{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 56/1907-12-12/p023","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Human beings can only overcome their fear of death and boldly face death when they know that there is an immortal, eternal core within them, for which death is only a transformation of life, a change in the form of life. As soon as a person finds the immortal core within themselves through secret science, they train themselves more and more to overcome all such feelings, and ultimately also to overcome what is called the fear of death. But the more materialistic a person becomes, the more fearful of death they become. No secret science can protect people from seeing the truth behind the scenes. It must show them how eternal life, how karma, brings about the great balance in spiritual life. This Spiritual Science must show them many things. It cannot show them the bliss behind the scenes of life without at the same time showing them the terrible powers, the enemies that lurk behind it. That is quite true. But it also shows them how they can overcome any fear of these enemies. It shows them how they can face all this with a free and bold eye. It teaches them to become objective and unbiased if they patiently submit to its education. But many come to ‘theosophy’ with the ordinary feelings of our present-day trends. What they hear sometimes affects them as something deeply depressing, something that attacks their soul terribly, because as a result of their materialistic way of thinking, they have fear and dread of life. This is the immaturity that many people bring into Theosophy and which can only be overcome gradually through theosophical work itself. Again, it is not the fault of theosophy or the secret science. It does its part not to shock people too much. For if it were to reveal the whole, full truth about some things that are very close to human beings, if it were to say how the fearful are separated from the fearless, and how great the number on one side and the number on the other , many would be shocked.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"The So-Called Dangers of Initiation","site_heading":null,"date":"1907-12-12","location":null,"word_count":346,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/56/1907-12-12/p023","alignment_confidence":"medium","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/eLib2015/19071212p01.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/56/1907-12-12/p023"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/56/1907-12-12/p023","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},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1907-12-12","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 56/1907-12-12/p023","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/56/1907-12-12/p023"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":339,"en_words":346,"ratio":1.02,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.02,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":7538,"original_word_count":7419,"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/eLib2015/19071212p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 56/1907-12-12/p023"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"medium","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."}}