The topic where I have seen most people praise Rudolf Steiner is in his
"biodynamic agriculture" but there are also experts who do not agree
with him and one of them is Stuart Smith.
Stuart is a veteran winegrower of
forty years. He was schooled in the sciences while working on his master’s
degree at U.C. Davis in Viticulture and Enology. His course work included basic
chemistry, inorganic, organic and bio-chemistry, bacteriology, biology, plant
propagation along with the specialized courses unique to the Viticulture and
Enology Department.
He was the department’s first
Teaching Assistant to Professors Maynard Amerine and Vern Singleton. In the
early 1970’s he was an instructor of Viticulture and Enology at Napa Community
College for several years and for another ten years at Santa Rosa Junior
College.
So he is academically well prepared, but he is also very experienced in
practice since in the fall of 1970 he first walked
200 acres of forested land on the top of Spring Mountain, located just west of
St. Helena in the Napa Valley.
And in early 1971, with a small
partnership of family and friends he was able to purchase the land and start Smith-Madrone
Vineyards & Winery.
~ * ~
Well, Stuart Smith opened a blog where he details the reasons why he is
very skeptical with the techniques that Rudolf Steiner taught, because as
Stuart Smith said:
« Austrian Philosopher
Rudolf Steiner gave a series of lectures and discussions on Agriculture in June
1924 to a group of his followers in Koberwitz, Poland.
These lectures on Agriculture
became the foundation for Biodynamics which in recent years has been embraced
by an ever widening group of wineries around the world.
However, after reading Steiner, I
conclude that Rudolf Steiner was a complete nutcase, a flimflam man with a tremendous
imagination, and his books, writings and lectures should be catalogued under science
fiction.
But don’t understand me. It is
not an attack on organic or sustainable farming; both of which I support. What I am against is the delirious way
that Rudolf Steiner deals with them. And I do not like his hypocrisy, because in his first lecture
given on June 7, 1924, Rudolf Steiner began by saying:
-
"It ought to be
clear to anyone that people have no right to talk about agriculture, including
its social and organizational aspects, unless they have a sound basis in
agriculture, and really know what it means to grow grain or potatoes or
beets."
But Rudolf Steiner had never been
a farmer, yet he delivered these lectures on Agriculture!
And that is why I decided to open the blog titled:
Because someone has to speak up. »
And in his blog you can read the following 33
articles:
2. Introduction
4. U.C. Davis
MY OPINION REGARDING
One point that I see against Stuart Smith's analysis is that he has no
esoteric knowledge, his analysis is only made from a scientific point of view
and therefore he is not aware of the hidden aspects of the Creation.
But it is also a fact that he is an expert in viticulture who knows a
lot and therefore you have to pay attention to what he says.
And I will progressively comment his articles, but once I wanted to
present them to those who want to dig deeper into the biodynamic agriculture
taught by Rudolf Steiner.
And something that impressed me a lot is that Stuart Smith analyzing
Rudolf Steiner from the point of view of agriculture came to the same
conclusion as I, when I analyzed Rudolf Steiner from the point of view of
esotericism:
-
Rudolf Steiner was a fanatic man with a huge imagination, but whose books should be put in the category
of fantasy and not as a transcendental teaching because he often raves.
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