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Translation Policy

Last updated: August 10, 2024

We pledge that the translations we offer have been provided by real human beings, many prominent in the Anthroposophical movement for decades. These are NOT ‘literal’ or AI-generated translations without human review. There are a number of problems inherent in those translation methods:

Nuances are missed, especially in the case of older documents containing archaic abbreviations, word usage, and concepts that can easily be misinterpreted.
Grammatical constructions, such as the ordering of clauses in sentences, are not untangled.
Using the most common meaning of a term, unable to recognize reasonable context. For example, in a Rudolf Steiner lecture concerning the characteristics of genius, the literal translation was “In Faust, Goethe portrayed the genial personality” rather than “In Faust, Goethe portrayed him with the personality of a genius.”

The works of Rudolf Steiner present special challenges, similar to the difficulty in translating poetry:

Subtle nuances are critical to understanding Steiner's complicated philosophical ideas.
Steiner often coined new words to express novel ideas.
Knowledge of events and individuals Steiner refers to is necessary to correctly interpret the concepts and terminology.

We prefer not to aid and abet ahrimanic materialism.

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Steiner Quote

“If an oriental sage of earlier times, who had been initiated into the Mysteries of the ancient East, were to turn his glance towards western civilization, he might perhaps say to its representatives: ‘You are living entirely in fear; your whole mood of soul is governed by fear. All that you do, as well as all that you feel, is saturated with fear and its reverberations in the most important moments of life. And since fear is closely related to hatred, so hatred plays a great part in your civilisation.’
“In the time of this sage, it was joy that played that role; love was a fundamental force.
“... it must certainly be admitted that but little of this love can be traced directly in the present. But one who is able to discern it can perceive even now, in the phenomena of decline of the Asiatic culture, the penetration of this primeval element of joy — delight in the world and love for the world.”

— Rudolf Steiner
[Lecture: “Evil and the Power of Thought” September 23, 1921 pp. 1–2]

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Steiner Quote