8. The Myth of Heracles
GA 87/1901-12-28/p011
·1901-12-28
·
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: «Auch wenn die Mitschrift noch nicht die später übliche Genauigkeit aufweist» (Even though the transcript does not yet have the accuracy usual later). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 87), which calls the cycle the earliest of which a listener's transcript exists. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
That which was present [in the heyday of spiritual life in Greece, before Christianity had a transforming effect on Greek spiritual life] and which Plato went through, this entire developmental process was called "initiation" in Greek spiritual life. It is what those who wanted to be initiated into the Mysteries strove for. For the Greeks, receiving initiation and becoming an initiate were one and the same thing.
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