{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 349/1923-04-18/p005-p006","extent":"range","passage_number":5,"through":6,"paragraph_count":2,"first_locus":"GA 349/1923-04-18/p005","last_locus":"GA 349/1923-04-18/p006","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"title":"X. Why Don't We Remember Our Past Lives?","date":"1923-04-18","location":null,"alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"The Life of Man on Earth and the Essence of Christianity","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA349/English/SOL2024/19230418p02.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"]},"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":1.0,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6917,"original_word_count":6912,"may_be_abridged":false},"site_heading":null,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/349/1923-04-18/p005-p006","json_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/349/1923-04-18/p005-p006.json","lecture_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/349/1923-04-18#p005","word_count":430,"quote_safe":true,"passages":[{"passage_number":5,"locus":"GA 349/1923-04-18/p005","text":"You see, in this respect, when it comes to the question of repeated lives on earth, people today are downright strange even when it comes to judging people who knew or know something about these repeated lives on earth. There was a very great spirit within German civilization, Lessing, who lived in the 18th century. This Lessing has achieved an extraordinary amount spiritually. He is still generally recognized today. And when the professors of German literary history lecture at the universities, they often lecture on Lessing for months. They also know that one of Lessing's researchers, as they say, a book can also be found in the Social Democratic literature, by Franz Mehring, “The Lessing Legend”. There Lessing is presented from a different point of view. You can't say that what is presented there is correct; but in any case, there is even a very thick book about Lessing within the Social Democratic literature by Franz Mehring. In short, Lessing is cited as a very great man. But this Lessing, whose plays are still performed everywhere in theaters today and are highly esteemed, wrote a shorter work when he was already very old: “The Education of the Human Race.” And at the end it says that one actually cannot come to terms with the contemplation of the soul at all, that one cannot really know anything correct about the soul life without the assumption of repeated earth lives, and that one comes there, when one continues to think, actually to those views which primitive people already had. They all believed in repeated earth lives. That is something that people only abandoned later, when they became “modern.” And Lessing said: Why should something be stupid just because the oldest, the earliest people believed it? — In short, Lessing himself said that he can only come to terms with the soul life of man if he adheres to this ancient belief in repeated lives on earth.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":324,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/349/1923-04-18/p005","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"The Life of Man on Earth and the Essence of Christianity","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA349/English/SOL2024/19230418p02.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 349/1923-04-18/p005"],"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":6,"locus":"GA 349/1923-04-18/p006","text":"Now, as you can imagine, this is a terrible embarrassment for our so-called researchers today. Because these researchers say: Lessing was one of the greatest men of all times. But the repeated lives on earth, that's nonsense. — Yes, how do you get around that? — Well, Lessing was already old then. He became weak-minded. We don't accept repeated lives on Earth! You see, that's how people are. As long as something suits them, they accept it and label the person in question a great man. But if he has just said something that does not suit them, then he has become weak-minded for the time.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":106,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/349/1923-04-18/p006","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"The Life of Man on Earth and the Essence of Christianity","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA349/English/SOL2024/19230418p02.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 349/1923-04-18/p006"],"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":52,"passage_count":52,"word_count":6912},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":51,"passage_count":51,"word_count":6917,"completeness":{"ratio":1.0,"band":"comparable","note":null}}],"aligned_witness":{"status":"aligned","lang":"de","edition":"original","confidence":"high","passages":[{"locus":"GA 349/1923-04-18/p005","passage_number":5,"text":"Sehen Sie, in dieser Beziehung, in der Frage nach den wiederholten Erdenleben, da sind ja die Leute heute sogar mit der Beurteilung von Menschen, die von diesen wiederholten Erdenleben etwas wußten oder wissen, geradezu komisch. Da gab es einen sehr großen Geist innerhalb der deutschen Zivilisation, Lessing, der gelebt hat im 18. Jahrhundert. Dieser Lessing hat außerordentlich viel Geistiges geleistet. Er wird auch heute noch allgemein anerkannt. Und wenn so die Professoren aus der deutschen Literaturgeschichte an den Universitäten vortragen, da tragen sie oftmals monatelang über Lessing vor. Sie wissen ja auch, daß sich von einem der Lessingforscher, wie man sagt, ein Buch findet auch in der sozialdemokratischen Literatur, von Franz Mehring, «Die Lessing-Legende». Da wird Lessing von einem anderen Standpunkte dargestellt. Man kann nicht sagen, daß das, was dort dargestellt wird, richtig ist; aber jedenfalls gibt es auch sogar innerhalb der sozialdemokratischen Literatur von Franz Mehring ein ganz dickes Buch über Lessing. Kurz, Lessing wird als ein sehr großer Mann angeführt. Aber dieser Lessing, von dem heute auch noch überall Stücke aufgeführt werden an den Theatern, die sehr geschätzt werden, dieser Lessing hat, als er schon sehr alt war, ein kürzeres Werk geschrieben: «Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts.» Und da steht am Schluß, daß man ja eigentlich mit der Betrachtung der Seele gar nicht zurecht kommt, daß man eigentlich nichts Richtiges wissen kann über das seelische Leben ohne die Annahme der wiederholten Erdenleben, und daß man ja da, wenn man weiter nachdenkt, eigentlich auf diejenigen Ansichten kommt, die schon die primitiven Menschen gehabt haben. Die haben nämlich alle an wiederholte Erdenleben geglaubt. Das ist etwas, wovon man ja erst später abgekommen ist, als man «modern» geworden ist. Und Lessing hat gesagt: Warum sollte denn etwas gerade dumm sein, weil es die ältesten, die frühesten Menschen geglaubt haben? — Kurz, Lessing hat selber gesagt, daß er mit dem seelischen Leben des Menschen nur zurecht kommt, wenn er sich an diesen Urglauben von den wiederholten Erdenleben hält.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":325,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/349/1923-04-18/p005"},{"locus":"GA 349/1923-04-18/p006","passage_number":6,"text":"Nun ist das aber, wie Sie sich denken können, eine furchtbare Verlegenheit für unsere heutigen sogenannten Forscher. Denn diese Forscher, die sagen: Lessing, das war einer der größten Männer aller Zeiten. Aber die wiederholten Erdenleben, das ist eine Dummheit. — Ja, wie kommt man da zurecht? - Nun ja, da ist Lessing eben schon alt gewesen. Da ist er schwachsinnig geworden. Die wiederholten Erdenleben, die nehmen wir nicht an! - Sehen Sie, so sind die Leute. Solange ihnen etwas paßt, nehmen sie es an und stempeln den Betreffenden zu einem großen Menschen. Wenn er aber eben einmal etwas gesagt hat, was ihnen nicht paßt, dann ist er für die Zeit schwachsinnig geworden.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":112,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/349/1923-04-18/p006"}],"beads":[{"from":[5],"to":[5],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[6],"to":[6],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"}],"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)."}}