{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 90b/1905-12-18/p007","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"It is little known that the phenomena of the world occur in so-called cycles. Today, in materialistic times, the regular, rhythmic course of even fatal phenomena in the world is overlooked. But he who looks into the hustle and bustle of the great human spiritual life sees something approaching, something that is revealing itself more and more to humanity. What I am about to say is also paradoxical, but it will only be recognized all too clearly in some time, perhaps in the not too distant future. What is in store for humanity, must be in store simply because of the materialism that has been preparing itself for four centuries, that is a certain loss of spiritual life, a confusion in spiritual life, which would most certainly develop into a kind of spiritual disease, into a kind of epidemic, if the teachers of spiritual life did not work to counteract this spiritual epidemic through their teachings. We would be facing that today. It is slowly preparing itself. Those who do not have eyes do not see, and those who do not have ears do not hear, even if they are in psychiatry. But those who can observe spiritually know the danger that man is in. This danger need not come, but it would come if the human spirit is not strengthened again through life, that is, if it does not receive a true center. The purpose of Theosophy is to produce firm, strong character in the depths of the soul, and not to allow any spiritually vacillating nature to arise. He who scurries about with his knowledge, flitting like a will-o'-the-wisp through the outer material phenomena of existence, today inclined to this person and tomorrow to that, is exposed to the great danger of losing his spiritual center. And it does not help if we imbue this scurrying with general ideas of divinity and spirituality. Just as the only ruler and safe in the plant kingdom is he who has learned botany, so only he can be sure of the spiritual beings — which are there after all — who has knowledge of the spiritual world.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"XXI. Knowledge of the Higher Worlds II","site_heading":null,"date":"1905-12-18","location":null,"word_count":356,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/90b/1905-12-18/p007","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":"Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge II","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA090b/English/SOL2024/19051218p01.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/90b/1905-12-18/p007"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/90b/1905-12-18/p007","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":"Frühe Vortragsreihen und Einzelvorträge für Mitglieder in Berlin 1905–1906 nach ausführlichen und z.T. fragmentarischen Mitschriften.","evidence_translation":"Early lecture series and single lectures for members in Berlin 1905-1906, from detailed and in part fragmentary listeners' transcripts.","evidence_source":"The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 90b); the description calls them \"Hörermitschriften\", and the served text carries the note-taker's gap marker \"[Lücke in der Mitschrift]\". The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.02,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5339,"original_word_count":5259,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge II","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA090b/English/SOL2024/19051218p01.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 90b/1905-12-18/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."}}