{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04/p007-p010","extent":"range","passage_number":7,"through":10,"paragraph_count":4,"first_locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04/p007","last_locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04/p010","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"title":"X. The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily","date":"1904-04-04","location":null,"alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Goethe and the Present","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068c/English/SOL2024/19040404p01.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"]},"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},"other_renderings":{"loci":[{"locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04_02","ga":"68c","lecture":"1904-04-04_02","kind":"renderings","relation":"another translation or transcription of the same lecture"}],"note":"The same lecture is also served at the loci listed, each with how it relates to this one. They are ONE witness, not independent attestations: quote the rendering you fetched, and do not cite another as corroborating it. Wording differs between translations, so a quotation found in one need not occur in the other."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.03,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":8455,"original_word_count":8170,"may_be_abridged":false},"site_heading":null,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/68c/1904-04-04/p007-p010","json_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/68c/1904-04-04/p007-p010.json","lecture_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/68c/1904-04-04#p007","word_count":946,"quote_safe":true,"passages":[{"passage_number":7,"locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04/p007","text":"Anyone who understands the Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily knows that in Goethe we have a theosophist, a mystic. Goethe also represented the wisdom and the view of life that Theosophy advocates in a popular form; and the “Fairy Tale” is a fully valid proof of this. But in the times when Goethe was expressing himself, people did not try to clothe the highest truths in words through the power of the intellect in public lectures, as they do today; they did not try to present these most intimate human soul truths in the same way. Those who had insight into such truths expressed them in figurative form, through parables. It was an old custom, a custom that still originated in the Middle Ages, that one cannot arrive at the highest insights in an abstract form, but that for this a kind of initiation is needed. And this initiation made it impossible for those who sensed that a certain mood, a kind of breath of the soul, was needed to grasp such truths, to speak of these higher truths; truths that indeed cannot be perceived with the mind alone. A certain mood is needed, and I call this mood the 'breath of the soul'. The language of reason seemed to them personally too sober, too dry to express the highest truths. Furthermore, they still had some conviction that the one who experiences such things must first make himself worthy of the truth.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":247,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/68c/1904-04-04/p007","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Goethe and the Present","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068c/English/SOL2024/19040404p01.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 68c/1904-04-04/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."}},{"passage_number":8,"locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04/p008","text":"This conviction has meant that in ancient times, until about the third century of the Christian era, the truth about the human soul and the human spirit was not presented in such a way that it could be revealed publicly. Instead, those who were to come into possession of the highest truths had to be prepared to receive what was offered in the so-called mystery centers. These mystery temples presented all the secrets of natural and cyclic laws to the mystics as something that we would recognize as sober truth if we expressed it in dry sentences of the mind, but which the disciple had to recognize and live as living truth. It is not a matter of thinking wisdom, but of living wisdom. It is not merely a matter of permeating wisdom with the ardor of the spirit, but of becoming a completely different person. He had to approach the holiest with a certain awe; he had to understand that truth is divine, that it is imbued with the divine blood of the world, that it enters into our personality, that the divine world should revive, that knowledge means the same as what is meant by the word development. This was to be made clear to the mystic, and this he was to achieve at the purification stage of the mysteries. He was to educate himself to have a holy awe for the truth, he was to be weaned away from clinging to the sensual, from the sufferings and joys of life, from that with which everyday life surrounds us. The light of the spirit, which we need when we withdraw from profane life, could only be received when that had been discarded. When we are worthy to receive the light of the spirit, then we have become different, then we love the spirit, then we love with earnest sympathy and devotion that which we otherwise only recognized as a shadowy existence, as an abstract existence: We love the spiritual life, which for the ordinary person is only thought. But the mystic learns to sacrifice the self that clings to the everyday; he learns not only to penetrate truth through thinking, he learns to live it through, he learns to receive it as divine wisdom, as theosophy. Goethe expressed this conviction in the “West-Eastern Divan”:","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":386,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/68c/1904-04-04/p008","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Goethe and the Present","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068c/English/SOL2024/19040404p01.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":"discrepancy","checked_against":["GA 68c/1904-04-04/p008"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":["Christ"],"bead_confidence":"high","bead_length_ratio":1.05,"likely_cause":"unresolved","note":"NAME MISMATCH between this English passage and its German counterpart. A name the German carries is absent here (or a name appears here that the German does not carry). Two things cause this and they need telling apart: the translation really drops or reassigns what the original distinguishes, OR the paragraph alignment paired the wrong passages. `bead_confidence` does NOT settle which: this corpus's embedding aligner pairs topically-related paragraphs at full confidence, and a sampled high-confidence mismatch proved to be a wrong pairing. Read the German passages listed and confirm they are counterparts BEFORE drawing any conclusion about the translation."},"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."}},{"passage_number":9,"locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04/p009","text":"> And so long as you do not have this,  \n> this: Die and become!  \n> If you are just a gloomy guest  \n> on the dark earth.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":28,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/68c/1904-04-04/p009","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Goethe and the Present","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068c/English/SOL2024/19040404p01.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 68c/1904-04-04/p009"],"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."}},{"passage_number":10,"locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04/p010","text":"That was what the mystics of all times strove for: to let the lower die and to let that rise that lives in the spirit. To hold the dying of the sensual reality in low esteem, so that man may ascend into the realm of divine intentions. Dying in order to become. He who does not have this does not know what forces are at work in our world; he is only a dull guest on our earth. Goethe expressed this in the “West-Eastern Divan” and he also seeks to depict this vividly in the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily. The transformation of man from one level of existence to a higher level was the puzzle he wanted to solve. The question was: how can a person who lives in the everyday, who can only see with his eyes and hear with his ears, grasp this “die and become”? This was the question of mystics of all times. This great question was called the “spiritual alchemy” at all times, the transformation of man from the everyday soul to the spiritual soul, which grasps spiritual things as the ordinary person grasps earthly things, the table, the chair and so on, and considers them real. When this alchemy had taken place with man, then the mystery guides considered him worthy to receive the highest truths. Then they led him into the holy of holies, then he was initiated, then he was endowed with the teachings that teach him about the intentions of nature, about the intentions that permeate the plan of the world. It is such an initiation that Goethe describes [in “Fairytale”]: an initiation of the worthy person into the mysteries.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":285,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/68c/1904-04-04/p010","witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Goethe and the Present","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068c/English/SOL2024/19040404p01.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 68c/1904-04-04/p010"],"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."}}],"witnesses":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":54,"passage_count":54,"word_count":8170},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":54,"passage_count":54,"word_count":8455,"completeness":{"ratio":1.03,"band":"comparable","note":null}}],"aligned_witness":{"status":"aligned","lang":"de","edition":"original","confidence":"high","passages":[{"locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04/p007","passage_number":7,"text":"Wer das Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie versteht, der weiß, dass wir in Goethe einen Theosophen vor uns haben, einen Mystiker. Goethe hat die Weisheit, die Lebensanschauung, welche die Theosophie in populärer Form zu vertreten hat, auch vertreten; und gerade das «Märchen» ist ein vollgültiger Beweis dafür. Nur hat man dazumal, in den Zeiten, als Goethe sich aussprach, nicht wie heute in öffentlichen Vorträgen durch die Macht des Verstandes die höchsten Wahrheiten in Worte zu kleiden versucht; nicht versucht, diese intimsten menschlichen Seelenwahrheiten in derselben Weise vorzutragen. Diejenigen, welche einen Einblick in solche Wahrheiten getan haben, haben sie in bildlicher Form, durch Gleichnisse zum Ausdruck gebracht. Es war eine alte Gepflogenheit, eine Gepflogenheit, welche noch aus dem Mittelalter stammt, dass man zu den höchsten Einsichten nicht in abstrakter Form gelangen kann, sondern dass dazu eine Art von Einleben, eine Art von Einweihung gehört. Und diese Einweihung machte es denjenigen unmöglich, von diesen höheren Wahrheiten zu sprechen, welche spürten, dass eine gewisse Stimmung, eine Art Seelenhauch dazugehört, um solche Wahrheiten fassen zu können; Wahrheiten, welche in der Tat nicht bloß mit dem Verstand wahrgenommen werden können. Eine gewisse Stimmung gehört dazu, und diese Stimmung nenne ich den «Seelenhauch». Die Verstandessprache erschien ihnen persönlich zu nüchtern, zu trocken, um die höchsten Wahrheiten auszudrücken. Außerdem hatten sie noch etwas von der Überzeugung, dass der, welcher solches erlebt, sich erst der Wahrheit würdig machen muss.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":235,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/68c/1904-04-04/p007"},{"locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04/p008","passage_number":8,"text":"Diese Überzeugung hat bewirkt, dass in alten Zeiten, bis etwa zum dritten Jahrhundert der christlichen Zeitrechnung, die Wahrheit über die menschliche Seele und den menschlichen Geist nicht so vorgetragen wurde, dass sie öffentlich preisgegeben werden konnte, sondern derjenige, welcher in den Besitz der höchsten Wahrheiten gelangen sollte, musste erst vorbereitet werden zur Aufnahme dessen, was in den sogenannten Mysterienstätten geboten wurde. Diese Mysterienstätten führten zuletzt alles dasjenige, was sie an Geheimnissen, an Natur- und zyklischen Gesetzen den Mysten überbrachten, als etwas vor, was wir, wenn wir es in trockenen Verstandessätzen ausdrücken, als nüchterne Wahrheit erkennen würden, was aber der Schüler als lebendige Wahrheit erkennen und leben musste. Es handelt sich nämlich nicht darum, Weisheit zu denken, sondern Weisheit zu leben. Es handelt sich nicht bloß darum, die Weisheit mit der Glut des Geistes zu durchdringen, sondern darum, dass der Mensch ein ganz anderer wurde. Er musste vor das Heiligste mit einer gewissen Scheu hintreten; er musste verstehen, dass die Wahrheit etwas Göttliches sei, dass sie durchtränkt sei von göttlichem Weltenblut, dass sie einzieht in unsere Persönlichkeit, dass die göttliche Welt wieder aufleben solle, dass Erkennen dasselbe heißt, was mit dem Wort Entwicklung bezeichnet ist. Das sollte dem Mysten klar gemacht werden, und das sollte er auf der Läuterungsstufe der Mysterien erreichen. Er sollte sich anerziehen die heilige Scheu vor der Wahrheit, er sollte abgezogen werden von dem Haften an dem Sinnlichen, von den Leiden und Freuden des Lebens, von dem, womit uns das Alltagsleben umgibt. Das, was wir notwendig haben, wenn wir uns vom profanen Leben zurückziehen, das Licht des Geistes, das konnte nur empfangen werden, wenn jenes abgelegt war. Wenn wir würdig sind, das Licht des Geistes zu empfangen, dann sind wir andere geworden, dann lieben wir den Geist, dann lieben wir mit ernster Sympathie und Hingabe dasjenige, was wir sonst nur als ein schattenhaftes Dasein, als ein abstrakt Bestehendes erkannt haben: Wir lieben das Geistesleben, das für den gewöhnlichen Menschen nur Gedanke ist. Der Myste aber lernt hinopfern das Selbst, das am Alltäglichen haftet; er lernt die Wahrheit nicht nur denkend durchdringen, er lernt sie durchleben, er lernt sie zu empfangen als göttliche Weisheit, als Theosophie. Goethe hat diese Überzeugung im «West-Östlichen Diwan» ausgesprochen:","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":366,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/68c/1904-04-04/p008"},{"locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04/p009","passage_number":9,"text":"> Und so lang du das nicht hast,  \n> Dieses: Stirb und Werde!  \n> Bist du nur ein trüber Gast  \n> Auf der dunklen Erde.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":25,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/68c/1904-04-04/p009"},{"locus":"GA 68c/1904-04-04/p010","passage_number":10,"text":"Das war es, was die Mysten aller Zeiten angestrebt haben: das Absterben-Lassen des Niederen und das Auferstehen-Lassen dessen, was im Geiste lebt. Das Absterben der sinnlichen Wirklichkeit gering achten, damit der Mensch aufsteigt in das Reich der göttlichen Absichten. Sterben, um zu werden. Wer das nicht hat, der weiß nicht, was für Kräfte in unsere Welt hineinschwingen; der ist nur ein trüber Gast auf unserer Erde. Das hat Goethe im «West-Östlichen Diwan» ausgesprochen und das sucht er auch in aller Anschaulichkeit darzustellen in dem Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie. Die Verwandlung des Menschen von der einen Stufe des Daseins zu einer höheren Stufe hinauf, das war es, was er als ein Rätsel lösen wollte. Das Rätsel: Wie kann der Mensch, der im Alltäglichen lebt, der nur mit Augen schauen, mit Ohren hören kann, wie kann er es erfassen, dieses «Stirb und Werde»? Das war die Frage der Mystiker aller Zeiten. Diese große Frage nannte man zu allen Zeiten die «spirituelle Alchemie», die Verwandlung des Menschen von der Alltagsseele zu der Geistseele, welche die geistigen Dinge so erfasst wie der gewöhnliche Mensch die irdischen Dinge, den Tisch, den Stuhl und so weiter, und sie für wirklich hält. Wenn diese Alchemie mit dem Menschen vorgegangen war, dann hielten ihn die Mysterienführer für würdig, die höchsten Wahrheiten zu empfangen. Dann führten sie ihn in das Allerheiligste, dann wurde er initiiert, dann wurde er ausgestattet mit den Lehren, die ihn über die Absichten der Natur unterrichten, über die Absichten, die den Weltenplan durchziehen. Eine solche Initiation ist es, die Goethe [im «Märchen»] beschreibt: eine Einweihung des würdigen Menschen in die Mysterien.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":271,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/68c/1904-04-04/p010"}],"beads":[{"from":[7],"to":[7],"confidence":"high"},{"from":[8],"to":[8],"confidence":"high"},{"from":[9],"to":[9],"confidence":"high"},{"from":[10],"to":[10],"confidence":"high"}],"note":"Paired by the paragraph aligner; each language numbers its own paragraphs. A bead at either end of the span can carry text beyond it (the `from` numbers show what each bead covers)."}}