{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 52/1904-05-30/p012","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"The questions that spiritualists today seek to answer were the subject of the so-called mysteries throughout antiquity. Let us try to clarify what is meant by mysteries in just a few strokes. In ancient times, it was not customary to proclaim wisdom publicly. People had a completely different view of wisdom and truth. Throughout antiquity, it was believed that in order to recognize supersensible truths, it was necessary to first develop supersensible organs. It was clear that spiritual powers lie dormant in every human being, powers that are not developed in the average person, that spiritual powers lie dormant in human nature, powers that can be awakened and developed through long exercises, through stages of development that are described as very difficult by the followers of the mysteries. Once such powers had been developed and one had become a seeker of truth, it was believed that the seeker of truth would relate to ordinary people in the same way that a sighted person relates to someone born blind. This was the goal within the sacred mysteries. The aim in the spiritual realm was similar to what a doctor aims to achieve today when he operates on a person born blind in order to enable him to see. It was clear that, just as a person born blind who undergoes surgery will see the colors of light and the shapes of things, so too will a person whose inner senses are awakened see a new world that cannot be perceived by the ordinary mind. Thus, the followers of the mysteries sought to transform a person of a lower nature into a person of a higher level of development, an initiate. And only the initiate should be able to discern the supersensible truths through direct perception, through spiritual intuition. The truths could only be communicated to the masses through images. The myths of antiquity, the legends about gods and the creation of the world, which today — and in a certain sense rightly so — appear to us as childish views of humanity, are nothing more than disguises for supersensible truths. Through images, the initiate communicated to the people what he had been able to see within the temple mysteries. All the mythologies of the East, the Greek and Roman mythologies, the Germanic mythology, and the mythologies of the savage peoples are nothing other than pictorial, symbolic representations of supersensible truths. Of course, this can only be fully understood by those who study these myths not only as is customary in anthropology or ethnology, but also in their spirit. Such a person sees that a myth such as the myth of Hercules represents a deep inner truth; they see that Jason's retrieval of the Golden Fleece represents a profound insight that can be seen in its truth.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"XIII. The History of Spiritualism","site_heading":null,"date":"1904-05-30","location":null,"word_count":465,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/52/1904-05-30/p012","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Spiritual Teachings Concerning the Soul","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA052/English/SOL2025/19040530p01.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/52/1904-05-30/p012"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/52/1904-05-30/p012","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},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.0,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":8443,"original_word_count":8421,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2025","book_title":"Spiritual Teachings Concerning the Soul","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA052/English/SOL2025/19040530p01.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 52/1904-05-30/p012"],"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."}}