In this category I investigate controversial concepts, beginning with the so-called Vowel Angels. Flying in from God-knows-where, they have become an established Waldorf tradition, endlessly repeated because people think that’s how you do it.
But those with a finely-tuned antenna (a colleague endearingly called it her “crap-o-meter”) are made uncomfortable by the idea of employing angels of any description in lessons.
Atheists naturally balk at the concept, while the earnestly religious feel seriously dismayed.
What are Vowel Angels?
Vowel Angels are the kind of thing that makes Waldorf Education look attractive to some and absurd to others:
In blog posts one finds statements such as, “Each vowel has its own angel who brought the soul sound to the people.” And: “The vowel angels bring the sounds over the rainbow bridge to earth.”
But I maintain that no one who has been blessed with an angel experience would want to use angels for literacy lessons.
The question is: Are Vowel Angels really a Waldorf thing? Should such figures of fantasy have a place in a curriculum that is based on Goodness, Beauty and – first and foremost – Truth?
There is no telling unless we turn to the source, the indications of Rudolf Steiner himself.
Vowel Angels Research
Using the excellent rsarchive.org to scour the myriad pages of his works in the blink of an eye, a search for ‘vowel angels’ returns over 600 hits – every single one for either vowels or angels.
It proves that Rudolf Steiner made no mention of Vowel Angels. And those familiar with his work feel certain that he would have rejected them.
Why? Because spiritual truthfulness must imbue the educator’s power of imagination – not random fancy.
Here follows a selection of passages that can help us develop our sense of spiritual truthfulness.
Steiner on Vowels
When letter shapes are introduced with story-images to Waldorf first-graders, the consonants are taken from tangible items, natural phenomena and living beings.
The contoured sounds of consonants echo worldly things. This distinguishes them from vowels, whose stream of sound flows on the outbreath.
Rudolf Steiner in Practical Course for Teachers, GA 294:
“Consonants can always be traced back to imitations of external things; vowels, on the other hand, to the quite elementary expression of human shades of feeling about things.
Consequently, you can understand speech as a meeting between sympathy and antipathy. The sympathies always reside in the vowels, the antipathies in the consonants, the accompanying sounds.”
When Steiner speaks of sympathy and antipathy here, he does not mean personal likes and dislikes. Rather, sympathy is understood as the barely conscious longing to unite one’s self with the thing in question, and antipathy as the urge to remain separate and independent from it.
In The Child’s Changing Consciousness and Waldorf Education, GA 306, Steiner links both of these elementary soul forces to the qualities of the vowels:
“The vowels, on the other hand, are a way of expressing and revealing a person’s inner nature. The forms of the letters that express vowel sounds do not imitate external things but express human feelings of sympathy and antipathy.”
Rather than connecting vowels with cosmic beings, he identifies them with our sphere of emotion.
Vowels and Emotions
More detail is given in Spiritual Ground of Education, GA 305:
“Observe the great difference between consonants and vowels in speech. Consonants round off a sound, give it angularity […] with lips or teeth. Vowels arise in quite another way. Vowels arise while guiding the breath stream through the vocal organs in a particular manner. We do not give contour; we build the substance of the sound by means of vowels.
The vowels, as it were, provide the substance, the stuff. The consonants mould and sculpt the substance provided by the vowels. And now – using the terms spirit and soul in the sense we are giving them here – we can say: In the consonants of speech there is spirit, in the vowels there is soul.”
Vowels and Music
Another aspect is put forward in Eurythmy as Visible Singing, GA 278:
“Speech consists, on the one hand, of the vowel sounds, which mainly serve to express what lives within. In the vowel sounds, as we have seen, it is easy to see that the musical element leaves its mark, whereas in the consonants this is very difficult to find.”
Here we are pointed to the musical quality of the vowels, for each one has a sound that can ring out without support, all by itself.
To show children this qualitative difference, we let them experience that they can sound out the “singing letters” to any tune they like, simply replacing the song’s lyrics with a drawn-out vowel.
Then we let them sing any consonant of their choosing … and enjoy the resulting laughter.
Repeating this with suitable movements as part of the Morning Circle, Class 1 learn to distinguish the vowels easily and understand from direct experience what makes these sounds so special.
There is no need for made-up beings, no need to draw out the topic once it has been understood. Some things speak for themselves. Not everything has to be introduced with a story.
Steiner rightly emphasised the need for economy in teaching to make the best use of limited time.
Vowels and Interjections
The vowels as human soul expressions are also addressed in The Renewal of Education, GA 301:
“A sufficient comprehension of human nature, particularly one based upon a trained observation of children’s speech, shows that human feeling is engaged in a much different way when learning the vowels. They are learnt through feeling.
If we train our own powers of observation, we will see how all vowels arise from certain human inner experiences that are like simple or more complicated interjections, expressions of feeling. Inwardly, we as human beings live in the vowels.”
Interjections such as: “Ah, I get it!” – “Oh, how beautiful!” – “Uh-oh, not again!” – “Oops, I’m so sorry!” – “Eeee, how disgusting!” – “Owww! That hurt!” – “Ayayay!” and more.
“Human” is emphasised repeatedly in this paragraph, pointing to the fact that animals express their soul life in sounds that are different from our vowels.
Vowels and Movement
The interjections are linked to gestures in Education – Reading, Writing and Nature-Study, GA 307:
“In the case of the vowels we must turn to gesture, for the vowels are an expression of man’s inner being. ‘A’ [ah], for example, inevitably contains an element of wonder, of astonishment.
Eurythmy will prove to be of great assistance, for there we have gestures that truly correspond to feeling. The ‘I’, the ‘A’ and the other vowels can be drawn from the corresponding gesture in Eurythmy, for the vowels must be derived from movements that are an expression of the inner life of the human soul.”
Since vowels are an expression of the soul, we should draw on our inner being when we teach them.
Eurythmy, manifesting moods of the soul-life in gestures of universal validity, does so in a factual and practical way. It does not of itself lead to angel-fantasies.
Note: “The word eurythmy stems from Greek roots meaning beautiful or harmonious rhythm. The term was used by Ancient Greek and Roman architects to refer to the harmonious proportions of a design or building. The English word eurythmy was used from the 17th to 19th century to refer not only to harmonious architectural proportions, but also to rhythmical order or movement and a graceful proportion and carriage of the body.” – Wikipedia
Steiner’s Eurythmy figures were created to help visualise each sound’s particular shape, mood, movement and character in colour. Consequently, these figures depict human emotions in artistic form, not angelic beings.
“One should not believe that Eurythmy is something so easy that one can teach it in a few hours. Eurythmy really has to be learned thoroughly; but such Eurythmy figures can also serve as repetition for those who are striving for Eurythmy as an art, for further immersion.”
Vowels and Planets
Looking at the cosmic origins of the sounds of speech, Steiner links them to heavenly bodies in The Alphabet: An Expression of the Mystery of Man, GA 209:
“And the forming of consonants in the physical body is the echo of what resounds from the single formations of the Zodiac, whereas the formation of vowels within the music of the spheres occurs through the movements of the planets in the cosmos.
This is imprinted into the etheric body. Thus, in our physical body we unconsciously bear a reflection of the cosmic consonants, whereas in our etheric body we bear a reflection of the cosmic vowels.
You can follow them by feeling the revolution of the planets in H [ed.: ‘H’ as in him, her] – H is not actually a letter like the others; H imitates the rotational movement, the circling around. And the single planets in their revolutions are always the individual vowels which are placed in various ways in front of the consonants.
If you imagine the vowel A to be placed in here [see diagram] you have the A in harmony with B and C, but in each vowel there is the H. You can trace it in speaking – AH, IH, EH. H is in each vowel.
What does it signify that H is in each vowel? It signifies that the vowel is revolving in the cosmos. The vowel is not at rest, it circles around in the cosmos. And the circling, the moving, is expressed in the H hidden in each of the vowels.”
And in Twelve Moods, GA 40:
“In our life on earth, the words we speak are an echo of this divine sound. Each consonant has been ‘spoken’ by one of the constellations; each vowel has been ‘sung’ by a planet.
We can discover, too, the relationship of our physical body in its structure and movement to the heavenly creative world. Physical language echoes the sounds of the stars; physical movement can trace their movements.”
These passages show what the educator can gain from the study of Steiner’s work that is summarised as Anthroposophy. And they also make it clear why none of it is taught to children.
But the adult mind whose horizon has thus been widened will teach differently, and usually better.
Teaching the Vowels
Practical advice is given in The Kingdom of Childhood, GA 311:
“All the consonants can be developed from the initial letters of the words describing these objects. It is not so easy for the vowels. But perhaps for the vowels the following is possible.
Suppose you say to the child: ‘Look at the beautiful sun! Stand like this, so that you can look up and admire the glorious sun.’ And so if you bring before the child something of an inner soul quality, and above all what is expressed in Eurythmy, […] you can develop the vowels also in the way I have mentioned.
Eurythmy will be of great help to you because the sounds are already formed in its gestures and movements. One embraces something lovingly. Out of this one can obtain the O. You can really get the vowels from the gesture, the movement.
Thus you must work out of observation and imagination, and the children will then come to know the sounds and the letters from the things themselves.”
I ask you: Who, working “out of observation and imagination”, comes to know sounds and letters from ANGELS?
Now that we have explored what Rudolf Steiner has to say about the nature of vowels and their teaching, let us see what he tells us about angels.
Steiner on Angels
A selection of relevant quotes can give us a sense of what lies beyond our earthly horizon.
The Mission of the Individual Folk-Souls, GA 121:
“Those beings who underwent their human stage on Old Moon and who therefore are one stage above man were called, in Christian esoteric terminology, Angeloi or Angels. They are one stage higher than man because they completed their stage of human evolution one epoch earlier.”
Here speaks someone who is aware that angels have a history and undergo development. In the context of lessons, this thought in itself ought to put angels beyond making up cute stories about them.
The Karma of Vocation, GA 172:
“The angels, standing just above man, guide and lead him through the portals of death, so that he has his angel by his side from death to a new birth and is led by him again into a new life. The mission of the angels is to guide individual humans through repeated earthly lives.”
Rudolf Steiner used the gender-neutral German word Mensch, ‘human being’. Speakers of English (and its translators) know that many a word denotes different things. The meaning of spring, ring, left, boot, pitch, palm and swallow, for example, can only be gleaned from their context.
And ‘man’ is such a multi-tasking word, signifying in some cases human beings of all genders, in others someone male. Perceptively, Steiner once called English a mind-reader’s language.
The Spiritual Hierarchies, GA 110:
“The great leaders of humanity of antiquity were quite different from what they outwardly seemed to be. They were personalities in whom an Angel dwelt and gave what they needed, so that they might become teachers and leaders of men. The great founders of religions were men inhabited by angels. Angels spoke through them.”
The Presence of the Dead on the Spiritual Path, GA 154:
“We identify angels and archangels not by their appearance, but we know angels by the mildness that flows from them into us, and recognize archangels by allowing their strength and power to flow into our feeling and will.”
How Does He Know?
Rudolf Steiner’s research in the realm of the spirit is known to seem weird to many, and they reject his findings on the grounds that they cannot verify his claims.
If given to logic, they would have to reject the claims of nuclear science and astrophysics for the same reason. But here they make allowance for the obvious fact that any demanding subject must be studied for years before one is able to undertake verification.
In the end it comes down to which experts in their field we choose to trust. Do we find them to be correct in descriptions of things we can verify? Do their teachings enrich our understanding of the world?
If so, it seems reasonable to trust their word on matters beyond our personal boundaries of experience and insight.
Esoteric Vowels
Here we have a rare passage where Steiner makes mention of an angel and vowels together. But they are “the vowels of the spiritual world”, not those of the alphabet:
Occult Reading and Occult Hearing, GA 156:
“Many roundabout descriptions are necessary before we can even begin to approach what may be called the experiencing of the vowels, of the intrinsic sounds of the cosmos.
From what I indicated yesterday you will have realised that we can speak of seven such vowels – a symbolic parallelism with the planetary system. Let us go back once again to the example I gave yesterday: the search for someone who is dead.
You may not experience these imaginations directly. Your guardian angel must take this experience away from you in your ordinary life.
When someone feels this inwardly, with the necessary timbre of inner piety, he is able to become aware of one of the vowels of the spiritual world.”
Was the connection of vowels with angels made by a teacher who read this while planning lessons? Who, in bypassing the angel’s preventing role, appointed him a bringer of spirit-sounds?
Or was it the following indication that lies at the root, given to priests, not teachers:
“If you take our 32 speech sounds, it will be easy for you to see that about 24 of them are consonants, and that about 7 of them are vowels.
Of course these things are always approximate, but you can now let some light from the beginning of John’s gospel ‘In the beginning was the Word’ fall on that Apocalyptic Imagination of an Alpha and Omega surrounded by seven angels or vowels, and by 24 elders or consonants.”
Lectures to Priests, The Apocalypse, GA 346
But even here it is “angels or vowels” (not Vowel Angels) – and his interpretation of the initiate John’s visions of the Apocalypse was certainly not meant to be teaching material for children.
Vowel Angels Origins
So, where did the questionable Vowel Angels come from? In the interest of preserving the Waldorf movement’s history for future generations, it would be good to have it on record.
If you know the source or have helpful clues, please post a comment below. Should enough readers contribute when and where they first encountered Vowel Angels in the 20th century, a picture may begin to build.
I first met the concept in the 1990s at my old Waldorf School in Switzerland. But it was already copied from someone else and well on the way to becoming a tradition which would soon be seen as standard.
Now, this process of repeated copying is the same for innovations that are either inspired or misguided. Not every tradition is bad, not every innovation good – and vice versa.
And naturally it takes more discernment to identify what’s what than most new teachers, parents and homeschoolers can have.
But is it Waldorf?
How can those without Waldorf experience and Steiner Study make the necessary distinctions? Quite simply, they can’t.
Homeschoolers browsing the internet and teachers hired to learn the ropes on the job pick up things that are easy to follow and give a sense of security. Like telling sweet little stories of angel-beings in rainbow colours …
Well, if that isn’t Waldorf, what is?
In fact, the Waldorf method is primarily based on accurate observation, as modelled by Rudolf Steiner:
“Someone who sets himself the task of observing speech will see that man’s confrontation with the outer world must consist on the one hand of living into the world vigorously; of making himself selfless and living out into the world. In the vowels he comes to himself; in the vowels he goes within and unfolds his activity there.”
Curative Eurythmy, GA 315
Esoteric Sentimentalism
I agree wholeheartedly with the following paragraph by Thomas Wildgruber, a German class teacher and teacher trainer who states in this excellent article:
“So, why should we bother angels and gnomes for these initial lessons! It is also possible to do it more vividly, as Steiner shows. He does not demand that the children rise with their imaginations into spiritual worlds. We prepare the children for life on earth. Therefore, I would say: let us free ourselves from such easily offered and little digested traditions. Let’s rather take real figures from the children’s lives for the arithmetic operations and vowel letters! Let’s leave aside the esoteric sentimentalism!”
Spirit Beings in Waldorf Lessons
Elemental spirits like gnomes and sylphs sometimes make an appearance in Waldorf plays and lessons, which may lead to the notion that angels too are suitable for teaching.
What Wildgruber identifies as esoteric sentimentalism is seen to thrive in Waldorf environments, particularly where the study of Steiner’s work on spirit beings is neglected.
Talk of vowel angels, dwarves, elves and fairies plays its part in discrediting Waldorf Education in the eyes of the public. This also applies to the popular Math Gnomes … but that is a topic for another day.
Angels and Literacy
So, how do angels relate to the concept of writing? After all that has been said, it won’t surprise you to learn that they don’t.
No one with angel-experience would dream of demeaning them in such a way. And why would those who lack it employ them in lessons? What happened to the basic tenet that teachers talk solely of what they know and understand?
Vowel Angels are not merely a heartwarming fantasy. They are a spiritual untruth. And Waldorf Education by definition takes spirit-matters seriously. Though whimsy may be tolerated at its fringes, it must not penetrate to the core.
Steiner stated that dishonesty causes harm in the spirit sphere, where untruth is equal in weight and consequence to murder in the earthly realm.
That ought to be reason enough not to bring spiritual untruths to the children we teach. They are disposed to accept and love anything we tell them, and we should not abuse their reverent trust in our word.
Dear Fabienne,
Your entry about the ‘Angel Vowels’ was so thoughtful, wise, and clear. It made me wish that I had your wealth of insights and that I was able to express myself so authentically and directly as you do. I am glad that there is someone who can present and explain Rudolf Steiner’s ideas in a way that encourages people to research questions for themselves.
I hope that this entry reaches many people, that it is disseminated widely, and that more teachers are inspired to explore what has become tradition in terms of what Rudolf Steiner actually indicated.
Roberto Trostli
former Class Teacher
I am so happy to read this, Roberto, moved and grateful to receive your words of appreciation. Incredibly motivating, they convince me that the intense work of many days needed to produce such an article is indeed worthwhile. Thank you!
At last a serious investigation in the practice of “vowel angels”. I have always felt that this practice was initiated by people who did not really understand a) the fundamentals of Waldorf Education and b) the essence of the sounds, be it vowels or consonants. Thank you so much for your insightful contribution.
I really appreciate your views, Gilbert, thank you! Half expecting outrage at my barbecuing of holy cattle, I am very pleased to find that you and Sven and others are in agreement. Maybe you know a veteran teacher who might know where the Vowel Angels came from?
Thank you, this is excellently intended, researched and presented. You really made the most of the gift we all have in rsarchive. Maybe extract the article and publish it as text on all “our” socials? Definitely a message worth disseminating. Keep up the good work!
Thank you for your comment, Sven, it is really motivating to get such feedback! And yes, the rsarchive is invaluable, a wonderful platform. I like to advertise my articles on a Sunday, when there is a better chance that busy teachers have the time to do some reading. You know how it is!
Thank you.
My pleasure!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful research and analysis.
Glad you like it! Am always delighted when someone takes a moment to respond, so thank you!