{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 184/1918-10-11/p008","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Just think with what feelings, what narrow-minded, self-satisfied feelings, the thoroughly modern man looks back on his forebears when referring to their belief in ghosts. There is no need to object to the assertion that our ancestors had this belief! They certainly had it. To-day we will take the statement—our ancestors believed in ghosts, but we are so clever that we no longer believe in them—and pay attention not so much to the idea it expresses as to the feeling it arouses in us—the feeling we have when we see how the present age passes judgment on our stupid ancestors who believed in ghosts and is sure that in this scientific age we have at last left all that behind. The statement that our forebears believed in ghosts is in itself a half-truth, and on that account extraordinarily dangerous; for half-truths are often more harmful than downright falsities, because a downright falsity can be easily detected, whereas half-truths haunt the world themselves like ghosts.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Lecture Four","site_heading":"Christ's Intervention: Preventing Ahrimanic Knowledge Premature Flooding","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 Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote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":"1918-10-11","location":null,"word_count":164,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/184/1918-10-11/p008","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Charles Davy","identified_edition":"RSP1985","book_title":"Three Streams in Human Evolution","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA184/English/RSP1985/19181011p02.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/184/1918-10-11/p008"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/184/1918-10-11/p008","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},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1918-10-11","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 184/1918-10-11/p007","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/184/1918-10-11/p007"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":176,"en_words":164,"ratio":0.93,"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."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 184/1918-10-11/p007","passage_number":7,"text":"Denken Sie nur, mit welchen Empfindungen, mit welchen spießigsaftig selbstzufriedenen Empfindungen der richtige heutige Mensch zurücksieht auf die Vorfahren, von denen er sagt, daß sie an Gespenster geglaubt haben. Man braucht sich nicht so sehr gegen diese Behauptung zu wenden, die Vorfahren hätten an Gespenster geglaubt. Das haben sie getan. Wir wollen heute weniger die Aufmerksamkeit wenden auf den Begriffsinhalt des Satzes: Unsere Vorfahren haben an Gespenster geglaubt, und wir sind so gescheit, daß wir nicht mehr an Gespenster glauben -, sondern wir wollen uns mehr halten an den Gefühlsinhalt, den man dabei empfindet, wenn wir in die Gegenwart hineinschauen, wie sie urteilt über die dummen Vorfahren, die an Gespenster geglaubt haben, und wie wir nun endlich darüber hinaus sind im naturwissenschaftlichen Zeitalter und nicht mehr an Gespenster glauben. Dieses Urteil, daß die Vorfahren an Gespenster geglaubt haben, das ist an sich eine halbe und deshalb eine außerordentlich gefährliche Wahrheit; denn halbe Wahrheiten sind oftmals schlimmer als ganze Irrtümer, weil man die ganzen Irrtümer leicht erkennt, die halben Wahrheiten aber in der Welt selbst gespenstisch spuken.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":176,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/184/1918-10-11/p007"}],"english":["GA 184/1918-10-11/p008"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":176,"en_words":164,"ratio":0.93,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.98,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6209,"original_word_count":6364,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Charles Davy","identified_edition":"RSP1985","book_title":"Three Streams in Human Evolution","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA184/English/RSP1985/19181011p02.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 184/1918-10-11/p007"],"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."}}