| 266I. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes I: 1904–1909: Esoteric Lesson
23 Nov 1907, Basel Translator Unknown |
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| 266I. From the Contents of Esoteric Classes I: 1904–1909: Esoteric Lesson
23 Nov 1907, Basel Translator Unknown |
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The world aroma that goes through the whole universe is the Father's revelation, is the original substance. We call it odor today. Odor is something we don't become aware of much yet; taste has become disclosed to us a little bit more. The world of light; that's the Son, the force of life. World sound, the sound that reverberates and weaves through the world, is the revelation of the Spirit, the form. In i we have the center to which the etheric body strives a is complete reverence and devotion ae is shy reverence o is like embracing, enclosing u is resting, being ensheathed. The East Indian path soon goes up into the astral world. A pupil is very helpless there at first, which is why he needs a guru to tell him what to do, because the pupil can't correct his mistakes due to contradictory precepts in the astral world. There's only an inner orienting in the astral world, for instance the colors of objects flame out of objects or beings there, and stream, flow, resound through space after they've become detached from things.. These colors, odors and sounds then enliven others. One must learn to experience the separation of color from a flower, one must think that the color is floating free I space. This experience leads into the astral world. The experience of odor as world aroma leads to the Father. Imagination is the separation of color from the object, which is why it's so very important for an esoteric. |
| 261. Our Dead: Address at the Cremation of Lina Grosheintz-Rohrer
10 Jan 1915, Basel |
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| 261. Our Dead: Address at the Cremation of Lina Grosheintz-Rohrer
10 Jan 1915, Basel |
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The soul whose passing we mourn today showed the full, most noble strength to exchange this earthly life with that other into which she was called to enter. And the friend was ready to receive the revelations of that other world, as she was always ready to receive the revelations of this earthly world. We, my dear mourners, raise our souls to this soul, in union with all the loved ones, in the pain for the dearly departed here. We sympathetically unite our souls with the souls of our dear relatives and look up to the soul that has departed from this earthly world and its way of life. And when we try to explore, feelingly, discerningly, what lived in this soul, when we imagine it free from all that was earthly, when we want to listen to it where it speaks from its deepest conviction, from its deepest feeling and will, then we, my dear mourners, may well feel as if we were hearing this dear, this powerful soul speak words like these:
A life full of work, a life full of strength, a life full of lively concern and human duties, which she was assigned in her earthly life, in her present phase of life, has come to an end in our beloved friend, and in such a way that one word comes to mind and to the soul when this life is to be characterized by the nature of her personality, a word in which much, much can be included. But nothing, I think, is in this word that should not be included when looking at the personality who has left us: an “anima magna” in the noblest sense, a beautiful soul in the best sense of the word, and a soul that knew how to pour out what radiated in her in glorious beauty for all those who were close to her or came into the slightest contact with her, so that one became partakers of the love, the goodwill, the strength that emanated from her. Everyone around her could perceive the strengthening and revelation of intimate soul beauty. Such a soul has passed from us, and we feel our relationship to her, which is truly felt, like the setting of a sun that we have so gladly seen around us. But again, my dear mourning friends, when we turn our spiritual gaze to this evening of life after a life of work, we are overcome by the most heartfelt consolation from this soul itself, consolation in many respects. One can think of the life ideal of many ancient souls who, when they came to the realization of the evening of their lives, said that they would not want to come to this evening of their lives without the soul being able to enter in a corresponding way into the spiritual worlds into which they are to submerge when the gate of physical life is closed. Countless spirits in ancient times felt the same way: May I be granted an evening of life so that I may go, feeling, into the spiritual world. Those who had not yet taken in the feeling of their connection with the spiritual world felt, as it were, their purpose in life slipping away. What a beautiful feeling and sensation this woman had been given in what she had around her in her old age, and that is why such a purpose in life, which brought her closer to the spiritual world. It is hard to imagine a more beautiful entry into and life in the spiritual world than was the case with our friend. When you look back on her life, you see a life dedicated to taking care of the smallest, most insignificant things in life, that powerfully wanted things from the details of life and yet was again inspired to embrace all the details of life in a grand sweep. who had the joy and the good fortune to approach this soul, it was exemplary through its noble, through its strong activity, exemplary through the care in the individual, exemplary in the most loyal action. And then again, this soul, who has fulfilled her life through work, effort and worry, felt the need to live and immerse her soul in the revelations of spiritual life. She also had this need in an exemplary, truly exemplary way. My dear suffering friends and friends of my dear friend, from the revelation of spiritual life to which we profess, one receives a conviction for spiritual knowledge, admittedly through a saying of Goethe. But standing in this conviction, one feels the truth of Goethe's saying so strongly that one can hardly feel the truth of this saying in any other field: “What is fruitful is alone true!" Oh, how often one had to think of our dear departed when one contemplated her strong, exemplary life! In her, the connection with the spiritual world proved truly fruitful. With her whole soul and her whole heart she stood in the elements that take hold of us and flow through us when we seek the connection with the spiritual worlds. She repeatedly felt imbued, flooded and strengthened when she really wanted to experience the connection with the spiritual world, and then the forces flowed into her physical upright posture. Truly, our spiritual current, my dear friends, feels fortunate to be able to be united with such souls. And it can do so, for on the one hand it must tell itself that it receives from these souls as much as a glorious gift of right living as it gives; and on the other hand, when it can be seen what spiritual science can be to such souls, spiritual science also feels strengthened and invigorated, and strength flows to it from such souls. That is why such souls are living stars in the midst of our spiritual current, and we look up to them as we would to certain stars. Because we look up to such living stars, we are comforted in our pain, and we feel this comfort even when we can no longer see the loving eye or hear the dear voice. If it can be a consolation for the dear ones that many souls united with our friend in true friendship unite in outer pain and mourning, then they can truly be sure of this consolation; they can be sure of the consolation that comes from the awareness, at least the outer one, the consolation that turns to a feeling that can be truly consoling, especially for such a soul. We will consider and feel: Now she has left us, now she will no longer reach out to us, now we will no longer feel the warmth of her heart, no longer have her benevolent gaze resting on us, now we will no longer see her strength in the physical world. When we feel all this, we turn to the other feeling, especially when we are faced with such a soul, to the feeling that this soul is an infinitely precious gift of our life on earth. And let us consider every moment in which she was allowed to devote herself to us in this physical world, which we think back on with love and loyalty, as a gain, and then let us consider every moment in which we can no longer have her in the physical world, as such, in which we want to hold fast to the love and devotion that she so richly deserved. Let us no longer look at the moments when she will be physically gone from us, but let us look at the moments she gave us and let us cherish those moments in our memories. They will be rich and full of important things. Such was this soul that the memory of her can be more than abundant. If we do not find only sorrow in their absence, we will find strength and power among the many other things. The sight of them shows us a soul in which the value penetrates into one's own soul, into the anima. Souls of this kind are among those through whom the gods reveal how much they love the world. Lives that flow in this way, blessing, full of work, full of devotion in love, which are then also allowed to reap the fruits in children and children's children, and which, in the insight into this satisfaction from their earthly life, are allowed to look within themselves, such souls are the ones through whom the gods reveal their love for the world to man. And when such a soul departs from us, then our own souls feel as if they are united in spirit with the spirit that flows through all worlds, with the living force that goes through all life. Then we are closer to understanding these words, which are given to the human race, than we are in the ordinary moments of life, when we feel united with the noble soul that hovers over our life, the fleeting life, and then we do not say in a different sense than usual; Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth. A sense of the world permeated our friend's soul, a sense of the world that constantly spoke from the heartfelt interest she had in intellectual life. And, my dear friends in mourning, you have to resort to the words of a great ancient sage if you want to find words that shape that which filled this anima magna: “No longer shall your breath alone be in harmony with the surrounding air, but henceforth your mind shall also be in harmony with the rational essence that surrounds everything, for the power of reason is poured out upon us all and permeates everyone who wants to draw it to themselves, just as the air permeates those who can breathe it.” This world view of the ancient Roman sage lived in our friend's heart. But in addition, she had a living understanding of the union of the individual human soul with the whole; she had everything that the human soul can fulfill in our time, when it seeks the path through the earthly shell up into the spiritual worlds. And when she felt this sense of life in our sense, our friend, that the spirit surrounds us and wants to be breathed in like the air - truly, honestly and sincerely, lovingly and urgently, she often felt through her soul: “I was born of God” - of God, with all that my physical shell, my earthly life, has done. But then, when such a soul rises into the spiritual world, when it seeks that which can shine forth from the spiritual worlds, then, in its search in the spiritual worlds, an inkling, a belief, a knowledge of those worlds arises in it, which are exalted above space and time, above birth and death and above the stars. Then that feeling begins, which the old Roman sage could not yet have, that feeling that truly makes the sight of death a new birth, that makes the sight of death appear as the birth of the soul for the spiritual worlds. The soul here felt surrounded by reason, by spirit, by world thoughts in the earthly world. So the soul, which can feel, which has been initiated, feels the soul of the friend. When she delves into her reasons, she feels how she finds the way to the world that is beyond space and time, in which physical death forms the entrance to the connection with the Christ, who reveals Himself through the mystery of Golgotha, who reveals Himself anew in the understanding soul in every moment. And then such a soul finds the true conviction, which no soul can find more sincerely than the soul that hastened ahead of us, the word: In Christ we die. - Everything she gave us in her life, when we saw her among us, for years and especially in the last times, is an affirmation of her being imbued with the Christ impulse. This is an affirmation of what she felt when she constantly turned to the mystery of Golgotha, the wisdom that can flow into all human souls that want to receive it. Thus we find her death, which for her was consciously a new birth, in intimate union with the Christ. She died in the Christ. But that gives us the strength of thought to know that we are united with her in spirit, to find the main consolation beyond all pain and grief: As true as she hastened into the spiritual world, clothed in the luminous and powerful thought, “In the Christ I shall resurrect,” so true as the word, the powerful word that resounded from her, will it arise in her soul, and we shall resurrect with her and be united with her. In this union, my dear mourners, we shall plant in our souls the thoughts that should be directed, as often as we are allowed, to the soul of our dear friend, to the exemplary way in which she lived out her time on earth for us, to the strength and heavenly light that radiates from her. When we turn our thoughts to her in loyalty, we vow that when we leave her earthly shell, we want to feel that so strongly in all of us, with our best thoughts united in her, forever, until we see her through the power of the spirit in which we want to live intimately united with her. Because this soul was so deeply imbued with this spirit, inspired by the longing for the light that speaks from the spiritual worlds, it is, my dear friends, that when I tried to feel so united this morning with the soul hurrying into the spiritual world, that I could hear the words that seem to me that soul would say if it followed the purest impulse of its self, followed that which radiated from the star of life as long as it dwelled among us. They shall become conscious in our hearts, these words, which seem to me to be words that the hurrying soul calls out to us in this last moment when we are allowed to dwell with its earthly shell, calling out to us, admonishing us, worrying about our own path in our spiritual world. These are words through which we ourselves will feel the strength to sense our unity with the soul and to find our way into the spiritual world. It seems as if this soul were speaking to us in the words that we want to carry faithfully in everlasting remembrance of her:
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| 261. Our Dead: Eulogy at the Cremation of Fritz Mitscher
05 Feb 1915, Basel |
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| 261. Our Dead: Eulogy at the Cremation of Fritz Mitscher
05 Feb 1915, Basel |
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As we envision You through the innermost workings of our minds, so, dear friend, You appear to us, our soul clearly living, in order to work in the realm of that spiritual life to which we have devoted our hearts, to which we have devoted our souls in loyalty, to which You have also devoted Your soul and heart in loyalty. Truly, a hope that makes us happy. And today, we stand before the loss, which pains us deeply, with our dear mother, who is so close to all our hearts, and who, with such deep, loving understanding, kindred spirit, followed his path through life with me, not just followed it, but prepared it for you with the deepest inner knowledge of your nature, with the deepest inner love. We stand there with our dear siblings, some of whom must be far away, devoted to the duty that the times demand of so many people in the present. We stand there and can only say to our dear mother and dear siblings one word of comfort at your mortal remains: It may be a consolation, a consolation that lasts over time, that you, dear friend, have won the love of so many kindred souls who will always be willing to share the pain that your mother and siblings are experiencing. You grasped that which permeates us as our spiritual being, as your own being. But deep in your soul glows a persistent, earnest exploratory urge, an exploratory urge that has always been intrepidly turned towards the truth, the truth alone as the shining light. I often spoke with you about your life here on earth, but often it was also as if you pushed aside what the earth could give you for your earthly life, because the spiritual light stood brightly and shiningly before you, to which your soul wanted to devote itself completely, to whose reflection your soul turned. When people got to know you better, it was as if, deep down in your soul, you wanted to express the conviction, which never lingered in your consciousness, through this or that word: I will not have to worry about my earthly path in this incarnation. — And so, what could cause you such worry became less and less valuable to you. Instead, more and more a beautiful, wonderfully bright harmony of our spiritual life dawned on you, and what appeared to be weakness on the outside, appeared to be strength to the soul. A hidden spiritual world shone gloriously out of your soul, a rich life and striving out of the narrow horizon, and the spiritual world shone wonderfully for you. If more years had been allotted to you, what lived humbly and chastely as a spirit of research in your noble soul would have ripened into the most beautiful fruit. It was pure and chaste like those souls of researchers who work their way up from the deepest chasms, from which souls of researchers must work their way up. One of those souls in whom the powers develop slowly and gradually, so that they can then also take on that form that transforms the urge to research into the ability to teach. So you, my friend, were on the way from research to teaching. If, as was symbolically expressed in your outer being, that which permeates so many with error and false ideas about the light of spiritual existence could not touch you, then on the other hand it was your strong will to penetrate to the very sources of existence, to seek knowledge for yourself and to give this knowledge to your fellow men. And Your strong, strong will knew how to illuminate itself with that keen sense that was able to see through error that stood in the way of truth. That was how it was. You spoke of that which You already knew how to proclaim from the source of spiritual life, as one of the first who, connected by their very own power with the divine foundations of the world, knew how to put clear truth in the place of error, which, misunderstanding and misjudging our spiritual striving, comes to us from all sides from the world. That is why You promised to become a loyal fellow warrior in that host, which wants to be devoted to the holy, eternal truth, to illuminate and warm the fleeting time, so that it may stand firmer and fit into the stream of eternal being. In principle it is self-evident to you that you are connected with what we call the spiritual life. And that is why this being, in its quiet but unyielding zeal, had such an infinitely harmonious effect on all the souls of friends, strengthening and invigorating these souls again and rekindling in them the spark that must ignite in man if he is to find the way from time to eternity. And even if what appeared to be Your earthly life-force was sometimes weak, Your inner spiritual life always presented itself to us as an especially strong and powerful energy that knew how to walk the path it had chosen out of realization with sure steps. You stood before us as a promise of the future, as a dynamic fighter for the cause that was one with your innermost self, with which you had made this innermost one. It cannot be for us at this hour to speak only words of comfort for those souls who must remain behind, for the dear mother and the dear brother and sister souls. For all those who were devoted to you in intimate friendship, it is fitting to live in holy sorrow since you have left this earthly field. But through the trust in the spirit that inspires us, in the spirit that lived so strongly in you, we also trust in the pain of our souls that he will find the strength to always look up to you in the regions where you will dwell and we are not lost to you through the beautiful, glorious treasures that you through your higher self, which you strove to develop during your earthly existence, collected. You know, dear soul, how much at risk that is in our spiritual current, which is so close to our hearts, is endangered by the contradictions of the world, by error and misunderstanding. You know how we, standing here at your mortal remains, look up into the spheres that receive the spiritual. You know how difficult it is for the souls in the bodies to fight against conscious and unconscious enemies with what is so dear to us. You know how we look to You with the request to continue to unite Your power with ours. You know how we do not trust in what people encounter in the visible world. You know that we hold to the invisible world because we know that it is permeated by the souls of those who belonged to us and have left their earthly place of life. But we, who work below, want to ask You to work among us with the powers that are now at Your command. When that which sometimes surges within us and all too strongly challenges our strength asserts itself, then it will be You who is at work in our striving. So, never lost, so united with us in intimate love, we would like to live with You in thought, to whom You will be unforgettable, far and near. And You will be able to do so, from the spiritual regions that have received You, to send Your strong powers down to us. I see unspent powers in the life from which death has taken You away after a short existence. But you have passed through the gate of death with soul powers that are blissfully strengthened by the power of Christ, by that power of Christ, which you knew how to take in as spirit-knowledge, in your most inner feeling, in the secret of your heart, in your rich knowledge, which you knew how to take in as a living power that keeps alive throughout eternity that which which we know how to connect with this Christ-power. You have understood how to solve the riddle of spiritual science for yourself, so that you let it enter into the center of all your longing and searching that which gives meaning to the earth, which, as the striving of humanity, is incorporated in all earthly life: the power of Christ. Strengthened and invigorated by the power of the Christ impulse, you have passed through the gate of death; with the power of the Christ impulse you are in spirit. And that in you which is connected with this power of the Christ impulse will turn to us who seek this power of the Christ impulse, so that your fire may become one with our fire, in order to achieve those goals of humanity that must incorporate into the earth's striving and working out of eternity into time. United with the light-filled power of Christ, we now look up to You with love, to our strong support, to our bitter loss, but also to our confident consolation. So go into the light-filled world and be assured that our love follows You, as we are certain that Your light will be with us.
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| 261. Our Dead: In Memory of Jacques De Jaager
31 Oct 1916, Basel |
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| 261. Our Dead: In Memory of Jacques De Jaager
31 Oct 1916, Basel |
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| In Memory of Jacques De Jaager
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| 261. Our Dead: Address at the Cremation of Harald Lille
25 Oct 1920, Basel |
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| 261. Our Dead: Address at the Cremation of Harald Lille
25 Oct 1920, Basel |
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Dear mourners! Our dear friend Harald Lille has left us young. He has covered a part of his life with us in common work, common endeavor, common striving. We got to know him, and in him we got to know what can work so that our thoughts and feelings follow his soul as it now ascends into spiritual worlds. Since your soul left your body, dear friend Lille, all the moments in which I was able to get to know you have once again come to my mind. The memories brought me the image of your character, which now presents itself to us, the mourners, here in this moment, as we look up to your soul that has fled into the spiritual world and say goodbye to you on the physical plane. And this image presented to the soul is to give your image to this our mourning community:
A good many years ago now, our dear friend Lille came to our spiritual scientific community to pursue a common goal, to work together and, above all, to live together. He was educated in the technical sciences of our technical art. He brought this into our community from the outside world. But within him was something given from eternal worlds. An intimate urge for warmth of soul, for such warmth of soul that wants to be illuminated by the light of the spirit, in which man's true being must breathe, to which man's true being belongs. And how, one might say, naturally these two poles of our friend's life came together, where he could work in both directions, where he could put his technical skills at the service of a great cause together with us, but where these technical skills only serve the greater good in the external world to the extent that this cause is to be permeated by everything that the true human soul must strive for as its innermost spiritual being. Our friend's inner being was attuned to this warmth of soul. His always kind and friendly face, his intimate and radiant eyes, spoke of the longing for this warmth of soul, which wanted to be illuminated by the light of spiritual knowledge, and to work in the service of the spiritual development of humanity. He felt a deep need to do work in the service of humanity, work that he could imbue with the consciousness of belonging to the spirit of humanity in its truth. And so he worked among us, always working diligently in the knowledge that, like every smallest part that can be worked by us, he wants to place himself in the service of the whole human movement. Then fate took him back to his Nordic homeland, and in this Nordic homeland, to which he basically already carried the germ of the disease that developed to such an extent that our friend left this physical world, in this homeland, where he then had to stay for some time, he experienced the whole chaotic surge of our present time, he experienced all that rises up from the troubled social life and vigorously demands new forms in the development of humanity. There he became more and more mature, inclined to unite what he had drawn from spiritual insights with what he must have experienced through pain from the revolutionary movements he had gone through in his homeland. And so he came back to us, with the germs of disease in his body, but with a soul that was striving towards the place of work that he had found within our community. From the way our friend Lille came to us at that time, it could be seen that what we were able to put into human striving and human development was the center of his entire soul's longing. He was again radiant with inner spiritual sunshine when he arrived at our Goethe Building. But the germ of a serious illness was already living in him. His soul was always courageous and striving towards the light. But his superhuman destiny had determined that this clock of life would run out early. And so he was also seized by the disease that had seized many at that time. You could see how, when he was lying in the care of our dear member, Mrs. Wirz, he was struggling on the one hand with the thing that had befallen his body. As always, he aspired to lofty heights, aspired to the content of spiritual knowledge, aspired to the warmth of the sun of the soul, his truly loving, noble inner self. Then he would seek recreation in the mountains. And one may think, my dear mourners, that it was precisely during this search for recreation that the longing to return to the Goetheanum repeatedly passed through his soul. What he had experienced at this place, what he had experienced, that carried him, that was what really brought about in our friend - we may say it to you, dear friend, here so close to your ascent into the spiritual worlds - that mood that ultimately made him find no difference between the world he had to go through and in which he had only a short time to live, and the world he was to enter to work in as spirit and soul. The strength of his conviction, the depth of his insight, they really were visibly working spiritually in our friend's dear soul. It was what always confronted one, even in the face of painful defeat, when one looked at this countenance that could see the light to the very end. And driven by this longing for the central spiritual place with which he had so connected his own soul, he came when our college courses were opened at the Goetheanum a short time ago. He was able to take part in the first eight days of these college courses. He attended them as a seriously ill person, heading towards death, but with a soul that was fully involved in all the knowledge that was to be acquired as a new human asset, like someone who felt called to work in this world or in another on the impulses that were to be given. And when I was allowed to see our friend again in his last days, it seemed to me as if, as a result of his striving in courage and for the light, I might say that the words of thought had finally become more and more deeply rooted in him. Even if that which of me here belongs to the physical world, may disintegrate, I am connected with the spiritual striving that I have acquired here, I belong to it in such a way that my power should be devoted to it also in other worlds, which I may enter. For him, this connection with the spiritual, which he had chosen and which had created a longing in him, was at the center of all his soul experiences, one may well say, until the last hour. He was no longer able to participate in the last part of our vacation course. But he was in the neighboring hospital, and with all the instincts of his soul he participated in it. And so he awaited the last day of his life on earth, not unlike the first day of his spiritual life, which he lived courageously and striving for the spiritual light. His thoughts lived in the stream of thought that filled his soul: courageously towards the light! — This thought permeated his soul in the last days. And we look at this soul. It was so healthy as a soul, despite the sick body with which fate had clothed it, that it was a matter of course in its life that it stepped out of the portals of the universe to this earthly mission, and that it felt within itself all that is proper to all human souls when they inwardly behold their true being, that she felt that man on this earth has a mission to fulfill, given to him by the gods of the universe, from which she, after all, is born in her true being. A noble vision of this divine permeation of everything, that is what always filled him, even when our friend Lille was engaged in practical life. A vision of God in the most beautiful sense of the word, that is what made him say to himself: This soul of mine is born of the divine. And he sought spiritual knowledge because he wanted to live here and die here within this physical earth in the power of Christ, and he felt that he needed spiritual knowledge that would shine through his soul with true light in order to find his way to the life and death in Christ. And so he connected himself through our spiritual science with a genuine, true Christ consciousness. As he felt born of the Divine, so he felt alive and so he lived towards death in genuine, true, living Christ consciousness. He felt the Christ living in his soul through spiritual knowledge. And from the power of this Christ that permeated him, the man received the assurance that No matter what worlds the human soul must live through, through how many deaths it must pass, how often darkness must fall into its light, out of all lives, out of all deaths, out of all darkness, the human spirit, destined for eternity, must rise again and again. Being raised in the Holy Spirit arose for him from his consciousness of God, from his experience of Christ through spiritual knowledge. So we look at the soul of our friend, my dear mourners, as she now departs from us. We will no longer be able to look into your eyes, dear friend, which always look so kindly. We will not see your features here in the physical world again, they are so filled with the longing for the spiritual. But we will keep them in our hearts, these features gazing longingly out of the spiritual eye. We will unite our thoughts with your soul that also strives in the spiritual. Dear friend, you have united yourself with us, we will remain united with you, even if we can only reach in our hearts what you yourself, after you have left us physically, carry in your soul as your aspiration. We have grown fond of you. There are many among us who feel this at this very moment. They have grown fond of you, fond of you in a spiritual-soul bond that cannot be broken. You are among us. At this moment, we think of your distant relatives in the far north who cannot be here, who are thinking of you at this moment. We direct our feelings so that our thoughts can say to your loved ones in the far north: You do not leave the physical world here without being surrounded by loving hearts, by loving hearts that are aware that they must replace for you even in this moment the loving togetherness with those in your homeland whom you left to go to a spiritual place of striving. And so you, the relatives of our dear friend Lille in his distant homeland, may feel how we stand here in faithful love as his soul leaves his physical body, and you, who love him, who gave him to us, be aware that he has found loving souls here, that he does not rush out of this physical world without love.
We have found You in life. You have united Your powers with ours in earthly life. Here we stand to empathize with Your soul, to prepare ourselves to unite our thoughts with Your thoughts, which You carry into the work of the eternities. We deeply feel what is to shine before our soul once more, for the last time, as the beginning and end of Your image:
In life, we were united with you. In spirit, we want to remain united with you forever in the sense of what you have won as your realization-conviction. From the Divine, the human soul is born. In the Christ, the human soul must die if it truly wants to live. In the Holy Spirit it must be resurrected and will always be resurrected. That was your conviction, that you carried through death. This will shine for you as the light of the spirit, since you are now to enter the other paths. Yours, dear friend, forever! |
| 261. Our Dead: Eulogy at the Cremation of Caroline Wilhelm
27 Oct 1920, Basel |
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| 261. Our Dead: Eulogy at the Cremation of Caroline Wilhelm
27 Oct 1920, Basel |
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Dear mourners! Now that the priestly word has guided this dear soul up into the spiritual realms, where she already felt at home during her earthly existence, allow me to add a few words from the heart of those with whom our dear friend, Mrs. Wilhelm, was united in shared spiritual striving, shared work. This is in keeping with the heartfelt desire of those who shared the common striving with the dear departed, that here, where her soul separates from us, but we remain united with her in the eternal realms of the spirit, that here spoke the priest who stands within our spiritual community, and that also from me, as the representative of this spiritual community, the thoughts are conveyed, which arise from the hearts and souls of those who were united with our friend. In the last days, when this soul had parted from the earthly body, the image of the dear one stood before my soul, and what spoke to me from this image was spoken to the departing soul:
My dear mourners! The close relatives of the dear departed may feel in this hour that the friends who have gathered here to send the last farewell thoughts to the soul parting from us, that all these friends have followed this soul here in warm love. And in warm love, the words that are yet to be spoken will be spoken: Our dear, dear friend had sensed a ray of that spiritual light that shines in the soul when that human soul reflects on its true, genuine origin, when it reflects on the eternal source of humanity from which every single person is drawn to work in the spiritual and physical world. But, my dear mourners, the great question of fate often arises more intensely for one person than for another: How does the soul find its way in this existence? - in this existence, which surrounds us first as the earthly-physical world, into which shines for the soul's eye that which can spiritually permeate this earthly-physical world. That which this life can offer in the way of joy and uplifting is strong in life. It is easy for a person to get stuck within this physical life. Then the fateful questions do not arise with all their intensity from the pleasures, joys and exaltations of life! The great fateful questions, the great riddles of the world, approach man when pain and suffering afflict him. My dear friends, anyone who has acquired something like knowledge of the world will never speak from his deepest experiences, from his deepest experiences: From my joys, from my pleasures in life, I have gained knowledge. — He will speak of the fact that it is precisely suffering and pain that spring up as the light of knowledge in the soul. And the suffering and pain that penetrate into life are what point more strongly towards the eternal than the joys. And if our friend was already – as her search for spiritual light showed – one of those deeper souls who wanted to unite their own light with the divine light of the world, she has been absorbed in life by severe suffering, by pain. Dear mourners, especially the next of kin, you can be assured that the doctors of our society who were allowed to care for her during her illness would have liked to have kept this life here on earth for much longer. The voice of fate spoke loudly, the clock of life had run out, and today we can only give each other the consolation that comes from spiritual heights of spiritual light, but which tells us: When this earthly garment is shed, when this physical body passes away, then the one we have grown fond of, who has become dear to us, has not left us. The thoughts that loved him, the thoughts that united with him in common endeavor, those thoughts will find him again.And those who loved our dear friend, Mrs. Wilhelm, will, inspired by that love, send their thoughts to her again and again in eternal realms. And that which earthly death has separated will be united by life in the eternal realms of the spirit, in the bright heights of the spirit, for the bond that was formed here between our dear friend and those friends who have found union in our community was so strong that this bond certainly cannot be broken. Even those who were distant from her will unite their thoughts with the striving that our dear friend will have in the future as spirit and soul. For anyone who has become aware of the connection in eternity, there is in reality no separation. Consider, my beloved, the strong confidence that lived in this friend, Mrs. Wilhelm, out of the spiritual consciousness of her soul, which she sought through union with our spiritual striving. We know how dear it was to her to come again and again to Dornach, how dear the place became to her, how dear to her was every single thing she heard there. But we also know how what she heard and experienced there brought her together with the divine light she sought. I myself remember how moving it was to hear her, on her sickbed, speak of the sun shining through her window as the outer expression of the divine permeating the world. Thus she sought the divine in everything physical. She believed that she could only find the spirit with which she wanted to unite if she could revive the genuine, strong power of Christ in her soul. And so she went out to us, to let this soul grow strong inwardly through her experiences outside, through what happened out there, so that she could feel the Pauline words: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” And she felt this Christ power moving into her soul. She felt that of which man can be conscious, as of his origin; she felt the divine of this human origin, permeated by the power of Christ. She knew that, as truly as man is born out of the depths of the spirit through the power of the divine Father, so must man be borne through life and death by the power of Christ. In the most difficult hours of suffering, she was illuminated by the image she had received of the suffering of Christ on Golgotha, who is victorious over all death. Thus, under the most severe suffering and agony, she defeated death within herself. She felt the Christ-light within her. That was what sustained her under the heavy pressure of the suffering through which she was tested. For that was what the Christ-light told her again and again: No matter how many deaths a person may go through, no matter how much suffering and darkness may enter this life, there is a resurrection in the spirit from all deaths, from all darkness, from all suffering. And out of all suffering come trials for the soul, and out of all trials for the soul comes that great light which awaits the human being and strives towards him. So, my dear mourners, that is how we knew our friend. We do not want to talk about what she could find outside. Because that she could find what her soul was looking for, her life itself was the living testimony. But we still want to talk about the fact that when she came out, her own appearance was the living testimony of something that spoke from within her, without her being aware of it, but which touched every person who got to know our dear friend: she is a good woman. She is a woman you could love to the depths of her soul. Those who saw her outside, when she was still seeking this spiritual light, could say that to themselves. Right up until the last days when she was still able to make her way out. She was looking for it. And from the way she received it, from the way she looked up from her eyes to unite the inner light with the outer, she spoke from within: a good, loving woman. And she will continue to be loved by those who have come to know her, and from the warmth of that love will spring that light that will shine when we send our thoughts up to her in the certainty of being united with her, even if the soul is separated from this physical existence. So let me once more repeat to you, dear friend, the image that has been speaking to me these days, reminding me of what you were to us, what you were to all those who got to know you, what you were to the world of the spirit, which you have faithfully and lovingly striven towards with strong courage:
In the here and now, your friends have found you. They have united the love for you with the love that your dear relatives have shown you on your journey through life. They saw the love that you showed your dear relatives and friends. May the path of life that has united us give rise to the strength by which our thoughts will always find your thoughts, when you live and strive in eternal realms. For that which is found in true love at the turn of time remains united for eternity from the depths of human nature. |
| 261. Our Dead: Eulogy at the Cremation of Hermann Linde
29 Jun 1923, Basel |
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| 261. Our Dead: Eulogy at the Cremation of Hermann Linde
29 Jun 1923, Basel |
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Dear Mourners! Now that our dear friend has been escorted by the clergy into the realms of light, words of farewell are spoken from the hearts of those who were most closely connected to our dear friend: to his dear wife, daughter and to you, dear friends, who were so closely connected to Hermann Linde. These words, which may resonate in the soul of our dear friend, are spoken:
Dear mourners! Our dear friend was one of the first of our spiritual community to join us in heartfelt intimacy. And we got to know his kind, good heart, whether it was in such a effectively accomplished, sacred work duty for all of us, or whether it was in walking side by side in the confession of our spiritual knowledge, we got to know this good, dear heart, we learned to appreciate it, and we should know to remain connected to it, even after our physical eye can no longer look into his physical eye. And so let our soul's eye look into his in the future, remembering him with all our heart and love, into his dear spiritual eye. Dear friends! On his earnest path to spiritual research, Hermann Linde has found many doubts and many other soul obstacles on the way. But he has possessed a spiritually inclined, soul-warm inner heart power. With strong inner power, it led him to what he then found as his spiritual word, his spiritual insight, in which we were united with him in intimate friendship. One could say that Hermann Linde walked in loyalty with the three epochs of anthroposophical life. First he found this spiritual life. Then came the times when he worked in Munich as one of the most effective, devoted and sacrificial collaborators on our festival mystery plays, which, together with others, were also his work. My dear friends, there are many things we have to say: at the time when we had to work on them, they would not have come about without Hermann Linde. And then, when the call came to build the Goetheanum, which was so dear to all of us and also died on the Dornach hill, he was again one of the first to offer advice and help, giving everything he had: his art, his being, to the work. We have seen how Hermann Linde, outgrowing his artistic life, ultimately sacrificed everything he was able to give in art to the work with which he had completely identified. And anyone who is able to appreciate and love human loyalty and human devotion could not help but appreciate and admire the quiet, gentle, and yet so energetic soul of Hermann Linde, and feel him as the dearest friend soul who walked with us on our spiritual path. Many are the hours that come to mind's eye, when I met Hermann Linde working, working at the side of his dear wife, our friend, up in the dome of the Goetheanum, and when he sacrificed his best for the work, whose downfall he and we had to experience with such deep pain. And when you saw Hermann Linde quietly working in his studio, completely absorbed in the Goethean idea, everything he could feel as an artist, mysteriously enmeshed in this Goethean idea, then you knew: he was one of the best who work among us. Dear mourning friends, Hermann Linde stands before us. But we also had to accompany him in such a way that we always saw in him how a strong soul, a soul with many desires, nevertheless lived in a weak body. And this weak body took Hermann Linde from us early, much too early, for all of us: this weak body, which those who were more intimately connected with Hermann Linde knew, that everything that stood in Hermann Linde's life, that even doubts arose in him, that sometimes did not allow the intentions of the work to come into full effect, came from him. Those who were very close to Hermann Linde knew that his soul was great and that he himself often felt an inner tragedy due to his weak body, But that is precisely why he belonged to a spiritual community that is able to look beyond everything that physical-earthly sensuality alone gives, that is able to look up to that which, as a supermundane ability, the spiritually willing soul longs for and hopes for as its great goal. And in my intimate friendship with Hermann Linde, I often had the thought: You may tell yourself that not everything you want in your earthly existence will be granted to you, but you may take comfort in the fact that in spiritual regions your will to transcend the earthly will be strengthened and that you are able to give to the earth all that you would like to give to it. But we had to remind ourselves that we cannot make the same demands on ourselves that Hermann Linde made on himself. And we were truly always in complete agreement with this gentle and quiet soul. We appreciated what he did for us as one of the best. And, my dear mourners, Hermann Linde can be a role model for many. He wrestled in his quiet mind, wrestled with earnest strength, wrestled with solemn dignity beyond all doubt, beyond all inhibitions, to that knowledge that brings man the certainty: That which you live on earth comes from divine heights of existence. But Hermann Linde appreciated the sacredness of the divine heights of existence, Hermann Linde knew how to see through what secrets these divine heights of existence hold, and he therefore knew how little of that which we carry into this existence from heavenly heights through earthly birth enters into human consciousness of earthly existence. It is true that we are all born of God into earthly life. But during this earthly life, the human consciousness is too thin to be permeated with divine power. And only in this death, experienced with earthly consciousness, can the divine power rediscover the strong soul power that feels connected to the impulse of Christ, give birth again, resurrect the God in the human breast, the connection with Christ. And so did Hermann Linde feel. Just as he knew that he had been led from divine existence into earthly existence, so he knew that in earthly death the awakening Christ lives, with whom the human soul, the human heart, can connect. And so today, in this solemn hour, we look up with you, beloved soul, into spiritual regions, knowing that he who retains in earthly existence the awareness of divine origin, who conquers for earthly existence the permeation with the power of Christ, will be reawakened, will resurrect in bright, luminous spiritual heights. Dear friend soul, our friendly glances from the depths of our hearts longingly accompany you. We want to let our best thoughts, which were connected to you, follow you there. We know you in the heights of spirit in the future. It will be for us to seek again and again from the depths of our hearts the thoughts that go to you, that may unite with your thoughts of purpose in the light of spirit, that want to remain with you for all time, that you will have to go through for all the worlds, that you will have to permeate. Yes, our thoughts may be with Your thoughts, out of the earthly labor, which we could feel, with which You were spiritually connected to us through Your own choice in this earthly life. May Your thoughts, my dear mourners, always follow the spiritually connected one in his future earthly joyful existence, preparing himself for a new earthly existence full of light. So may it be. And so may our thoughts follow you, may they stay with you, our dear Hermann Linde, and may we understand to stay with you, even when our soul must seek you in the bright heights of the spirit.
This morning we had to see off our dear friend Hermann Linde at the gate through which he will now enter the spiritual world. At such moments, my dear friends, it is up to us to make real, in a deeper, moral-religious sense and in a deeper sense of feeling and perception, what anthroposophy can trigger in our souls, what anthroposophy can inspire in our souls. It is, after all, our whole endeavour to get to know the spiritual world, to learn to live in the soul with the spiritual world. In the moment when a dear soul departs from physical existence and enters into that life, in order to gain knowledge of which we strive, we must also feel the strength and the power to sustain in the full sense of the word all that which should have become ingrained in us during that time while we were here on earth in a spiritual bond with a soul that has now passed away from us. And we should learn to understand in the right sense that we should maintain the community in which we have found each other, beyond the bonds that are woven through earthly life. We should be able to hold that love warmly, which connects us with such souls, even when that warmth of feeling cannot be kindled by external impulses as it can when the soul in question is still walking among us in a physical body. Only then do the powers of perception that can be triggered in us through anthroposophy have the right strength, if we are able to do so. We should also be able to keep the memories of a dear dead person alive in a different way than someone who has not taken in spiritual knowledge into the depths of his soul as we have set ourselves the goal. And Hermann Linde is indeed bound to our souls by many beautiful memories. A large number of those sitting here know this without a doubt, some perhaps in a looser way. But Hermann Linde was a personality of whom it may be said that even those who knew him only briefly grew to love him. Those who have been part of our society for longer know Hermann Linde as one of the first to join the society in order to follow a shared spiritual path with the other friends united in it. And those who knew Hermann Linde more intimately know that he was not one of those who joined this spiritual path in a mere effervescence of feeling, in an inner-soul sensation, but that he strove, out of innermost self-knowledge, to find the possibility of uniting his path with the path of this spiritual current. Hermann Linde was a mild nature, but a nature that also had a strong, justified critical spirit within the mildness of his soul, a nature that examined what came its way, and a nature that had to examine because other impressions that were already there had stuck in the soul in a strong way. And so Hermann Linde had to fight his soul's battles with what lived in his soul, what warmed his soul, what often filled his soul with bitter doubts on the one hand, and with what, because it differs so much from everything else that one encounters in the present, on the other hand, with anthroposophy, he had to fight his soul's battles with these two currents. And today, when his life on earth is complete, we can look back on it and say to ourselves: When a soul so noble, mild and inwardly earnest has found its way into this spiritual movement, not from overflowing sentiment but from inwardly true self-knowledge, then this spiritual movement can regard it as a kind of testimony that confirms its inner strength. A movement that is in a position to point out that good people have found the opportunity to unite with it can consider itself fortunate in the most beautiful sense. And it was indeed the case that our anthroposophical movement in its first period could, by the nature of things, be nothing other than a place where souls found themselves and their connection with the spiritual world. In view of the tasks that the anthroposophical movement has had to take on in later times, many older members may well say to themselves: Oh, if only it had always remained so, if the Anthroposophical Movement had remained in that first epoch, when it was basically a gathering of people who interacted as people, who formed an inwardly cohesive association that initially looked to the spiritual current flowing through it. Hermann Linde knew how to unite with his own soul that which flows through the Anthroposophical Society as a spiritual current; but he was also one of those who, with an open heart and an unlimited willingness to make sacrifices, devoted themselves to every new task that arose from this spiritual movement. And for many who enter this spiritual movement, it should be so that they look to the example of such a personality. Hermann Linde entered the anthroposophical movement as an artist. He first placed his entire artistic being at the service of this movement and then, in the third phase of this movement, sacrificed it at the altar of the same. We look back because what happened through the personalities working within our movement must be of value to us. We look back to the time when the Anthroposophical movement in Munich, steeped in true inwardness, had to be led into artistic channels. At first we needed people who could infuse it with artistic life. And now I would like to call upon those of you who remember the Mystery performances in Munich to recall in your inmost soul how marvelously unified were the stage sets that Hermann Linde contributed to the individual scenes of these Mystery Dramas out of his, I might say, natural willingness to make sacrifices. For some of those who were present at those performances, these images will be unforgettable, for they arose out of a real experience of what was to arise at that time before the soul-vision of our anthroposophists. And the words I spoke this morning from a deeply moved heart, I would like to repeat them here: We know very well that much of what was to be done back then could not have been done without a subsidy like the one that came from Hermann Linde. And when the idea arose in some people's minds to erect a building for the anthroposophical movement, it was again a matter of course to call upon Hermann Linde in the circle of those who wanted to devote themselves above all to the construction and management of this building, because they knew that they would find a willingness to make sacrifices, a willingness to work, above all, what is most needed: a reconciling, loving spirit that balances differences. And so Hermann Linde joined the small community of those who, as a kind of committee, led everything that was initially connected with the intention in Munich and then with the reality here in Dornach: to build up the anthroposophical cause. And he was also one of the foremost in the ranks of those who took on the work of this construction. He was imbued with such inner love for the cause that he now linked his entire existence in these last years with this construction. And again I would like to repeat a word that I said this morning: When I think back to the hours when I met Hermann Linde, working up in our now-defunct dome room, working in harmony with our dear friend, his wife, when I discussed the most diverse matters with him up there that were related to the management of the building and to the role he held within this leadership, then in all of this lay, firstly, the revelation of his unlimited willingness to make sacrifices, the unlimited application of his artistic skill to what was to be built there, and on the other side there was also that reconciling spirit that balanced out the contradictions, which was always there with advice, rather than criticism. Many a person has thought that either they themselves or others – as is always the case in life – could have done better what Hermann Linde has done. But these things are vain illusions. What matters when something real is brought into the world lies much more in what Hermann Linde had in such an outstanding degree than in what some believed he did not have. It would not have been possible to work with the things that were often criticized. Hermann Linde's approach to our work, which was so self-sacrificing and lovingly conciliatory, allowed us to work on every detail and as a whole. And if we are to talk about the workers in our cause, then Hermann Linde must be mentioned in the first row. But then it must not be concealed how great our sorrow must be that he left us so early, for a difficult time that undoubtedly lies ahead of us. But he was so intimately connected with everything that concerns us here in our earthly existence that we may hope for the help that the souls from the spiritual realm can provide for those who have remained here from him to the greatest extent possible, if only we prove worthy of this help. Many people are unaware of the extent of the individual concerns that weighed on the leading personalities during the last few years of the Dornach building work. Today it is self-evident to point out that Hermann Linde was one of those who bore these worries in the most beautiful way, but that Hermann Linde was also one of those who followed everything that happened here with a broad-minded interest and who would have liked to see many things develop into greater fruitfulness, precisely by reconciling the differences, than has been possible so far. Many of us will remember how Hermann Linde was always among those who had the sincere desire to bring about a union of artists here among us. He was certainly not a person who would have excluded or restricted any individual activity. Out of the infinite kindness of his heart, he wanted to create a collaboration. And much of what has been achieved in this direction can be traced back to his initiative. And the fact that many of the seeds he has planted in this regard have not come to full fruition is truly not due to a lack of his own zeal. Let us remember with what heartfelt love and devotion he reported on the progress of the artistic work at our Goetheanum during the meetings of the Goetheanum Association here in this hall. Let us remember such things as what is most intimately connected with the history of our movement. We must not forget, especially at this moment, that it was Hermann Linde, for example, who gave the impetus for the small further training school established here at the Goetheanum, and that he devoted his special care and attention to this further training school. But this is just one of the many gaps that arise in our ranks as a result of Hermann Linde's passing away from the physical plane. And those who will have the task of filling these gaps in some way will feel what Hermann Linde meant to us. Because what we take for granted in certain areas of life – that wherever a gap is created by a person, another will step in – is not the case at all. And finally, Hermann Linde had to go through with us the pain that affected our and his work. He had to be among those who, in a short time, saw what had been built out of love and devotion dwindle to ruin. And it is truly true in the deepest sense, as I had to speak this morning, that for his earthly existence this broke his heart. This impression, which he experienced on New Year's Eve and which was a death for much of what our cause is, was deeply burning in Hermann Linde's soul. And the short span of time that he was still granted to spend on earth after the Goetheanum fire was entirely under this impression. The last time he spent here on earth was a time of suffering. He also felt deeply in his innermost heart all that is being done against the anthroposophical movement by various opponents. That is why the last time he was allowed to dwell on earth was a time of suffering. And if pain is what deepens life in the spiritual world that follows on from the time on earth, Hermann Linde has taken much of noble pain into the form of existence that he has now entered. All this, my dear friends, should fill our soul today. And it should be the starting point for thoughts of devotion for this soul to remain in our souls. Then we will worthily find again the dear soul that has been taken from our physical sight, but that should remain with us in the most intense way in our spiritual sight. If we can do this, if we can love Hermann Linde with the same intensity with which we loved him here, and with an ever-increasing strength, then in this case we fulfill the anthroposophical view of life that we should be able to fulfill. The starting point for a spiritual community with this soul should be the days when he is snatched from our physical sight. He left behind his dear wife, our dear friend, and his dear daughter. We must understand the pain they feel over his death, in true inner warmth. We must understand that we make our thoughts about him, which are devoted to him, quite precious by remaining connected in the most intimate love, as long as we are granted this on earth, with these, his friends who have survived him. We must make it our will and his spiritual joy to be for those who remain behind what can serve him, when he looks down on what is happening on the site where he worked for so long, to give him inner spiritual and soul satisfaction. This is truly practical anthroposophy for the soul. If we know in the right sense that death is not the destroyer of life but the beginning of another form of life, then we must understand in the right sense that the love that has been assigned to one who is now dead to earthly life also enters into another form of existence with this death. And if we do not understand this metamorphosis of love, then we do not understand in the right sense the metamorphosis of life, which we think we understand when we join a spiritual movement like anthroposophy. And so let us reflect today on how beautifully Hermann Linde has realized in his own heart the conviction that what a person is and does here on earth comes from the divine: Ex deo nascimur. It should be borne in mind that he found in his heart the strength to recognize, for earthly consciousness, that in this consciousness the power of Christ must come to life, so that what begins to die in man at birth may, through the experience of the power of Christ, gain the right to a new life: In Christo morimur. And in thinking of Hermann Linde today, we share the conviction that when the consciousness of our divine spiritual descent unites with the consciousness of union with the Christ impulse, we may live in the conviction that human existence is God-conscious and imbued with Christ: Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus. These thoughts affirm that in us which enables us, for all time, to look up in loyal thoughts to the soul of Hermann Linde, which will continue to work in the spiritual existence as a continuation of its earthly existence. As a sign of this, my dear friends, we rise from our seats. My dear friends, perhaps it is appropriate on this day, in the short span of time that remains to us, to reflect on an event like this. We must be clear in the innermost part of our soul about how what we live through in our physical existence on earth, and also live through in our soul, is bound to the outer senses and to what the mind makes of the impressions of the outer senses. But the outer senses, with everything that the mind makes of them, do not follow us into the after-earthly existence. We hand over the external senses to the earthly existence with physical death. What the mind makes of the impressions of the outer senses, we hand over to the etheric world a few days after physical death. It melts away from us, and in all that follows, we are dependent on continuing to live out that which is immersed in the darkness of the unconscious while we live our earthly life. To some extent, a person lives their life in the state between waking and sleeping. They are filled with what is experienced through the senses and through the mind, and what they find extinguished with death in the form in which they experience it here on earth. Every day, people experience the other side of existence between falling asleep and waking up. But even if the experiences within are immersed in the darkness of the unconscious for earthly consciousness, what appears to some to be of little importance for earthly existence: for what comes to life in the human soul when it has passed through the gate of death, it is precisely these experiences, which then transform into full consciousness, that are the most essential part of earthly life. What we go through here on earth in unconsciousness, we carry through the long time between death and a new life on earth. The greatest difference between what we perceive, see and think here on earth and what we see on the other side after we have passed through the gate of death is in relation to the outer nature. Anyone who believes that they can exhaust what is hidden and revealed in nature with their physical senses and earthly mind while they are awake is mistaken. They only know the smallest part of nature. Nature has another essential side, the side that we live through between falling asleep and waking up, which is deeply hidden from the conscious mind, which in the truest sense of the word represents another side of our existence. The one side of existence that nature assigns to our earthly senses and our earthly mind is extremely different from the other side, which is assigned to our soul, our spiritual nature, which belongs to eternity. He who can form a correct idea of this radical difference, he who realizes to what a high degree it is the case that, while nature reveals to our senses a completely unspiritual, un-animated entity, seen from the other side it is through and through an infinite abundance of spiritual entities in themselves, he can also comprehend what an enormous difference there is between the human being when it is clothed here in the physical body, and the human being when it has discarded the physical and etheric bodies and lives on in its soul-spiritual part beyond the gate of death. Not only in itself, but in the whole relationship to ourselves, there is a radical difference. We face a human being in earthly life, we experience together with him what happens in earthly life. What he experiences is imprinted on our earthly thoughts. Through our earthly thoughts it becomes our memory. During our time on earth, we carry this other person within us in our memory. But every time we see him again, it is not just the earthly memory that works in us, but what flows out of his soul as a living being and is poured into this earthly memory. Consider how the memory of a person that we carry within us is enlivened when we are face to face with him in earthly life, how infinitely more alive for earthly thinking is that which streams from him into our memory than is this memory itself. And now he leaves us, out of the physical existence on earth. We are left with the memory, to which he himself adds nothing metamorphosing, nothing transforming, nothing enlivening after his death. We are left with the memory, just as we are left with thoughts of the outer nature when we see it with our physical senses, grasp them with our physical minds, where the things of nature add nothing to our knowledge, to our thoughts, where we must keep our thoughts all the more objective, the more we want to faithfully depict that which is, and where we must not be led astray by that which could modify these thoughts from life. But just as the other side of nature is different from what it assigns to us for the senses and for the earthly mind, so is that which a human being is when it has become merely an earthly memory for us, different from what it was when it lived these earthly memories day after day, from time to time. For from this point on, this human being now appears to us, to our experience, entirely on the other side of existence. Just as we live in our sleep, so we live with the natural beings, who are inwardly spiritually alive, in contrast to what is dead and assigns its dead countenance to us for the earthly senses. So that part of the human being that which for our earthly life has now become only a memory, lives on this other side of existence, in that realm which we experience when we are pushed into unconsciousness, into the darkness of unconsciousness, in that realm which we pass through in our sleep. Yes, my dear friends, just as our thoughts are invigorating and our impressions are vivid when the physical human being steps before us and we consciously experience him in his earthly consciousness, so we experience — unconsciously, but no less real for that — the approach, the coexistence with us in sleep of the one who has passed from earthly existence. To the same extent that the deceased disappears from our waking consciousness, he enters our sphere of life for our sleeping consciousness. And if we human souls, based on anthroposophical knowledge, know how we have to learn to adopt a completely different attitude to life for sleep than we do for waking, then we will feel what has been said. If we could only live in such a way that the later always follows the earlier in physical time, we would never be able to experience the true spiritual. We only learn to experience the true spiritual when we can change the direction of life in the opposite direction. As paradoxical as it may seem to the physical thinker, all life in the spiritual takes place in the opposite direction. The wheel of life comes full circle. The end comes together with the beginning at last. This seems so incredible to people on earth only because they have distanced themselves so far from any spiritual view. But every time we fall asleep, even if it is only for a moment, we experience time running backwards. For the path leading back to the spirit from which the world originates is a path leading forward. And even what older cultural movements recognized as correct, namely that those born later return to the forefathers in death, is more correct than the idea we have in our seemingly so enlightened time. But then, when we set out on our journey to the spiritual realm every night, in the opposite direction to the physical, those who have gone before us in physical death are the ones who precede us. And as we enter a spiritual world every night, we find, so to speak, figuratively speaking, the entities of the higher hierarchies at the front, who never incarnate on earth, and then, below them, the procession of those souls with whom we were fatefully connected and who passed through the gate of death earlier than we did. And that part of the journey, which, if not consciously, then at least in our unconscious thoughts we are allowed to follow in every state of sleep, that is the part in reality we follow them. And if we can keep the memory of our dear dead alive and vivid, if we also have these thoughts in a vivid imagery again and again in our waking state, then what we lovingly carry within us as memories during waking hours makes it possible for the dead to have an effect in this world, to pour their will into it, and that the will of the living continues to live in the will of the dead. But also what we fully awaken again and again in our memories during waking hours for the dead, goes with us into the state of sleep as forces with a lasting effect. It is different for the dead when we fall asleep from a life in which we have forgotten our dead, or from a life in which we have lovingly called the images of our dead to our soul again and again. For what we carry into the world of the spirit every time we fall asleep becomes a sensation for the dead. There their soul perceives the images that we carry through the portal of sleep into the spiritual world every day. And so we can bring it about that the perceptive faculty of the dead unites with the images that we faithfully preserve for them during sleep. In this way we can bring it about that the will of the dead unites with our will through our thoughts, if we cherish and care for them in loyal remembrance when we are awake. And so we can learn in a real way to live with the dead. Then the dead will find us worthy of living with them. And only then will the true human community arise, which is instinctive only within the physical world, but which also becomes spiritual for this physical world when the extinguishing of physical life on earth does not loosen or even break any spiritually formed bonds, when everything that is bound in the soul can remain, even though the outer earthly bonds are loosened or broken. This means that through the human soul the reality of the spirit is preserved when we admit the truth to the spirit in life by not depriving it of its reality, by not surrendering to the physical and sensual alone, but by finding the possibility to live freely in the spiritual and soul, as if compelled to do so in the physical and sensual. This is what every death, and in particular the death of a dear friend, can remind us of, what it can call us to, not just as a dead memory, but as a lasting, living sensation, memory. |
| 261. Our Dead: Address at the Cremation of Georga Wiese
11 Jan 1924, Basel |
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| 261. Our Dead: Address at the Cremation of Georga Wiese
11 Jan 1924, Basel |
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My dear mourners! First of all, I would like to address my dear sister and dear brother of the dearly departed and then all of you, my dear mourners, who were united in loyal love with the one who has left us in the physical world. At the mortal remains of our friend Georga Wiese, we stand in the soul's eye, the eternal spirit going to light heights from us. Dear Georga Wiese!
And memory presents you to us:
And as a reminder, the spiritual vision stands before us:
My dear mourners! When I put myself in Georga Wiese's dear soul, then these words resound in this dear soul:
My dear mourners! Deeply moved and filled with sorrow, we stand at the mortal remains of our dear friend Georga Wiese, looking up to her soul as it rushes off to the spiritual realms that she sought with such earnest striving during her earthly existence. And we know that she will be united in the future with those spiritual forces with which she united during her earthly existence out of such warm and active striving. We see what her spiritual existence will be like: a continuation of what has already been spiritually alive in her heart, in her soul, in her spirit here on earth. And we remember, my dear mourning assembly, every dear hour that united us with Georga Wiese, because these dear hours were always filled with active participation and with earnestly placing ourselves in the spiritual world. It was always filled, so it may well be said, by each individual who stood opposite Georga Wiese; it was always filled, this hour of being together with Georga Wiese, by the heartfelt conviction: You are standing opposite a dear, a loyal, a heart-warming person. And this love, this loyalty, this wonderful warmth of heart, it radiated from Georga Wiese to such an infinitely beautiful extent that everyone who met her felt how beneficial and at the same time how deeply understanding this togetherness could be. We were privileged to get to know Georga Wiese in her native environment, to which she wanted to convey the spiritual life with such zeal and such an understanding gaze from her beautiful soul. We got to know her in her loyal attachment and love for the country, for which all of us who were privileged to be up north felt the most heartfelt love, and we saw it, and we were allowed – at least a large part of us – to work in this Nordic, rocky, sea-washed, divinely interwoven land, which presents itself so beautifully and majestically to one, and upon entering which one can believe that the hard rocks speak a hard but inwardly spiritualized language. And one comes to love this country. And one comes to love it especially when one is favored by fate to find such dear people in it, like Georga Wiese and those around her. We took the most heartfelt interest in how the dear mother had preceded us into spiritual lands, and we wanted to witness how expectantly and understandingly this dear mother would now receive her precious daughter. We saw Georga Wiese lovingly in the midst of the Nordic circle that had become dear to us. We saw her surrounded by a number of like-minded people. And my eye could not detect anyone who was not devoted with sincere love to the devoted soul of Georga Wiese. And much, much of what we were able to achieve in that country, where we are so happy to work, has been made possible by the sacrifice of Georga Wiese. Do we still need much to recall in our hearts today, in these days of mourning, all the love that we had to feel for the dear departed over a long period of time, because earthly love could only be a reflection of the intimate, active, sacrificial love that came from her. The union with Georga Wiese was beautiful, and the beauty of this earthly union will be the seed for the spiritual union, which we must enter because Georga Wiese entered the spiritual realm before us. For it is a beautiful image that arises in the soul when we imagine ourselves in the Nordic country. We found warmth, the warming rays of sunshine in our hearts through Georga Wiese. And it was always a beautiful thought, it was always a warm feeling to be able to say to ourselves, within the work in the Nordic country, Georga Wiese will stand by our side with all that she can be. That, my dear mourners, will no longer be here on earth; but we know, we hope, we long for it in our hearts, that we will remain united all the more deeply and intimately for all time with the soul of the one who united with us in a friendship of the spirit out of such a free and devoted will. And today we remember with sorrow, with deep sorrow, with deep pain, that we will never again be able to look into those loving eyes, that we will never again be able to feel the blissful closeness. But we look up to the light of the heights, to the worlds of spiritual life, with which Georga Wiese has united, and to which we want to send our warm thoughts again and again and again, so that she may find the thoughts that are sent down to us from these bright spiritual heights, thoughts that protect, warm and help us. And we digress from the image that has led us up to the Nordic homeland, and we look to the building that we tried to build the spiritual life here in the vicinity, which a bad, sad fate has snatched from us; we know how much has been snatched from it as well as from our dear friend. But we saw her over the years, when she repeatedly came to the Goetheanum in Dornach, as if seeking a home, and we see her in everything that had to be done, working faithfully and in close understanding. We see the hundreds of hands and the hundreds of hearts that worked and beat for what was happening at the Goetheanum, and we saw, among them, the beautiful enthusiasm that Georga Wiese brought back from the Goetheanum in Dornach, working there with a mild soul, a whole, mild personality in the light of love. It was beautiful, glorious, and almost beyond words to describe. And wherever something was missing, wherever help was needed, on a large or small scale, Georga Wiese was there. And she was there because she believed that she should do, out of her loving heart, whatever needed to be done, in complete freedom. And we, we can only stand there today with heavy, grieving, sorrowful hearts and send heartfelt thanks to the soul that is fleeing, seeking the spiritual realm. Thanks that remain warm in our souls, as everything 'that was soul-warming, what Georga Wiese brought into our ranks, into our work. And she knew how to do it so unpretentiously, so intimately modestly. You could tell that she only gave when she had detached it from the personality. Georga Wiese's personality always took a back seat to what she meant to so many. And when, my dear mourners, the word has been used for centuries to describe souls that were of this nature, then today we no longer use the once much-used expression that encompasses so much: a beautiful soul. Goethe called the dearest person in the spiritual realm that he had come to know a beautiful soul, and today, in all the sense that ancient times once associated with these words, we look up to the beautiful soul of Georga Wiese. And our soul's eye comes to the third image. We called the friends who wanted to join us in shaping the Anthroposophical Society in a new way at this Christmas season, to the Goetheanum in Dornach. And among those who came with an enthusiastic heart was Georga Wiese. And as soon as she arrived, anticipating the festive event she wanted to take part in, she had an accident in which she broke her arm at an unfavorable point on the upper arm. And she had to spend the days we had gathered to establish the new form of the Anthroposophical Society, to lay the foundation stone for it, in hospital. She had to spend the days she wanted to spend in festive company with those she loved in hospital. She had arrived at the place where she had often wanted to come, and she had come gladly again, and fate had kept her away from what she wanted to take part in. Once again, the beautiful soul of Georga Wiese was at work. Outwardly, she had the most faithful care in the hospital and from the understanding doctor, and in this respect I was deeply satisfied when I was able to speak to her doctor myself during a visit shortly before her death. But it was still very moving to see Georga Wiese lying in serious illness and to have to bear in mind how much she would have liked to have been in a different place during these days. But once again, the radiance of what I have just mentioned outshone my dear mourners, the beautiful soul. She carried everything she hoped to find within our festive Christmas community in her soul, in her heart. And from her bed, in an almost heavenly transfiguration, she radiated to me from her faithful, loving heart all that she had experienced at the end of the days before Georga Wiese's death, when we celebrated the festival that she had also come to. She truly carried this celebration in her heart, she truly carried this celebration in her soul. For within her, everything in her soul was filled with powers that spoke to her from spiritual heights: “Ex deo nascimur, from the divine all human beings are born.” These words came to her without end, deeply affirming her own being. And Georga Wiese knew that she was called by the divine. She knew that she was carried into earthly existence by the wide powers of divine existence. She knew this divine power at work in her own soul. She felt these divine powers in her own heart. She wanted to let this divine warmth, which flowed through her, stream into her own will without end. Her soul itself lived in the light of the words: Ex deo nascimur. — And she knew how that which reached divine heights disappears into earthly existence, and how the human being, whose outer physical body, is accepted by earthly existence. But she also knew that even if man dies into matter at every moment, the great power imparted by grace, which is in the living Christ, is at work in the earth. She felt it, it lived in her heart, it lived in her soul, it lived in her mind: In Christ morimur. Dear mourners! If I could have read in the heart that I saw just a few hours before the difficult day that preceded her death, if I could have seen the light that radiated from this “In Christo morimur”, it was so sincere, so deeply spiritual and honest in the soul of this faithful soul, so genuinely devoted to everything beautiful, great and loving in the world. Oh, there was a great contrast in these last hours between this soul, which looked out of tired eyes, but with infinite luminosity, into the indefinite, which complained how little her body could still tolerate of earthly substances, and which was so visibly filled by what the spirit communicated to the soul. I had to leave Georga Wiese in a state of deep concern. My dear mourners, if one understands the spiritual underpinnings of the human being while he is still on earth, one may only strive with strong, powerful thoughts to say that he will, he will be healthy. For it is often such thoughts that, with the mysterious forces that exist between human soul and human soul and between world spirit and human spirit, still carry many a soul beyond the act of death. But the patient was still alive because of the serious damage that had been done, which only allowed for ominous forebodings. It originated from the damaged area and spread like dark rays over the entire body. But hope lived on. The next day, hope was no longer allowed to live. We received the news that our dear friend had been taken from us in the morning for earthly life. Dear mourners, this soul is now deeply connected to that which we have all striven for here, to that which moved us so deeply during the Christmas days, as we are all deeply connected to it, since she left us, to die in our midst during these our festive days, still sharing in spirit here on earth what we went through, then seeking the way up to spiritual heights. Dear mourners, I can assure you that I speak for everyone here when I call this soul, so deeply devoted to the power of Christ, the one who, through this tragedy of death, has joined us in the very depths of all eternity, in such a solemn time for us. Always remember this soul devoted to Christ with all the strength that will ultimately transform the pain in your own souls when you allow the deep tragedy associated with this death, which fills us with such sorrow, to take effect. Oh, from this death a spiritual life shall spring that unites us intimately with Georga Wiese for all eternity. And this spiritual life, she always lived it. From the “Ex deo nascimur - In Christo morimur” arose for her the self-evident conviction that the human soul, if it harbors the power of the Father's Word, if it cherishes the will of the Son of God and His love within itself, will resurrect in the Spirit, in order to grasp in the Spirit the life that belongs to the endless Spirit of the Kingdom of Light: “Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus”. This is surely the magic breath that has been wrested as the living breath when the earthly breath ceased with Georga Wiese. And with this spirit, which constantly awakens all that is dead, we want to unite to gain the strength to remain united in the eternal spiritual existence of the future with Georga Wiese. The three pictures may remain unforgettable to those who have come to know her: the lover in the midst of her beloved homeland, which we ourselves have grown so fond of; the loyal, active woman who inspires enthusiasm with her heart, herself loyal, active, enthusiastically sharing, working, creating, living in the construction of the Goetheanum in Dornach; the dying woman, uniting with us in death to eternal life at our very meaningful Christmas gathering in the transition from 1923 to 1924. The power of these three images must live in your hearts! And they will live in your hearts if you allow the power of these images, together with everything that this beautiful soul had in common with you, to take effect on you, will be united in the beautiful, light-filled life of the one who has now left us in death.
And the memory of earthly things presents itself before us:
Alongside the memory of earthly things stands the vision of the spirit – up to the light-filled heights:
Oh, it seems to me as if Georga Wiese is speaking from bright heights:
And when we see you, received by the spirits of the bright heights, by the souls of our dear relatives who have preceded you in death, to whom we lovingly think, because they were yours, then, then the words shine into our warm hearts:
With this attitude and the promise to unite our thoughts unceasingly again and again with your spiritual being, dear, dear friend, that you are with us even when we can no longer look into your faithful eyes, that is what we want to promise you, knowing that when we now, in this moment of suffering, commit your mortal remains to the fire, in the heavenly spiritual fire, which does not consume, but works charitably warming through souls and spirits, we will be united with you, united in the light, in love, in loyalty to humanity, in the will of the spirit. Thus we part. Thus we do not part. Thus we feel united, united, united for eternal times of existence with the soul that lovingly departs from us.
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| 261. Our Dead: Eulogy at the Cremation of Edith Maryon
06 May 1924, Basel |
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| 261. Our Dead: Eulogy at the Cremation of Edith Maryon
06 May 1924, Basel |
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Dear Mourners! This as a final farewell to Edith Maryon, our loyal colleague:
Dear mourners! I would like to turn my thoughts first to the absent relatives who were unable to attend on the day when we had to commit the earthly remains of our dear Edith Maryon to the elements. The eldest brother of the deceased, Herbert Maryon, has instructed me to convey all the love that could still be shown here on the part of the family of the deceased. The others, a sister in London, another in the north of England, and a brother in Australia, are unable to be here and can only join us in spirit. But we, my dear mourners, on this day of mourning look back at the earthly life of Edith Maryon. She came to us in our Anthroposophical Society more than ten years ago from another esoteric community, full of a noble, sacred striving for esoteric deepening of the soul. All this was present in her, alongside what she presented in her outer life. She was an artist and, in her way, a truly accomplished artist, an artist who had full access to the means of art and was fully familiar with the workings of art. She had practised sculpture in England and Italy. She had achieved great success in this art long before she joined the Anthroposophical Society. Edith Maryon has painted a whole series of portraits of respected and well-known personalities in the world. In Italy she immersed herself in everything that is great, beautiful, sublime and haunting in art. So she came among us as an artist and esoteric. At first she sought nothing from us but to deepen her soul through esoteric development. But karma brought it about that she found herself compelled to place what was hers in art in the sacrificial service of our Goetheanum, and from the very beginning she was active at the Goetheanum with all that she, out of her art and out of her human nature, was able to contribute to the completion of this Goetheanum and to everything connected with it. Looking back on her working life, we see that it was interrupted only once, in 1914, when she suffered a very serious illness while on a trip to England. It was an illness of which it could well be said that if it were to recur in a serious way, Edith Maryon would no longer be able to remain on earth. But at that time she recovered through the efforts of her friend Dr. Felkin, a physician, and was restored to us in 1914 for further work at the Goetheanum. From the time she was able to lay down her work on the altar of sacrifice at the Goetheanum, this was the one thing that stood at the center of all her duties and all her spiritual life. And she has just found the opportunity to do real work that truly leads to a goal within the anthroposophical movement. It is quite natural that within the anthroposophical movement, the new impulses that I am to introduce into the most diverse fields of art, science and life come into conflict in the most diverse ways with what can be brought in, with what can be acquired with external art, with external science and so on. But there is a way of working if, above all opposition, there is a noble devotion to the work itself, if never may an obstacle be seen in a different view of how to work together. If the work is to come about, it will come about, even if one of the traditions of the older art comes from the other, and the other is obliged to bring art to a further development out of new impulses. If there is true human cooperation, then the commonality of the work can transcend all opposition. This attitude was present in the highest degree in Edith Maryon's quiet work. That, however, many factors came into play in her working with me, may today, when we have to part with the earthly remains of Edith Maryon and look into the future, to the soul that strives upwards into the spiritual kingdom of light, there continuing to work, may well be said today to a wider circle. It was almost at the beginning of my work as a sculptor at the Goetheanum in Dornach that I had to work on the scaffolding at the top of the statue of Christ in the outer studio, the large front studio, where the model was located. At that time, I almost fell through an opening in the scaffolding and would certainly have fallen onto a pillar with a sharp point if Edith Maryon had not stopped my fall. And so I can already say, my dear mourners, that the Anthroposophical Society, in a certain way, if it believes that my work since that time has also had value within its society, has the rescue back then to be grateful for. These things were seldom spoken of, for it was not Edith Maryon's way to talk much about her work, especially her human work. But in a very special way she displayed what may be called energy in calmness, energy in quiet work. And the two qualities which stood out as humanly beautiful and valuable were, on the one hand, Edith Maryon's reliability, whenever it was needed, and, on the other, her practical sense. In the spiritual striving that is necessary to work out into the world, it is essential, my dear mourners, that there are also people in it who have a truly practical mind, so that what is to be realized out of the intentions of the spirit can also come before the world, can be embodied before the world. And of Edith Maryon it can be said that her reliability was something absolutely true and faithful. If she undertook something that required her practical sense, it would be there in due course, even when the work to be done was quite remote from her actual professional activity. In addition to her collaboration on the sculptural work at the Goetheanum, which really took up even more of her time than what has since become visible, even in the Central Point Statue, in the Central Point Group, she was the most eminently suitable force for the sculptural work at the Goetheanum in the most eminent sense. She mastered the art of sculpture and was inclined to take in everything that was to permeate this art. But something else was needed for this. A continuous interaction between the old and the new in art was necessary, and much of what has been created at the Goetheanum, without having been made by ourselves, does indeed contain the spirit that was working with Edith Maryon in the development of the plastic arts at the Goetheanum. But she went out; her energy in the quiet worked in a broader sense for the flourishing of the development of the anthroposophical cause. If it has become possible in recent years to give lectures and work for anthroposophy and eurythmy in Stratford, Oxford, London, Penmaenmawr and Ilkley, the credit is due to Edith Maryon's quiet work in mediating between the Goetheanum and the English-speaking population. It was she who first suggested the Christmas Course held years ago around Christmas time, attended by English-speaking teachers. It was she who suggested the artistic representation of the eurythmic movements and figures. And I would still have much to say if I wanted to point out everything that Edith Maryon has achieved through quiet, energetic calm. | But that is not so important. What matters is to bring this trait of her life, which reveals itself so beautifully in her work, before our minds today. And she was torn from this life by the fact that her old ailment was again revealed to her through the upheavals of the night of the fire in which the Goetheanum was taken from us, and that despite all careful nursing, this life could not be preserved for its earthly existence after all. Last summer, when Edith Maryon was able to make at least a few very short trips, we believed that this life could be sustained. But already in the fall it became clear how much destructive forces had intervened in this life. It is truly out of consciousness of that karmic connection, which I expressed by pointing to that accident in the studio, when I say: Edith Maryon was predestined to enter the anthroposophical movement, and with her death much is snatched from the Anthroposophical Society, from the whole anthroposophical movement. Much of what was her own was revealed in the most beautiful way, especially in the last few weeks, when her suffering became so extraordinarily oppressive and painful, partly through the way she bore this suffering, partly through her full attitude towards the spiritual world, which was entirely borne out of the spirit of anthroposophy, for which Edith Maryon had been preparing herself for weeks. Due to other commitments, I was unable to be present at the hour of her death. Edith Maryon then guided her soul out of her body, with the help of her dear friend Dr. Ita Wegman, in order to lead it up into the spiritual world. She was cared for until her last hours, not only by the doctor, but also by the nurses who had become dear to her and cared for her, and it was under the care of these nurses that she often spent agonizing hours in the last days, but these could always be brightened in an extraordinarily beautiful and spiritual way. Medicines were no longer effective in the end, but what was still effective were the lectures that could be offered to her, either from what had been given as sayings at the Christmas Conference, or from the New Testament. At that time, at the Christmas Conference, when there was still hope that we would be able to hold Edith Maryon here in the physical world, she was given the leadership of the Section for the Arts. With tremendous intensity, she endeavored, even on her deathbed, to direct her thoughts continually to the way in which this section should now come into being, and how it should work. From this life, my dear mourners, the soul of Edith Maryon now ascends into the spiritual worlds, imbued with all that can be gained from the knowledge of anthroposophical spiritual hope and anthroposophical spiritual life. She carried, as did few, the living consciousness in her soul that she had emerged from the eternal source of the Father-Spirit of the world with her best being: Ex deo nascimur. She lived in intimate love, looking up to the Being who gave meaning to the evolution of the earth. In her last days, she had Christ's saying “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden” nailed to the side of her bed. In death she knew herself united with the spirit of Christ: In Christo morimur. And so she is certain of resurrection in the most beautiful way in the spiritual world: Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus, in which we want to be united with her, to which we want to send our thoughts so that they may unite with hers. Then we can be sure, my dear 'mourners', that her thoughts, her soul's gaze, will rest. No, they will not just rest on the deeds that can still be done for the anthroposophical cause from the Goetheanum, they will work faithfully and powerfully, energetically, they will be among us when we need strength, they will be among us, and we will be able to feel their quiet comfort in our hearts when we need such comfort in the various trials to which the anthroposophical cause is exposed. The will and testament that Edith Maryon drew up regarding her few possessions is touching. In it she remembered in an extraordinarily loving way all those who are close to her in any way. And so we look up into those spheres where you continue to live, conquering death, wanting to be with you, united with you in that unity that never dies, that is imperishable through all the circles of the eternity that weaves and billows through the world.
And so go then, You, soul so faithfully devoted to our holy cause! We want to look up to You. We know that you look down on us, we know that we remain united with you through all the circles of eternity. We live on with you, you who live the life that conquers death, as long as we are here, and when we are no longer here, we live on with you, united, united, united. |
| 262. Correspondence with Marie Steiner 1901–1925: 36. Letter to Marie von Sivers in Berlin
14 Nov 1905, Basel |
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| 262. Correspondence with Marie Steiner 1901–1925: 36. Letter to Marie von Sivers in Berlin
14 Nov 1905, Basel |
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36To Marie von Sivers in Berlin Basel, November 15, 1905 (!) 45 My darling! So I arrived in Basel. 46 In St. Gallen 47 I think it was a success despite the questionable choice of topic. Only this time the people had taken the hall “Volksküche”, where the discussion was recently in a smaller circle. But a completely different audience comes there. But one should still try to maintain the audience that has been drawn in. Rietmann 48 is a procrastinator. I couldn't live with Oberholzer 49, because they already had other visitors. So Rietmann invited me to stay with him. If only people – they mean well, after all – didn't put you up in a room without heating! It is impossible to expose yourself to the risk of catching a cold when you have to speak every day. Incidentally, Hubo does that too. In Zurich, the hall was full. There was a lot of inner agreement, but also a lot of inner opposition, which did not come to the fore in the discussion that followed. 50 was also there again. He alone wanted a more 'natural' theosophy. There were many Russians and Poles. They stayed the longest. Dr. Gysi is full of “he said this”, “he will say that”, “you shouldn't go too far”, etc. He is almost finished with the good Dr. Ita Wegman 51 infected with it. I would even understand her timidity, since she is about to take her exam after all, and the professors in Zurich have their shoes tanned by the same company as everywhere else. And now I am in Basel today. I have finished the meal at Geering's, where Schuster was also present. (It is 5 o'clock). Geering is as downhearted as he was weeks ago, Schuster is still a bit of a chatterbox. We will see. I am writing to you immediately upon arriving in Frankfurt. I am leaving tomorrow at 8:16 a.m. and will be in Frankfurt at 2 p.m. I will take care of everything else then. I leave Frankfurt at 10:23 p.m. and arrive in Berlin at 7:40 a.m. the next morning. I hope to find a healthy and happy mouse. With all my heart, Rudolf
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