{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 63/1914-04-23/p036","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"This is not the place to discuss truth and error in spiritualism. It certainly contains some grains of truth, not just error or deception and the like. I would just like to point out that those who stand on the ground of a materialistic worldview apparently do not approve of this spiritualism. If one thinks about it in this way, with a mind that is not internally animated, then one can only say that the materialistic worldview is as distant from spiritualism as it is from spiritual science. But if one really looks into the becoming of the world, then one knows something quite different. Then one knows that the soul's hunger for spiritual nourishment cannot be stifled, and that it is the materialists who give rise to spiritualism! Spiritual science is opposed from the materialistic side. But one will see that wherever spiritual science is prevented from emerging, spiritualist societies and circles are formed! The fathers of spiritualism are the philosophers and materialistic worldviewers. With a way of thinking that is only abstract, one cannot see through this connection. One makes the same mistake in thinking as the one who says: I intend to raise the child that has just been born to be a really good son; I am preparing everything for this. But the son will by no means always turn out as the father has imagined; under certain circumstances, he may become a rather bad brat. What materialists imagine about the connections in the world has nothing to do with living life. And so it may happen that they produce the “son,” the brat, whom they themselves do not know as such a son. For spiritualism is the son of materialism. Why is this so? Because the soul's appetite for spiritual life cannot satisfy its hunger, and it ultimately ends up doing what physicists or chemists do, where the external events of life are presented, where the “spirit” is to be presented without inner participation. This is more convenient than having to make an inner effort every moment when one is supposed to ascend to the spirit. But this is nothing more than a search for the same worldview that materialism produces. — I only want to cite this as an example of how abstract thinking enters into life. Such thinking will naturally believe that materialism cannot produce spiritualism. How could it! On the other hand, thinking that has inner power and influence in the sphere of truth will see through the world in a completely different sense, and through such thinking, human beings will be able to place themselves in the world in a completely different way than through abstract, dead thinking, which is also only a “homunculism,” as was explained last time.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"12. Spiritual Science as a Life's Work","site_heading":null,"date":"1914-04-23","location":null,"word_count":458,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/63/1914-04-23/p036","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":"Spiritual Science as a Life's Work","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA063/English/eLib2015/19140423p01.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/63/1914-04-23/p036"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/63/1914-04-23/p036","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 63/1914-04-23/p036","passage_number":36,"text":"Es soll hier nicht über Wahrheit und Irrtum im Spiritismus gesprochen werden. Er enthält gewiß manches Körnchen Wahrheit, nicht nur Irrtum oder Schwindel und dergleichen. Darauf möchte ich nur hinweisen, daß die, welche auf dem Boden einer materialistischen Weltanschauung stehen, diesen Spiritismus scheinbar nicht billigen. Wenn man so über ihn denkt mit einem Denken, das sich nicht innerlich belebt, dann wird man nur sagen können, daß die materialistische Weltanschauung gleich ferne steht dem Spiritismus wie der Geisteswissenschaft. Wenn man aber wirklich hineinschaut in das Werden der Welt, dann weiß man etwas ganz anderes. Dann weiß man, daß der Hunger der Seele nach geistigem Lebensgut nicht erstickt werden kann, und daß die Materialisten es sind, welche den Spiritismus hervorbringen! Man bekämpft von materialistischer Seite die Geisteswissenschaft. Aber man wird sehen, daß überall da, wo es gelingt die Geisteswissenschaft nicht hochkommen zu lassen, die spiritistischen Vereine und Zirkel sich bilden! Die Väter des Spiritismus sind die Philosophen und materialistischen Weltanschauungsleute. Mit einem Denken, das nur abstrakt denkt, durchschaut man diesen Zusammenhang nicht. Da macht man denselben Denkfehler wie der, welcher sagt: Ich habe vor, einen recht guten Sohn aus dem Kinde zu bilden, das jetzt geboren worden ist; ich mache mir alles dazu zurecht. Aber der Sohn wird durchaus nicht immer so, wie der Vater es sich gedacht hat; er kann unter Umständen ein recht schlimmer Balg werden. Was sich die Materialisten für Vorstellungen machen über die Weltenzusammenhänge, das hat mit dem lebendigen Leben nichts zu tun. Und so kann es kommen, daß sie den «Sohn» erzeugen, den Balg, den sie selber als solchen Sohn nicht kennen. Denn der Spiritismus ist der Sohn des Materialismus. Warum ist das so? Weil der Appetit der Seele nach geistigem Leben den Hunger nicht stillen kann, und es schließlich dahin kommt, wie es der Physiker oder Chemiker macht, wo die äußeren Ereignisse des Lebens vorgeführt werden, wo ohne inneres Mittun der «Geist» vorgeführt werden soll. Das ist bequemer, als in jedem Momente, wo man zum Geist aufsteigen soll, sich innerlich anstrengen zu müssen. Aber das ist auch nichts anderes als ein Suchen nach demselben Weltbild, das der Materialismus hervorbringt. — Ich will das nur als ein Beispiel dafür anführen, wie sich ein abstraktes Denken hereinstellt in das Leben. Ein solches Denken wird selbstverständlich glauben, daß der Materialismus nicht den Spiritismus erzeugen kann. Wie sollte er auch! Ein Denken dagegen, das innere Schlag- und Tragkraft hat in der Sphäre der Wahrheit, wird in ganz anderem Sinne die Welt durchschauen, und durch solches Denken wird sich der Mensch ganz anders in die Welt hineinstellen können als durch ein abstraktes, totes Denken, das auch nur ein «Homunkulismus» ist, wie es das letzte Mal ausgeführt wurde.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":446,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/63/1914-04-23/p036"}],"english":["GA 63/1914-04-23/p036"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":446,"en_words":458,"ratio":1.03,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.03,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":9309,"original_word_count":9008,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"eLib2015","book_title":"Spiritual Science as a Life's Work","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA063/English/eLib2015/19140423p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 63/1914-04-23/p036"],"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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