{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 197/1920-07-30/p004","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"On the other hand we must grasp a second, quite different fact. It is that the nature of matter, which materialism is erroneously looking for in the outside world, may be found within ourselves. We shall find it particularly if we become one-sided, abstract mystics. The contents of a certain mysticism coming to our awareness—experiences we think we are having—are nothing but the flame, I would say, that is lit within us by processes involving our physical organs. Considering the mysticism of Tauler and of Meister Eckhart, one is right in thinking that these men had a special faculty for experiencing these things and interpreting the physical matter in their bodies when the flame of awareness was ignited. They found the material world through mysticism. Until we know that external observation reveals only the world of phenomena, Maya, and that inward observation reveals only physical matter and its flame, we cannot get a clear, true picture of the nature of the world and the way human beings relate to this world. Physical matter is not to be found by applying science to the outside world, it must be sought within us, through mysticism. There we shall find its laws. The essential nature of gravity is not to be found with the aid of Atwood's machine.[^1] Instead we can try—in our thirty-second year, or perhaps at another time in our lives—to become inwardly aware of gravity, so that we know from inner experience what it really means to experience gravity. Concrete inner experience should show us that between the thirtieth and fortieth year we grow heavier and heavier inside. We can gain inner experience of a property of matter that merely comes to expression in mystical experiences. I have tried to demonstrate the essential point by saying that anyone finding himself in the midst of the chaos of the planet, the way modern scientists do, cannot get a clear idea concerning these things. We see the plants, the animals, the cloud cover; we see the glittering light of the stars, we see rivers, hills and valleys and so on. Yet if someone were to observe the earth from Mars, for instance, none of these would matter. An inhabitant of the planet Mars observing the earth through some instrument or other—we may well imagine, and it would be in accord with the truth, though in a different way, that those who inhabit Mars have the kind of organization that enables them to observe the earth—would perceive nothing of the cloud formations, rivers and mountains we see, nothing of the phenomena relating to the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms. He would only perceive what goes on inside the skin of the human beings living on earth. Everything else would vanish before the eye of an inhabitant of Mars. He would perceive only what goes on inwardly in the organic life of human beings and for him that would be the material world of the earth. When we grow aware of a mystical element within us it is not what many mystics think it is but the flame that is cooked inside us. That is the place where we can find out about the physical matter of the earth. This form of self-perception takes us into the sphere of matter and of energy, an area where the people of the Western world have arrived at exactly the opposite view over the last centuries.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Lecture VII","site_heading":"Spirit and Matter: Reversing Materialist Consciousness","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":"1920-07-30","location":null,"word_count":569,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/197/1920-07-30/p004","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"RSP1987","book_title":"Polarities in the Evolution of Mankind","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA197/English/RSP1987/19200730p01.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/197/1920-07-30/p004"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/197/1920-07-30/p004","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 197/1920-07-30/p004","passage_number":4,"text":"Dagegen muß etwas anderes als zweites Faktum klarliegen: daß wir dieses Materielle, das irrtümlicherweise der Materialismus in der Außenwelt sucht, in unserem eigenen Inneren finden und daß wir es gerade dann finden, wenn wir im einseitigen abstrakten Sinn Mystiker werden. Denn dasjenige, was aufsteigt in unserem Bewußtsein als Inhalt einer gewissen Mystik, dasjenige was wir da zu erleben glauben, ist nichts anderes als, ich möchte sagen, die Flamme, die innerlich angezündet wird durch unsere materiellen organischen Prozesse. Und derjenige denkt eigentlich richtig, der die Mystik des Tauler, des Meister Eckhart so auslegt, daß diese Geister mit einer besonderen inneren Erlebnismöglichkeit das Materielle in ihrem Inneren, so wie es sich entzündet zur Bewußtseinsflamme, zu interpretieren wußten und daß sie durch Mystik das Materielle fanden. Ehe man nicht weiß, daß man durch äußere Beobachtung nur das Phänomenale, die Maja, und durch innere Beobachtung nur Materielles und seine Flamme findet, kommt man nicht zu einer wirklichen Klarheit vom Wesen der Welt und vom Stehen des Menschen in der Welt. Wir dürfen nicht in der Außenwelt durch Naturwissenschaft das Materielle suchen, wir müssen innerlich durch Mystik das Materielle suchen; denn da sind seine Gesetze. Wer das Wesen der Schwerkraft suchen will, soll es nicht suchen durch die Atwoodsche Fallmaschine, sondern er soll versuchen — sagen wir in seinem zweiunddreißigsten Lebensjahre, es kann ja auch ein anderer Zeitpunkt sein —, zu einem innerlichen Bewußtsein zu kommen von der Schwerkraft, so daß er aus innerem Erlebnis heraus weiß, was es heißt, Schwere wirklich zu erleben. Er soll durch inneres konkretes Erleben erfahren lernen, wie man vom dreißigsten bis zum vierzigsten Jahr innerlich immer schwerer und schwerer wird, wie man innerlich erlebt eine Eigenschaft des Materiellen, die sich nur ausdrückt in demjenigen, was mystisches Bewußtsein ist. Und ich habe versucht, dasjenige, was da in Betracht kommt, dadurch zu interpretieren, daß ich sagte: Wenn man so drinnensteht im Chaos eines Planeten, wie die heutigen Wissenschafter drinnenstehen, so kann man einen klaren Begriff über diese Dinge gar nicht gewinnen. - Wir sehen dasjenige, was da ist als Pflanzen und Tiere, als Wolkendecke; wir sehen, was die Sterne als ihren Glanz auf uns herabwerfen, sehen Flüsse und Berge und Täler und so weiter. Aber all das kommt gar nicht in Betracht, wenn zum Beispiel beobachtet würde schon vom Mars herunter, was auf unserer Erde ist. Ein Marsbewohner, der durch ein wie immer geartetes Instrument unsere Erde beobachten würde — man könnte sich denken, wie es in Wirklichkeit ja auch ist, wenn auch in anderer Art, daß der Marsbewohner so organisiert ist, daß er die Erde beobachten kann -, der würde nichts wahrnehmen von demjenigen, was wir sehen an Wolkenbildungen, Flüssen und Bergen, von den Erscheinungen des mineralischen, pflanzlichen, tierischen Reiches; dasjenige was er wahrnehmen würde auf unserem Planeten, das würde im Inneren der Häute der auf der Erde lebenden Menschen sich abspielen. Alles übrige würde vor dem Anblick des Marsbewohners verschwinden. Das allein, was im inneren des organischen Lebens der Menschen vorgeht, würde er wahrnehmen; denn das würde er als materielle Welt der Erde empfinden. Und wenn man dieses innerlich Mystische sich zum Bewußtsein bringt, so ist es nicht dasjenige, was viele Mystiker glauben, sondern es ist die Flamme, die gekocht ist in unserem Inneren. Das ist der Ort, wo man die Erdenmaterie kennenlernt. Diese Art der Selbsterkenntnis führt uns in das Wesen der Materie und der Kraft, und in dieser haben die Anschauungen der Menschen des Abendlandes in den letzten Jahrhunderten gerade den entgegengesetzten Gang genommen.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":577,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/197/1920-07-30/p004"}],"english":["GA 197/1920-07-30/p004"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":577,"en_words":569,"ratio":0.99,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.04,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6265,"original_word_count":6008,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"RSP1987","book_title":"Polarities in the Evolution of Mankind","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA197/English/RSP1987/19200730p01.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 197/1920-07-30/p004"],"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. 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