{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 140/1913-10-11/p019","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"The power of investigating one's own life, or that of another, in the spiritual world, can be acquired—curiously enough—through the forces left over in the etheric body from our learning to walk. Practical clairvoyance shows us that these forces, when really developed, have certain advantages over the clairvoyant forces developed for the purpose of looking back into former lives. I want you to pay particular attention to this difference between them, for it may throw light in many respects on various things. There is no way in which a dangerous clairvoyance is more easily developed than by using the forces which exist in present-day man for developing the organs of speech, and which, if kept back, enable him to see into his former earth-lives; for they are mostly connected with the lower instincts and passions in man's nature. In no other way is one brought so near to Lucifer and Ahriman as by developing these forces, for although they certainly lead one to the height of being able to look back into one's own and other people's past lives, yet they lead to the powers of illusion; and if not rightly developed the clairvoyant may, under their influence, fall morally low, rather than rise to the heights. Thus these forces are among the most dangerous of all, and should only be developed if at the same time the teacher is determined to develop the purest morality in his pupils. For this reason an experienced teacher will not easily allow himself to be persuaded systematically to develop the forces which enable a man to see former incarnations. It is just as rare to find the forces developed objectively, in the right way, i.e. by only using the speech-forces for this purpose, as it is common to find a certain lower clairvoyance which can see into the spiritual worlds and give descriptions of certain spiritual regions. That is why other means are generally used when it is desired to lead persons to see their earlier incarnations, and here we reach an interesting point—showing how necessary it is to pay attention to things which are generally disregarded. It is but seldom that anyone is able through his spiritual teaching to look back at his earlier earth-lives by developing the speech-forces only; that is a very rare occurrence, yet there are many persons at the present time who can do so. This has generally been reached by other means, one of which may strike one as strange, but it rests upon a profound truth. Suppose that a man is well advanced in years; it would need too much of an effort, and perhaps lead to too much temptation, were he to look back karmically at his former lives by developing the speech-forces. Therefore the spiritual forces have recourse to another means, which many suppose to be merely accidental. He may meet a man who calls him by a special name, or mentions a certain time, or a certain people. This works externally upon his soul in such a way that as a result he may develop the necessary forces to serve as a support for clairvoyance etc. will then notice that the name he was called by, or the words mentioned, will, without any knowledge of this on the part of the speaker, lead to a retrospective view of his past lives. This is a case of outer means being resorted to. The man in question hears a name or an era or a nation mentioned, and is thereby stimulated from outside, as it were, to see his former earth incarnations. Such external stimuli are sometimes of' great importance to a clairvoyant observation of the world. One has what seems to be an entirely accidental experience, but from this rays forth a stimulus for clairvoyant forces which one otherwise possesses only in rudimentary form.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Lecture II","site_heading":"Clairvoyant Forces and the Spiritual Worlds Between Lives","site_heading_note":"A heading the site wrote for this unit from a summary of it; not in the edition, and not the words of Rudolf Steiner or of the translator. Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote it.","date":"1913-10-11","location":null,"word_count":640,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/140/1913-10-11/p019","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Henry Collison","identified_edition":"APC1928","book_title":"Descriptive Sketches of the Spiritual World","publisher":"Anthroposophical Publishing Co.","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA140/English/APC1928/19131011p02.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/140/1913-10-11/p019"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/140/1913-10-11/p019","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 277a/1913-10-11","ga":"277a","lecture":"1913-10-11","kind":"reprint","relation":"the same text served under another volume (a reprint or another edition)"},{"locus":"GA 140/1913-10-11_02","ga":"140","lecture":"1913-10-11_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":"1913-10-11","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 140/1913-10-11/p015","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/140/1913-10-11/p015"},{"locus":"GA 140/1913-10-11/p016","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/140/1913-10-11/p016"},{"locus":"GA 140/1913-10-11/p017","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/140/1913-10-11/p017"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":626,"en_words":640,"ratio":1.02,"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."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.96,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6248,"original_word_count":6477,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Henry Collison","identified_edition":"APC1928","book_title":"Descriptive Sketches of the Spiritual World","publisher":"Anthroposophical Publishing Co.","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA140/English/APC1928/19131011p02.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 140/1913-10-11/p015","GA 140/1913-10-11/p016","GA 140/1913-10-11/p017"],"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."}}