{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 56/1907-11-28/p030","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"I would like to present in the form of a dialogue what has always been said to the students of occultism in such secret schools. I am telling you this to clarify the principle, the method of initiation. What I am expressing in a few words takes a long time to learn. The dialogue I describe never actually took place, but what it represents has always taken place in every spiritual school. The student is told: Look at the plant, which points its roots into the earth and lets its stem, leaves, and flowers grow upward, and compare it with the human being. You would be making a false comparison if you tried to compare the head with the flower and the foot with the root. As an aside, I would like to say that even the person who laid the foundations for modern science in such a magnificent way came to this view. He compares the root with the human head and sees the plant as the inverted human being and the human being as the inverted plant. The root is the head that the plant stretches toward the center of the earth, just as the human being can stretch his head, which he holds in the opposite direction, toward the sun or the celestial forces of the universe. The plant's reproductive organ, the flower, from which the seed for a new plant emerges, turns chastely toward the sunbeam, which in medieval secret schools is called “the holy lance of love,” which touches the ovary and, after fertilization, conjures up the new plant germ, which causes the plant to grow in that direction. Humans are exactly the opposite. They stretch their fertilizing organs toward the center of the earth, their heads out into space. In between, the student is told, is the animal, which makes a half-turn so that its spine is horizontal. Look at plants, animals, and humans, and you will understand Plato's statement that the world soul is nailed to the cross of the world. By world, Plato means plants, animals, and humans. The plant stands upright, opposite it is the human being, who turns his gaze with his head toward the free world ether, and the crossbeam is the animal. This is the archetype of the cross, which was known in ancient times and in all secret schools.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Initiation or Consecration","site_heading":null,"date":"1907-11-28","location":null,"word_count":392,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/56/1907-11-28/p030","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/p030"},{"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/p030","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/p030","passage_number":30,"text":"Ich möchte in der Form eines Dialoges darstellen, was in solchen Geheimschulen immer den Geheimschülern gesagt worden ist. Das sage ich Ihnen, um das Prinzip, die Methode der Einweihung klarzumachen. Was ich in ein paar Worten ausspreche, nimmt bei der Schulung einen langen Zeitraum ein. Der Dialog, den ich schildere, hat auch nie stattgefunden; aber das, was er darstellt, hat in jeder Geistesschule immer stattgefunden. Man sagt zum Schüler: Sieh dir die Pflanze an, die mit der Wurzel in die Erde hineinweist, die ihren Stengel, ihre Blätter und Blüten nach oben wachsen läßt, und vergleiche sie mit dem Menschen. Du würdest falsch den Vergleich anstellen, wenn du den Kopf mit der Blüte und den Fuß mit der Wurzel vergleichen wolltest. - Als Einschaltung möchte ich sagen, daß auch derjenige, der die neuere Naturwissenschaft in so großartiger Weise begründet hat, auf diese Anschauung kommt. Er vergleicht die Wurzel mit dem Kopf des Menschen und sieht in der Pflanze den umgekehrten Menschen und im Menschen die umgekehrte Pflanze. - Die Wurzel ist der Kopf, den die Pflanze zum Mittelpunkte der Erde hinstreckt, ebenso wie der Mensch seinen Kopf, den er in der entgegengesetzten Richtung hält, der Sonne oder den Himmelskräften des Universums entgegenstrecken kann. Dasjenige, was die Pflanze als ihr Fortpflanzungsorgan hat, die Blüte, aus der hervorgeht der Keim zu einer neuen Pflanze, dreht sie keusch dem Sonnenstrahl entgegen, den man in den mittelalterlichen Geheimschulen nennt «die heilige Liebeslanze», der den Fruchtknoten berührt und nach der Befruchtung den neuen Pflanzenkeim herauszaubert, der überhaupt die Pflanze nach dieser Richtung wachsen macht. Genau umgekehrt ist der Mensch. Er streckt dem Mittelpunkte der Erde seine Befruchtungsorgane zu, den Kopf hinaus in den Raum. Dazwischen, so sagt man dem Schüler, ist das Tier, das eine halbeWendung macht, so daß das Rückgrat horizontal ist. Sieh dir an Pflanze, Tier, Mensch, und du begreifst den Ausspruch Platons, daß die Weltseele an das Kreuz der Welt geschlagen sei. Unter der Welt versteht Platon Pflanze, Tier und Mensch. Die Pflanze ist es, die senkrecht steht, umgekehrt zu ihr ist der Mensch, der den Blick mit dem Haupte in den freien Weltenäther hinauswendet, und der Querbalken ist das Tier. Das ist die Urform des Kreuzes, die in den alten Zeiten und in allen Geheimschulen bekannt war.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":375,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/56/1907-11-28/p030"}],"english":["GA 56/1907-11-28/p030"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":375,"en_words":392,"ratio":1.05,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","anchors","audit"]},"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/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."}}