{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 68b/1910-03-12/p063","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Thus devotion plays the greatest conceivable role for man in both his ordinary and elevated life. And devotion also leads him up to the heights of life. This is what all those strive for who want to break through the outer sensual cover and enter the spiritual world. That is what they strive for through the longing and urge of devotion: to penetrate to that which they thus devoutly venerate, to be able to live with that which they first devoutly venerate; to be able to unite with that which one first devoutly venerates, to be able to stand in that which one first strives for from below. This has always been called mystica, spiritual union with the spiritual world, from which man comes, but with which he can consciously unite when he has gradually matured to do so. Mystical union was the lofty ideal of all spiritual aspirants. To all spiritual aspirants, that which lives and works in the human soul appeared as a feminine force that draws up in a devout mood to that which permeates and interweaves the world and can fertilize the soul as a masculine force. This is also what Goethe felt, based on his good knowledge of the mystical mood of human development, when he wrote the “Chorus mysticus” at the end of his life's work. There he wrote the words that, as if from unknown spiritual depths, resonate in our soul and present the riddle of our soul's striving and development to our mind's eye, telling us that everything we encounter in the external world is a parable for something eternal, that what is insufficient for sensual striving can be achieved through spiritual striving. What we cannot describe with words of the physical world is done when we come together with that which inspires us from the spiritual world. And then they fade away, these words, into that wonderful dictum that tells us: The soul is like an eternal feminine that allows itself to be fertilized by what lives as a masculine in the secrets of the world, behind sensual existence. Thus, Goethe's “Chorus mysticus” sounds to our ears like the great riddle of human development:","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"55. The Mission of Devotion","site_heading":null,"date":"1910-03-12","location":null,"word_count":363,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/68b/1910-03-12/p063","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"The Circular Flow of Man's Life within the World Of Sense, Soul And Spirit","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068b/English/SOL2024/19100312p01.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/68b/1910-03-12/p063"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/68b/1910-03-12/p063","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"listeners_notes","scope":"volume","note":"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.","evidence_translation":"Since no professional shorthand transcripts exist, these are often summaries or reports kept in the form of notes.","evidence_source":"The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 68b). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one."},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1910-03-12","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 68b/1910-03-12/p063","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/68b/1910-03-12/p063"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":360,"en_words":363,"ratio":1.01,"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":1.03,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":8774,"original_word_count":8542,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"The Circular Flow of Man's Life within the World Of Sense, Soul And Spirit","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068b/English/SOL2024/19100312p01.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 68b/1910-03-12/p063"],"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."}}