{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 56/1907-11-28/p012","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"The principle of initiation has been spoken of throughout all ages of human development. However, the relationship to public activity was different than it must be in our age. Whether we go back to the ancient Indian, Chaldean, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greco-Roman cultures, or whether we wander through the Middle Ages, through the 16th and 17th centuries to our own time, there have always been initiates and disciples of the initiates. Only, people did not speak about it publicly. Initiated! What was that? There is a difference between an initiate, a clairvoyant, and those who use higher powers in the service of the physical world. But we will not go into these finer distinctions today. A clairvoyant is someone who can see into the supersensible worlds, for whom the worlds that are hidden from ordinary people are open, perceptible worlds. Why was the introduction to such higher worlds carried out in secret, so to speak? Why was it not spoken of publicly in earlier times? Next time we will talk about the dangers of initiation. Today, we will only point out that a certain danger indeed lurks for human beings at the boundary between the sensory-visible world and the invisible-supersensible world, and that those who wish to become initiates must first overcome this danger. This danger consists in the fact that at the boundary between the physical and the superphysical world it is extremely difficult to distinguish illusion from reality, dreams from reality, vision from real perception. In this realm it is very easy to confuse the fantastical constructs of one's own soul with what is real, objective, and true. Various qualities, which will be discussed below, are required in order to maintain a cool head, peace of mind, courage, perseverance, and energy at the border, for if a person were to lose clarity about what is illusion and what is reality at this border, they would have lost their mind and would be a fool instead of an initiate.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Initiation or Consecration","site_heading":null,"date":"1907-11-28","location":null,"word_count":330,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/56/1907-11-28/p012","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"eLib2015","book_title":"Knowledge of Soul and Spirit","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19071128p01.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/56/1907-11-28/p012"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/56/1907-11-28/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},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 56/1907-11-28/p012","passage_number":12,"text":"Von dem Prinzipe der Einweihung sprach man zu allen Zeiten der Menschenentwickelung. Nur war das Verhältnis zum Öffentlichen Wirken anders, als es in unserem Zeitalter sein muß. Ob wir nun zurückgehen in die alten indischen, chaldäischen, babylonischen, ägyptischen, griechisch-römischen Kulturen, ob wir die Zeit des Mittelalters heraufwandern, durch das i6., 17. Jahrhundert bis zu uns, immer gab es Eingeweihte und Schüler der Eingeweihten. Nur sprach man nicht öffentlich darüber. Eingeweiht! Was war es? Es ist ein Unterschied zwischen einem Eingeweihten, einem Hellseher, und solchen, die höhere Kräfte anwenden im Dienste der physischen Welt. Auf diese feineren Unterschiede wollen wir uns aber heute nicht einlassen. Hellseher ist derjenige, der hineinschauen kann in die übersinnlichen Welten, für den dasjenige, was für den gewöhnlichen Menschen verborgene Welten sind, offenbare, wahrnehmbare Welten sind. Warum wurde die Einführung in solche höheren Welten sozusagen im Geheimen betrieben? Warum sprach man in früheren Zeiten öffentlich nicht davon? Wir werden das nächste Mal von den Gefahren der Einweihung sprechen. Heute soll nur darauf aufmerksam gemacht werden, daß an der Grenze zwischen der sinnlichsichtbaren Welt und der unsichtbar-übersinnlichen Welt in der Tat eine gewisse Gefahr für den Menschen lauert, und daß derjenige, der ein Eingeweihter werden soll, diese Gefahr zunächst zu überwinden hat. Sie besteht darin, daß es an der Grenze der physischen und der überphysischen Welt außerordentlich schwer ist, Illusion von Wirklichkeit, Träume von Realität, Vision von wirklicher Anschauung zu unterscheiden. Hier auf diesem Gebiete ist es sehr leicht, die eigenen phantastischen Gebilde seiner Seele mit dem, was real, objektiv, wirklich ist, zu verwechseln. Es bedarf verschiedener Eigenschaften, die im folgenden auseinandergesetzt werden, um an der Grenze gerade kaltes Blut, Sicherheit der Seele, Mut, Ausdauer und Energie zu bewahren, denn, wenn der Mensch an dieser Grenze die Klarheit über das, was Schein und was Wirklichkeit ist, verlieren würde, dann hätte er den Verstand verloren, dann wäre er ein Narr statt eines Eingeweihten.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":314,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/56/1907-11-28/p012"}],"english":["GA 56/1907-11-28/p012"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":314,"en_words":330,"ratio":1.05,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","reader"],"reader_german":["GA 56/1907-11-28/p012"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.03,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":8289,"original_word_count":8015,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"eLib2015","book_title":"Knowledge of Soul and Spirit","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA056/English/eLib2015/19071128p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 56/1907-11-28/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. 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