38. The Ideals of Humanity and the Ideals of the Initiates
GA 68b/1906-01-16/p018
·1906-01-16
·
English
HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Da keine professionellen Stenogramme vorliegen, handelt es sich oftmals um notizenhaft festgehaltene Zusammenfassungen oder Berichte.» (Since no professional shorthand transcripts exist, these are often summaries or reports kept in the form of notes.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 68b). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
The true initiates will not deny that they are initiates, but they will say that it is impossible to reveal the deepest laws of existence, the hidden forces, at first. An initiate may even tell his secret in words, but the world will not notice it. There are many people who are what is called ordinary in their outward occupation; they could be shoemakers like Jacob Boehme, but they are not recognizable as initiates by those around them. What he knows is a spiritual power, or a sum of powers, which in the present time must be put into humanity by some means, and these powers work through the centuries, even if they do not work immediately.
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