{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 107/1909-01-01/p036","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"There we see a connection which seems to be like a relic of catastrophes undergone by humanity in the far distant past. The power to work upon fire which man had formerly possessed, was withdrawn from him. Hence ancient Lemuria was brought to its destruction by the fire of the passions of men. The same fire that is now below was then above; it receded from the earth's surface and the same fire that issued as a kind of extract from the primordial fire is the inorganic, mineral fire of to-day. So too it was with the forces working through air and water which, again by way of the passions of men, led to the Atlantean catastrophes. These catastrophes were evoked by the collective karma of humanity but a relic has remained and this relic awakens the echoes of those earlier catastrophes. Our volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are nothing else than the echoes of these catastrophes. But it should never so much as occur to anyone to attach an iota of guilt to the victim of such a calamity or to withhold compassion in the fullest measure. It must be absolutely clear to an anthroposophist that the karma of these individuals has nothing to do with the guilt to which the catastrophes are due and it should never occur to him to withhold help from anyone because—to put it trivially—he believes in karma and therefore assumes that this destiny was brought on by the man himself. Karma demands of us that we help human beings because we may be sure that our help means something that is written in their karma and will turn that karma in a more favorable direction. Understanding that is based upon the recognition of karma must necessarily lead to compassion; our compassion for the victims of such catastrophes will be all the greater, for our knowledge tells us that there is a collective karma of humanity from which the individual members have to suffer, that just as such happenings are brought about by humanity as one whole, so too must humanity be answerable for them; we must regard such a destiny as our own and help not only out of a spontaneous impulse but because we know that we are involved in the karma of humanity and share the guilt incurred!","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"II. Mephistopheles and Earthquakes","site_heading":null,"date":"1909-01-01","location":null,"word_count":386,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/107/1909-01-01/p036","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Dorothy S. Osmond","identified_edition":"AP1954","book_title":"The Deed of Christ and the Opposing Spiritual Powers","publisher":"Anthroposophic Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA107/English/AP1954/19090101p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/107/1909-01-01/p036"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/107/1909-01-01/p036","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1909-01-01","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 107/1909-01-01/p031","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/107/1909-01-01/p031"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":394,"en_words":386,"ratio":0.98,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 107/1909-01-01/p031","passage_number":31,"text":"Da sehen wir einen Zusammenhang, der allerdings uns wie ein stehengebliebener Rest sonstiger uralter Menschheitskatastrophen erscheint. In der lemurischen Zeit wurde den Menschen die Gewalt entzogen, auf das Feuer zu wirken. Vorher konnte der Mensch auf das Feuer wirken. Daher ist das alte Lemurien zugrunde gegangen durch die Feuerleidenschaften der Menschen. Da war dasselbe Feuer, das jetzt unten ist, oben. Damals ist das Feuer zurückgetreten von der Erdoberfläche; dasselbe Feuer, das wie ein Extrakt aus dem Urfeuer herausgekommen ist, ist das unorganische Feuer, das mineralische Feuer von heute. Ebenso ist es gegangen mit den Kräften, die durch Luft und Wasser gehen und die durch die Leidenschaften der Menschen die Katastrophen von Atlantis herbeigeführt haben. Es war ein Gesamt-Menschheitskarma, das diese atlantischen Katastrophen hervorgerufen hat. Aber es ist ein Rest davon geblieben, und dieser Rest ruft die Nachklänge dieser Katastrophen hervor. Unsere Vulkanausbrüche und unsere Erderschütterungen sind nichts anderes als die Nachklänge dieser Katastrophen. Nur müssen wir in Betracht ziehen, daß niemandem auch nur beifallen dürfte, daß den gerade von einer solchen Katastrophe Betroffenen auch nur irgendein Teil der Schuld beizumessen sei und daß deshalb nicht in vollstem Umfange Mitleid für die dadurch Betroffenen hervorgerufen werden sollte. Das muß sich der Anthroposoph klarmachen, daß das Karma dieser Menschen nichts zu tun hat mit dem, was er tun darf, und daß er etwa einem Menschen nicht helfen dürfte, weil er -trivial gesprochen -an das Karma glaubt, daß der Mensch dieses Schicksal selbst herbeigeführt habe. Das ist es gerade, wozu uns das Karma auffordert: daß wir den Menschen helfen, weil wir sicher sein können, daß unsere Hilfe dann für den Menschen etwas bedeutet, was in sein Karma eingeschrieben wird, und wodurch sein Karma in eine günstigere Richtung kommt. Gerade zum Mitleid muß uns das Durchschauen der Welt führen, das auf Karma begründet ist. So wird uns das Verständnis gegenüber den unglücklich Leidenden und von einer solchen Katastrophe Betroffenen gerade um so mitleidiger machen, denn es besagt, daß es ein Gesamt-Menschheitskarma ist, an dem die einzelnen Menschheitsglieder zu leiden haben, und daß ebenso, wie die ganze Menschheit solche Ereignisse herbeiführt, auch die ganze Menschheit dafür aufzukommen hat, daß wir ein solches Schicksal als unser eigenes anzusehen haben, daß wir nicht einmal helfen, weil wir es freiwillig tun, sondern weil wir wissen: Wir stehen im Menschheitskarma drinnen, und was da verschuldet worden ist, das ist mit von uns verschuldet.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":394,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/107/1909-01-01/p031"}],"english":["GA 107/1909-01-01/p036"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":394,"en_words":386,"ratio":0.98,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.95,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":7750,"original_word_count":8170,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Dorothy S. Osmond","identified_edition":"AP1954","book_title":"The Deed of Christ and the Opposing Spiritual Powers","publisher":"Anthroposophic Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA107/English/AP1954/19090101p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 107/1909-01-01/p031"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}