The Cult of Waldorf Schools

Sounds Like A Cult

Studio71

Comedy, Education, Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture

4 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you’ve ever met a kid who could knit a scarf before they could read, you might already be familiar with this week's "cult." With their dreamy, arts-infused approach to education (think: seasonal festivals, storytelling over standardized testing), Waldorf schools promise a ~holistic utopia for young minds~. But behind the fairy tale façade lurks a past (and present) steeped in, oh y'know, anti-science ideology, claims of clairvoyance, weird "karma" stuff, problematic hierarchies, and a suspiciously rigid devotion to its 1920s founder, Rudolf Steiner. And that's just the beginning! This week, Amanda and Reese break down the culty undercurrents of Waldorf Schools with the help of former Waldorf educator Maggie Smith, who was kicked out of the movement and lived to tell the tale. Is Waldorf a harmless hippie haven? Or an expensive lesson on us vs. them dynamics? Tune in as we unravel its hand-spun, naturally dyed, organic threads! Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube! Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles. Thank you to our sponsors! As a special offer to listeners of the show, go to https://stopscooping.com/ SLAC and use promo code SLAC to save an ADDITIONAL $50 on any Litter-Robot bundle. Find exactly what you’re booking for on https://Booking.com, Booking.YEAH! Please consider donating to those affected by the Los Angeles Fires. Some organizations that Team SLAC are donating to are: https://mutualaidla.org/ https://give.pasadenahumane.org/give/654134/#!/donation/checkout https://shorturl.at/SGW9w Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations.
0:06.6	The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.
0:12.5	Sometimes these ideas would come up that essentially are refuted by modern science.
0:16.7	Stuff that's like, well, science has kind of closed the book on this. It's not how it works.
0:20.8	And we'd be told like, oh, no, no, this is true. This is what Rudolf Steiner discovered through his
0:25.1	own spiritual scientific studies. This whole thing is reminding me so very much of Scientology.
0:30.8	But anthroposophists are very, very quick to say it is not a religion. And also, anthroposophists
0:36.2	are not dogmatic because Rudolph Steiner said that we
0:39.4	shouldn't be dogmatic and therefore we're not dogmatic. Well, in that case, this is Sounds Like a
0:46.5	Colt, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Amanda Montel, author of the book's
0:52.1	cultish and The Age of Magical Overtinking.
0:57.6	And I'm Reese Oliver. Sounds like a cult's coordinator.
1:03.0	Every week on this show, we discuss a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist,
1:06.8	from Amazon to Wine Moms, to try and answer the big question.
1:10.3	This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? And if so, which of our three cult categories does it fall into?
1:20.6	A liquor life, a watcher back, or a get the fuck out.
1:25.6	Because cults these days don't always look like the Manson style compounds that you might
1:30.2	picture.
1:30.8	Cults, or at least cult-e organizations in 2025, might look like, I don't know, a bougie
1:37.1	hippie school that has some fringy little practices and a low-key sinister origin story.
1:43.4	Yes, culties. We're finally covering Waldorf schools, okay?
1:48.0	On Soundsly Occult over the years, we've talked about a lot of different schools.
	...

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