For once I am not posting a quote from Steiner, but a reflection of my own.
It has often rather depressed me that it seems that, according to anthroposophy, just about everything is wrong. I will mention just a few examples. For example, what does Steiner say about light images?
‘Many phenomena of contemporary cultural life have a destructive effect on the physical body, e.g. in particular also the light images, which definitely damage the etheric body. Light images also stimulate sensuality.’
In Steiner’s time, light images meant the projection by electric light of e.g. a photograph on a wall. Something like what is called a magic lantern. But nowadays we have television, cinema, computer, smartphone and so on, all light images in other words.
Sport, especially football, also seems to be very wrong. On that, he says:
‘It is to jump out of one’s skin when one sees all those modern sporting affairs like, for example, football and so on, how they mechanise people and give him nothing of what is spiritual in him, no matter how much one imagines it. Everything one strives for there is a mockery of the spiritual, however well intended.
Popular music also seems to be out of the question, especially when played through electronic devices. I don’t know exactly where he said it, but with certain music one would see evil demons dancing or something like that.
A long time ago, I used to visit an old anthroposophist. She was a kind of chief of the Anthroposophical Society In Leeuwarden. About music, she said: ‘It is not bad to listen to popular music, because that is precisely why people often come to classical music.’ In other words, while classical music was high and noble enough, popular music actually was not.
Now, I like music a lot, play guitar and keyboard very amateurishly myself, but classical music still doesn’t appeal to me much. I like some popular classical music, but I don’t like the heavier classical music.
With the examples I have now mentioned, many people can get into inner conflict. Because countless people derive a lot of pleasure from sports, football, cinema, computers, music and so on. And all this now seems to be harmful.
And I am probably far from being the only one who gets depressed by this, because somewhere Steiner talks about the “unendliche Schwierigkeiten” (endless difficulties) of the anthroposophists because they think that their life is “nicht geistig genug und so weiter” (not spiritual enough and so on).
Incidentally, Steiner clearly says that it would be very wrong to avoid or evade the mentioned things, and that one should not become unworldly and should adapt to current circumstances. Also, because of these so-called adverse effects, one can actually develop a stronger force, much stronger than if these adverse effects were not there.
But that there are also a lot of positive things in the examples mentioned, i.e. light images, sports and music, I have heard Steiner say very little about that. However, it may be that I have overlooked this then. But the positive thing about said things is that one can also experience all kinds of things, which one would not experience if one did not do it. And those experiences also shape and develop human beings anyway. That there are shadow sides to it should not be a reason to then avoid or shirk these matters.
For example, if you say: ‘I don’t watch television or cinema films’, you are missing out on a lot of fun and many things you can learn from, not only intellectually but also morally. It then depends on what kind of films they are, of course, there is also a lot of violence, crime, etc. to be seen.
And those who don’t want to listen to music through electronic devices will get to hear very little music or no music at all. And think about footballers or sportsmen in general. They go through all sorts of things that might make them a better person.
My conclusion is: Whatever one does: there are downsides to everything, but there are also good sides to everything. It is just what a person makes of it. Those who reason, ‘I’m not doing this, because it’s not good,’ should then also say, ‘I’ll just stop eating, because if I eat, I run the risk of eating too unhealthy or too much, causing damage to my health.’
The great Rudolf Steiner Quotes Site 