{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 214/1922-08-09/p017","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"When in these secret societies which followed ancient tradition—it is really unbelievable how “ancient” and “sanctified” all the rituals of these societies are supposed to be—but when rituals were arranged or teachings given, in the sense of ancient tradition, when something was developed in these societies which had been carried over as an echo of the ancient Mysteries, no longer understood, conditions were exactly right for certain elemental beings. For when people went through all sorts of performances—let us say, when they attended the celebration of a mass, and no longer understood anything about it, the people were then in the presence of something filled with great wisdom; they were present, but understood nothing at all of what they saw, although an understanding would have been possible. Then these elemental beings entered the situation, and when the people were not thinking about the mass, the elementals began to think with the unused human intellect. Human beings had cultivated the free intellect more and more, but they did not use it. They preferred to sit and let something be enacted before them from tradition. People did not think. Although conditions are becoming entirely different, it is still true today that people of the present time could do a vast amount of thinking if they wished to use their minds; but they have no desire to do this; they are disinclined to think clearly. They say rather: Oh, that requires too much effort; it demands inner activity.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"III. Oswald Spengler II","site_heading":null,"date":"1922-08-09","location":null,"word_count":245,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/214/1922-08-09/p017","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Norman MacBeth and Frances E. Dawson","identified_edition":null,"book_title":"Oswald Spengler, Prophet of World Chaos","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/OSpengler/AP1949/19220809p01.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/214/1922-08-09/p017"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/214/1922-08-09/p017","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":"1922-08-09","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 214/1922-08-09/p023","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/214/1922-08-09/p023"}],"bead_confidence":"high","length_check":{"de_words":236,"en_words":245,"ratio":1.04,"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."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.91,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5096,"original_word_count":5625,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Norman MacBeth and Frances E. Dawson","identified_edition":null,"book_title":"Oswald Spengler, Prophet of World Chaos","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/OSpengler/AP1949/19220809p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 214/1922-08-09/p023"],"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."}}