{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 147/1913-08-25/p008-p009","extent":"range","passage_number":8,"through":9,"paragraph_count":2,"first_locus":"GA 147/1913-08-25/p008","last_locus":"GA 147/1913-08-25/p009","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"title":"Lecture II","date":"1913-08-25","location":null,"alignment_confidence":"low","alignment_reason":"count_diverges","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Ruth Pusch","identified_edition":"AP1987","book_title":"Secrets of the Threshold","publisher":"Anthroposophic Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA147/English/AP1987/19130825p01.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"]},"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},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.02,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6343,"original_word_count":6213,"may_be_abridged":false},"site_heading":"Crossing the Threshold: Luciferic and Ahrimanic Dangers","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 Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote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.","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/147/1913-08-25/p008-p009","json_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/147/1913-08-25/p008-p009.json","lecture_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/147/1913-08-25#p008","word_count":622,"quote_safe":true,"passages":[{"passage_number":8,"locus":"GA 147/1913-08-25/p008","text":"Ahriman, however, can overstep his bounds. In the first place, he can so far overdo that he sets to work on human thinking. A man who does not see into the spiritual world and has no understanding of it will not believe that Ahriman can put his fingers upon human thinking in a very real way—nevertheless, he does! Insofar as human thinking lives in the sense world, it is bound to the brain, which according to universal law is subject to decay. Ahriman has to regulate the passage of the human brain towards decay, but when he oversteps his territory, he develops the tendency to loosen this human thinking from its mortal instrument, the brain, in order to make it independent. He tries to detach the physical thinking directed to the sense world from the physical brain, into whose current of decay this thinking should merge when the human being passes through the gate of death. Ahriman has the tendency, when he admits man as a physical being into the stream of death, to snatch his thinking out of the current of decay. Throughout a man's whole life Ahriman is always fastening his claws into this thinking activity and working on the human being so that his thinking will tear itself away from destruction. Because Ahriman is active in this way in human thinking and because men bound to the sense world naturally perceive only the effects of the spiritual beings, those who are thus in the clutches of Ahriman feel the impulse to wrench their thinking out of its place in the great cosmic order. The result is the materialistic frame of mind; this is the reason men want to apply their thinking only to the sense world, and the people who refuse to believe in a spiritual world are the ones particularly obsessed by Ahriman: it is he who enters their thinking and prevails upon its remaining in the sense world. First of all, if a person has not become a practical occultist, the result for his inner attitude will be that he becomes a rank, coarse-grained materialist who wants to know nothing about spiritual matters. It is Ahriman who has enticed him into this, only he doesn't notice it. For Ahriman, however, the process is the following: when he succeeds in severing the physical thinking from its brain-bound foundation, he throws shadows and phantoms out into the world which swarm then through the physical world; with these, Ahriman is continually trying to establish a special ahrimanic kingdom.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":420,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/147/1913-08-25/p008","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Ruth Pusch","identified_edition":"AP1987","book_title":"Secrets of the Threshold","publisher":"Anthroposophic Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA147/English/AP1987/19130825p01.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":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"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."}},{"passage_number":9,"locus":"GA 147/1913-08-25/p009","text":"Unremittingly he lies in wait when man's thinking is about to pass into the stream wherein man himself will journey through the gate of death; there Ahriman lurks, on the watch to snatch away and hold back as much of this thinking as possible, and to form out of it, to tear from its mother-soil, shadows and phantoms that will people the physical world. Occultly observed, these phantoms drift around in the physical world disturbing the universal order; they are creations that Ahriman brings about in the way just described. We will have the right feeling for Ahriman when we appreciate his lawful impulses, for when he lets them enter our souls, we have a correct relationship to the sense world. However, we must be watchful that he does not tempt us in the way I have indicated. Certainly the policy some people choose is more convenient when they say: “Very well, we shall push every ahrimanic impulse out of our souls.” But nothing will be accomplished with this dislodgment except that the other side of the scales will be brought right down—and whoever through mistaken theories succeeds in driving ahrimanic impulses out of his soul falls prey to those of Lucifer.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":202,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/147/1913-08-25/p009","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Ruth Pusch","identified_edition":"AP1987","book_title":"Secrets of the Threshold","publisher":"Anthroposophic Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA147/English/AP1987/19130825p01.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":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"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."}}],"witnesses":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":22,"passage_count":22,"word_count":6213},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":34,"passage_count":34,"word_count":6343,"completeness":{"ratio":1.02,"band":"comparable","note":null}}],"aligned_witness":{"status":"not_aligned","lang":"de","note":"No paragraph alignment is recorded for this unit, so the counterpart of this span in the other language is not established. The paragraph of the same number there is not necessarily the same text: fetch that unit and read it."}}