{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 352/1924-02-20/p024","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"There has also been a lot of abuse in these matters. If you were a bit of a life observer before the war, you could find the same thing over and over again in every hotel or wherever people pick up letters that are piled up where letters are usually piled up: something with the label of an American company. The same thing was everywhere. What had happened back then? Well, an American company had been founded that had branches. There was one in Berlin, in Frankfurt, in most of the larger cities. So business must have been good! It was announced that anyone who wanted to gain power over humanity would receive little books from this American company. All he has to do is send in a certain amount of money and he gets little books, and these little books contain instructions on how to gain power over humanity. Well, all the traveling salesmen, all the agents, they thought to themselves: “That's a nice thing, gaining power over people. Gosh, we'll sell a lot of those, no one will be able to resist us!” These little books immediately started to contain instructions on how the person concerned should adjust his eyes so that he does not look the other in the eye, but at the point between the eyes, he should stare fixedly; then the other person is magnetized and comes under his influence and does what he wants. Well, you know, the wine travelers and the other travelers have had all this sent to them. And you could see that, especially in hotels where such agents had stayed, these letters and things were always sent in bulk. Most of them didn't do better business because of that, but American society did do good business. It was of no use to most of them, but it might have been of use to a few; and they did something that no one should do under any circumstances, because it is a sin against human freedom. No person may aspire to get power over another person in such a way! And if nature gives it to him, as it did to that person of whom I told you, then it can indeed become bad enough under certain circumstances, but then it is nature that gives something like a special look; it is much less abused than with the person who wants to learn the matter. Now, during the war these follies have decreased and now they actually no longer exist. But one can say that one can learn from these things, on the one hand, how people themselves exploit the spiritual, and how the worst materialists – because they were mostly materialists, who allowed these things to come to them – also turn to the spiritual when it is a matter of making a profit with the spiritual. They do not believe in him, but they turn to the spirit when it is a matter of making a profit with the spirit! So I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that these things can be terribly abused.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"VI. The Connection Between the Higher Aspects of the Human Constitution and the Physical Body — The Effects of Opium and Alcohol","site_heading":null,"date":"1924-02-20","location":null,"word_count":518,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/352/1924-02-20/p024","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"A Spiritual Scientific View of Nature and Man","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA352/English/SOL2024/19240220p02.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"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/352/1924-02-20/p024"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/352/1924-02-20/p024","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 352/1924-02-20/p024","passage_number":24,"text":"In diesen Sachen ist auch viel Mißbrauch getrieben worden. Wenn Sie so ein bißchen Lebensbeobachter gewesen sind vor dem Krieg, da konnten Sie auf den Reisen in jedem Hotel oder dort, wo sonst die Briefe aufgeschichtet sind, daß sich das die Leute abholen, daß sie es nehmen, überall immer wieder dasselbe finden: irgend etwas, was die Aufschrift hatte von einer amerikanischen Gesellschaft. Da steckte überall dasselbe. Was war dazumal geschehen? Nun, da war eine amerikanische Gesellschaft begründet worden, die hatte Filialen. In Berlin war eine solche Filiale, in Frankfurt, in den meisten größeren Städten waren solche Filialen. Es muß also das Geschäft gut gegangen sein! Da wurde angekündigt, daß derjenige, der Macht über die Menschheit gewinnen will, Büchelchen kriegt von dieser amerikanischen Gesellschaft. Er braucht nur so und so viel Geld einzuschicken, dann kriegt er Büchelchen, und in diesen Büchelchen ist die Anweisung darinnen, wie er Macht über die Menschheit kriegt. Nun, alle Reisenden, alle Agenten, die haben sich gedacht: Das ist doch eine schöne Sache, Macht über die Menschen zu gewinnen. Donnerwetter, da werden wir viel verkaufen, da wird uns kein Mensch widerstehen können! — Diese Büchelchen fingen gleich damit an, daß Anweisungen darinnen waren, wie der Betreffende seine Augen so einstellen solle, daß er dem andern nicht in die Augen schaut, sondern auf den Punkt, der zwischen den Augen liegt, soll er starr hinblicken; dann wird der andere magnetisiert, und er kommt unter seinen Einfluß und tut, was der will. Nun, wissen Sie, die Weinreisenden und die andern Reisenden haben sich das alles kommen lassen. Und man konnte sehen, daß also namentlich in Hotels, wo solche Agenten gewohnt haben, immer massenhaft diese Briefe und Sachen verschickt wurden. Die meisten haben ja deshalb doch nicht bessere Geschäfte gemacht, sondern die amerikanische Gesellschaft hat dabei die guten Geschäfte gemacht. Den meisten hat es ja nichts genützt, Einigen könnte es aber doch genützt haben; und die haben etwas getan, was unter keinen Umständen ein Mensch machen soll, denn das ist eine Versündigung gegen die menschliche Freiheit. Kein Mensch darf anstreben, über einen andern Menschen auf eine solche Art eine Macht zu bekommen! Und wenn es ihm die Natur gibt, wie jenem Menschen, von dem ich Ihnen erzählt habe, so kann es ja unter Umständen schlimm genug werden, aber es ist dann die Natur, die so etwas gibt wie einen besonderen Blick; da wird es viel weniger mißbraucht als bei demjenigen, der die Sache erlernen will. Nun, während des Krieges haben diese Torheiten abgenommen, und sie sind jetzt eigentlich gar nicht mehr vorhanden. Aber man kann schon sagen, gerade von diesen Dingen kann man auf der einen Seite lernen, wie die Menschen selber das Geistige ausnützen, und wie die ärgsten Materialisten - denn das waren ja zumeist Materialisten, die sich da diese Dinge haben kommen lassen — da, wo es sich darum handelt, mit dem Geist Profit zu machen, auch an den Geist sich wenden. Sie glauben nicht an ihn, aber sie wenden sich an den Geist, wenn es sich darum handelt, mit dem Geist Profit zu machen! Ich habe Sie also darauf aufmerksam machen wollen, wie ungeheurer Mißbrauch mit diesen Dingen getrieben werden kann.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":523,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/352/1924-02-20/p024"}],"english":["GA 352/1924-02-20/p024"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":523,"en_words":518,"ratio":0.99,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","anchors","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.0,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5351,"original_word_count":5329,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"A Spiritual Scientific View of Nature and Man","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA352/English/SOL2024/19240220p02.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 352/1924-02-20/p024"],"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. 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