{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 130/1912-01-29/p014","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"One of the consequences of materialism is that human beings become prematurely old. Thirty years ago, for example, children looked quite different; there are children today of ten or twelve years of age who give the impression almost of senility. Human beings have become so precocious, especially the grown-ups. They maintain that lies such as that of babies being brought by the stork should not be told to children, that children should be enlightened on such matters. But this enlightenment itself is really a lie. Those who come after us will know that the souls of our children hover down as bird-like spirit forms from the higher worlds. To have an imaginative conception of many things still beyond our comprehension is of very great importance. As regards the fact in question it might be possible to find a better imaginative picture than the story of the stork. What matters is that spiritual forces operate between the child and his parents or teachers, a kind of secret magnetism must be there. We must ourselves believe in any imaginative picture we give to the children. If it is a question of explaining death to them, we must point to another happening in nature. We can say: ‘See how the butterfly flies out of the chrysalis. The same thing happens to the human soul after death’ But we must ourselves believe that the world is arranged in such a way that the forces in the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis present us with an image of the soul going forth from the body. The world-spirit has inscribed such a picture in nature to draw our attention to the process. It is tremendously important to be always capable of learning, of remaining young, independently of our physical body. And that is the great task of theosophy that has become Anthroposophy: to bring to the world the rejuvenation which it needs. We must get beyond the banal and the purely material. To recognise soul and spirit as powers operating in life—this must be the aim of the work in our groups. We must be permeated more and more with the knowledge that the soul can gain mastery over the external world.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"X. The Dawn of Occultism in the Modern Age II","site_heading":null,"date":"1912-01-29","location":null,"word_count":366,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/130/1912-01-29/p014","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Pauline Wehrle","identified_edition":"RSP1984","book_title":"Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA130/English/RSP1984/19120129p02.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/130/1912-01-29/p014"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/130/1912-01-29/p014","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},"other_renderings":{"loci":[{"locus":"GA 130/1912-01-29_02","ga":"130","lecture":"1912-01-29_02","kind":"renderings","relation":"another translation or transcription of the same lecture"}],"note":"The same lecture is also served at the loci listed, each with how it relates to this one. They are ONE witness, not independent attestations: quote the rendering you fetched, and do not cite another as corroborating it. Wording differs between translations, so a quotation found in one need not occur in the other."},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1912-01-29","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 130/1912-01-29/p014","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/130/1912-01-29/p014"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":349,"en_words":366,"ratio":1.05,"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 130/1912-01-29/p014","passage_number":14,"text":"Durch den Materialismus werden die Menschen vorzeitig alt. Vor dreißig Jahren zum Beispiel, ja da haben die Kinder anders ausgeschaut als heute. Heute sieht man schon zehn-, zwölfjährige alte Leute, Kinder, die geradezu einen greisenhaften Eindruck machen, gibt es heute. Die Menschen sind so altklug geworden und ganz besonders die Erwachsenen. Sie sagen: Wir wollen unsere Kinder nicht mehr anlügen, zum Beispiel damit, dass der Storch die Kinder bringe. Die Kinder müssen aufgeklärt werden. Aber so lügen sie die Kinder in Wahrheit an. Unsere Nachkommen werden wieder wissen, dass tatsächlich unsere Kinderseelen als vogelartige geistige Gebilde herunterschweben aus den höheren Welten. Es ist außerordentlich wichtig, dass man eine imaginative Vorstellung hat für manche Dinge, die noch nicht begreiflich sind. Es ist allerdings wohl möglich für die Tatsache, um die es sich handelt, eine bessere Imagination zu finden als die Storchgeschichte. Darauf kommt es an, dass spirituelle Kräfte spielen zwischen Kind und Eltern oder Erzieher, etwas wie ein geheimer Magnetismus muss da sein. Man muss selbst an die Imagination glauben, die man den Kindern gibt. Wenn man den Kindern den Tod erklären will, so muss man hinweisen auf ein anderes Naturereignis. Man kann sagen: Sich dir den Schmetterling an, wie er aus der Puppe herausfliegt: also ist es auch mit der Menschenseele nach dem Tode. - Aber erst muss man selbst glauben, die Welt sei so angeordnet, dass die Mächte in dem Schmetterling, der aus der Puppe herausfliegt, uns ein Bild für den Vorgang des Hervorgehens der Seele aus dem Körper hingezeichnet haben. Der Weltengeist hat uns aufmerksam machen wollen, wie das geschieht, deshalb hat er uns ein solches Bild in die Natur eingezeichnet. Das ist ungeheuer wichtig, dass wir immer lernen können, immer jung bleiben können, unabhängig von unserem physischen Leibe. Und das ist die ungeheuer wichtige Aufgabe der Theosophie: der Welt die Verjüngung zu bringen, die sie braucht. Wir müssen hinauskommen über das banal Sinnliche. Seelisches und Geistiges in der Praxis anzuerkennen, das muss das Ziel unseres Zweiglebens sein. Die Erkenntnis muss uns immer mehr durchdringen, dass wir von der Seele aus Herrscher werden können über das Äußere.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":349,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/130/1912-01-29/p014"}],"english":["GA 130/1912-01-29/p014"],"method":"length","confidence":"medium","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":349,"en_words":366,"ratio":1.05,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.09,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":2876,"original_word_count":2649,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Pauline Wehrle","identified_edition":"RSP1984","book_title":"Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA130/English/RSP1984/19120129p02.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 130/1912-01-29/p014"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"medium","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."}}