{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 170/1916-08-28/p025","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Some of you are possibly familiar with strange things that are apt to take place in circles where occultism, pseudo-occultism, occult charlatanism and the like, are cultivated. These strange things happen again and again. Suppose, for example, that a Society which likes to call itself an ‘Occult Society,’ numbers among its adherents, certain celebrities. In these so-called ‘Occult Societies’ there are always celebrities whose word is taken for law. Something said or done by these celebrities is immediately laid down as dogma. Suppose it becomes a dogma that one or another of these persons is the reincarnation of some great individuality, has achieved something quite out of the common, has uttered sublime truths, thousands of printed copies of which are sent out into the world. The utterances are considered to be of a lofty order although they may be commonplace in the extreme. That, however, makes no difference! It happens again and again that the most superficial nonsense, if delivered with the necessary veneer of sentimentality, is accepted by thousands of people as the most profound truth.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Lecture III","site_heading":"Cosmic Metamorphosis: The Body's Incarnational Transformation","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 Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote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":"1916-08-28","location":null,"word_count":177,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/170/1916-08-28/p025","alignment_confidence":"low","alignment_reason":"count_diverges","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"APC1948","book_title":"Memory and Habit","publisher":"Anthroposophical Publishing Co.","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA170/English/APC1948/19160828p02.html","evidence":null,"reason":"source_says_translator_unknown","note":"The source page itself says the translator is unknown. No translator is established for this lecture: nothing at the level of the lecture names one. Do not attribute this English to a translator, and do not borrow a credit from another lecture of the volume. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"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/170/1916-08-28/p025"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/170/1916-08-28/p025"}],"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 170/1916-08-28_02","ga":"170","lecture":"1916-08-28_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."},"paired_german":{"status":"no_paragraph_pairing","note":"No paragraph pairing exists for this paragraph, so no German text is given. The German paragraph of the same number is a different passage or an unestablished one. Read the German unit (german_unit.fetch_unit) and find the place by its content.","german_unit":{"lang":"de","edition":"original","unit_locus":"GA 170/1916-08-28","paragraph_count":33,"fetch_unit":{"ga":"170","lecture":"1916-08-28","lang":"de","edition":"original"},"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/170/1916-08-28","json_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/ga/170/1916-08-28?lang=de"},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"nearest_pairs":{"before":{"de":[15],"en":[23]},"after":{"de":[22,23],"en":[29,30]}}},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.95,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":4953,"original_word_count":5217,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"APC1948","book_title":"Memory and Habit","publisher":"Anthroposophical Publishing Co.","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA170/English/APC1948/19160828p02.html","evidence":null,"reason":"source_says_translator_unknown","note":"The source page itself says the translator is unknown. No translator is established for this lecture: nothing at the level of the lecture names one. Do not attribute this English to a translator, and do not borrow a credit from another lecture of the volume. Cite the German for anything load-bearing.","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."}}