Seriously, I know it sounds absurd, but the information I was given made it sound like I would at least have the freedom to experience this country in my free time, and that we could easily travel around, and perhaps even go work on the weekends (like you normally can, as a student).

Never trust information that isn't from the source. Because they can just deny it. When it is from the source, you can hold them to it.

Turns out this organization (the broader Steiner one) has enormous financial and legal resources behind it, to combat whistleblowers and the like. There’s people in this “community” whose full-time role it is to combat “unfair criticism” of Waldorf schools and the like.

So what are you planning?

That should tell you a lot. And now I know that too.

Sounds like Sollentology, as the great Gorgeous George called Scientology.