{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 208/1921-10-23/p029","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"The human beings of today are caught in the midst of this battle. They need to realize that anthroposophy enables them to find and perceive the spirit and is therefore the true gift of Christ. Holding on to this they can keep the balance between luciferic and ahrimanic elements and thus find their way. They have to fight the ahrimanic spirit, for otherwise they must fall to the luciferic spirit. It is important, however, to be watchful when they give themselves up to the streams of Ahriman, lest they fall into a world that is entirely mechanized. The luciferic spirits want to prevent human beings from taking action; they want to make them mystics, given up to thought, who will gradually cease to take an interest in life on earth and can in this way be made remote from this life. The ahrimanic spirits want to keep human beings very much to life on earth. They want to mechanize everything, that is, take it down to the level of the mineral world. If they succeeded they would reshape the world to suit themselves and prevent it from reaching the Jupiter stage. On the other hand they do not want to deprive people of the opportunity to act; on the contrary, they want them to be as active as possible, except that it should all be routine and according to programme. Ahriman is a real programme enthusiast. It is he who inspires people to have endless statutes. He is really in his element if he finds a committee busily engaged in setting up statutes: Paragraph one, two and three—in the first place this is to be done, in the second place something else, in the third place one member has those particular rights, and in the fourth place another member is to do one thing or another. Of course, the members will never think of respecting those rights and may well refuse to do what it says in the statutes. That is not the point, however. Once the statutes exist, it is a matter of acting in the spirit of Ahriman, always pointing to paragraph number such and such.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Lecture III","site_heading":"Luciferic and Ahrimanic Forces in Human Evolution","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 Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote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":"1921-10-23","location":null,"word_count":358,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/208/1921-10-23/p029","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Anna R. Meuss","identified_edition":"CMP1997","book_title":"Cosmosophy Vol.  II","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA208/English/CMP1997/19211023p02.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"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/208/1921-10-23/p029"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/208/1921-10-23/p029","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":"1921-10-23","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 208/1921-10-23/p032","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/208/1921-10-23/p032"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":311,"en_words":358,"ratio":1.15,"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 208/1921-10-23/p032","passage_number":32,"text":"Der Mensch steht eigentlich in der Gegenwart ganz in diesem Kampfe drinnen. Nur wenn er sich wirklich besinnt auf das, was ihm die echte Christus-Gabe sein kann: eine der heutigen Zeit angemessene anthroposophische Geist-Erkenntnis und Geistesanschauung, wenn er sich darauf besinnt, findet er den Weg durch Innehalten der Gleichgewichtslage zwischen dem Luziferischen und dem Ahrimanischen. Er muß sozusagen mit dem Ahrimanischen kämpfen, denn er würde ja sonst dem Luziferischen verfallen müssen. Er darf aber nicht, ohne wachsam zu sein, sich den Strömen Ahrimans hingeben, denn dadurch würde er in eine vollständig mechanische Weltenordnung hineinfallen. Die luziferischen Wesen möchten den Menschen von jeglichem Tun abhalten, ihn zum Sinnierer, zum Mystiker machen, der nach und nach nichts mehr übrig hat für das Erdendasein und deshalb auch dem Erdendasein entzogen werden kann. Die ahrimanischen Wesenheiten möchten den Menschen ganz beim Erdendasein erhalten. Daher möchten sie alles mechanisieren, das heißt, hinunterdrücken ins Mineralreich. Sie würden dadurch die Erde in ihrem Sinne umgestalten, sie nicht hinüberkommen lassen zu dem Jupiterdasein. Sie haben allerdings das Bestreben, dem Menschen nicht das Tun zu rauben, ihn vielmehr so stark tun, wirken, handeln zu lassen, als der Mensch nur kann, aber es soll alles schablonenmäßig verlaufen, es soll alles programmmäßig verlaufen. Ahriman ist der große Enthusiast für alles Programmäßige. Er ist der Inspirator für das ewige Statutenmachen. Wenn Ahriman irgendwo in einem Komitee sieht, wie da Statuten gemacht werden, dann ist er in seinem eigentlichen Elemente: Erstens, zweitens, drittens —, erstens soll das geschehen, zweitens soll das geschehen, drittens hat dieses Mitglied diese Rechte, viertens sollte jenes Mitglied das oder jenes tun. Natürlich fällt es dann dem Mitglied nicht ein, diese Rechte zu respektieren, oder das, was dasteht, irgendwie zu tun. Aber darauf kommt es nicht an zunächst. Wenn die Statuten abgefaßt sind, da kommt es darauf an, den ahrimanischen Geist zu pflegen. Man kann dann hinweisen auf Paragraph soundsoviel.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":311,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/208/1921-10-23/p032"}],"english":["GA 208/1921-10-23/p029"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":311,"en_words":358,"ratio":1.15,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.97,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5319,"original_word_count":5468,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Anna R. Meuss","identified_edition":"CMP1997","book_title":"Cosmosophy Vol.  II","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA208/English/CMP1997/19211023p02.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 208/1921-10-23/p032"],"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."}}