{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p027-p034","extent":"range","passage_number":27,"through":34,"paragraph_count":8,"first_locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p027","last_locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p034","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"title":"1. First Steps towards Imaginative Knowledge","date":"1923-08-19","location":null,"alignment_confidence":"low","alignment_reason":"count_diverges","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Violet E. Watkin and Charles Davy","identified_edition":"RSP1966","book_title":"The Evolution of Consciousness","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA227/English/RSP1966/19230819p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","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"]},"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},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.92,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6529,"original_word_count":7092,"may_be_abridged":false},"site_heading":null,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/227/1923-08-19/p027-p034","json_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/227/1923-08-19/p027-p034.json","lecture_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/227/1923-08-19#p027","word_count":1544,"quote_safe":true,"passages":[{"passage_number":27,"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p027","text":"This is something to be stressed particularly when anyone ventures, more or less publicly, to say anything about the paths to super-sensible knowledge. Those who do not take the matter very seriously generally talk in a superficial way. It is just those who wish to have the right to speak about mystical, super-sensible paths who ought to know about the errors in this sphere which can lead people astray. They ought fully to realise that ordinary self-knowledge is chiefly made up of transformed external impressions, and that genuine self-knowledge must be sought to-day through inner development, by calling up forces in the soul not previously there. This requires us to realise the passive nature of our usual thinking. It deals with all impressions in the way natural to the senses. The earlier things come first, the later ones later; what is uppermost in thought remains above; what is below remains below. As a rule, therefore—not only in ordinary life but also in science—a man's concepts merely trail after processes in the external world. Our science has gone so far as to make an ideal of discovering how things run their course in the external world without letting thinking have the slightest influence on them. In their own sphere the scientists are quite right; by following this method they have made enormous advances. But they are more and more losing sight of man's true being. For the first step in those methods for developing inner forces of the soul leading to super-sensible cognition, called by us meditation and concentration, is by finding the way over from purely passive thinking to thinking that is inwardly active.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":274,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/227/1923-08-19/p027","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1923-08-19","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p030","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/227/1923-08-19/p030"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["reader"],"reader_german":["GA 227/1923-08-19/p030"],"reader_part":true,"length_check":{"de_words":504,"en_words":274,"ratio":0.54,"partial":true},"correspondence":"partial","note":"PARTIAL CORRESPONDENCE. The aligner paired 1 German passage(s) with 1 English, but the English side holds only ~54% of the German side's length (274 vs 504 words). One or more of the German passages above is likely NOT represented in this translation at all. Do not treat the English as carrying their content: read the German passages directly, and if you need to quote, quote the German. Absence of a phrase from the English here is NOT evidence it is absent from Steiner."},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Violet E. Watkin and Charles Davy","identified_edition":"RSP1966","book_title":"The Evolution of Consciousness","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA227/English/RSP1966/19230819p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","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 227/1923-08-19/p030"],"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."}},{"passage_number":28,"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p028","text":"I will begin by describing this first step in a quite elementary way. Instead of a concept aroused by something external, we can take a concept drawn entirely from within and give it the central place in our consciousness. What is important is not that the concept should correspond to a reality, but that it should be drawn up out of the depths of the soul as something active. Hence it is not good to take anything we remember, for in memory all manner of vague impressions cling to our concepts. If, therefore, we draw upon our memory we shall neither be sure that we are not letting extraneous things creep in, nor sure that we have really set about meditating with proper inward activity. There are three possible ways of proceeding, and there need be no loss of independence on any of them. A simple, easily apprehended concept is preferable, a creation of the moment, not having anything to do with what is remembered. For our purpose it can even be something quite paradoxical, deliberately removed from any passively received idea. We have only to make sure that the meditation has been brought about through our own inner activity.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":200,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/227/1923-08-19/p028","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1923-08-19","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p031","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/227/1923-08-19/p031"},{"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p032","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/227/1923-08-19/p032"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["reader"],"reader_german":["GA 227/1923-08-19/p031","GA 227/1923-08-19/p032"],"length_check":{"de_words":213,"en_words":200,"ratio":0.94,"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_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Violet E. Watkin and Charles Davy","identified_edition":"RSP1966","book_title":"The Evolution of Consciousness","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA227/English/RSP1966/19230819p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","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 227/1923-08-19/p031","GA 227/1923-08-19/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."}},{"passage_number":29,"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p029","text":"The second way is to go to someone with experience in this sphere and ask him to suggest a subject for meditation. There may then be fear of becoming dependent on him. If, however, from the moment the meditation is received, one is conscious that every step has been taken independently, through an inner activity of one's own, and that the only thing not determined by oneself is the subject, which, since it comes from someone else, has to be actively laid hold of—when one is conscious of all this, there is no longer any question of dependence. It is then particularly necessary to continue to act in full consciousness.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":110,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/227/1923-08-19/p029","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Violet E. Watkin and Charles Davy","identified_edition":"RSP1966","book_title":"The Evolution of Consciousness","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA227/English/RSP1966/19230819p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","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":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"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."}},{"passage_number":30,"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p030","text":"And finally, the third way. Instruction can be sought from a teacher who—one might say—remains invisible. The student takes a book he has never seen before, opens it at random and reads any chance sentence. He can thus be sure of coming on something entirely new to him, and then he must work on it with inner activity. A subject for meditation can be made of the sentence, or perhaps of some illustration or diagram in the book, so long as he is certain he has never previously come across it. That is the third method, and in this way a teacher can be created out of nothing. The book has to be found and looked at, and a sentence, a drawing, or anything else chosen from it—all this constitutes the teacher.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":132,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/227/1923-08-19/p030","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Violet E. Watkin and Charles Davy","identified_edition":"RSP1966","book_title":"The Evolution of Consciousness","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA227/English/RSP1966/19230819p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","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":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"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."}},{"passage_number":31,"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p031","text":"Hence it is perfectly possible nowadays to take the path to higher knowledge in such a way that the active thinking required will not be unjustifiably encroached on by any other power. This is essential for present-day mankind. In the course of these lectures we shall see how necessary it is for people to-day, especially when they wish to make progress on the path to higher worlds, to respect and treasure their own free will. For how, otherwise, is any inner activity to be developed? Directly anyone becomes dependent on someone else, his own will is frustrated. And it is important that meditation to-day should be carried through with inner activity, out of the will in thinking, which is hardly at all valued to-day, with modern science putting all the emphasis on passive observation of the outer world.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":138,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/227/1923-08-19/p031","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Violet E. Watkin and Charles Davy","identified_edition":"RSP1966","book_title":"The Evolution of Consciousness","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA227/English/RSP1966/19230819p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","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":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"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."}},{"passage_number":32,"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p032","text":"In this way we can win through to active thinking, the rate of progress depending wholly on the individual. One man will get there in three weeks, if he perseveres with the same exercises. Another will take five years, another seven, and someone else nineteen, and so on. The essential point is that he should never relax his efforts. A moment will come when he recognises that his thinking has really changed: it no longer runs on in the old passive pictures but is inwardly full of energy—a force which, although he experiences it quite clearly, he knows to be just as much a force as the force required to raise an arm or point a finger. We come to know a thinking that seems to sustain our whole being, a thinking that can hit against an obstacle. This is no figure of speech, but a concrete truth that we can experience. We know that ordinary thinking does no such thing. When I run up against a wall and get hurt, my physical body has received a blow through force of contact. This force of contact depends on my being able to hit my body against objects. It is I who do the hitting. The ordinary passive thinking does not hit anything, but simply presents itself to be hit, for it has no reality; it is only a picture. But the thinking to which we come in the way described is a reality, something in which we live. It can hit against something as a finger can hit the wall. And just as we know that our finger cannot go through the wall, so we know that with this real thinking we cannot fathom everything. It is a first step. We have to take this step, this turning of one's own active thinking into an organ of touch for the soul, so that we may feel ourselves thinking in the same way that we walk, grasp or touch; so that we know we are living in a real being, not just in ordinary thinking which merely creates images, but in a reality, in the soul's organ of touch which we ourselves have become.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":363,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/227/1923-08-19/p032","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1923-08-19","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p036","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/227/1923-08-19/p036"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["reader"],"reader_german":["GA 227/1923-08-19/p036"],"length_check":{"de_words":415,"en_words":363,"ratio":0.87,"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_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Violet E. Watkin and Charles Davy","identified_edition":"RSP1966","book_title":"The Evolution of Consciousness","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA227/English/RSP1966/19230819p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","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 227/1923-08-19/p036"],"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."}},{"passage_number":33,"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p033","text":"That is the first step—to change our thinking so that we feel: Now you yourself have become the thinker. That rounds off everything. With this thinking it is not the same as with physical touch. An arm, for instance, grows as we grow, so that when we are full-grown our proportions remain correct. But the thinking that has become active is like a snail—able to extend feelers or to draw them in again. In this thinking we live in a being certainly full of force but inwardly mobile, moving backwards and forwards, inwardly active. With this far-reaching organ of touch we can—as we shall see—feel about in the spiritual world; or, if this is spiritually painful, draw back.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":118,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/227/1923-08-19/p033","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Violet E. Watkin and Charles Davy","identified_edition":"RSP1966","book_title":"The Evolution of Consciousness","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA227/English/RSP1966/19230819p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","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":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"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."}},{"passage_number":34,"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p034","text":"All this must certainly be taken seriously by those with any desire to approach the true being of man—this transformation of one's whole nature. For we do not discover what a man actually is unless we start by seeing in him something beyond what is perceived by our earthly senses. All that is developed through the activity of thinking is a man's first super-sensible member—later I shall be describing it more fully. First we have man's physical body that can be perceived by our ordinary sense-organs, and this offers resistance on meeting the ordinary organs of touch. Then we have our first super-sensible member—we can call it the etheric body or the formative forces body. It must be called something, but the name is immaterial. In future I will call it the etheric or formative forces body. Here we have our first super-sensible member, just as perceptible for a higher power of touching, into which thinking has been changed, as physical things are perceptible to the physical sense of touch. Thinking becomes a super-sensible touching, and through this super-sensible touching the etheric or formative forces body can be, in the higher sense, both grasped and seen. This is the first real step, as it were, into the super-sensible world.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":209,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/227/1923-08-19/p034","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1923-08-19","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p038","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/227/1923-08-19/p038"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["reader"],"reader_german":["GA 227/1923-08-19/p038"],"length_check":{"de_words":229,"en_words":209,"ratio":0.91,"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_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Violet E. Watkin and Charles Davy","identified_edition":"RSP1966","book_title":"The Evolution of Consciousness","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA227/English/RSP1966/19230819p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","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 227/1923-08-19/p038"],"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."}}],"witnesses":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":55,"passage_count":55,"word_count":7092},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":51,"passage_count":51,"word_count":6529,"completeness":{"ratio":0.92,"band":"comparable","note":null}}],"aligned_witness":{"status":"partly_aligned","lang":"de","edition":"original","confidence":"high","passages":[{"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p030","passage_number":30,"text":"Derjenige, der nun wirklich genau und ehrlich mit der Selbstbeobachtung vorgeht, der wird aber sehen können, wie viele mystische Schauungen auf nichts anderes zurückgehen als auf äußere Sinneserlebnisse, die umgeändert worden sind im Laufe der Zeit. Und so paradox es scheinen mag, es kann einen vierzigjährigen Mystiker geben, der da glaubt, einen unmittelbar imaginativ-visionären Eindruck zu haben - nun, ich will etwas Konkretes setzen von dem Mysterium von Golgatha, indem er innerlich-geistig dieses Mysterium von Golgatha sieht. Er fühlt sich nun ungeheuer innerlich gehoben. Derjenige, der ein guter Psychologe ist, kann nun nachgehen, wie das Erdenleben dieses vierzigjährigen Mystikers verlaufen ist, und er findet, daß er als zehnjähriger Knabe ganz vorübergehend bei einem Besuche, zu dem ihn sein Vater mitgenommen hat, irgendwo ein kleines Bildchen gesehen hat. Dieses kleine Bildchen, das sich auf das Mysterium von Golgatha bezog, hat damals geringen Eindruck auf seine Seele gemacht; aber es blieb, es wandelte sich um, ging in die tiefen Untergründe der Seele hinunter, und im vierzigsten Lebensjahre stieg es auf als eine große mystische Schauung. Das ist dasjenige, was man vor allen Dingen betonen muß), wenn man es überhaupt wagt, mehr oder weniger öffentlich heute von den Wegen zu übersinnlicher Erkenntnis zu sprechen. Denn derjenige, der sich diese Wege leicht macht, der wird in der Regel dilettantisch nur von diesen Wegen sprechen können. Gerade derjenige, der ein Recht haben will, von mystischübersinnlichen Wegen zu sprechen, der muß gewissermaßen alles kennen, was zu Irrtümern auf diesem Gebiete führen kann. Der muß genau kennen, wie die gewöhnliche Selbsterkenntnis eigentlich nur umgewandelte äußere Eindrücke zumeist enthält, und wie wahre Selbsterkenntnis heute gesucht werden muß durch eine innere Entwickelung, durch ein Herausholen von Kräften der Seele, die von vornherein nicht da sind. Da muß man denn hinschauen gerade auf die Passivität des gewöhnlichen Denkens. Das gewöhnliche Denken schafft sich die Eindrücke so, wie die Sinne es wollen. Das Frühere ist auch im Denken früher, das Spätere ist auch im Denken später. Das Obere ist im Denken oben, das Untere ist im Denken unten. Und so folgt der Mensch für das gewöhnliche Vorstellen nicht nur im gewöhnlichen Leben, sondern auch in der Wissenschaft nur passiv den Vorgängen, die sich in der äußeren Welt abspielen. Unsere Wissenschaft ist ja so weit gekommen, geradezu es als ein Ideal anzusehen, darauf zu kommen, wiie die Dinge sich in der äußeren Welt abspielen, ohne daß das Denken den geringsten Einfluß darauf nimmt. Unsere Wissenschaft sieht es als ihr Ideal an, bei ihren Forschungsmethoden das Denken so passiv wie möglich zu gestalten. Damit tut sie auf ihrem Gebiete ganz recht. Sie kommt auf ihrem Gebiete zu den allergrößten Fortschritten, wenn sie gerade diese Methode beobachtet. Aber sie kommt immer mehr und mehr von dem wahren Wesen des Menschen ab. Denn da ist der erste Schritt in denjenigen Methoden zum übersinnlichen Erkennen, die man Meditation, Konzentration in bezug auf die inneren Seelenkräfte, oder auch noch anders nennen kann, da ist die erste Anforderung diese, den Übergang zu finden vom rein passiven Denken zum inneren Aktiven des Denkens.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":504,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/227/1923-08-19/p030"},{"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p031","passage_number":31,"text":"Und wenn ich ganz elementar zunächst den ersten Schritt charakterisiere, so muß er sich so hinstellen: Statt sich von außen anregen zu lassen zu irgendeiner Vorstellung, nehme man eine Vorstellung, die man rein aus dem Inneren heraus selber geholt hat, stelle sie in den Mittelpunkt des Bewußtseins. Es kommt gar nicht darauf an, ob diese Vorstellung, wie man sagt, wahr ist, denn es kommt darauf an, daß sie aktiv ganz aus dem Seeleninneren herausgeholt ist. Daher ist es auch nicht gut, wenn man eine solche Vorstellung aus der Erinnerung herausholt, denn in dem Erinnerten kleben die mannigfaltigsten unbestimmten Eindrücke an allen unseren Vorstellungen. Holen wir also selbst etwas aus der Erinnerung heraus, dann sind wir nicht sicher, was wir alles passiv mitdenken, ob wir wirklich unsere Meditation in aktivem Sinne innerlich einrichten.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":132,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/227/1923-08-19/p031"},{"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p032","passage_number":32,"text":"Daher kann man in dreifacher Weise verfahren. Man kann allerdings ganz selbständig vorgehen. Da nehme man eine möglichst einfache, leicht überschaubare Vorstellung, von der man weiß, man habe sie im gegenwärtigen Augenblicke gemacht. Sie entspricht nichts, an das man sich bloß erinnert. Also, man mache sich meinetwillen auch eine möglichst paradoxe Vorstellung, eine Vorstellung, die bewußt abweicht von all dem, was man passiv empfangen kann. Man muß nur sicher sein der Aktivität, der innerlichen Tätigkeit, durch die die Meditation geworden ist.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":81,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/227/1923-08-19/p032"},{"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p036","passage_number":36,"text":"Auf diese Weise kommt man hinein in ein aktives Denken. Wie schnell nun die Entwickelung geht, das hängt ganz von der Wesenheit des Menschen selber ab. Der eine kann es in drei Wochen erreichen, wenn er immer wiederum, am besten dieselben Übungen macht, der andere in fünf Jahren, der andere in sieben Jahren, ein anderer in neunzehn Jahren und so weiter. Das Wesentliche ist, daß man niemals aus der Energie, den Übergang zu suchen zu dieser Aktivität des Denkens, herauskommt. Aber man lernt in einem gewissen Zeitpunkte wirklich ein anderes Denken kennen als dasjenige, was man vorher hatte. Man lernt ein Denken kennen, das nicht in passiven Bildern verläuft wie das gewöhnliche Denken, sondern man lernt ein Denken kennen, das innerlich ganz aktiv ist, das Kraft ist, von dem man weiß, obwohl man es klar durchmacht: es ist Kraft, wie es Kraft ist, wenn ich den Arm hebe, wenn ich mit dem Finger zeige. Man lernt ein Denken kennen, in dem man sich fühlt als in einem Kraftträger des eigenen menschlichen Wesens. Man lernt ein Denken kennen, das — ich spreche dabei nicht bildlich, sondern ich spreche die konkrete tatsächliche Wahrheit aus anstoßen kann, von dem man weiß, es kann anstoßen. Von dem gewöhnlichen Denken weiß man, das stößt nirgends an. Wenn ich an eine Wand renne und eine Beule bekomme, da habe ich mir meinen physischen Leib angestoßen, mit meiner Tastkraft angestoßen. Meine Tastkraft beruht darauf, daß ich meinen Leib den Dingen entgegenstellen kann. Ich stoße an. Das gewöhnliche passive Denken stößt nicht an, das stellt bloß das Angestoßenwerden vor. Denn das gewöhnliche passive Denken ist eben nicht eine Realität, es ist Bild. Das Denken, zu dem man auf die geschilderte Weise kommt, ist Realität, ist etwas, in dem man lebt. Das stößt so an, wie der Finger anstößt an die Wand. Und wie man weiß, man kann mit dem Finger nicht überall durch, so weiß man in dem realen Denken, in das man da hineinkommt, man kann mit ihm nicht überall durch. Das ist der erste Schritt. Diesen ersten Schritt muß man machen, das eigene Denken durch Aktivierung zu einem seelischen Tastorgan zu machen, so daß man sich darinnen fühlt, wie wenn man so dächte - wie man sonst schreitet, wie man sonst greift, tastet —, daß man weiß: man lebt in einem Wesen, nicht bloß in dem gewöhnlichen Denken, das ja nur abbildet, sondern man lebt in einer Realität, in einem seelischen Tastorgan, zu dem man selber als Mensch ganz geworden ist.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":415,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/227/1923-08-19/p036"},{"locus":"GA 227/1923-08-19/p038","passage_number":38,"text":"Das sind die Dinge, die allerdings von demjenigen, der überhaupt an das wahre Menschenwesen herankommen will, ernst genommen werden müssen: die Verwandlung des Menschen zu einem ganz anderen Wesen. Denn man schaut nicht dasjenige, was der Mensch eigentlich ist, wenn man nicht zuvor die Möglichkeit hat, im Menschen selber etwas ganz anderes zu schauen als dasjenige, was die irdische Sinnlichkeit darbietet. Und das, was durch Aktivitat des Denkens entwickelt wird, ist das erste übersinnliche Glied des Menschen. Ich werde es später genauer schildern. Wir haben zunächst den physischen Leib des Menschen, den man mit den gewöhnlichen Sinnesorganen wahrnehmen kann, der ja auch als Widerstand da ist, wenn man mit den gewöhnlichen Tastorganen tastet. Wir haben dann das erste übersinnliche Glied des Menschen - man kann es Ätherleib, man kann es Bildekräfteleib nennen, wie man will, auf den Ausdruck kommt es nicht an, man braucht nur eine Terminologie. Ich werde es also Äther- oder Bildekräfteleib in der Zukunft nennen. Man hat darinnen das erste übersinnliche Glied des Menschen, das in einem höheren Tasten, in einem Tasten, zu dem man das Denken umgewandelt hat, tatsächlich so wahrnehmbar ist, wie die physischen Dinge außen für das physische Tasten wahrnehmbar sind. Denken wird zum übersinnlichen Tasten. Und diesem übersinnlichen Tasten wird der Äther-oder Bildekräfteleib des Menschen erfaßbar, erschaubar im höheren Sinne. Das ist sozusagen der erste wirkliche Schritt in die übersinnliche Welt hinein.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":229,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/227/1923-08-19/p038"}],"beads":[{"from":[27],"to":[30],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"verified"},{"from":[28],"to":[31,32],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"verified"},{"from":[32],"to":[36],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"verified"},{"from":[34],"to":[38],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"verified"}],"note":"Paired by the paragraph aligner; each language numbers its own paragraphs. A bead at either end of the span can carry text beyond it (the `from` numbers show what each bead covers).","uncovered":[29,30,31,33]}}