{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 77b/1921-08-24/p008","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"This is also the dangerous thing about this path, that first of all this egoity of the human being must be strengthened. That which has led people to egoity must be taken further. Therefore, what is striven for here can basically only be properly achieved if it is preceded by a corresponding preparation, the preparation that I have described truthfully in my writing “How to Know Higher Worlds”. There you will find a certain method for attaining true inner modesty, that inner modesty which may not always be openly displayed in outer life, owing to outer circumstances, but which must penetrate the life of the soul in depth. If this modesty is not thoroughly developed as an inner strength of the soul experience, then there is indeed the danger of human megalomania on the path to imagination, not pathological megalomania, but psychological, moral megalomania. Those who apply anthroposophical methods correctly cannot lapse into pathology because these methods run directly counter to what can lead people out of their natural state into pathological conditions. However, they may certainly face psychological dangers such as the megalomania referred to here. A certain inner stability, rooted in modesty and unpretentiousness, is necessary for the individual who aspires to that elevation and intensification of egoism which is necessary to achieve imaginative knowledge. In ordinary life and in ordinary cognition, our concepts are too pale, our highest ideas too abstract, to move from their own full saturation to the inner experience of that which actually pushes man towards egoity. That which otherwise lives in the power of forming concepts and shaping ideas must be elevated, must be intensified. Then, indeed, an experience occurs, and by the occurrence of this experience the one striving toward imagination can actually gauge the correctness of his striving. One has done exercises to increase one's egoism, one has done such exercises that one's pale concepts and ideas have been raised to the intensity one experiences when one has a sensory image before one's eyes or ears. One has thereby increased that power which, by its concentration, produces our composure, our sense of personality, our egoism. The experience one has is that from a certain point on, an increase in egoity no longer occurs, that from a certain point on, precisely because of the increase in egoity, in a sense because of the arrival of egoity at a point of culmination, this egoity actually dissolves. That is the significant thing, that our egoity, when it is increased, is increased correctly, does not increase into the excessive as egoity, but that it basically dissolves.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"3. Anthroposophy: The Science of the Human Being","site_heading":null,"date":"1921-08-24","location":null,"word_count":431,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/77b/1921-08-24/p008","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:structural_identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Art and Anthroposophy The Goetheanum Impulse: Summer Art Course 1921","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA077b/English/SOL2024/19210824p01.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/77b/1921-08-24/p008"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/77b/1921-08-24/p008","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},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1921-08-24","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 77b/1921-08-24/p008","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/77b/1921-08-24/p008"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","audit"],"length_check":{"de_words":464,"en_words":431,"ratio":0.93,"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."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 77b/1921-08-24/p008","passage_number":8,"text":"Das ist ja auch das Gefährliche bei diesem Wege, daß zunächst diese Egoität des Menschen verstärkt werden muß. Dasjenige, was die Menschen zur Egoität hingeführt hat, muß weitergeführt werden. Daher kann im Grunde genommen dasjenige, was hier angestrebt wird, richtig nur dann erreicht werden, wenn ihm eine entsprechende Vorbereitung vorangeht, jene Vorbereitung, wie ich sie der Wahrheit gemäß geschildert habe in meiner Schrift «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?». Sie werden da geschildert finden eine gewisse Methode, zur wahrhaftigen inneren Bescheidenheit zu kommen, zu jener inneren Bescheidenheit, die vielleicht nicht immer im äußeren Leben ganz offen zur Schau getragen werden kann — eben wegen der äußeren Verhältnisse —, die aber das Seelenleben tief durchdringen muß. Wird diese Bescheidenheit nicht als eine innere Kraft des seelischen Erlebens durchgreifend ausgebildet, dann liegt allerdings auf dem Wege zur Imagination die Gefahr des menschlichen Größenwahnsinnes, nicht des pathologischen Größenwahnsinnes, aber des psychologischen, moralischen Größenwahnsinnes. Wer richtig anthroposophische Methoden anwendet, der kann — weil diese Methoden in ihrer Richtung direkt entgegengesetzt laufen demjenigen, was den Menschen aus seiner Naturgrundlage heraus in pathologische Zustände hineinführen kann —, der kann eigentlich nicht dadurch in Pathologisches verfallen, aber er kann allerdings psychologisch vor solche Gefahren sich gestellt sehen, wie es der hier gemeinte Größenwahnsinn ist. Einen gewissen inneren Halt, der in Anspruchslosigkeit und Bescheidenheit wurzelt, den muß der Mensch haben, wenn er anstreben will jene Erhöhung und Steigerung der Egoität, welche notwendig ist zur Erreichung der imaginativen Erkenntnis. Im gewöhnlichen Leben und im gewöhnlichen Erkennen sind unsere Begriffe zu blaß, unsere höchsten Ideen gerade zu abstrakt, um aus einer ihnen eigenen vollen Sättigung heraus zum innerlichen Erleben desjenigen zu kommen, was den Menschen eigentlich zur Egoität hindrängt. Dasjenige, was sonst in der Begriffe bildenden, in der Ideen gestaltenden Kraft lebt, das muß erhöht, das muß gesteigert werden. Dann allerdings tritt eine Erfahrung ein, und an dem Eintreten dieser Erfahrung kann eigentlich der zur Imagination Strebende die Richtigkeit seines Strebens ermessen —, dann tritt eine Erfahrung ein: Man hat Übungen gemacht, um die Egoität zu steigern, man hat solche Übungen gemacht, daß die blassen Begriffe und Ideen bis zur Intensität sich erheben, die man erlebt, wenn man ein Sinnesbild durch Augen oder Ohren vor sich hat. Man hat dadurch jene Kraft, die durch ihr Zusammendrängen unsere Besonnenheit, unser Persönlichkeitsgefühl, eben unsere Egoität hervorbringt, man hat diese Kraft gesteigert. Die Erfahrung, die man macht, ist die, daß nun von einem gewissen Punkte aus nicht mehr eine Steigerung der Egoität eintritt, daß von einem gewissen Punkte aus gerade durch die Steigerung der Egoität, gewissermaßen durch das Ankommen der Egoität an einem Kulminationspunkte, diese Egoität eigentlich zerfließt. Das ist das Bedeutsame, daß unsere Egoität, wenn sie gesteigert wird, richtig gesteigert wird, sich nicht ins Maßlose steigert als Egoität, sondern daß sie im Grunde genommen zerfließt.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":464,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/77b/1921-08-24/p008"}],"english":["GA 77b/1921-08-24/p008"],"method":"structural_identity","confidence":"medium","correspondence":"unverified","length_check":{"de_words":464,"en_words":431,"ratio":0.93,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.06,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6644,"original_word_count":6275,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Art and Anthroposophy The Goetheanum Impulse: Summer Art Course 1921","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA077b/English/SOL2024/19210824p01.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 77b/1921-08-24/p008"],"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."}}