The Rudolf Steiner Archive

When I last spoke to you here in this place, the person who is most intimately connected with this building was still among us: our dear Sophie Stinde.

You have commemorated the great, painful loss here, and in the time when Sophie Stinde's soul left us, you have evoked in your own souls those feelings that arose from the deep, intimate connection that existed between your souls and Sophie Stinde's soul in relation to our spiritual work. Nevertheless, my dear friends, I cannot resume these lectures here without mentioning the departure of Sophie Stinde's soul from the physical plane, which had such a profound impact on our lives. Only a few words are needed, for our souls, each one's soul, speaks to us so much when we think of the soul that has left us, and the more abundantly, the more fully perhaps the soul has to say to itself at this point, the shorter may be what is expressed with outer physical words.

My dear friends, for many years we here in the physical world were faithfully connected with this soul that had passed away from us in a way that we can say, in the highest sense of the word, was exemplary for us and to us. For the way in which Miss Stinde has placed herself in our spiritual endeavor is so connected with the deepest, most inner soul impulse of this personality, with that in this personality which, within this incarnation, constitutes its essential character of existence.

It was only a short time since we had begun our work in Central Europe, and our task was to establish this work in various places. In the house of Fräulein Stinde and her dear friend, Countess Kalckreuth, it was possible for me to speak the first intimate words to a community in Munich that was willing to receive them at that time. And from that moment on, Fräulein Stinde was with our work out of the very abundance of her beautiful will, was with our work in a sense that our work needs it.

For we must distinguish between two things. The content of our work must be taken from the spiritual world; if the earth is to reach its goal, it must belong to what will flow into the spiritual development of humanity in the course of future earthly ages. This is what we must humbly face in our soul. In our time we can be convinced of this content, or we can reject it. It is a matter that can be said to belong to something that may already now, but will certainly one day, flow into the spiritual development of humanity, even if our efforts, as they are being attempted by us in the present, should fail due to the resistance of souls that are too weak for our cause.

But working within our own circle, with those who strive with us to incorporate the spiritual content of our world view into the spiritual heritage of humanity, to bring this content to the souls and hearts of those who need it, is something else entirely within our society. There is no possibility of saying: if not now, then later. There is only the one possibility of committing oneself with one's whole, undivided soul. And anyone who is committed to this, who puts everything he has and can do at the service of the cause, as if this work were one of the most necessary things he has to do in life, can be said to have grasped the full meaning of how our work is to flow into the spiritual culture of the world through a socially organized circle.

For the time being, for the content of our world view, no goodwill is required of people; only the inner truth of the matter is needed. But it is true that under certain circumstances the matter can fail, and the time may lie further in the future when this content can be incorporated into the spiritual culture of humanity. There is nothing but understanding of the content, nothing but learning to recognize, there is no need to speak of trust, of this or that kind of will, there is only need to speak of the inner truth of the matter.

The situation is different when we look at the instrument through which this spiritual content is to enter the world. This has nothing to do with the truth content of our world view. But this truth must be carried into the present day in the mutual trust that the souls of the members have for one another, and the goodwill that is connected with the warmth and light of the cause must extend into that which, as if in a necessary stream of development, must be brought into the present day.

For those who, so to speak, have a special task to work on, there are many things to consider. The first thing is that they have the good will to gather together what karma has brought them in this incarnation up to the moment when they enter our spiritual house through the gate of our spiritual aspirations, so that they know how to transform and transmute everything that has presented itself to them in the present incarnation in order to put it at the service of our cause. Some will bring this, others that; some were capable when they came, others when they go. There is no path in the life of present-day humanity that does not lead to the center as if it came from the ends of a circle: to the place where the gate to that house stands.

And so was Fräulein Stinde. And she had important and essential things to bring, and she had goodwill, the best of intentions, to bring through our gate that which she has become with this incarnation. Among the many things we may remember in these days of the Christmas season, the world's earthly motto stands before our soul above all:

Revelation of divine powers in the heights
And peace on earth to men,
Who are of good will.

Yes, this soul was of good will. She had a goal in life when she came to us, and this goal was embraced by her artistic endeavors. A heartfelt artistic sense lived in her soul and expressed itself to all who came to know what this soul had attempted and created in the field of art through the heartfelt way in which she worked artistically. But it was of infinite value that she could bring this through the gate to our spiritual home. For that which blossoms in artistic fantasy may find its way more easily than from many other starting points to the spiritual secrets that must be brought down from the realms of imagination. And what this soul was able to experience, what it was able to acquire from art, it brought to us.

Only in this way was it possible to unfold that will, which then spreads and takes hold of many, that will to develop, which finds expression in this our building. Sophie Stinde was among the very first to whom the idea of this our building arose, and one can feel that we would hardly have found the way to this building from our Munich mystery thoughts if her strong will had not been at the starting point of the thought of this building.

A second thing, my dear friends, may come to our minds when we see Sophie Stinde's soul, which is intimately connected with the work and life in our society: her trust. Within the second, that is, within the context of where trust is necessary because cooperation is necessary, Miss Stinde can be an example to us. And where cooperation is necessary, mutual trust is necessary, quite independently of the teaching and the world view, which include the striving for truth and the striving for knowledge and not, for example, trust. But trust is part of working together.

Yes, those who knew how to work with Sophie Stinde were able to learn from her how the kind of trust that is needed for working together in our field is particularly special. I would like to say something here that I wish would sink into many souls so that they would fully understand it: When working together towards a certain goal, a goal that often only reveals itself to the outside world after a long time, that can only be manifested in the outside world after a long time, it is necessary to work together towards a goal that cannot be presented to others, but that wants to develop. People must work together who can trust each other to want to work together, even if the goal cannot be presented in a programmatic, abstract, theoretical way in a few sentences. Not trust in work, not trust in theories, but trust in souls, from which one feels and experiences that one will achieve with them what is to be achieved, even if one cannot yet determine it in the outer world, because it will show itself in the development itself. One must know, one is dealing with people who are not only able to grasp this deeper trust, which is not based on external formulations, but are also able to grasp the coexistence of souls that want to walk together, even if they do not know the goal. This goal will be the right one. That means: being connected to the living core of the work; that means: experiencing loyalty to the work in this core of life; that means: being selflessly connected to the work.

We will perhaps only agree with each other on the things that lie years ahead of us, which we would ruin now if we wanted to put them in front of us in an externally formulated way: you have to be able to say that to each other if you have trust in such a context, as our context should be. That such trust existed between them and Sophie Stinde was known to those who really got to know Sophie Stinde in this regard.

Thus, above all, the thought that comes to mind when we think about her is: because we know how she is with us in our souls, because we know how she belongs to those souls who, after passing through the gate of death, work in our midst with all the means of power that are then available to their souls and which are the flowering of what the souls have acquired here in earthly incarnation.

Their place in the external physical world will be empty in the future. But for those who have learned to understand her, this place will be the source of the idea of exemplary, dedicated, sacrificial work within our ranks. And this idea must live in particular in the rooms under the double dome, in the rooms where Sophie Stinde's soul already worked as her co-work during this incarnation on earth. If we grasp our relationship to her in the right sense, it will be impossible to turn our gaze to our forms without feeling connected to her, who first turned her gaze to him to whom she dedicated her own work, and in whom Sophie Stinde's soul will continue to work.

My dear friends, spiritual science cannot be there to dull the pain that weighs on our soul when we suffer a great loss, for pain is a world principle. And the great and the sublime in the world, as we have explained in various places in our world view, arise as blossoms and fruits from the mother soil of pain. If we were to sin against pain, we would sin against the meaning of the world. But we may look up to the words that she spoke as Sophie Stinde's spirit, the words that we can learn from her: “I will be with you as I was with you! Our relationship will have changed as a result of passing through the gate of death, changed only, not changed, and one may think that our understanding of the connection with the departed souls may then increase our overall understanding of the human connection with the spiritual world. For the understanding that we may have of such personalities as Sophie Stinde is interwoven with and sustained by love and mutual trust.

I do not think that there will ever be a significant occasion within this building where we will not have to remember how Sophie Stinde's soul has prevailed at the starting point of this reasoning, how she has connected with it. Of course, souls of this kind, who clearly recognize the task that is inwardly incumbent upon those who unite with our work, must accept many misunderstandings and go through many difficulties; they are not easily understood by others, misunderstood by many. This must be borne. But there are enough souls in our ranks who, in their deepest inner being, carry a flame of love, a beautiful flame of love, which shines towards Sophie Stinde's soul. The flames of love that Sophie Stinde's nature has kindled in the hearts of our members appear to me especially before the soul.

Just think how many a soul has searched, has come to her, and with those words that it was able to speak, has found that love, loyalty and friendship that such a soul needs. And then the flames of love are kindled by such love, loyalty and friendship, and they are especially kindled to a lasting degree where they flare up in the right way, where they can be kindled by a soul that seizes what it has to seize for the world in the highest sense of duty, and whose sense of duty never speaks, even when it must speak in the negative, without this sense of duty being crossed by the mitigating love. We must never let ourselves be tempted by love to dispense with duty. Love must be warmed by duty, duty must be strengthened by love. This could be seen in Sophie Stinde's soul. And so she also ruled within these rooms, so she ruled for the benefit of our building, and so the spirit of her soul will continue to rule as the soul of our building. May the souls be quite numerous who look with understanding at the way Sophie Stinde's soul is connected to this, our spiritual work.

My dear friends, I did not want to speak again within these rooms, where Sophie Stinde's soul ruled, without first mentioning her. If we loved her when she walked among us in the physical body, we will love her as a spirit that warms and illuminates us without end. Let us seek her among those to whom we look up with particular loyalty in the times when the spiritual realms shine even more brightly than at other times of the year. Let us seek in particular those effective forces that emanate from Sophie Stinde's soul, and in relation to which we want to make ourselves so worthy that they can always be effective through our work, especially in these rooms.

My dear friends!

Before I come to the subject of our deliberations today, I feel the need to say a word about the great, painful loss that we have experienced in the physical realm in these days. As you know, Mr. von Moltke's soul passed through the gate of death the day before yesterday. The man's outstanding role, the tremendous role he played for his people in the great fateful events of our time, and the significant and profound impulses from the human events that shaped his actions and work, will be the task of others for the time being, will be the task of future history. In our day it is indeed impossible to give a completely exhaustive picture of all the things that concern just these our days. But as I said, with regard to what others and history will say, it is not to be spoken here today, although it is the most heartfelt conviction of the one who speaks to you here that the coming history will have a great deal to say about this man in particular. But some of what is before my mind at this moment may and should be said here, even if it is necessary for me to say one or two words in such a way that they sound more allegorical than in the actual sense, which will only gradually become understandable. This man and his soul stand before my soul as a symbol of our present and the immediate future, born out of the development of our time, truly a symbol of what should and must happen in a very, very real, very true sense of the word.

We emphasize again and again that it is truly not the arbitrary act of this or that person to incorporate what we call spiritual science into the culture of the present and the near future, that this spiritual science is a necessity of the time, that the future will not be able to continue if the substance of this spiritual science does not flow into human development. And here, my dear friends, we have something great and significant that should now come before our eyes as we remember the soul of Mr. von Moltke. In him we had a man, a personality among us, who stood in the very most effective, in the very most outwardly active life of the present, the one that has developed out of the past and in our time has come to one of the very greatest crises that humanity in the course of its conscious history has ' has to go through in the course of its conscious history, a man who led the armies, stood in the middle of the events that form the starting point of our fateful present and future. And at the same time, in him we have a soul, a man, a personality who was all this, and sat here among us seeking knowledge, seeking truth, with the most sacred, most ardent urge for knowledge that only some soul of the present can possess.

That is what should come before our soul. For this makes the personality, who has just passed through the gate of death, a towering historical symbol, in addition to everything else that he is historically. The fact that he was among those who stand at the forefront of outer life, that he served this outer life and yet found the bridge to the spiritual life that is sought through this spiritual science, that is a deeply significant historical symbol; that is what can place the feeling of a wish in our soul, which is not a personal wish but which is born out of the urge of the time, which can place the feeling, the wishing feeling in our soul: May many and more and more who are in his situation do as he did! Therein lies the significant example that you should feel, that you should sense. However little this fact may be spoken of in the outer life, it does not matter, it is best if it is not spoken of at all; but it is a reality, and it is the effects that matter, not what is spoken. This fact is a reality of the spiritual life. For this fact leads us to recognize: This soul had within itself the correct interpretation of the signs of the time. May many follow this soul, who may today be very far in one direction or another from what we call spiritual science.

Therefore it is true that what flows and pulses through this our spiritual scientific current has received from this soul as much as we could give it. And we should keep that in mind, because I have spoken of it here many times. It means that now in our time souls go to the spiritual world that carry within themselves what they have taken in here in spiritual science. When a soul that is still very active in the beyond passes through the gate of death and now finds itself in the bright world, which is to be explained to us through our knowledge when we know it up there, when, in other words, what we are seeking is carried through the gate of death by such a soul, then, through the union it has entered into with such a soul, it is a power in the spiritual world that is deeply significant and effective. And those souls who are here and understand me at this moment will never forget what I meant here at this moment about the significance of the fact that this soul now takes with it into the spiritual world what has flowed through our spiritual science for years, that this becomes power and effectiveness in it.

All this, of course, cannot be there to trivialize the pain we feel over such a loss on the physical plane. Suffering and pain are justified in such cases. But suffering and pain only become great and weighty and effective forces themselves when they are permeated with a rational understanding of what underlies suffering and pain. And so you take what I have said as an expression of the pain at the loss on the physical plane that the German people and humanity have experienced. Once again, my dear friends, let us rise:

Spirit of your soul, effective guardian!
May your wings bring
our soul's imploring love
to thy protecting son of heaven's own sphere.
That, united with thy might
our prayer may help to shine
on the soul that loves and seeks her.¹

• 1. Rudolf Steiner also said this prayer at the beginning of the commemoration.Bind them together with us, who are of a spiritual nature and are inseparable through the physical event of death.

My dear friends!

Yesterday I had to remember the deep sense of satisfaction I felt when I was able to return to the site of our building after a long time. This satisfaction was tinged with a bitter note of sorrow because, among the dear friends who have worked faithfully and with infinite devotion on the progress of this our workplace, Miss Wilson is no longer here on the physical plane. She undoubtedly belongs to those of our dear friends whose thoughts cannot fade away for those left behind on the physical plane, simply because these thoughts are prepared through deeply appropriate, selfless work, and cooperation with those who are serious, sincere, and honest about this spiritual movement that is necessary for the world. Those who knew Miss Wilson well are only too aware of what the movement, in so far as it is embodied in the physical plane, has lost by Miss Wilson's departure from the physical plane. And I feel impelled to say that a deep pain has pierced the souls of all those who learned of Miss Wilson's passing from the physical plane in recent times through the messages of friends here. Miss Wilson placed herself in our movement in her infinitely unassuming way, but with such deep understanding and such earnest devotion, not only in so far as this movement is a current of spiritual life that wants to absorb the soul, but Miss Wilson also placed herself in our spiritual movement with the deepest understanding of what this movement should be and wants to be and must be in the whole course of development, namely in the spiritual development of humanity. And with regard to this kind of understanding of our movement as a spiritual world movement, many of us will have known Miss Wilson as an exemplary personality in our ranks, and in this sense those who knew her will always turn to her in thought, but will also feel their way up to her, since she now has to continue her existence in the spiritual worlds. Miss Wilson energetically joined our movement by helping wherever she could. Miss Wilson was one of those natures who took up our movement with such a strong impulse that she was able to see beyond what could so easily cause divisions and splits in our movement due to the prejudices of our time in particular, but which can never happen and should not happen if there are enough souls who, like Miss Wilson, know how to strive primarily for that which flows as a spiritual impulse through our movement, to strive for it as something higher, as something that unites, in the face of all that comes into our ranks from the prejudices of the time. In this respect, too, Miss Wilson is undoubtedly a model personality in our ranks. And we want to hold fast and true to the ideas that began to connect us with Miss Wilson, so that this connection can never end. In the sense of what our spiritual convictions can derive from our views, we may say and I may express it, that we shall be able to count Miss Wilson, now working from the spiritual world, among those souls whom we can always look upon as collaborators in the most beautiful and sublime sense. And great, truly great is the pain that permeates those who knew her, because we no longer have her among us on the physical plane, because we can no longer live on the physical plane here in the beautiful aura of sincere, friendly disposition with which Miss Wilson was among us. But we will build firmly and securely on the thoughts that connect us with her as a loyal, dear, highly esteemed colleague from the spiritual world. We will remain loyal to her, as we are convinced that she will remain loyal to us, and that we will be united with this soul for all time through our mutual respect and finding each other, for which human souls can unite after they have found each other.

Furthermore, my dear friends, I have to inform you of the sad news that another dear co-worker soul left the physical plane in the last few days, so those who worked with this soul will no longer be found here among the co-workers on the physical plane either. Our dear friend Dr. Ernst Kramer was killed by two shots on the battlefield of the Somme on July 1, and succumbed to his grave wounds on July 10. Many of us will remember the great hopes we had for the work that we could rightly expect from Dr. Ernst Kramer, who had been among our colleagues in the humanities for a number of years and more recently among the colleagues working on the Dornach building. His penetrating mathematical mind, his mathematical circumspection, his quick way of grasping a technical situation and fitting it into the whole, is what will remain unforgettable for those who worked with him and what justifies our hope that he will be united with us in the work that we are granted to do, will be united with us in the work that we, insofar as we are granted to do it, want to do together with all those in the future who want to be united with us on the physical and on the spiritual plane.

Today our souls are filled with a painful sense of loss. We mourn the death of two friends, both of whom were deeply connected to what is to be achieved here in the spirit of the progressive spiritual life of humanity. The sorrowful events of our time have taken our friend Ludwig from us a few days ago, and yesterday our dear friend de Jaager passed very quickly through the gates of death.

In both our friends, we have lost workers within our spiritual life for the physical plane, whose work is faithfully carved into the structure erected here on Dornach Hill, friends of our endeavors and friends of our hearts, who have worked with deep love on the work that is so dear to us all. And so, in them, we lose collaborators of our cause in the physical realm; but we also lose two people who have become dear to us through the years of their lives that have flowed into our lives. When we experience the death of close friends, it suddenly becomes clear to us, suddenly an awareness of what they were to the world, what they did in the world, while we, as long as they walk among us, take what is graciously given to us with their lives more for granted. We, from the point of view of spiritual coexistence, which may be interrupted by death but is never separated, look at death as the introduction to a part of life that is, of course, different from the other kind of life that takes place in the physical. Although we may always be karmically connected with those with whom we are brought together in our earthly existence, we must also remember that in each new earthly existence, new threads of existence are spun with the people with whom we are brought together; and we feel these new threads of existence. When they change so much from year to year, from month to month, from week to week, from day to day, then we take it more for granted. But when what has been taken for granted comes more sharply into consciousness through the vision of the gate of death, then we feel the difference that exists between the experience that runs from day to day and that experience which lies beyond death and which, precisely through the power that spiritual science gives us, we can make into a truly living experience, one that is, in the deepest sense, imbued with the seriousness of existence. We feel the difference between this life and the one to come so that what was fluid in earthly existence becomes, as it were, fixed, so that we look back through the span of time to something that has become a human being to us, whereas previously it became something new for us every day. And the sight of the gate of death remains harrowing from this point of view as well, because we must first find our bearings for that time of preparation, which we have to go through, and after which we will find again those who have approached us, so that we may continue the threads in spiritual life that have spun themselves here in earthly life. Spiritual science will thus be well suited to connecting us more vividly and intimately, because eternally, with those who approach us in life. It will certainly not be able to lead us to trivial consolation for the justified suffering we feel when we see the gate of death before us in such a situation. Because, my dear friends, the riddle of life is not solved with theories. Life's riddles can only be solved through life itself. And every death presents us with a riddle, a riddle of life, a test of life; a riddle that we must solve while we are alive, a test that we must pass while we are alive – a riddle that, by solving it, we make ourselves more worthy of the All-Life, a test by which we learn to prove all the bonds of love that we are blessed to to tie with other like-minded souls or souls that have been brought to us by their karma. And only in the face of death do we realize what a blessing it was from the wise guidance of the world's existence that we were brought together with this or that person, with whom karma lovingly brought us together. One would like to say how mysterious the two deaths we are now under the impression of are. One has occurred in the atmosphere that surrounds us today in such a painful way, surrounded by a roar that humanity will first have to understand, learn to understand, in order to realize what has taken place through the occurrence of this painful event. And again and again we have to feel what a riddle of life stands before us when we see that today young human lives are being claimed by humanity itself. Thus, I would say, stands that which touches us painfully in the background of the one death.

And how different the other death is! Peace surrounded the dear dead yesterday, when I could only meet him after he had already passed through the gate of death, peace that radiates from a person even when life has been cut short in this way by karma, when, as in this case, a warm and earnestly striving human life gives up its physical body, as I would like to say, in voluntary conclusion of the earthly existence that one has been given for this time by one's earthly karma. And so it is a double riddle of life that we are facing. Not because spiritual science made us powerless to interfere, as in every such case death is only a transformation of life, as in every such case death is also only a change in our friendship, but because the solution that spiritual science certainly gives us in a satisfying way in such a case, because this solution first wants to be experienced.

Our friend Ludwig – what we could see of him through his life on earth, through the years he was with us, was truly able to show how a person from less than easy circumstances, who has faced many trials in life, can connect with the innermost nerve of our spiritual striving through a deep trait of his nature. Ludwig was a person whose innermost nature shaped all his thoughts and aspirations in such a way that, to a certain extent,

the idea of karma, the idea of human destiny conceived in the sense of karma, was always in the background. Without one being able to say that Louis was a fatalist, his soul was such that it always accepted with a certain peaceableness what fate brought it, and despite this connection to the powers of fate, he was always deeply interested in what life brought him. That was a fundamental trait in the character of the one who has now left us for the physical world: he accepted what life brought with a strong and steady attitude, but he was also able to give himself to the joys and exaltations of life with intense interest and understanding. I have just been given a “Abendlied” (evening song) that our friend Ludwig wrote, and we would like to remember him by reciting it.

I stand on the mountain summit,
I spread my arms.
The treetops are burning,
The sun goes home tired.
Its setting gilds the lands,
Its setting gilds the air.
The slanting rays' garment
Glows and glitters in the fragrance.
And all around it grows still, oh so still,
Yet so far and so near
The beings and things sing only one thing:
Gloria, Gloria!

And in such a deep understanding of feeling, our friend also absorbed everything that was to come out of the building and, so to speak, knew how to incorporate into his own destiny the destiny of our movement, insofar as it is embodied in the forms of our building, and he faithfully carved his diligence and love for our cause into these forms. The after-effect of this industry, the effect of this love, really radiated from his soul when he said goodbye to go to those places from which so many hopeful lives today do not return for this incarnation. Like a shadow of this intervention of fate in his life on earth, our friend Ludwig sensed what was about to happen to him in the subdued words of farewell at that time. Those who were close to him, who were able to get to know him, will hold his memory dear and precious. But also all those in whose midst he worked here, all those in whose midst he stood with his spiritual striving, united by like-minded spiritual work, will turn their thoughts to him faithfully and lovingly. For we are united with those who unite with us, namely also in faithful striving within our spiritual life, which we have chosen out of the contemplation of human karma.

And the way in which our friend Ludwig has joined the circle of loyal workers here is attested by the other poem of the two that were just handed to me, which he wrote as a farewell to his comrades in August/September 1914, that is, to those who were drawn to the same fields that he was later forced to go to, who had to leave, as he later had to, the workplace that had become dear to them. These are the words he gave these who went to war before him in his heart:

From the peace haven into the wide world,
which is engulfed in war all around,
So those who are joined here go,
There, there into the land.

The heavy hour of parting strikes,
Parting draws near.
Each one feels in the bottom of his soul:
Stand fast at your post!

Once more we look back
At forest and river and meadow,
Where we were united in the purest happiness
in the bosom of nature
So many hours united in faithfulness
Laughing, joking, thinking, weeping.

The bonds of memory entwine
Around that which moves us,
Which, like a piece of fairyland
Everyone cherishes within.

And when the world is writhing in pain
And when it steams in the blood
The great, difficult struggle
will ultimately bring us peace.

The die is cast,
The iron clinks,
The battle cry rings out,
The bullet whizzes.
What must be will happen now
In those pure ether heights,
Where we shall meet again one day.

And in this spirit, which was in his soul, we want to be faithfully united with this dear friend who has now gone through the gateway of death.

Our dear friend de Jaager has been called away from an artistic life in the most eminent sense. When we look at this death that has occurred so quickly, we will, however, above all, insofar as we can say that we have before our soul de Jaager's earthly life, bathed in true beauty, we will be able to experience a feeling of deep peace even in this painful hour. De Jaager was an artist with every fibre of his soul, but an artist who gave birth to all art authentically from a deeply pious perception and fulfilment of life. When you stood in front of de Jaager's sensitive creations, so full of thoughts and feelings in the most beautiful sense, you could feel how this soul searched for an appropriate embodiment of what it sensed, as if in a vision, on the fields where her soul's gaze was directed, and where souls encounter the effects, ripples and undulations of the great riddles of existence, encountering those souls who feel the urge to pour what they see in artistic form, to pour it into forms, into artistic experience. And when, as in de Jaager's work, the soul's will creates a connecting link between the spiritual, which it senses, beholds, and the physical, which the physical eye can see and on which physical life is focused, then this artistically shaped vision is imbued with a very special magic when we see it in connection with such shy, beautiful and profound reverence for life, for the very life that appears so deeply mysterious to the spiritual scientist, but whose secrets we want to solve with our earthly existence. An artistic nature that treated all life with reverence, that was respectful of all existence, and whose reverence for life and respect for existence was expressed so beautifully in everything she created, in every thought she harbored, in every impulse with which she wanted to imbue her art. We looked, my dear friends, into the wise face, permeated with feeling-thoughts and thought-feelings, looking vividly into the world, and we will never be able to fade from our souls how gently devout and yet deeply reverent that eye looked into the riddles of existence. And we must always remember how earnestly and sincerely worthy this hand always wanted to be to shape what the contemplative eye saw and sensed of the riddles and secrets of life.

Oh, my dear friends, when we see such a life, which is so prematurely cut short, and to which one would like to attach so many, many hopes for life, hopes for the general world, hopes for our own spiritual striving, when we see that hanging before the gate of death, then, then spiritual science encourages us to look for the positive and not for the negative. The idea of karma, the idea of fate illuminated by karma, is particularly meaningful to us in the face of such a life. All that lived in de Jaager's art, what lived in his artistic sensibility, it is good to try to lovingly engage with it, hardly to be separated from two elements that perhaps seem to be connected by tragedy in this case, by the tragedy of life, but which we nevertheless want to look at with the same reverence and the same reverence for life with which de Jaager looked at life. When the power that can arise from a whole human life, perhaps from a long human life and its fulfillment, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a long human life, is combined with a more intense development for this existence, when this power, which can flow from a what otherwise a long life gives; if, in other words, the strength that we gain from a full life on earth combines, through its seriousness, through its diversity, with what must flow from the warmth, from the idealism, from the vision of the first half of life, and so what would otherwise permeate the two halves of life is used by pouring the strength of one half of life over both. What can live in a person in this way lived in Jaager's life, who in the thirty-third year of this incarnation passed through the gate of death. And it lives in his art. We look to him as to a person who took that which otherwise permeates a whole life into the first half of life. And we see this as the meaningful, as the particularly meaningful, as the extraordinarily thought-filled outpouring of his artistic endeavors. And we also saw this in the loving, faithful devotion with which he carved his skill into the forms of our building; he felt connected to our work, to our ideals, through the power of his own work, the power of his own ideals. It is precisely through such feelings that we will truly give life to the thought that must now, from this hour on, replace the other thought that was so dear to us: to be allowed to have this soul in our circle to fulfill the hopes and longings that we have for our movement. A tenderness had been poured out upon de Jaager's existence precisely because of what I described as the tragic in this life. And this tenderness was felt by those who were close to this dear friend. And this tenderness will live on in the loving, faithful memories that we want to preserve for our friend. His spiritual work will become one with our work, with our efforts and aspirations. We want to be inseparable from his will and often think how we must be compensated for what he would have achieved by standing physically beside us and working with us, what we see as flowing down to us from spiritual heights as long as we ourselves are determined by karma to work, strive and create on this physical plane.

And so let us be faithful companions to those who were particularly close to these two deceased. Among us, my dear friends, is our dear member Mrs. de Jaager, who is standing at the gate of death of the one with whom she was able to hope to spend a long, long time on this physical plane. Let us unite our thoughts and feelings with those of our dear member Mrs. de Jaager, and in this hour let us imbibe everything what can arise in our soul in terms of loyal, warm, loving feelings for the two who have passed through the gate of death, what can arise in us at the thought, which may also arise in us, of how they will be received by those who have gone before us from our ranks into the spiritual world. Let us think of ourselves together with these souls in a truly spiritual sense. But let us also allow the power of this thinking to become the power of true love, which can connect us with such dear friends who were connected with us in life, beyond the portal of death, beyond whom we think of being connected with in eternal time periods, we continue what has been initiated through that which brought us together here in earthly life. Let us carry the love that has united us here with those whom we will no longer see physically, but whom we want to take into our thoughts all the more vividly, so that our thoughts flow to them and connect us with them unceasingly.

A much-cited American coined the phrase some time ago: No one is irreplaceable here on earth. This testifies that everyone can be fully replaced by another in relation to their position immediately after their death. It must be said: how miserable a world of ideas can be, when it can lead to such thoughts and feelings. Those who, from the foundations that can be built from a more intense feeling for the human context of life, face the mystery of death, will actively feel the opposite feeling in their soul.

We have been looking back on the deaths of dear friends, deaths that have touched our hearts, very deeply, for the relatively short existence of our anthroposophical spiritual movement. We have seen friends pass through the gate of death who were allowed to live their lives through, as they say, a normal number of decades on earth, and we have seen young friends pass through the gate of death. In the quiet peace of a calm environment, the one has gone; the storms of today's world have also torn many, many souls from our ranks, others have passed away from the storm-tossed life through the gate of death. And as we cast a sensitive glance at the passing of our dear friends, so will we undoubtedly, especially on this day, which so painfully reminds us that we have already been conducting our work for a year without our dear, precious Sophie Stinde here on the physical plane, so will we undoubtedly, especially on this day, the other word, the other feeling will struggle out of the depths of our souls: For the physical plane, every human being who passes through the gate of death is irreplaceable. And even if it often seems otherwise to the superficial eye, one need only look at the souls of those who were karmically connected with the dead in one way or another, and one will realize that each one is irreplaceable.

While we would do well to take such words to heart, we look up to the spiritual world into which the dead person enters through the gate of death. We look up to this spiritual world as we may look up when not only does our soul come alive to that which spiritual science can give us, but when our being itself becomes active life in the spiritual science. Do we not already know comparatively from our physical life that we can only understand, really understand, that being in whose own existence we carry something akin, something echoing? Understanding of a being is only possible if something lives in us that also lives in the other being. We acquire the concepts and ideas of how alive a person's life is and how that person's life remains alive when he passes through the gate of death. But we should also endeavor to make the concepts and ideas that spiritual science gives us more and more alive in our souls. For only in this way does something enter into the life of our souls that also lives in the souls of those who have shed their physical shells and live in the spiritual world itself with an unclouded view through physical organs. And we shall gradually learn what it means to develop understanding for our dear departed if we make spiritual science the living source in our own soul, for the essence then becomes part of our own being, which is the element of life for them, the dead. No longer, when we acquire an understanding of their life element, do they then need to look over at the souls, at the hearts that they have left behind here, so that they must perceive: Oh these souls, oh these hearts down there, they lack the understanding that they must have when they look up at us with a look that we can answer them! Just as one can only get to know a being here on the physical plane if one is able to delve into its world, so we can only be in understanding with our dead if we have an inner life in the conceptions of those worlds in which they find themselves.

This, my dear friends, seems to me – and not only to me – to be a reminder from those dead to whom we look with love, who have risen from our ranks into the spiritual worlds, a reminder from them, because they now know from their own experience what it means for the whole world when people recognize the nature of the spiritual worlds. And we may indeed have progressed so far in our study of spiritual science that we hear our souls speaking with urgent words the words spoken to us from the spiritual worlds by our dear dead: “Recognize the spiritual world!” For among the many things that will come of this for humanity is that the dead and the living will be able to form a unity.

I know that we think in the spirit of many of our dear departed, especially in the spirit of Sophie Stinde, as she is thinking now, when we write this admonition into our souls today, and when we add so many other thoughts that can now become us, if we take in all seriousness and in full depth what spiritual science is supposed to be for us.

Perhaps I may refer to the fact that it has often been my duty to speak about the obligation to love in view of the recent death of dear departed members of our movement at their funeral or cremation. I may say: Such moments bring the thought particularly to mind, what it means to speak words under the kind of responsibility that arises when it is known: Not only in general is there a spiritual world, but in the concrete, the one with whom you have worked here to affirm the existence and nature of spiritual worlds looks down on you. To bear witness to the truth in such moments and in the moments that arise from them, to be aware of the community in this truth between the living and the dead, that is one of the heart and soul achievements of the spiritual scientific world view, belongs to that which flows through the spiritual-scientific movement from the livingly felt mystery of death. And we, my dear friends, may all, all be permeated by this feeling, by the feeling of our community, which we cultivate here as living beings in the physical body with the living who have passed through the gate of death, with the living in the light of the spiritual world and in spiritual life. And when we develop the feeling of that responsibility towards the knowledge of the spiritual worlds, which arises from the consciousness: Here we commemorate the spiritual world, and there are the spiritual eyes that look down and examine how we stand in relation to the truth of the world, there are the spiritual ears that listen to whether truth or lie dwells in our hearts, — if we develop this feeling in concrete community with those who have worked side by side with us here and who now continue to work with us with the currents of our soul, then, then the spiritual-scientific worldview, the spiritual-scientific movement, will become that living thing that builds the bridge between worlds, between those in our time and the eternal future, between which no bridge can be built in any other way.

And when we develop such feelings, when we truly awaken such feelings in our souls, then we also feel the karmic connection in a special way when we have been close to someone who has passed through the gateway of death in one way or another. And then, through those subtle, fine revelations that always exist between the spiritual world and our souls, we gradually learn to sense them — the voices of our dead, especially those who were karmically connected to us in a very special way. We experience them in the way just described, by directing our thoughts to them and, in the inner soul atmosphere and soul aura that which these thoughts convey to us, in a perhaps quiet, quite intimate, but nevertheless gradually perceptible way, we sense how they live on in us, those who have passed through the gateway of death, how they live with us, how they participate in our destiny, but how at the same time they give their strength to everything that is perhaps best in ourselves and can become of us in the working of the world. And so, starting from such feelings and thoughts, it becomes more and more possible for us to transform the abstract feelings towards death, which must become more and more widespread in our materialistic time, back into vividly concrete ones, to be allowed to be together spiritually and soulfully with those who have left us as physical personalities for a while, until we follow them through the gate of death. And perhaps it is a message from our dead to us when I say that we should be aware of the invigoration of earthly existence beyond the concept of death in the direction of the sanctification of this earthly existence, in that we take spiritual science with the seriousness that is necessary when we feel: Our dead are watching us, hearing our most intimate thoughts and our true or false presence in the realizations of spiritual science.

It feels like a message from the dearly departed that the conceptual world of the spirit must be revealed to humanity in general. For how does it cut to the heart, especially today, especially in our present time, when one hears the words from there or from there, from sides that many people even see as called, that countless people see as called, when one hears the words from such sides in this sad time often today: one owes it to the dead to continue what is going through the world in such a gruesome way today! If we recognize the attitude of the dead as I have characterized it, then we also know that the worst aspect of materialism is that the mystery of death is desecrated in our time, when people bring death into the world, in that the passions of the living invoke those who have passed through the gates of death. |

Let us honor and love our dear dead, my dear friends, by trying to bring living spiritual life into all the places where we are placed, one and the other, in our earthly existence. In this way, we also carry spiritual life into all world existence according to our ability, and we will be most united with our dear dead precisely in our zeal, in our devotion to a spiritual-scientific worldview. And I know that I also speak in the spirit of Sophie Stinde, who has now been in the spiritual world for a year, when I say these words, which have been spoken today in her memory and that of the others close to us and those who have passed through the gate of death, especially on this day. If on this day I try to awaken in you the awareness that in the work for the spiritual scientific world view, there are always those great, but also those intimate moments for our soul, in which our soul knows: Now you are not alone: the soul is with you, the soul to whom you were close when it spoke with the organs of the physical body, when it looked at you with the eyes of the physical body, when you were allowed to look into its physical eyes. You are close to this soul now, the soul you approached then, the soul you accompanied to the gate of death, the soul you mourned when it had to turn away from physical existence. You knew her, you loved her, she was dear to you; you continue to know her, you continue to love her, she continues to be dear to you. And since you accompanied her to the gate of death, only then did the nature of your being with her change; for you feel how she is around you, how she is with you.

Let us, my dear friends, on this anniversary of the death of our dear Sophie Stinde, permeate ourselves with such thoughts, and let us remember in such thoughts all those who have passed through the gate of death from our ranks, and who will all meet with her, because all were united with her by their common spiritual striving. And let us seek to be close to them all through the most intimate phases of our soul, united with them by the same yearning, the same striving for the spiritual world.

Since we last met here, we have had to mourn the loss of our dear Fräulein Morz&us and other dear friends who have left the physical plane as a result of current events. It is particularly painful not to see Fräulein Motzkus among our dear friends who have been attending our spiritual science events here for so many years. She was a member of our movement from the very beginning. From the first day, from the first meeting in the smallest circle, she was always in our midst as a member who was devoted to the heart of our movement and who went through all the phases and trials of our movement with heartfelt sympathy. Above all, through all the events through which we have had to go, she has retained in the deepest sense of the word an invincible loyalty to our cause, a loyalty by which Miss Motzkus was certainly exemplary for those who truly want to be devoted members of the spiritual science movement. And so we look after this dear, good soul in the worlds of spiritual life, to which she has ascended, by preserving the relationship of loyalty that has been developed and strengthened over many years, by knowing that we are connected to her soul forever.

Recently, Miss Motzkus herself had to mourn the loss of her faithful friend, whom she has now so soon found again in the spiritual world, and she accepted this blow in the sense of how one endures such a blow from the consciousness of a true understanding of the spiritual world. It was admirable with what keen interest Miss Motzkus showed a deep sympathy for the great events of the time until her last days. She repeatedly told me herself that she wanted to live here on the physical plane until these significant events, in the midst of which we now stand, had been decided. Now she will be able to follow these events, in which she took such a warm interest, with a clearer vision and a firmer sense of the development of humanity in her present state.

And so let us all take to heart the need to unite our thoughts and our active powers of the soul with this loyal spirit, this dear and loyal member of our movement, so that we may continue to know ourselves as one with her, even though she will be among us in a different form than before, when she was so exemplary in her connection with us in the physical realm.

It is fitting to speak words of comfort that are not lightly woven when one stands as a friend of a deceased among those who have lost a most precious one. For the deep pain that we feel in such a moment, when life bonds are torn apart that are tightly woven, that were woven to endure existence together in shared destinies and shared life tasks, is all too justified, all too understandable.

But another thing may perhaps also speak into the greatest, most bitter pain and the most bitter grief at such a moment: it is the compassion and mourning of those who, in addition to those closest to them, have come to appreciate and love those who have left the physical plane in the deepest part of their souls and from the bottom of their hearts. And perhaps I may, in this moment of mourning, remember the soul of the one whom we know we are hurrying to join the one who is now leaving us in our physical existence on earth. For I remember the soul of the dear husband who has become so dear to us, of the dearly departed, this searching personality, delving deeply into the mysteries of existence. Many unforgettable moments remain with me, which I was privileged to have in conversation with the soul, who has now been gone for a long time into spiritual worlds, about spiritual matters, about spiritual conditions and spiritual worlds, with the soul of the husband of the departed and the father of those sadly left behind here. And when the dear, seeking soul of the departed now appeared in our circle, the same power of genuine, true, spiritual striving and seeking for higher, lighter worlds was reflected in her eyes, in these seeking and, one may well say, light-bearing and love-bearing eyes, which lived in the soul of her predecessor. And we may, in this moment of mourning, remember the beautiful spiritual encounter of the two, which may be a reconciliation for the departed soul, in the face of all that she has left here in her dear, loving circle, in that circle for which she seemed so deeply predestined by fate, in that circle, from which world interest in the deepest sense approached everyone who approaches this circle. It was uplifting to hear and see how those to whom mother became the dear departed through the will of fate, how they carried the seeking spirit of the Dieterle family out into the furthest circles of the world, how they sought to find human happiness in human activity, how they sought to always move out of the narrow into the wide.

That is what we may visualize for this circle that the dear departed has left, and we may be assured that the circle of relatives will find sympathy and mourning in the wider circle of those whom the deceased has entered in order to search for the spirit, to find an approach to the solution of those riddles that burned so strongly in their souls. And those who were connected with them in this circle, searching for the spirit, they will remain unforgettable to them, the two deceased who were seeking the spirit and loving. We will not see them here in the physical life anymore, these two, these mild, strong, these seeking souls, but we will know that our memory will remain alive and feel connected as a living memory with the living soul of those who have only physically left us, that soul sought harmony with the eternal spirit and to a certain extent certainly found it, so that she can carry it over into spiritual worlds, in order to continue there in the appropriate way to care for her own and other people's salvation, for her own and other people's development.

And so, as a last greeting, I may repeat from memory, from the union with the soul and spirit of my dear friend, the words that came to my soul when this soul, this spirit, left its earthly cover:

Soul, arisen from the realm of mild strength,
Which in the struggle of earthly life, rock-bottom
For the inner depths of being
Courageously acquired,

Which, in the search for truth, blessing
Genuine human goal striven for,
And in noble human love
wanted to work meaningfully;

A spirit that in the vastness of life
strived for the depths of the soul,
and wanted to fathom the sources of true values of existence,

Who in the stream of life
always kindly offered what he had achieved for himself
to other people, beneficially, effectively:

You enter the soul's realm of light.
Look into the hearts of your children,
And into the souls of your friends,
Look down to us,

How we would like to accompany you
With the soul step of love,
With the word of the heart of loyalty,
Here from the place of mourning

To the heights where you can know
Our soul senses are not lost,
Where the light through the veil of death
Cannot be darkened.

And so we depart from your earthly shell, which will shine for us in the never-extinguishing light of spiritual life, and we know that in that spirit which has sought in you for the origin of its being, has sought for that conquest of death which, out of spiritual knowledge, wants to come to the Christ, who wants to find the power of rebirth, the eternal power of the soul, by immersing himself in the Christ-being, - so we know that in the search for this spirit we have found each other with you, and that this spirit, which carries human souls through eternities and gates of death and gates of life, will keep us together with you forever. We will know that we are connected not only in dead memory, but in full vitality, because we have found You in such a way that we can never lose You.

My dear friends!

Since we last saw each other here, both within and outside the circle that is united here, numerous of our members have left the physical plane, partly as a result of the events that are currently so severely testing humanity, and partly without any connection to this external, physical plane. It is not possible to refer to all those who have joined us in the spiritual world and no longer on the physical plane by name. The heavy losses that our movement has suffered here through the death of our dear Mr. Barth, our dear Miss Reitich and our dear Mrs. Pauline Dieterle are vividly present in our minds. It would take a long time if I were to recount to you now all that arises in our souls at this moment when we think of these dear souls. But that is not what we are here for. For each of them there is a very large circle here that can feel in its own soul with tremendous intensity and complete devotion to these souls what would take a long time to express in words. And that we keep this alive in our soul, that we vow, so to speak, to keep this alive in our souls, that we do not lose any opportunity to maintain the connection with these souls, that is what must move us.

Anyone who knew Miss Rettich's quiet, calm nature, who lived with her, who worked with her, knows that a rich spirit, which has gone through the difficult trials of life, which was inspired by serious, most sacred pursuit of truth, was inspired by purest benevolence and philanthropy, lived in this our friend. And the individuality of Miss Rettich is such that no one who has ever been in any kind of contact with her will ever be able to forget her. The quiet, modest nature, combined with a strong inner power of aspiration, was what was particularly appealing about this personality. That was what made the continuing soul of Miss Rettich, with whom we want to feel united, remain particularly close to us, insofar as we were lucky enough to be close to her during her lifetime.

What Mr. Barth was for the Kerningzweig in terms of his special individuality and way of working, some others here will be able to tell better than I can, because they will have much to say about what they owe to Mr. Barth. That a large circle was devoted to him with the most ardent love is widely known; that he spared no effort, left no strength ineffective, to work in the direction he recognized as the right one, that is what must live in lasting memory, what can act as an example beyond this memory, and what will underlie what many souls experienced in a living connection with this soul. What Mr. Barth was to his circle, it has been described by a member of this circle when our dear members parted from the earthly shell of this our dear friend, and we can honor the memory of him best when we never lose sight of the tremendously devoted nature of the cause and the personalities.

What is alive in my soul, and what I believe is alive in many souls as a result of the departure of dear Frau Dieterle, I tried to hint at with a few words this morning when we parted from the earthly shell of this dear friend. I felt I could touch on this occasion in particular how this soul was born out of contradictions, which united into the most beautiful harmony, as is always the case with true contradictions. I had to think of the broad interests in life into which this woman's karma had brought her. And above all, I had to think of the broad spiritual interests that were vividly present in my soul at this moment of mourning, the spirit of her husband, who had passed away long before her, the father of those left behind. I had to remember many a conversation with this man, which was always filled with the purest spiritual, impersonal spiritual interests, filled with what never actually took the point of reference to the personal. And in this moment we may remember this man entirely in the sense of our spiritual-scientific attitude, which lets us look in the spirit to the now to be taking place meeting of our friend with the soul that preceded her into the spiritual world. What she herself meant to me through the way she has always participated here for a long time in our work and life, that presented itself to me in the words that I said as a last farewell to our dear friend this morning and which I may perhaps repeat here, which were intended to express how the relationship of the soul, the spirit of this woman, presented itself to me:

Soul, arisen from the realm of mild strength,
In the struggle of earthly life, the rock bottom
For the inner depths of being
Bravely acquired,

In the search for the truth blessing
Genuine human goal,
And in noble human love
wanted to work meaningfully;

A spirit that in the vastness of life
strived for the depths of the soul,
and wanted to fathom the sources of true values of existence,

Who in the stream of life
always kindly offered what he had achieved for himself to other people benevolently and effectively:

You enter the soul's realm of light.
Look into the hearts of your children,
and into the souls of your friends,
look down to us,

How we would like to accompany you
with the soul step of love,
With the heartfelt word of loyalty,
Here from the place of mourning

To the heights where you can know
Our soul's sense not lost,
Where the light through the veil of death
Cannot be darkened.

To honor the memory of all our dear departed, we rise from our seats. And we think about how we gain strength when we remain firmly connected to the departed in spirit.

Most of the friends who have combined their work with the construction here were also united in their work with our friend Fleinrich Mitscher, who recently left the physical plane. They all know that we have lost the third link within that dear and loyal community, after Fritz Mitscher and our dear Mrs. Noss, who have previously passed away into the spiritual world. I do not need to say much in memory of Heinrich Mitscher, because there are a large number of friends here who, from a relatively long and beautiful working relationship, will feel what needs to be said in connection with Heinrich Mitscher.

Heinrich Mitscher was with us here from the very beginning of the construction of this building in Dornach, and how fortunate it was for this building, that for many things – especially the artistic natures united with this building will feel this in the same way – that for the work of this building we were able to have precisely this artistic force. In this incarnation, Heinrich Mitscher was a peculiarly constituted artistic nature, an artistic nature of whom one could say: This personality was first and foremost an artist, not a painter, not an artist in any other specialized field, but an artist first and foremost. Such natures have the peculiarity that within the present-day art world, the present-day artistic endeavor, they sometimes find it very difficult to find the path of life that is right for them. Those who, through a richer spiritual disposition, have artistic impulses in general, artistic impulses of organizational power, sometimes find it difficult to cope with today's specialization. But - and especially when the opportunity arises to develop general artistic skills, as is the case with the performance of this building - then such strengths are in the right place. And we felt that, with Heinrich Mitscher working here among us with his strong organizational skills, with his suggestive power in many respects, through which he knew how to convey intentions to other friends, with his strong will, which is suited to enforce what was intended. Above all, artistic natures are needed here, and Heinrich Mitscher was just that. Therefore, the services he has rendered to the construction cannot be praised highly enough.

In this construction, much has been done by dear, expensive friends, of which the world in general may not know much in the individual, specific case. Much loyal and devoted work is embodied here in what the eye sees. Much of the spirituality of Heinrich Mitscher, which was designed for greatness, is in this building. And his will was undivided in the sense of the building during the time when he devoted his strength to it. He was more inwardly connected with this building than with any other link in the anthroposophical movement. This was a consequence of his peculiarly artistic nature, and it will always be a sad memory for me to see Heinrich Mitscher say goodbye to this place of work here in the first days of the outbreak of the war. During the entire period in which his energies were devoted to the sad events now intervening in the development of mankind, he always knew how to put the right man in the right place. And the esteem in which he is held by all those who have recognized his value within the community that is carrying out this work has also been accorded to him in the circles in which he has then entered to engage in a very different kind of activity. To be known and to be connected in life with such natures is an extraordinary gain of life for those who are. For this acquaintance includes the feeling of a real individuality, inwardly willing and thinking in a certain way. In recent times, the word has been misused many times for all kinds of things, but one can still feel its good content, its good essence. One must then say: Those who have come to know Heinrich Mitscher have come to know a real individuality. Individualities are much rarer in today's world than one might think. Therefore, having the company of an individuality is a blessing and a gain in life. One must only understand correctly in such things. Certainly, some sharp, some cutting words could come from Heinrich Mitscher, but never was such a sharp, cutting word used other than in holy enthusiasm for the cause. And those who knew this individuality knew that behind the sometimes rough form, something tremendously fine, something from precisely artfully formed and artfully willing worlds, actually emerged.

Now, like so many of the present day, whose karma is connected in the narrower sense with these present events, Heinrich Mitscher has also hit the ball and he has left us. We may have the feeling, my dear friends, that just as the other members of the Mitscher-Noss family, this soul can also be a source of help and strength for us, especially from the spiritual worlds. And the sister who is in our midst may know and be assured that those who have recognized her brother's value, have experienced her brother's value and friendship, will feel with her in a brotherly-sisterly way and will faithfully carry the memory of this our dear friend. As I said, I do not need to say much about this, because in this case, too, the best is in the souls that have recognized the value of a friend's soul, an artist's soul, a loyally working soul.

Another thought that I would like to mention must be even briefer, my dear friends, because it is not permissible for me to speak at length when the event I am speaking about is one that is extremely close to me personally. But even in this case, even if I only speak a few words, these words must, as is necessary in this case, be spoken from the most personal feelings and emotions, so that these words, with their personal tone, find an independent echo in the hearts of many friends who are united here. Among the many recent losses in the physical realm, is that of Dr. Steiner's sister, Miss Olga von Sivers, who will remain in the loving memory of many of us as a true friend and a soul most beautifully united with our movement. Whoever saw it will not forget the lovely, beautiful embodiment of the figures that Olga von Sivers was able to portray for our mysteries. Who will not remember the quiet, reserved way in which this personality worked within the circles of our society.

Olga von Sivers was one of those members –– I may say –– who has been connected with our movement in a very specific way from the very beginning. She rejected in the most comprehensive sense everything that did not come from the occult truth, the occult impulse, the occult insight, from that strictness that we strive for, from that purity with which we should look at things. One can say: our movement, my dear friends, was, because one must always tie historical to historical, interspersed with other movements in the most diverse ways. One or the other soul even found its way out of other occult societies and theosophical movements with difficulty.

Olga von Sivers was one of those personalities who were never attracted to anything else. And so one could feel all the more closely connected to her, faithfully. In the place to which she found herself assigned, she cultivated in intimate circles what, starting from this movement, must be considered appropriate for spiritual life in terms of the needs of the present and the near future. She was so quiet in her appearance, so gentle in her actions, and so energetic in her inner life, although she kept to herself, that her connection with our movement was particularly specific.

When the war broke out, she had, in addition to the further care she faithfully provided for the anthroposophical cause in St. Petersburg and in Russia in general, she had devoted her energies to the Samaritan service of war, had had to let the heavy loss of her brother, who fell on the battlefield, pass through her soul, had consumed her energies, was inspired to the end by the hope of the spiritual court, which was almost no longer a hope for her because she no longer considered it realizable: to be united with all that is forming around this structure.

As I said, I am forbidden from saying more by the fact that I myself have lost so much, especially with regard to this personality. And I may also say here: It is my deepest conviction that those who have come to know the value and essence of this personality will keep her in the most loyal memory and will sympathize that it is difficult not to be allowed to know this personality in the future at the side of her sister in our circle here on the physical plane. She too will continue to help us faithfully from the spiritual world.

After the priest's words of consecration, which should lead the soul of our dear Mrs. Leyh to spiritual heights, may my mouth express what the loving friends, who are standing here for the last farewell to earth, feel for the reception of the spirit in the eternal light.

A life of suffering, at least for the last few years, which was full of suffering and pain for her, is over for this earth for our dear Mrs. Leyb. In our hearts, in our souls, there is a glimmer of hope that she will grow up in the realm into which she now enters through the gate of death, from the noble power of endurance, with which she has truly proven herself in the strictest sense of the word here in earthly life, the power to work on those heights and on those paths where, through the will of the divine spirit, man is to work in invisible heights, as he works here through his hands and through his mind in earthly life as in the visible.

You, the loving, caring souls who took care of her in her last weeks, in her last days, who shared her suffering with love, who also shared her hopes, her confidence, her spiritual strength and power and love, you looked up with her to those heights, to which she shall now ascend through the strength of her soul. You were united with her in love. You know best what it means to live together with this dear soul, who is only separated from us for the time being. Oh, we may be certain, dear friends, who have cared for her in the last few weeks, in the last few days, that a spark will continue to fly in your souls in the future, emanating from the strength which the dear departed has given you, a source from which something noble will flow for you. And you will feel this nobility, more than a reminiscent togetherness, in a right spiritual life with her. And she will not be lost to you. You will not need to find her, because you will not doubt for a moment that you have her.

And looking back, what can the closest dear friends who have cared for her and watched over her in the last months and days say, looking back at what the friends of the wider circle who are here around the earthly resting place have to say, to think? The closest friends said that after our dear Mrs. Leyh had passed through the gate of death, that on the last day of her earthly life, on which so often in a person's life there is a last awakening when the soul's spirit has detached itself from the body, life and zest for life, that she, our dear friend, was able to gather together what her closest friends said, she could summarize in thoughts of her mind, in feelings of her heart, that she turned to the reception of those spiritual truths that had become so dear to her in life, that for everyone who knew her, it is truth, deepest truth - became the strength of life.

And you, friends from the wider circle, who were united with her in the common spiritual life, you know that how, even in the last days, when her body could no longer carry the soul to the place where she so gladly lingered, to hear what could be proclaimed with weak words at this place by the spirit, that she let herself be carried when the body could no longer carry the soul that longed for the spirit, that she let herself be carried to what was allowed to be spoken about the spirit.

Yes, in some of us, dear grieving friends, there was something like concern. She wanted to leave the place of external physical healing, where she had been lovingly cared for by loving friends during the last months of her life, because she could not find healing for her body. She believed, in her pure, strong, childlike and at the same time pure and strong spiritual faith, that she was receiving the healing of the message in which she sought to perceive the Spirit. So she looked from the place of physical healing to what was for her the place of spiritual healing. And the friends, who might have felt some concern about her leaving her physical place of healing, could only be reassured by the fact that the doctor was able to follow her and take care of the physical healing as well, since the dear departed only wanted to seek what would trickle into her soul and heart like a spiritual and soully balm for life.

Now we all look back on this life in that which we can believe was the deepest thoughts, the most intimate feelings of this soul, this heart. We look back on a life of which we may truly believe that it had struggled through to three sacred convictions that had connected its earthly being with the realm into which its soul, its spirit, is now going.

And the first truth, she had probably drawn from her knowledge of the illness that was allotted to her in such abundance. From her noble life of suffering she knew illness of the body. But we may believe that she knew that there can be an illness that is worse for human salvation and human goal than any other illness of the body, that illness that could only come from a destroyed body, but which often works insidiously, even through deception as well as truth, that disease which does not allow man to recognize that out of all weaving, out of all striving, working and being, it is precisely the human body in the orbit of earthly existence that speaks the eternal, only great truth: the body of man proclaims the divine being and working in the deepest, most earnest way. The greatest illness that could affect the physical body would be to develop a mind that wanted to deny this. This was probably the first conviction that this life had come to through illness.

And the second of her basic convictions was probably that she knew: however healthy this body may be, however healthy the body may be from birth to death, there is one thing it needs when it calls even the greatest health its own, it needs one thing: that awakener, which always reminds the soul of its spiritual origin when it must feel too tied to the perishable body. By turning to the spirit, by accepting the spiritual word, she had come to know Him, that great awakener of the soul, who gives the soul the strength to know: When you go through the gate of death, I, the Christ, who is with you, in you, for you, will lead you to the light of the spirit. Through the passage through the mystery of Golgotha, who, by conquering death, has gained for man the power to be awakened in death with the light of the spirit, to pass through the dark gate of death.

Truly, modesty was your own, dear friend. You truly did not ascribe superhuman powers to yourself. You were not inspired by blind pride and vain arrogance; you knew your weaknesses. But you would never have been able to forgive yourself if you had had to call a weakness your own, that weakness of spirit that is dullness and stupor

and which does not allow one to see up to the eternal reign of the Holy Spirit itself through all human weaving and human will, through all natural work and natural forces. God the Father you had won for yourself by knowing that God the Father would not be recognized as man's strongest earthly disease. You had won God, the Son, the Christ, by trying to interweave your soul with the power of the living word that speaks of eternal bliss. You had won God, the Holy Spirit, by feeling obliged to strengthen your soul so that it could not fall prey to the weakness and dullness that says: There is no spirit.

Now you have passed from a life that has achieved this, through the gateway of death. If we are to bid you farewell, let it be only the farewell that is at the same time the greeting in the spirit.

The close friends who surrounded her in the sorrowful months, sorrowful weeks and sorrowful days, the wider circle of friends who are now looking up, how the spirit wants to receive them for further work, will never forget the dear face of our dear Mrs. Leyh, that dear face that for years has looked at us as if all the inner waves of human striving, of human longings, were smoothed out on this dear face. Pure harmony was poured out over this face, which will be unforgettable in its own essence. And let us remember the look, that strangely yearning, searching look, turned towards the riddles and secrets of the world, which looked so peculiarly beyond the immediate things and matters of life, and which seemed as if it wanted to send the heart's yearning out beyond all this, to the eternal reasons for existence. And we will never forget the sound of your voice, dear friend, which overflowed with a true ray of light and true human love. We have heard it through the years.

And then we saw you in the last days of your suffering and endurance: suffering had only poured out the peculiar aroma of the eternal over your harmonious face, it had only placed the spiritual-soulful internalization in your soul-searching gaze and it had sunk into your voice, which sounded so mild to us, that mysterious, enigmatic tone, which is often sunk into human voices by suffering and out of which the undertone of the divine and eternal can be heard, which can resound through all the temporal and transient aspects of the human being, even when we are confronted with an earthly human being. That is how we saw you. What spoke from your countenance will not be lost on us. We will know ourselves united with it for all more distant times, for it has so seized us that you are not lost to us. Your gaze will live in us. And we will remember this gaze. It will quicken in us that which longed from this gaze toward the eternal, where we will seek you in order to be united with you. The sound of Your voice will resound in us and remind us that You shall not be abandoned, but shall live on, united with us in spirit, as we will feel obliged to do when the opportunity presents itself to be united with You in these days of Your spirit and soul, as we were united with You in Your days on earth. This, not a farewell greeting, shall be the last, this greeting of the spirit shall be what rises to you from the depths of the human heart, from which the human spirit may speak to the world spirit by seeking the souls that pass through the gate of death before the world spirit, when it calls them to a work that could not be completed here in physical earthly existence.

And so we call after you, dear Frau Leyh, with this greeting of heart and spirit:

The search on spiritual paths
Was your soul's primal urge.
Those who were your fellow travelers on the earthly path
In your earnest soul-searching
Were your fellow wanderers:
They follow your soul's path
With loving thoughts
In spiritual light heights.

Life in spiritual warmth,
It was the flower of your mind.
Who were your traveling companions with earthly thoughts
In your strong spiritual striving
They follow you in spiritual realms
They follow you in spiritual realms, in faithful empathy, in spiritual love weaving.

Existence in the spiritual will, it was the swing of your soul's pendulum. Those who were your traveling companions in the earthly will, in your noble soul's swing, they follow your flight of mind, in soul unification, toward spiritual will goals.

The man who was one of the most loyal collaborators of our spiritual movement, whom you could see here in our circle almost every week during the years of the war, we had to say goodbye to him in this physical plane during these days: our dear friend Ferman Joachim. When we approach the event of death, which we experience with the people close to us, imbued with the attitude that arises from what we seek as spiritual scientific knowledge, we ourselves find something of what we are to become with regard to our position and our relationship to the spiritual world. On the one hand, we look back on what the deceased has become for us during the time we were allowed to spend with him, as we were allowed to be his fellow strivers; but at the same time we look forward into the world that has received the soul that was united with us and is to remain united with us, because

Herman Joachim: the name is something that shines forth as a beacon for the personality we have lost to the physical plane, a name that is deeply connected with the artistic development of the 19th century, a name that is associated with the most beautiful expression of aesthetic principles in musical performance. and I need not go into what the name Joachim means for the spiritual development of recent times. But if he who has now passed from the physical plane into the spiritual world had entered our midst with all his incomparable, beautiful, great qualities and with a completely unknown name, those who had the good fortune to meet him and to connect their own endeavors with his would have counted him among those personalities who, through the power of their own value, through the extent and sun-like quality of their own soul, are among the most valuable in their lives here on earth. But it was precisely in what this soul was to other souls in purely human terms that the element in this soul that had worked so magnificently as the purest artistic and spiritual element from the Father had a lasting effect. One would like to say that in every expression of the spirit, in every manifestation of thought, there was on the one hand this artistic element in Herman Joachim, which on the other hand was sustained and carried by genuine, most intense spirituality of will, of feeling, of striving for spiritual knowledge. Just as the father's great intentions prevail here in the blood, so there was something in the spiritual atmosphere of this man that was beautifully introduced by Flerman Grimm — this excellent, this unique representative of the intellectual life of Central Europe — blessing the baptism of Herman Joachim, as he was the godfather of Herman Joachims. And ever since I knew this, it has been a dear thought for me, as you will understand after some of what I have said in this circle about the spiritual influence of the personality of Herman Grimm in modern times. When a dear friend of Herman Grimm died, Herman Grimm wrote down beautiful words; when Walther Robert-Tornow, who was quite unique in his peculiar personal individuality, died, Herman Grimm wrote down: “He leaves the company of the living; he is received into the company of the dead. It is as if one must also inform these dead of who is entering their ranks.” And this feeling that one has when someone dies, that one must also inform the dead about who is entering their ranks, Herman Grimm meant not only with regard to the person about whom he spoke these words, but he meant it in general as a feeling present in the human soul when someone close to us passes from the physical world into the spiritual world. We then look back on what we were allowed to experience symptomatically with the deceased, and consider this as it were like window openings through which we can look into an infinite being; for every human soul individuality is an infinite being, and what we are allowed to experience with it is always as if we were looking through windows into an unlimited realm. But there are moments in human life when several people participate in this human life, in which one is allowed to take a deeper look into a human individuality. Then it is always as if, precisely in such moments, when we are allowed to look into human souls, everything that is a secret of the spiritual world would open up with particular force. In extensive performances that are imbued with feeling, much of what lives in ordinary human life, in the great, the powerful, and the spiritually striving, is then revealed to us.

I would like to recall one such moment, because I feel it is symptomatic for me, but in an objective way, with regard to the essence of the deceased. When he was united with us spiritually in an important moment in Cologne years ago, I was able to see in conversation with him, after not long having known him personally, how this man had connected the innermost part of his soul with that what, as spiritual beings and weaving, permeates the cosmos. If I may say so, he had found the great connection of human soul responsibility to the spiritual and divine powers, which are connected to the wisdom of the world's governance, and which the individual human being finds himself confronted with in a particularly significant moment when he asks himself the question: How do you fit into what presents itself to the soul's eye as the spiritual guidance of the world? How may you think out of your self-awareness, knowing that you yourself are a responsible link in the chain of world spirituality? That he could feel, experience and intuitively recognize such a moment in all its depth, in all, if I may use the word, soul-searching thoroughness, as the representation of man's relationship to the spirituality of the world, that revealed to me then Herman Joachim's soul.

He then went through further hardships. The time when that unutterable disaster, from which we all suffer, befell him, weighed heavily on him after he had lived in France, in Paris, for many years and found a dear life companion there. He had to return to his old profession as a German officer, dutifully, but at the same time, of course, understanding that this dutifulness was connected to his inner being. He has since fulfilled this profession in an important and meaningful position, not only with a loyal sense of duty, but with the most devoted expertise, and in such a way that he was able to work in the highest, truest sense of humanity and in the deepest sense of philanthropy within this profession, for which many of those who benefited from this philanthropic work will keep the most grateful memory. I myself often recall the conversations I was able to have with Herman Joachim during these three years of mourning and human suffering, in which he revealed himself to me as a man who was able to follow current events with comprehensive understanding, who was far from allowing his understanding to be clouded by thoughts of hatred or love on either side, where these thoughts of hate or love would have affected the objective judgment with regard to the events of the time, but who, although he could not, through this understanding view of our time, conceal from himself all the heaviness weighing on us in this time, out of the depths of the spiritual essence of the world, carried his hopes and his confidence in the outcome strongly and powerfully in his breast.

Herman Joachim was one of those who, on the one hand, in a completely objective, rational way, as it should be, absorb spiritual science, but who, on the other hand, do not allow this rationality to detract from their deep spiritual insight, their deep spiritual understanding, their direct devotion to the spirit, so that this spiritual understanding, this direct devotion to the spirit is far from ever leading such a soul to what can be most dangerous for us: fantasy, enthusiasm. Such fantasy, such enthusiasm ultimately arises only from a certain voluptuous egoism. This soul had nothing to do with egoistic mysticism. But all the more so with the great spiritual ideals, with the great, far-reaching ideas of spiritual science.

Herman Joachim was always concerned about what could be done to directly translate spiritual ideals into life in his own place. He, who was a Freemason and had gained deep insights into the essence of Freemasonry and the nature of Masonic associations, had set himself the great idea of actually achieving what can be achieved by spiritually permeating Masonic formalism with the spiritual essence of spiritual science. Everything that Freemasonry had accumulated over the centuries in the way of profound insights, which had become formulaic, one might say crystallized, had been revealed to Herman Joachim to a very special degree through his high position within Freemasonry. But it was precisely in this place where he stood that he found the opportunity to think through what he had found and to penetrate it into the right human context, combining what can only come from the power of spiritual science with the traditional that he was to revive. And when one knows how Herman Joachim worked in this direction in the last years of his life, when one is somewhat familiar with the earnestness of his efforts and the dignity of his thinking in this direction, when one is aware of the strength of his will and the extent of his work in this field, then one also knows what the physical plan has lost with him. On these and other similar occasions, I could not help but think again and again of how an American who was considered one of the most spiritual people in recent times wrote the saying: No man is irreplaceable; when one leaves, another immediately takes his place. — It goes without saying that such Americanism can only speak from the deepest ignorance of true life. For the truth says just the opposite. And the truth, measured against reality, as I mean it now, tells us rather: No man can, in reality, be replaced for all that he was to life. And especially when we see it in such outstanding examples as in this case, then we are deeply penetrated by this truth, because in our case, in the case of Herman Joachim, we are truly shown the human life karma. And this understanding of human life karma, the karmic view of the great questions of fate, is the only thing that allows us to cope when we see such a departure taking place in a relatively early human age and from such a serious, necessary life's work, before our soul's eye.

But there was something else I often had to say to myself during these days when saying goodbye to my dear friend, after I had slowly seen my soul day after day go from the regions where it was to achieve so much to the other regions, where we have to seek it through the power of our spirit, but from which it will help, strengthen and invigorate us. I could not help thinking: All the daring, all the spiritual strength demanded of men by the ideas of karmic necessity, they place themselves before our soul when we experience such a death. We must often say things that can only be said within our spiritual movement, but within our spiritual movement we also give the human soul the great strength that reaches beyond life and death, encompassing both.

Herman Joachims' soul stands before me alive. I saw it alive in the midst of a spiritual task undertaken in the fullest freedom. I see it alive in the midst of grasping this task. Then the death of this soul appears to me as something that it voluntarily assumes, because from another world it can take on the task even more strongly, even more vigorously, even more appropriately to the necessity. And in the face of such events, it could almost become a duty to speak of the necessity of individual death in very specific moments. I know that this cannot be a consolation for all people, a strengthening thought that I express with it. But I also know that there are souls today that can be uplifted by this thought in the face of so much that exists in our time to our deep pain and sorrow; that exists because we see how, within the physical world, within the materialistic currents in which we live embodied in our physical bodies, it becomes so difficult to solve the great, necessary tasks. In this context, there may also be a thought that may gradually become dear to us out of pain and sorrow: that someone may well have chosen death for the physical plan in order to be able to fulfill his task all the more strongly. Let us measure this thought against the pain that our dear friend, the wife of Herman Joachim, must now feel and endure, let us measure the thought against our own pain for our dear, precious friend, and let us try to ennoble our pain by placing it alongside a great thought, such as I have just expressed; a thought that does not need to soften or not paralyze the pain, but can radiate into this pain like something that shines out of the sun of human knowledge itself and teaches us to penetrate human necessities and the necessities of fate. In such a context, such an event really becomes something that can bring us into the right relationship with the spiritual world.

If we strengthen ourselves with such thoughts for the inclinations that we want to develop, the inclinations of our soul forces to the present and future abode of the dear soul, then we will never be able to lose the soul, then we will be actively connected to it. And if we grasp the full force of this thought: a person who was able to love his surroundings like few, who took his death upon himself out of an iron necessity - then this will be a thought worthy of our world view. Let us honor our dear friend in this way, let us remain united with him. May she who has been left behind here as his companion in life know through us that we will be united with her in our thoughts of the dear one, that we want to remain her friends and loved ones.

My dear friends, Herman Joachim's death is basically one in a long line of losses that our society has suffered during these difficult times. I have not spoken about one of the most difficult losses so far because I myself am too involved and have lost too much for the personal connection with the loss to allow me to touch on some aspects of it.

A great number of you here, I think with love, remember our loyal member, our dear member, Dr. Steiner's sister, Olga von Sivers, who we also lost in the last months of the physical plan. Of course, outwardly she was not a personality who could reveal herself in immediate, tangible effects; she was a personality who was modesty through and through. But, my dear friends, if I refrain from describing what for myself and for Dr. Steiner is a painful and irreplaceable loss, I may still point out one thing in this case: Olga von Sivers was one of those of our spiritual comrades-in-arms who, from the very beginning, took to the innermost nerve of our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science with the warmest soul. She took on this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science out of the deepest understanding and the innermost connection of the soul. And Olga von Sivers was such a person that when she took something in, she took it with her whole being. And she was a whole person. Those who were connected to her knew that. She was equally strong in her rejection of everything that now, in a mystical-theosophical way, distorts human progress and leads spiritual life down all kinds of wrong paths. She was strong in the power of distinguishing between that which, as belonging to our time, wants to become part of human progress and work for it, and that which, out of some other impulses and motives, presents itself as theosophical and the like, as all kinds of mystical striving. With regard to the original grasping of the truth for which we strive, Olga von Sivers can be counted among the very greatest of our fellow aspirants. And she, too, was never in the least disposed by her nature to neglect the tasks of her life, of the outer life, of the immediate daily life, the often difficult duties of this immediate daily life, or to evade these duties by fully and undividedly devoting herself to our spiritual movement. And what she, with full understanding, had accepted as the content of our movement from the very beginning, she transferred to others. Wherever she was able to apply our teachings to others, she also fulfilled this task in a truly exemplary manner, applying the power of ideas through the loving, tremendously benevolent nature of her being, in order to have an effect on humanity through these two sides: the power of ideas – and the special way in which her personality conveyed those ideas.

She did this even after those borders separated her from us, borders that today stand so terribly in the way of what often belongs so closely together in human terms. These borders did not prevent her from working for our cause even in the area that is now considered enemy territory in Central Europe. Difficult experiences were on her mind, all the horrors of this terrible war, During which she developed a truly humanitarian activity right up to her last weeks of illness, never thinking of herself, always working for those who had been entrusted to her as a result of the terrible events of this war, developing a Samaritan service in the noblest sense, permeating this Samaritan service with what her whole thinking and striving permeated through our spiritual movement. Although I am close to her, I may share this side of her nature from an agitated soul, this devoted and sacrificial member that Olga von Sivers was probably since the existence of this movement. It was a dear, beautiful thought for Dr. Steiner and for me, that once times other than our sad present times come, we will be able to have this personality close to us again. Here too, an iron necessity has decided otherwise.

In this case too, death is something that enters into our lives when we seek to understand this life spiritually, clarifying and enlightening this life. Certainly, there is much to be objected to in many of the things that prevail in our society, that our society brings to light. But we also have such things to record, have such things before our soul, such things to experience, which, as the most beautiful, the highest, the most meaningful, arise precisely from the power that permeates the anthroposophical movement around us. Today I am allowed to speak to you of such examples. And some of you will probably also remember a member who did not belong to our branch, but whom I may mention today because she also often appeared in this branch in the circle of the sisters, known to many here, our Johanna Arnold, who recently passed from the physical to the spiritual world. Her sister, who was an equally loyal member of our movement, preceded her two years ago. During these days, while working on the brochure, I repeatedly had to deal with the statement that I have no relationship to science, and that even the masses of my followers completely renounce any independent thinking. Now, a personality like Johanna Arnold is the most vivid proof of the tremendous lie that lies in such a statement by a professorial ignoramus. The greatness that lay in the way Johanna Arnold passed over into the spiritual world, but also the inner greatness of her whole soul's devotion to spiritual science, they are truly living proofs of what this spiritual science is taken for by the most valuable people. Johanna Arnold's life was one that imposed trials on the person, but which also strengthened and steeled the person. But it was also one that revealed a great soul. Not only was Johanna Arnold a strong support for her branch and neighboring circles during her time in the Anthroposophical Movement, not only did she have such a beautiful effect in the Rhine area, in connection with many other personalities — one of whom was recently also snatched from us into the spiritual realm: Mrs. Maud Künstler, the unforgettable one, who was so intimately connected with our movement. Not only did Johanna Arnold work in her own way since her connection with the anthroposophical movement, but she also revealed a strong, powerful soul within this movement itself. At the age of seven, she saved the life of her older sister, who was close to drowning, with noble sacrifice and courage. She spent years in England, and the way in which life had affected her shows how life became not only a great teacher and a strengthener of the soul, but also a revealer of everything that life can endure, so that it reveals what the soul longs for after the divine-spiritual. Johanna Arnold's strong and powerful soul made her a benefactress for anthroposophists in her environment, for whom she became a guide; she became a dear friend to us because we could see the strong power that she anchored within our movement. To understand the meaning of this time, to understand what is actually happening to humanity: how often in the last few years, since this terrible time has dawned, did Johanna Arnold ask me this significant question. She was constantly preoccupied with the idea: what does this time of most terrible trial want with the human race, and what can we, each of us individually, do to go through this time of trial in the right way? No event of the day in connection with the great movement of the times passed unnoticed by Johanna Arnold's soul. But she was also able to place everything in the great context, and she knew how to relate everything to the spiritual development of humanity in general. Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Robert Hamerling were the subjects of her intense study, to which she devoted herself in order to unravel the secrets of human existence. Oh, there is much that lives within our movement, as we are reminded on such occasions, much that deepens human life, human work, human development. And if anyone is living proof that it is a frivolous lie that within our movement we renounce our own thinking, Johanna Arnold is such living proof and stands, especially through her strength, her devotion, her loyalty to the spiritual scientific movement and also through her will to penetrate into the secrets of humanity through serious scientific work and serious thinking, as an example before those who have come to know her. Personally, I am grateful to all those who expressed this beautifully at the passing away of our friend. And the sister who is here with us today and who has seen both sisters pass away in such a short time, can take with her the knowledge that we, united with her in thought, want to remain loyal to the one who has passed from her side from the physical world to the spiritual world, to whom we not only want to preserve memories but also a living together with her.

My dear friends, even those reflections that are directly related to what touches us so painfully are part of the whole - I may say, stripping away all pedantry from the word - of our living study. In the present time, we also see many things dying that we do not know can experience a spiritual revival in the same way as we say of the human soul. We see many a hope, many an expectation dying. Now one could perhaps say: Why do we, when we look more clearly into the course of human development, have unjustified hopes, unjustified expectations? But hopes and expectations are forces, they are effective forces. We must create them for ourselves. We must not refrain from doing so because we fear that they might not be fulfilled, but we must create them for ourselves because, whether they are fulfilled or not, they have an effect as forces when we foster them, because something comes of them. But we must also find our way when sometimes nothing comes of them.