{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 16/l01/p007-p008","extent":"range","passage_number":7,"through":8,"paragraph_count":2,"first_locus":"GA 16/l01/p007","last_locus":"GA 16/l01/p008","lang":"en","edition":"AP1956","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"title":"First Meditation","date":null,"location":null,"alignment_confidence":"low","alignment_reason":"count_diverges","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":null,"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["AP1956"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.16,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":3164,"original_word_count":2735,"may_be_abridged":false},"site_heading":null,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/16/l01/p007-p008","json_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/16/l01/p007-p008.json","lecture_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/16/l01#p007","word_count":763,"quote_safe":true,"passages":[{"passage_number":7,"locus":"GA 16/l01/p007","text":"Such a reflection may call forth in the inner experience all the horror of the thought of death, but without the admixture of the merely personal feelings which are ordinarily connected with this thought. When such personal feelings prevail it is not easy to establish the calm, deliberate state of mind necessary for obtaining knowledge. It is natural that man should want to know about death and about a life of the soul independent of the dissolution of the body. But the relation existing between man himself and these questions is—perhaps more than anything else in the world—apt to confuse his objective judgment and to make him accept as genuine answers only those which are inspired by his own desires or wishes. For it is impossible to obtain true knowledge of anything in the spiritual realms without being able with complete unconcern to accept a “No ” quite as willingly as a “Yes.” And we need only look conscientiously into ourselves to become distinctly aware of the fact that we do not accept the knowledge of an extinction of the life of the soul together with the death of the body with the same equanimity as the opposite knowledge which teaches the continued existence of the soul beyond death. No doubt there are people who quite honestly believe in the annihilation of the soul on the extinction of the life of the body, and who arrange their lives accordingly. But even these are not unbiased with regard to such a belief. It is true that they do not allow the fear of annihilation, and the wish for continued existence, to get the better of the reasons which are distinctly in favour of such annihilation. So far the conception of these people is more logical than that of others who unconsciously construct or accept arguments in favour of a continued existence, because there is an ardent desire in the secret depths of their souls for such continued existence. And yet the view of those who deny immortality is no less biased, only in a different way. There are amongst them some who build up a certain idea of what life and existence are. This idea forces them to think of certain conditions, without which life is impossible. Their view of existence leads them to the conclusion that the conditions of the soul's life can no longer be present when the body falls away. Such people do not notice that they have themselves from the very first fixed an idea of the conditions necessary for the existence of life, and cannot believe in a continuation of life after death for the simple reason that, according to their own preconceived idea, there is no possibility of imagining an existence without a body. Even if they are not biased by their own wishes, they are biased by their own ideas from which they cannot emancipate themselves. Much confusion still prevails in such matters, and only a few examples need be put forward of what exists in this direction. For instance, the thought that the body, through whose processes the soul manifests its life, will eventually be given over to the outer world, and follow laws which have no relation to inner life—this thought puts the experience of death before the soul in such a way that no wish, no personal consideration, need necessarily enter the mind; and by a thought such as this we are led to a simple, impersonal question of knowledge. Then also the thought will soon dawn upon the mind that the idea of death is not important in itself, but rather because it may throw light upon life. And we shall have to come to the conclusion that it is possible to understand the riddle of life through the nature of death.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":632,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/16/l01/p007","witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"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":8,"locus":"GA 16/l01/p008","text":"The fact that the soul desires its own continued existence should, under all circumstances, make us suspicious with regard to any opinion which the soul forms about its own immortality. For why should the facts of the world pay any heed to the feelings of the soul? It is a possible thought that the soul, like a flame produced from fuel, merely flashes forth from the substance of the body and is then again extinguished. Indeed, the necessity of forming some opinion about its own nature might perhaps lead the soul to this very thought, with the result that it would feel itself to be devoid of meaning. But nevertheless this thought might be the actual truth of the matter, even although it made the soul feel itself to be meaningless.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":131,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/16/l01/p008","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l01","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 16/l01/p008","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/16/l01/p008"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["reader"],"reader_german":["GA 16/l01/p008"],"reader_part":true,"length_check":{"de_words":151,"en_words":198,"ratio":1.31,"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_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 16/l01/p008"],"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."}}],"witnesses":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":14,"passage_count":14,"word_count":2735},{"lang":"en","edition":"AP1956","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":18,"passage_count":18,"word_count":3164,"completeness":{"ratio":1.16,"band":"comparable","note":null}}],"aligned_witness":{"status":"partly_aligned","lang":"de","edition":"original","confidence":"high","passages":[{"locus":"GA 16/l01/p008","passage_number":8,"text":"Dass die Seele nach ihrer Fortdauer verlangt, sollte unter allen Umständen dazu führen, sie mißtrauisch zu machen gegen alle Meinungen, welche sie sich über diese Fortdauer bildet. Denn warum sollten sich die Tatsachen der Welt kümmern um das, was die Seele empfindet. Sie mag nach ihren Bedürfnissen sich selber sinnlos fühlen, wenn sie denken müßte, sie könnte, einer Flamme gleich, die aus dem Brennmaterial sich ergibt, aus dem Stoffe ihres Leibes aufflackern und dann wieder verlöschen. Es könnte sich dies doch so verhalten, auch wenn es als sinnlos empfunden würde. - Wenn die Seele den Blick zum Leibe wendet, so soll sie auch nur mit dem rechnen, was er ihr zeigen kann. Es scheint da, als ob in der Natur die Gesetze wirkten, welche die Stoffe und Kräfte in ein Wechselspiel bringen, und als ob diese Gesetze den Leib beherrschten, und ihn nach einiger Zeit wieder in das allgemeine Wechselspiel einbezögen.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":151,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/16/l01/p008"}],"beads":[{"from":[8,9],"to":[8],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"verified"}],"note":"Paired by the paragraph aligner; each language numbers its own paragraphs. A bead at either end of the span can carry text beyond it (the `from` numbers show what each bead covers).","uncovered":[7]}}