{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 67/1918-02-28/p007","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"First and foremost, there is one thing — which I have already pointed out from other perspectives in these lectures — that many contemporary researchers of the soul believe that certain things are simply impossible, even though they are essential goals of spiritual research. How often do we hear researchers of the soul say today that the actual life of the soul cannot be observed? It is pointed out, for example, that delicate feelings cannot be observed because they slip away when one approaches them with the observing activity of the soul. It is rightly pointed out how disturbed we feel when, for example, we have learned something by heart, recite it, and want to observe ourselves. This is presented as if it were a fundamental peculiarity of the life of the soul. But it is necessary to realize that what is presented as an impossibility, as a characteristic inability of the life of the soul, must be striven for precisely as a spiritual scientific method. What the biologist and the physiologist do for the body, the spiritual researcher does for the spirit, striving to rise from mere everyday and mere mystical self-observation to that true observation of the soul whose impossibility is to be demonstrated by the aforementioned reference to the fact that we cannot observe ourselves when reciting a poem because we disturb ourselves in doing so. Now, it is not necessary to achieve self-observation in such external things as reciting memorized material, although this is also a necessity for those who want to become spiritual researchers. But it is necessary for the researcher of the spirit and soul to achieve real self-observation by actually having a sequence of ideas, a sequence of thoughts, and also the sequence of impulses of the will and states of mind before him in such a way that, in a sense, while this is taking place in his soul, he stands by as his own spectator and really learns to observe himself inwardly, learns to observe himself in such a way that the observer and the observed actually fall completely apart. This possibility is often presented as something very easy, and those who present it as something very easy, although they naturally do not strive for it in all its difficulty, are also those who believe that, while natural science is subject to strict methods, spiritual science is something that can be attained easily and lightheartedly. However, true spiritual research, which is able to say what is important for spiritual life, requires the same methodical, rigorous, patient, and energetic progress in a certain way, albeit applied only in the spiritual realm, and not only as happens in the external field of natural science, but in such a way that those who are familiar with both natural science research and spiritual science research must say that, compared to the often years of effort necessary to arrive at serious spiritual scientific results, the methods of natural science can basically be acquired in a much easier way.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"4. The Spirit, Soul, and Body of Man","site_heading":null,"date":"1918-02-28","location":null,"word_count":502,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/67/1918-02-28/p007","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2018","book_title":"The Eternal in the Human Soul","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA067/English/SOL2018/19180228p01.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/67/1918-02-28/p007"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/67/1918-02-28/p007","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":1.06,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":9825,"original_word_count":9261,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2018","book_title":"The Eternal in the Human Soul","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA067/English/SOL2018/19180228p01.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 67/1918-02-28/p007"],"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."}}