, the blood is influenced by geography and environment, among other things (as illustrated in the first pages of the book). It's difficult to fathom how one can reject that, and accept the fourfold human constitution, at the same time. How is the fourfold human being understood then? How are the cosmic and formative forces and their shaping of the etheric body understood then? - one may wonder. I may also add a comment on Substack, but not right now.
Steiner wrote:In earlier times tribes held aloof from each other, and the individual members of families intermarried. You will find this to have been the case with all races and with all peoples; and it was an important moment for humanity when this principle was broken through, when foreign blood was introduced, and when marriage between relations was replaced by marriage with strangers, when endogamy gave place to exogamy. Endogamy preserves the blood of the generation; it permits of the same blood flowing in the separate members as flows for generations through the entire tribe or the entire nation. Exogamy inoculates man with new blood, and this breaking-down of the tribal principle, this mixing of blood, which sooner or later takes place among all peoples, signifies the birth of the external understanding, the birth of the intellect.
The important thing to bear in mind here is, that in olden times there was a hazy clairvoyance, from which the myths and legends originated. This clairvoyance could exist in the nearly-related blood, just as our present-day consciousness comes about owing to the mingling of blood. The birth of logical thought, the birth of the intellect, was simultaneous with the advent of exogamy. Surprising as this may seem, it is nevertheless true. It is a fact which will be substantiated more and more by external investigation; indeed the initial steps along this line have already been taken.
But this mingling of blood which comes about through exogamy is also that which at the same time obliterates the clairvoyance of earlier days, in order that humanity may evolve to a higher stage of development; and just as the person who has passed through the stages of occult development regains this clairvoyance, and transmutes it into a new form, so has our waking consciousness of the present day been evolved out of that dim and hazy clairvoyance which obtained in times of old.
At the present time everything in a man's environment is impressed upon his blood; hence the environment fashions the inner man in accordance with the outer world. In the case of primitive man it was that which was contained within the body that was more fully expressed in the blood. In those early times the recollection of ancestral experiences was inherited, and, along with this, good or evil tendencies. In the blood of the descendants were to be traced the effects of the ancestors' tendencies. Now, when the blood was mixed through exogamy, this close connection with ancestors was severed, and man began to live his own personal life. He began to regulate his moral tendencies according to what he experienced in his own personal life. Thus, in an unmixed blood is expressed the power of the ancestral life, and in a mixed blood the power of personal experience.
The myths and legends tell of these things. They say: "That which has power over thy blood, has power over thee." This traditional power ceased when it could no longer work upon the blood, because the latter's capacity for responding to such power was extinguished by the admixture of foreign blood. This statement holds good to the widest extent. Whatever power it is that wishes to obtain the mastery over a man, that power must work upon him in such a way that the working is expressed in his blood. If, therefore, an evil power would influence a man, it must be able to influence his blood. This is the deep and spiritual meaning of the quotation from Faust. This is why the representative of the evil principle says: "Sign thy name to the pact with thy blood. If once I have thy name written in thy blood, then I can hold thee by that which above all sways a man; then shall I have drawn thee over to myself." For whoever has mastery over the blood is master of the man himself, or of the man's ego.
When two groups of people come into contact, as is the case in colonisation, then those who are acquainted with the conditions of evolution are able to foretell whether or no an alien form of civilisation can be assimilated by the others. Take, for example, a people that is the product of its environment, into whose blood this environment has built for itself, and try to graft upon such a people a new form of civilization. The thing is impossible. This is the reason why certain aboriginal peoples had to go under, as soon as colonists came to their particular parts of the world.
It is from this point of view that the question will have to be considered, and the idea that changes are capable of being forced upon all and sundry will in time cease to be upheld, for it is useless to demand from blood more than it can endure.
