{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 181/1918-05-21/p018","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"What life must bring forth and what the future requires is that people should begin to look upon the spiritual as a reality. What is alone known to man today as “spirit”? On the whole, nothing but a mass of abstract concepts. Man acquires a mass of abstract concepts, such as are characterized by the fact that they can be quite well received up to the 27th year. But besides the fact that we live here on the Earth between birth and death and have at first a sprouting and budding life, then with our 28th year stand still in our development and then begin our descending life, we have also a real concrete spirituality, which changes just as the exterior man changes, but undergoes a reverse process to that of the outer man. The outer man grows old and wrinkled; but his etheric body, his formative-forces body, it becomes ever younger; only man does not trouble himself today about this formative-forces body which grows younger in old age. Men go about with bald heads and gray hair and do not know that they have a body of formative forces, which has a sprouting and budding life just when they begin to get gray, and which only then can give them certain things which could not be given earlier. Certainly this depends upon the character of the times. But the times in this respect need a reversal. Times need a *change of ideas*. One thing which must especially be brought about by the change is that thoughts should become more forceful and healthy and not cling to what only comes from outside; otherwise we shall become frightfully one-sided in all spheres. What we must do is to penetrate reality with our thoughts in all spheres. We cannot understand the historical life of man unless we are able to bring *inner* wisdom to bear on what is considered externally as wisdom. For various reasons connected with the schism, with the rent which is going on in human evolution, we have ceased to understand much that is great and which has still been found in an atavistic way. In many domains men today believe themselves to be original.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"VII. Whitsuntide Lecture","site_heading":null,"date":"1918-05-21","location":null,"word_count":366,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/181/1918-05-21/p018","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"LRC0049","book_title":"Anthroposophical Life Gifts","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA181/English/LRC0049/19180521p01.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/181/1918-05-21/p018"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/181/1918-05-21/p018","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},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 181/1918-05-21/p018","passage_number":18,"text":"Das ist es aber, was das Leben bringen muß, und was die Zukunft fordert: daß die Menschen anfangen, das Geistige wieder als eine Realität anzusehen. Was ist heute dem Menschen als Geist einzig und allein bekannt? Im großen und ganzen nichts anderes als eine Summe von abstrakten Begriffen. Zu einer Summe von abstrakten Begriffen kommt der Mensch, von solchen abstrakten Begriffen, die eben gerade dadurch charakteristisch sind, daß sie bis zum siebenundzwanzigsten Jahre ganz gut aufgenommen werden können. Aber mit dem, daß wir hier auf der Erde leben zwischen Geburt und Tod, zuerst sprießendes, sprossendes Leben haben, dann mit dem achtundzwanzigsten Jahre stehenbleiben in dieser Entwickelung, und dann vom fünfunddreißigsten Jahre ab unser absteigendes Leben beginnen: mit dem ist ja eine reale, konkrete Geistigkeit verbunden, die sich ebenso verändert, wie sich der äußere Mensch verändert; und diese konkrete geistige Realität macht so ziemlich einen entgegengesetzten Gang durch als der äußere Mensch. Der äußere Mensch wird alt, wird runzelig, aber sein Ätherleib, sein Bildekräfteleib wird immer jünger; nur kümmert sich der Mensch heute nicht um diesen im Alter jüngerwerdenden Bildekräfteleib. Die Menschen gehen herum, haben Glatzen und graue Haare, und sie wissen nicht, daß sie einen Bildekräfteleib haben, der sprießendes, sprossendes Leben gerade dann hat, wenn sie anfangen, graue Haare zu bekommen, der ihnen gerade dann Dinge geben kann, die ihnen früher nicht gegeben werden konnten. Das ist allerdings durch den Zeitcharakter bedingt. Aber die Zeit braucht in dieser Beziehung Umkehr. Die Zeit braucht Wandelung der Begriffe. Eines, was in dieser Wandelung der Gedanken besonders gegeben sein muß, ist das, daß die Gedanken wieder ein bißchen kräftig und gesund werden, daß sie nicht haften an dem, was sich nur von außen darbietet; sonst kommen wir auf allen Gebieten auf die furchtbarsten Einseitigkeiten hinaus. Mit dem Gedanken die Wirklichkeit durchdringen auf irgendeinem Gebiete, das ist es, worauf es ankommt. Wir können auch das geschichtliche Leben der Menschen nicht verstehen, wenn wir nicht imstande sind, demjenigen, was äußerlich an Weisheit läuft, die innere Weisheit entgegenzubringen. Wir haben ja durch verschiedene Gründe, die mit dem Riß, mit dem Sprung, der in der Menschheitsentwickelung ist, zusammenhängen, aufgehört, manches Große zu verstehen, was noch in atavistischer Weise gefunden worden ist. Auf manchen Gebieten glauben die Menschen heute, originell zu sein.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":374,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/181/1918-05-21/p018"}],"english":["GA 181/1918-05-21/p018"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":374,"en_words":366,"ratio":0.98,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.01,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":7132,"original_word_count":7047,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"LRC0049","book_title":"Anthroposophical Life Gifts","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA181/English/LRC0049/19180521p01.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":"ok","checked_against":["GA 181/1918-05-21/p018"],"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."}}